Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Dev]

Have You Ever Been Denied Service Or Enterance to an establistment (like a restaurant or bar) in Korea for any reason at all?

I was once refused service by a barber. I tried to read some Korean that I had written down for me. I screwed up reading it the first time and tried to re-read it, but before I could start, the barber pointed me to the door.

Either he didn't like my attempt at Korean or didn't like me. I'll never know. Still, I was pretty surprised that someone would turn away business like that.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[endo]

I walked into a pool hall once with my coisin and I saw several Koread guys with tatoos. Most likely gangsters,

They weren't rude about it, but they gestured that we weren't aqllowed to come in. I was like, "cool", and walked out with any problems.

[RACETRAITOR]

I've only had problems with taxi drivers too lazy to do a U-turn.

[JongnoGuru]

[thebum]

yeah a girl denied me entrance once. but when i asked a second time she let me in, and i showed her the best 30 seconds of her life!

[Bibbitybop]

[eamo]

A video rental store told me no foreigners once. And, like Racetraitor, many occasions of taxi drivers who don't want to U-turn even though they will get paid for it. That's one I really don't understand.

But that's all. No bar, club or restaurant has ever denied me 'enterance'.

[Masta_Don]

I was holed up in a motel while training for my job last year and finally decided to strike out and see what trouble I could get into. I went to Gangnam and wasn't allowed into 3 restaurants. I couldn't believe it. I'd go in and get the arms in the X position. I started fuming and thinking that Korea really is horribly racist. Finally ate fast food and found an overpriced bar that would serve me.

It wasn't until I started getting accustomed to the culture that I realized I had tried to go into three hofs that night, a night that Korea was playing a World Cup exhibition game. They weren't being rude, just not the place for someone to go by themselves; they'd rather get four people's money rather than just mine for the same amount of space. So what I thought was racism was more a matter of me not being familiar with the culture.

[ella]

I had a door closed in my face in one place and was totally ignored in another. It happens. Fact of life here.

[RobertX]

kangnam nightclub when i was with korean friend - who cares anyway? them and their crappy 60,000 fruit tray

[rockstarsmooth]

hey dev, you're out of the cycle! it's only been 2 weeks since we had this thread...
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right now i'm listening to: css - meeting paris hilton

[Dexter Sword]

A nightclub. "No foreigners"

[Newbie]

5 years = 2 nightclubs, 1 bar.

[diver]

More than a few times. I don't recall it ever happening in a restaurant, but I do recall it in more than a few bars (from regular little watering holes to full-on nightclubs).

Two friends of mine were bumped from their flight from Kunsan to Jeju because a Korean honeymoon couple showed up at the last minute without reservations. My friends were told that Jeju was very special place for Koreans (especially honeymooners) and not very important to foreigners, so they had to bump the foreigners.

I've been refused service at video stores too.

I've ben refused bus tickets by the clerk at the OLD express bus terminal in Seoul (years ago), and at the Kunsan bus terminal as well. The good news is that in both of those cases, other Koreans in line saw what was going on and helped out.

Just this past weekend I ran into my first trouble of this sort in ages. I was coming home from Busan, and went to try to change my KTX ticket to an earlier time. Now, getting a KTX ticket for Sunday evening on Sunday evening is a difficult trick at best. It's usually sold out.

If anyone has ever tried to get tickets when it is sold out, you'll understand what I am saying here. The clerk usually pounds away on the 'refresh' button on her screen (one of which is facing the customer) until (usually she) she spots an open seat and she grabs it for you. Cancellations are coming up all the time, but they disappear quickly. Even in these cases, I'll always gotten a ticket thanks to the quick pecking away at the keyboard of the clerk.

Well, last Sunday, I went up to the counter. I asked for a ticket, and was told that they were sold out. I looked atthe screen and saw that they were indeed sold out. I waited for her to start pounding away on the 'refresh' button, but she didn't. So, she does things differently. I tell her 'thanks' and maybe I'll check later. I grab a coke and sit down. I happen to glance over and see her pounding away on the 'refresh' key for a Korean customer. Low and behold, they get a ticket. I watch for a few more minutes and she does the same for every Korean customer in line (this is the 'foreign tourist service line' I might add. So, I go back up, smile and say 'hello' and ask again if I can change my ticket. She looks at me and says' sold out'. No move to check or refresh the screen. I finally had to get the manager to come over and get me a ticket. He hit the refresh button twice and had me a ticket. The woman however, wasn't going to lift a finger if it meant putting foreigner on the train ahead of a Korean.

What bothers me the most about this stuff is not that it happens (well, that it happened DOES bother me) but rather that we have NO WAY to fight back. I am sure that someone will come on here and tell me that it's okay for the KTX clerk to refuse me a ticket because some white guy did something terrible to a black guy in America. The difference (that the apologists gloss over) is that the black guy in the US has several different courses of action that he can take to punish the offending party. Not so here.