Korean Job Discussion Forums

[davai!]

Ran across this article in the Los Angeles Times today. Interesting to note the headline in the print edition is slightly different from the online version.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I saw the same article. It was disappointing that the writer was too lazy to interview some Koreans to find out why (in some kind of depth) the gov't would want to spend so much money on this campaign.

[kermo]

[alphakennyone]

geez look korea is an ok place to live and make money, but outside of korea, seriously, no one cares. no one cares about your emperors and palaces. lot's of westerners are into buddhism but korea has failed to promote that (and is in fact ashamed of it) so lot's of lost tourism there. seoul is a huge city and how many buddhist temples are actually worth going to? i think the most accessible korean traditional culture is located at incheon airport. all the craft-making, traditional instruments, etc. that's not too easy to find once you're in the city, unless you have really deep pockets.

the food's ok. not the best, but not the worst either. keep your prices low and you might still get some tourism out of that (or keep the prices high and gouge the group tours inn myeongdong)

japan and china are both 2 hour flights away and provide a lot more history of interest to foreigners. japan's on the cutting edge of technology, china's pretty cheap. what does korea really have to offer to a tourist?

just because you have money doesn't guarantee respect or interest. i don't understand that line of logic.

[Rufus]

Are these people insane? Korea "vows to put its cusine in the top five worldwide by 2017" Who ranks cuisine? The vast majority of people in this world have only eaten their local fair, so how can they compare?
And a global brand. How and why is this ranked? Germany number 1? Other than cars, beer and Hitler what are Germans known for? German pop culture is nonexistant worldwide.

[Bibbitybop]

I wish they would have discussed court decisions and police actions involving many different arenas: Rape, child abuse, sexual child abuse, foreigner vs. Korean incidents, the hogwan industry vs. the rights of foreign teachers, and the blind group-think masses.

[Robot_Teacher]

Back home when I say Korea, people, including my relatives, perceived as a risky place to go that they know little about. I had to explain the difference between North and South Korea and I was going South with no intention to go to the North.

They was like, "What's over there?" "A job," I said. I know it's not Japan or Germany, but it offers a better deal that allows you to save up money, something I've never had a shot at doing. Just something I wanted to try out as I always wanted to see what NE Asia is really like. It's not this clean, healthy, and really polite society I had in mind, it's polluted, disorganized, trashy, smelly, ghettoish, and full of unhealthy looking rude men, often in clean shiny suits, grunting at foreigners and just spitting and smoking almost everywhere.

If Korea really wants to open up to the world, the national psyche has to change to be more warm, friendly, free spirited, and open minded as well as develop common manners of politeness found in most parts of the world. It doesn't matter how respectful I behave and attempt to speak the language, I'm getting a negative vibe from most Koreans. Well, it requires a thick skinned person to not be too sensitive to these issues. I believe it'll have a more respectful reputation in 10 years to come as well as be more foreigner friendly due to the kids being influenced by foreign teachers. Korea needs to clean up their act and be more open minded to foreigners instead of getting all up tight, anxious, and tense. No smart world traveler wants to be surrounded by this for very long when Japan and other countries offer much more with more English speaking and welcoming attitudes.

Korea did have it's Eiffle tower, but it got burned down by a mad Korean, the Namdaemun gate. Westerners doing Asian studies do come to take a look around, but are turned off by the passive aggressive xenophobia and trashyness. It doesn't keep your interests for long, kinda like a movie you thought you'd be interested in, but you're ready to push the stop button halfway through due to it being poorly produced.

[hogwonguy1979]

when they quote Huer they have a big problem

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

[bassexpander]

What Korea needs to do is market through Chaebol products overseas.
"Made in Korea" need to become a well-known (and positive) symbol overseas. Cripes, Hyundai and Kia are well known in the USA, but I wonder how many people actually know they are a Korean company? Samsung and LG televisions are everywhere, but how many people know that Korea makes them?

Korea needs to highlight what's gaining a good reputation overseas and go from there. I'm sorry to say it, but Kimchi and Korean food is NOT what they should be building an image of in the USA. That's OK for Japan, but not the USA. Chinese food has achieved high status in American culture because it's not really Chinese food... it's Americanized Chinese food (much of it isn't even close to what Chinese really eat in China).

Korea also needs to market its movies more. Many of them are very good.

Oh, and it also would help if Korean managers working for foreign companies would stop stealing money. This is a VERY common problem from what I've seen. Foreign companies cannot easily operate here without being burned and/or giving a lot of their profits away to Chaebol partners.

[Blueberry]

I love how distraught Koreans get when told no one really knows anything about Korea any more than they know stuff about other countries with similar populations such as Ukraine, Spain, Columbia, Tanzania, Myanmar, Kenya. From that list, if you can name guerillas, Tapas, or cocaine as things you are familiar with, that's probably pretty good.

So if people do know ONE thing about Korea, that's doing better than other similar-sized country. Right now, that one thing is Krazy Kim Jong Il, and there's nothing Korea can do about it--reunification not-withstanding. In fact, THAT is Korea's single best hope for becoming world-famous, a successful, peaceful unification. Pushing Kimchi and plain white rice ain't gonna do it.

Seems the real problem for Koreans is that they honestly think they should be globally as well-known as say the USA, Russia, China or Japan. Ain't gonna happen in a zillion years.

[drkalbi]

I remember about 15 years ago I used to work at Future Shop in Regina. I worked in the audio department usually selling VCR's. The best seller was this crappy Goldstar (LG) one. The way we sold it was telling the customers it was almost as good as Sony but half the cost. This is probably how Korea should be sold to International community.

[The Gipkik]

I think it would help South Korea a lot if it finally put to bed the last remnants of its autocratic past. What I mean is abolish such nationalistic programs as the national exercise programs that sound so militaristic and tribal and remind me, anyways, of North Korea and communism. Any more programs you think should be ditched for a country to get real global admiration and attention?

[Robot_Teacher]

[Harpeau]

I would agree with the idea of pushing some of their good movies. Especially getting foreign language subtitles in theatres would really be awesome.

And BTW,

Korea is # 1 in youth suicides in the OECD. Being # 1 isn't always what it's cracked up to be.