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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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 Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| Junior wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
Meanwhile all the Koreans are like "hmph, another random foreigner" and move on with their lives. |
No offence but I don't think someone who is ethnically Korean would be really aware of what it means to look foreign here.
Usually about 1 in 5 of the 40-something ajosshis tend to stare pretty intensely.It definitely has lessened considerably over the past 5 years however. But its still enough to be a touch uncomfortable. This doubles if you are walking with a Korean woman of course.
I know someone who was here 35 years ago. He said it was impossible to walk anywhere without peoples jaws dropping in disbelief and unrelenting stares. It was like being Madonna everytime you left the front door. |
Yes and if you walk through Myeong-dong 90% of Koreans don't notice you at all.
Sure if you're walking through podunk-ville Korea you'll get stares. On the other hand if you walk through Itaewon or Hongdae no ones staring at you.
If I was to suddenly stroll through some place in Montana I'd get stared at.
Maybe it has as much to do with neighborhood as it does with culture. |
Yes, it does. However, I don't get a lot of stares anywhere here anyway. Glances, girls checking me out. That's about it. |
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confucian
Joined: 13 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal wrote: |
That's cute. I either smile and nod my head at foreigners or just keep on walking.
Koreans have had foreigners here for ages. We aren't something new. |
When it's a 40+ adjeosshi, I stare right back until he looks away, because I want him to receive all the respect he's giving me plus a little bit more.
korea is best. |
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RMNC
Joined: 21 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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| djsmnc wrote: |
Yes, it does. However, I don't get a lot of stares anywhere here anyway. Glances, girls checking me out. That's about it. |
:smug: |
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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 8:53 pm Post subject: |
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| confucian wrote: |
| NYC_Gal wrote: |
That's cute. I either smile and nod my head at foreigners or just keep on walking.
Koreans have had foreigners here for ages. We aren't something new. |
When it's a 40+ adjeosshi, I stare right back until he looks away, because I want him to receive all the respect he's giving me plus a little bit more.
korea is best. |
If it's a rude stare by an ajossi, I stare back, smirk, then raise my nose a bit and look away, because I'm far more important, as you well know. |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal wrote: |
That's cute. I either smile and nod my head at foreigners or just keep on walking.
Koreans have had foreigners here for ages. We aren't something new. |
Actually in large numbers we are relatively new. Then you factor in that Korea is pretty much made up of one ethnic group (Koreans) with little to no real immigration and you get stares.
Korea has not been employing foreigners in large numbers, especially not westerners for very long in relative terms. Especially in smaller cities or towns.
There is a need to differenciate between SEOUL and the rest of Korea when it comes to reaction and exposure to foreigners.
Honestly, in Seoul staring is uncommon, unless of course you are one of those westerners who walks around looking for stares, thereby creating the stares you dislike. 
In Busan, staring is more common but really no big deal.
When you get out of the larger cities, some stares do occur but frankly they tend to come from the elderly (I can certainly understand why they stare) and from kids.
We walk around (when in Korea for our trips) with our two mixed kids and get few stares beyond the people who comment about our kids (he is cute..she is adorable..and so on). The only issues I ever had were with older folks way back when I first arrived. Then again, these people saw a drastic change in their country in a very short span. This will create growing pains. |
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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| There have been missionaries and army folk for a long time. I wasn't only talking about teachers. |
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ajuma
Joined: 18 Feb 2003
Location: Anywere but Seoul!!
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 5:52 am Post subject: |
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First "stare" experience:
1996 in a small town. I was walking to my hagwon on the "main" road and a city bus actually SLOWED DOWN so everyone on the bus could get a look at me!!
Shopping cart incident:
I was checking out at Costco when a Korean woman came over and started pawing through the stuff in my cart. I gave her a look, then went over and started going through the things in HER cart! She looked at me...I looked at her....she laughed and I laughed. GOTCHA!!
Now, I'm not sure if I don't notice it as much or if the staring has decreased. If I DO notice it though, i stare right back. They always look away first! |
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Globutron
Joined: 13 Feb 2010
Location: England/Anyang
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 8:02 am Post subject: |
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Well, Bangkok I can safely say is much more annoying. The stares last about 0.04 seconds, or the typical reaction speed of a human being, followed by one of two topics; Buy a suit, or ride a tuk tuk.
It will start with a greeting you don't want, asking where you're from, telling you your destination is closed due to a public holiday, and that they should take you to a jewellers instead, and that you should be in there for exactly 10 minutes for some unbeknown reason (commission). The suiters are less annoying but possibly more ubiquitous. Difficult to analyse. |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 8:19 am Post subject: |
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I had a great one today. I walked into the SK broadband office, which judging from the looks of it doesn't normally get a whole lot of visitors. As I went in, the eight or so people working all slowly stopped doing what they were doing and just simply gaped at me. It was genuinely hilarious. My first reaction was to actually tell them "It's OK, I speak some Korean." in Korean.
On a side note, SK Broadband is super easy to sign up for and provides great service; however, canceling an Internet connection is quite possibly the most red-tape tied up, bureaucratic steaming pile I've ever had to deal with.
I had a Korean friend try because I know their English service is terrible. No go, I have to call. I did, no English speaker there at the time. They promised to call me back three times, over the course of four hours. Finally they did, with a clerk whose English is absolutely abysmal and we end up doing most of the interaction in Korean anyway. Then she tells me I can't do it over the phone, I have to visit their local office with my ID because my phone isn't in my name (WTH does my phone have to do with my Internet connection?!?)
*see the only humourous part of this story above*
After finally getting it canceled, they are now trying to charge me for the next two months despite the fact that I'm well past any initial promises I made regarding the length of time I'd be using their service! I'm still trying to fight these two bills.
*RAGE* |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 11:04 am Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal wrote: |
| There have been missionaries and army folk for a long time. I wasn't only talking about teachers. |
Slight difference there.
You can exclude the military from the equation as they typically did not live with Koreans in neighborhoods but rather on base.
Missionaries, they have been here for a while but not in as great numbers as the recent (10-20 years) of foreign teachers.
Come on now, walk around Korea (outside of Seoul or another large city) and take notice of how many foreigners you run into.
My father-in-aw is 67 years old. In his lifetime Korea went from an agrarian country where nearly no foreigners lived to a burn out wreck after the Korean war, to abject poverty with again little to no foreigners outside of US military who by the way stayed on base most of the time back then. Then in a short 25 years from the late 1980s on, the country went through a massive transformation and modernisation and it was only in the early 1990s to late 1990s that foreigners started arriving in larger numbers to work and live in Korea.
The learning curve was and remains sharp.
Anyway, stares will happen. |
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hapigokelli
Joined: 04 Aug 2009
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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As a 6 foot tall blonde woman I get stares. All day, every day. Of course, people stared at me in the states too, so...
Old dudes usually glare.
Teens and 20's point me out to their friends and giggle.
Ajummas stare until I notice them and then pretend that they weren't.
Small children have actually run in the other direction upon seeing me.
My favorite are the Elementary kids who try to talk to me. More than once i've been called "Golden Hair." |
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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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Patrick, that's 20 years. It's long enough. The internet is new, by your standards, yet nearly everyone has it. Do people stare in shock and awe at cell phones?
I ride my bike outside of the big cities. I get stares, but probably because they can't tell my ethnicity. Nobody guesses that I'm American. I've only gotten the angry stare a few times. Once from an old ajossi who saw me walking my bike with a student (we had tea with her mom), and once from an ajumma who must have been angry that I had an iPad (she kept staring at it and glaring at me. I was only reading on the subway! )
If teens point and giggle, I go up to them and embarrass them by asking them basic elementary-school questions, which they're too flustered to answer. Then I tell them (in Korean) that they should remember this, because my 3rd and 4th graders know it. Also, that I've only studied Korean for a year and can communicate better in their language than they can in English, which they've studied for the better part of a decade. |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 2:41 am Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal wrote: |
Patrick, that's 20 years. It's long enough. The internet is new, by your standards, yet nearly everyone has it. Do people stare in shock and awe at cell phones?
I ride my bike outside of the big cities. I get stares, but probably because they can't tell my ethnicity. Nobody guesses that I'm American. I've only gotten the angry stare a few times. Once from an old ajossi who saw me walking my bike with a student (we had tea with her mom), and once from an ajumma who must have been angry that I had an iPad (she kept staring at it and glaring at me. I was only reading on the subway! )
If teens point and giggle, I go up to them and embarrass them by asking them basic elementary-school questions, which they're too flustered to answer. Then I tell them (in Korean) that they should remember this, because my 3rd and 4th graders know it. Also, that I've only studied Korean for a year and can communicate better in their language than they can in English, which they've studied for the better part of a decade. |
Thats the thing NYC, 20 years is not long, it is a relatively short time. Balance this out against the social make up of Korea and frankly speaking the way foreigners are concentrated in Korea (read Seoul area and some larger cities) and you get stares.
Going to embarass teens who stare is a bit immature NYC but to each his own. They are TEENS, you are a mature adult....
You also seem to assume what the people that stare are thinking (your jealous of your ipad example). You do know that if you stare back you are basically feeding the stares right?
Also, you may want to tone down that arrogant I am better then everyone approach you have on here. I sure hope that does is not something that you portray in real life.
A simple example of this:
Also, that I've only studied Korean for a year and can communicate better in their language than they can in English, which they've studied for the better part of a decade
Who are they?
Those same teens you embarass for daring to stare at you or the ajuma on the subway? Or is 'they' Koreans in general?
You studied Korean for one year, which by the way I think is a good thing. In that time, you may have accidentally stumbled upon some clues about Korean culture and history that may shed some light on certain issues right?
Anyway, to each his own and good luck with that ipad, was it as sexy as your new laptop? Is it sexier than your Ipod (if you have one) or perhaps your luscious cell phone?
As for the ajuma, you could choke hold her next time, ninja style, with your martial arts skills..that would end the stares real quick. |
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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 3:10 am Post subject: |
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| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| NYC_Gal wrote: |
Patrick, that's 20 years. It's long enough. The internet is new, by your standards, yet nearly everyone has it. Do people stare in shock and awe at cell phones?
I ride my bike outside of the big cities. I get stares, but probably because they can't tell my ethnicity. Nobody guesses that I'm American. I've only gotten the angry stare a few times. Once from an old ajossi who saw me walking my bike with a student (we had tea with her mom), and once from an ajumma who must have been angry that I had an iPad (she kept staring at it and glaring at me. I was only reading on the subway! )
If teens point and giggle, I go up to them and embarrass them by asking them basic elementary-school questions, which they're too flustered to answer. Then I tell them (in Korean) that they should remember this, because my 3rd and 4th graders know it. Also, that I've only studied Korean for a year and can communicate better in their language than they can in English, which they've studied for the better part of a decade. |
Thats the thing NYC, 20 years is not long, it is a relatively short time. Balance this out against the social make up of Korea and frankly speaking the way foreigners are concentrated in Korea (read Seoul area and some larger cities) and you get stares. |
I get it, but why don't they stare at the newfangled PC bangs or mobile phones? Clearly 20 years is a lot longer than you make it out to be. The teenagers aren't that old, so foreigners aren't new to them.
| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| Going to embarass teens who stare is a bit immature NYC but to each his own. They are TEENS, you are a mature adult.... |
I'm a mature adult making them regret pointing and giggling. Perhaps next time they'll act like the young adults that they are. I'm only asking them simple questions. I'm a teacher. I did the same back home. They're embarrassed because they didn't study, as they should be.
| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| You also seem to assume what the people that stare are thinking (your jealous of your ipad example). You do know that if you stare back you are basically feeding the stares right? |
I don't stare back. I've got some decent peripheral vision, and noticed the glare. I looked up, saw what she was doing, and continued reading.
| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
Also, you may want to tone down that arrogant I am better then everyone approach you have on here. I sure hope that does is not something that you portray in real life.
A simple example of this:
Also, that I've only studied Korean for a year and can communicate better in their language than they can in English, which they've studied for the better part of a decade
Who are they?
Those same teens you embarass for daring to stare at you or the ajuma on the subway? Or is 'they' Koreans in general?
You studied Korean for one year, which by the way I think is a good thing. In that time, you may have accidentally stumbled upon some clues about Korean culture and history that may shed some light on certain issues right? |
1. The teens.
2. Staring is rude. I'm aware of the culture, but I'm free to have fun as a foreigner. For the most part, I'm exceedingly polite. Sometimes, it's fun to mess around.
| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| Anyway, to each his own and good luck with that ipad, was it as sexy as your new laptop? Is it sexier than your Ipod (if you have one) or perhaps your luscious cell phone? |
So sexy 
| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| As for the ajuma, you could choke hold her next time, ninja style, with your martial arts skills..that would end the stares real quick. |
It would be funny |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 5:13 am Post subject: |
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I'm a mature adult making them regret pointing and giggling. Perhaps next time they'll act like the young adults that they are. I'm only asking them simple questions. I'm a teacher. I did the same back home. They're embarrassed because they didn't study, as they should be. |
Telling off and showing up teens you don't know for giggling about something? Really?
| Quote: |
Also, that I've only studied Korean for a year and can communicate better in their language than they can in English, which they've studied for the better part of a decade |
And have they had full (or any) exposure with native speakers and the opportunity to live in an English speaking environment? Have they grown up in a culture that actively encourages fostering relationships with foreign people? Have they had any peers of different nationalities while going through school? |
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