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red_devil
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Location: Korea
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 Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:16 pm Post subject: Ex-pats Generally Like Seoul |
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Source: Korea Herald
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On the occasion of its 55th anniversary on Aug. 15, The Korea Herald is offering a series of articles looking into ways to make Korea a more comfortable and friendly place for expatriates to live. The following is the second installment. - Ed.
Non-Korean residents account for about 2.5 percent of Seoul's adult population.
The number of adult expats registered as residents of the capital city fluctuates between 250,000 and 300,000, according to the Seoul Global Center. But if you include illegal residents, the number would go much higher.
Although they are a small fraction of the population, their opinions and suggestions are invaluable for Seoul to grow into an attractive, global city.
The Seoul Global Center and The Korea Herald jointly conducted a survey of 200 expats during the week leading up to Aug. 6 to see how they view the city and Korea.
Four out of five non-Korean residents think Seoul is a nice place to live in.
Of the respondents, 41 percent had lived in Korea for a year or less. Those who lived here for one to three years accounted for 27.5 percent, while those here for three to five years took up 16.5 percent. Nine percent said the length of their residence in Seoul was between five to 10 years and 6 percent said they lived in the country for 10 years or more.
While the majority (78 percent) thought Seoul is a nice place to live in, 21 percent disagreed. The remaining 1 percent had no comment.
To a question asking what makes Seoul a nice place to live in, 99 people or 63.5 percent of the respondents in favor of Seoul chose either "friendly people" or "interesting culture." Thirty-one people picked "the city government's expat services such as the Seoul Global Center." Fourteen people chose affordable living costs and 12 specified other factors such as safety (2 people) and food (2 people).
Of the 42 people who thought Seoul was not nice to live in, 14 said high prices such as housing costs were the biggest reason for their disfavor.
Only eight people picked lack of English-speaking employees at hospitals, banks and public offices. Only six and four people chose lack of facilities for expats such as international schools and cultural differences, respectively. The remaining 10 chose to specify other reasons such as lack of safety and hygiene control (three people) and discrimination against non-Koreans (three people).
The next question was "What do you think of the attitudes of Koreans in general?"
Nearly half of the respondents (48 percent) said it depends on the individual, but more Koreans seem to be open-minded. Twenty-three percent said Koreans were generally open-minded towards non-Koreans and other cultures. Fifteen percent said that Koreans seem to be prejudiced or unfriendly.
Nearly half the respondents were negative towards the candle light vigils - 25.5 percent said most protests were beyond understanding while another 22.5 percent said the protesters seem to be too aggressive and simply enjoy group action, which is bad.
However, another quarter of the respondents said the protesters seem to have strong opinions and unite well.
Twelve percent said "Korea seems to have a rough modern history (including the Japanese occupation, Korean War, Cold War, authoritarian rule and democratization movements)." Nine percent picked "Korea doesn't seem peculiar compared to other countries of similar size or complicated modern history." The remaining 6 percent (12 people) did not answer.
To the next question, asking what is most crucial for Seoul to become an attractive, international city, about 35 percent said Seoul citizens need to be more open-minded.
Twenty-nine percent picked "The government should invest more in employees' English education or facilities/services for expats and foreign businesses." About 27 percent said more Seoul citizens should be able to speak English. About 13 percent said Seoul should first reduce its pollution, which is worse than other large cities around the world.
Only 2 percent said Seoul has no hope of becoming an attractive, international city.
The last question of the joint survey was about what they want the Seoul Global Center to focus on.
Fourteen out of the 200 people wanted more cultural exchanges between Koreans and non-Koreans. More language courses was the second-most wanted (13 people) by respondents, followed by more PR by the SGC (11 people).
By Kim So-hyun
([email protected]) |
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i4NI
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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| They must have not interviewed anyone from this board |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Seoul's a great spot as long as you can avoid the ajeossis. |
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M-su
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Agreed! |
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GoldMember
Joined: 24 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| The key to enjoying Seoul is to avoid breathing the air (Especially during Yellow dust season). Call me old fashioned but I like old style air, you know the stuff that you can't see. |
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| GoldMember wrote: |
| The key to enjoying Seoul is to avoid breathing the air (Especially during Yellow dust season). Call me old fashioned but I like old style air, you know the stuff that you can't see. |
Agreed there. I'm pretty fond of Seoul, but the air is pretty crappy most of the time. |
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PRagic
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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Wow, those survey results are peppered with inconsistencies.
Also, there was no mention of job, age, gender, education level, country of origin, or standard deviation for individual question responses. Where was the survey instrument deployed? One place? Several? Near corporate expat neighborhoods?
In a word...YIKES! |
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orosee
Joined: 07 Mar 2008
Location: Hannam-dong, Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I would like to see the entire questionnaire and the raw data. I am surprised how little complaints there are about lack of critical services in English (e.g. hospitals). If there are so few complaints about high rent that might be an indicator that many of the respondents either don't pay rent (corporate and ESL alike) or that they are happy in off-center or substandard housing (that'll be ESL only  ).
In my opinion Seoul is not "nice" by my definition of the word, but definitely interesting and "okay". Of course I have the social needs of a hermit, take that into account.
I would like to see how opinions vary over time of stay. Under six months to over 5 years, what are the differences?
Also social differentiation e.g. shaggy blue-eyed newbie shorts wearing surfer dude ESL teacher versus balding battle hardened polyglott business professional 
I guess for the census all foreigners are alike which could have been a question on the poll by itself. |
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