Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Linda868]

I have been in Korea for just over a year now (in the same city). I live in a city of 200,000 people. But I don't really have any friends besides a couple of male foreigner friends and a few female Korean co-workers (they don't really have many friends here in this city as this was not their hometown). Back home I had a few large circle of friends for shopping, drinking, etc. I am now getting homesick for my social circles back home (other than that home has no appeal). I am here with my husband but I am an extrovert and like to be around people to hang out and do stuff. I am in my mid-20's and this is starting to get to me the lack of friends I have here.

I think I sound like a child but how do I make friends here? I don't speak enough Korean to communicate to people who don't speak much English. People don't approach me to talk because I am Asian. I haven't met all the foreigners in the city but of those I have met I am only friends with a couple.

Maybe I am just in the wrong city as well...I was hoping to move to Geoje or closer to Busan next contract but that depends on the competition and timing.

Sorry if this is long, I am craving a better social life and not sure what to do to make my last year in this city more bearable. Please share your experiences:)

[yellowdove]

It's completely understandable how you would want to crave a social life. Honestly, if I didn't have one, I would have gone nuts. At least you have your husband and you're not alone. You're definitely not sounding like a child.

Being Asian probably has a bit to do with it, just because when I see foreigners, unless they are friends with other people, I would only know people who aren't Asian as foreigners (does that sentence make sense? I'm kinda tired). You should approach people more, don't wait for them to come to you.

Definitely being in a bigger city will help. Bigger city = more foreigners.

I am sorry I can't be more of a help, when my husband and I got here we just approached every foreign person in our neighbourhood until we came across a good group of people to hang out with.

[Jane]

Maybe try organizing a dinner with people from your area one night. Advertise on Dave's or meetup.com

It's hard to meet really cool people here, particularly if your circle is rather limited because of the area you live in, and people are always leaving so your circle is always changing.

Are there any expat bars nearby?

[PatrickGHBusan]

[yellowdove]

hahaha, I guess by the way I wrote it, it must sound like we're some sort of crazy couple. We only did it a couple times, and not in an offensive way, until we found our group of friends. LOL It's not like we stopped EVERYONE... lol And we definitely don't do it now.

The first time, we might have seemed crazy, because we got really excited... we were waiting for a cab to take us back to our hotel (we hadn't even moved into our apartment yet) and saw two guys walking out of their hagwon, and just about ran them down in the street, saying 'omg, people we can speak English with!'. The other time, we walked into our local kimbap shop and saw a foreign couple sitting there who we'd never met, and introduced ourselves.

[Linda868]

Thanks for the information. There are a couple of expat bars here. When I first got here there were always foreigners there but now I never run into anyone, maybe the crowd changed where they went or they left the city. Out of the ones I met I made a couple of friends but as I had mentioned they are male and I would like a few more female friends for girls night out. I had made quite a few female co-worker friends but they quit or got fired (then they wouldn't really talk to me after that even though we had no issues between us so now I am left with a couple of friends at my school).

I want true friends of course. But I wouldn't mind acquaintances that you can also just go out with and have fun (maybe you wouldn't share anything super personal or have deep conversations but those relationships are fun too for me).

I guess I will have to try approaching people and setting up ESL meet ups whenever I leave my city.

Thanks...more comments are always welcomed:)

[rickpidero]

Dang, thats a really small city for Korea.

I would suggest going through a public school program like EPIK or GEPIK. They offer a large orientation course. During this you will meet many many other teachers. You will have friends all over Korea, as well as a strong social circle in your city.

[salgichawa]

[AsiaESLbound]

Native teachers tend to be geographically spread out so we don't see much of each other. Our work hours can drastically differ too. I know the 2 others living in my neighborhood who teach at the local hagwons some of my public school students attend at night. The 3 of us have a board game night once a week and the other 2 often do late week night activities like bowling, screen golf, and batting cage. I'm invited, but I'm too tired to start my night at 9 or 10pm when I'm getting up at 7am and working until 5. They start their work at 2pm and get off at 8pm so in that case it's easy for them to be socially active. This 5 1/2 hour schedule difference is something to consider in looking for a job. I'm betting the 2:30 to 8pm hagwon teachers are having the best time in Korea due to having time to rest in the mornings while they enjoy nights doing various activities. They even do badminton or hiking at 11am many days.

I'd say this job also attracts minimalists hunkering down to save money, but there are people who are very socially active without spending huge sums of money in the process. It's just hard to meet people if you are not running into them locally or if the timing is not right. I met others while walking around.

[Rutherford]

Try to find some sort of hobby to get into. Even a small city should have something to get into like a hiking or exercise group, martial arts school, soccer team, music lessons whatever.

If you express interest, people are usually excited to include you even if there is a language barrier. If you have trouble, try getting one of your Korean friends to search online, and if you see a group of people doing something fun just go up and try to talk to them.

When you have a hobby to talk about it helps you get past the "where are you from" sorts of conversations and gives you a shared vocabulary that helps with the language barrier.

[kiknkorea]

[dalem]

i had a lot of trouble meeting people, even here in seoul. I'm not much of a drinker and am not interested in the bar scene, so that ruled out a lot of people.

However, once i went with meetup.com i had a lot easier time of it. However, i don' know how far you are from seoul there. Since you're talking about busan, i assume you're pretty far. Too bad that wouldn't wrk out for you then.

[Linda868]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

[red_devil]

[Lionman]

Being in a smaller city does have its advantages. In a major foreigner zone, like Itaewon in Seoul you might have a hard time going up to every foreigner on the street trying to make friends or even start up a conversation.

I live in a small city of about 100,000. One day I noticed another caucasian foreigner getting on the same bus as me.

I later saw him at the train station and struck up conversation based on "I think I saw you on the bus the other day, you live around here?"

Apparently he works at the local university.

We discovered we were both married, I have two kids and he has one.

Being in the same boat we agreed to meet up. We met for the first time one a weekend in the park.

Seemed like a nice guy and I will definetly be meeting up again.


Again, I've lived in Seoul and it's just hard to meet up with foreigners this way.

Another good way is to find Koreans in the community that speak good English and are willing to develop a friendship (as a opposed to pretending to be friends so they can practice their English).

This is a great friendship to have because they can usually introduce you to "life off the beaten path" and other facets of your community that might not know much about being a foreigner.