Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rockstarsmooth]

i teach high school, first grade, and this week my students were doing mini group presentations. they had one class to choose a position on a topic (randomly selected by them, created by me), come up with 3 points to support their position, write a very short intro, body and conclusion, and then finally present.
one group of girls wound up with "studying in korea or abroad" as their topic. most groups in other classes prefered the option of studying abroad, citing such reasons as gaining more experience, better education, better job opportunities in the future, and of course the chance to learn a foreign language.
this group decided that studying in korea is better. why? their number one reason was, get this, that in other countries, asians, especially koreans, are segregated from the other students. why are they segregated? well because they look different, and they don't speak english.
um...yeah.
perhaps they were projecting, just a tad?
after all, if koreans do it to foreigners, i guess it would stand to reason that they expect to be treated the same way when they go abroad.
before they presented, i asked them if they had any experience living or travelling abroad. none of them had left korea. i told them that in my experience teaching in canada in multicultural situations, koreans were well known for segregating themselves from people of other cultures. koreans often refused to make friends with non-koreans or to speak any english outside the classroom. they told me that this was not true.
ah...korea.
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right now i'm listening to: lou reed - white light/white heat

[pkang0202]

[Alyallen]

[LuckyNomad]

At my university, the Koreans were notorious for segregating themselves. This is rather odd because my university's foreign population was about 30%. Pretty much all of my friends were foreigners, but none of them Korean. Though in fairness, the Japanese segregated themselves too. Usually surounded in clouds of cigarette smoke.

[shaunew]

In University I included a hot Korean exchange student to my group of friends. We also included at hot Swedish girl as well. If they are hot include them.

[as-ian]

Teaching at some Unis in the States backs up the students, technically. They are not being separated on purpose, but it tends to be that EVERYONE remains in their little groups.

I remember on day, i went to the Uni's student union building to eat lunch with some of my students. As we were coming down the stairs, you could see the groups in the main dining hall. You could see the latino group, the japanese group, the chinese group, the korean group, the punk group, the goth group, the teacher group, and the i-dont-have-a-word-to-describe-them group ^^. It was quite a thing to see. I had heard some students say that they felt separated, but it was more that everyone was separating themselves from other groups. So i would say everyone is to blame on that one. ^_~

[pkang0202]

The OP stated that:

" most groups in other classes prefered the option of studying abroad, citing such reasons as gaining more experience, better education, better job opportunities in the future, and of course the chance to learn a foreign language. "

So, the majority of the class was FOR going abroad. It was the minority opinion in the class to stay in Korea because Koreans are segregated abroad.

3 people out of an entire classroom comes up with a few arguments against going abroad and all of a sudden its the mindset of an entire race?

[Alyallen]

[bejarano-korea]

I was at a university (University of Wales, Swansea) with a huge Asian stuent population. They were mostly Chinese and Malaysian. the vast majority of the Chinese made no effort, they had their own friends, social networks, ate their own food and never tried to interact with the other nationalities on campus.

The Malaysians were a lot better but they still hung around their own cliques.

But I always wondered why the hell a lot of the Chinese bothered coming to Wales when all they did was make zero effort into intergrating with the rest of the student populace.

[rockstarsmooth]

[RACETRAITOR]

When I was in university I noticed the Koreans and Japanese students tended to band together.

[as-ian]

[leely]

my impression is that koreans are pretty much protective of their own heritage if it comes to choosing between koreans and people of other nationalities.
i'm ethnic chinese, born in vietnam, grown up in switzerland, studied in the states, relocated to korea, i'd say a global citizen.
i never felt discriminated until i came to korea. guess it's the worst if you're asian looking, but don't speak korean.

[Bernard_Carleton]

[pkang0202]

My point is that its a catch-22.

Koreans don't' make the effort to separate themselves from their group.

On the flip side, people don't go out of their way to try and get these international students out of their shell. Did you or any of your friends ever say "Hey, I want to find an international student and hang out with them and make them feel welcome in my country."


No one is wrong here. Its just the way things are. So yes, what those girls were saying is kinda of true. KIND OF TRUE. Society does make it difficult for people to break out of their "groups and social constructs" to make new friends.

However, they were wrong in that they made assumptions without any first hand experience. They were also wrong in that they failed to mention that you have to show some effort in meeting new people if you want to be accepted.

In my opinion,Koreans do a good job in breaking out of their "Koreans Only Club" and to hang out with other people. All of the Koreans I know, from New York all the way down to Florida, all have friends that are not Korean. I hope the OP can tell those girls that I can name 100 Koreans off the top of my head right now that did not have any problems making new friends in the US.