Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mithridates]

Going off to the Finnish consulate in Seoul tomorrow I think...anybody know any Finns here? I certainly don't. No Estonians, no Finns. Pity that. I'm sure there are a few dozen living somewhere in Seoul.
Ideally I'd like to find someone that could help me with my Finnish in exchange for Korean or Japanese. Now wouldn't that be odd...

[kimchikowboy]

I think this person might be a Finn.
http://hunjang.blogspot.com/
Good site either way.

[Zed]

Just out of curiosity, what's your interest in learning Finnish? Are you moving there or is it just for interest?

[Plastic B]

I think Mith is just some kind of language freak. Korean, Japanese, Finnish...oh, I've got it, he got a Nokia direct phone and he has to translate the menu!

[mithridates]

Ah, that's a long story.
Way back in '94 or so I heard a death metal band called Amorphis that I really liked. After buying their CD it turned out they were from Finland. I was in high school then so no chance of jetting off to live there, so later on in '98 after I graduated high school I decided I wanted to go over there for a bit. However, Finland is expensive and I didn't make much money so I decided to go to Estonia instead, neighbouring country, very similar language, and seemed just as cool. So in October I went off to Estonia...I had planned to stay there for a few months but it seemed that a few months before this situation had happened:

Estonia: We give Canadians 3-month visas for free, can you give us the same?
Canada: No, because you might have some holdover Soviet spies. You have to pay for a one month visa.
Estonia: Fine, then so do you!
Canada: We don't really care...

I think that's about what happened. As a result, Canadians like me who want to live for a bit in Estonia (I was probably the only one actually) don't get to stay for over 30 days! I found that out at the border so I paid money for a one month visa and stayed in Tallinn for 30 days. I was thinking about going to school there but the Japanese I had just started to learn was falling out of my head and I felt that it would be best to focus on Japanese first and go back to Estonia later. So in November I took the plane home to Calgary, kept up the Japanese, came to Korea later, and now my Korean is mostly fluent. I looked for a few Estonian books here but since Finnish is a little bit more popular and resources more plenty I decided to work on that instead, and that's the story!



Now for today's story:
Went to the Finnish consulate today, on the 16th floor of the Kyobo building if anyone's curious. It's small but really hi-tech and I had to get buzzed in. After going in I found myself in a small room with a Korean girl on the other side of the window. The conversation was as follows:

"Hi! I'm just stopping by."
"Hi, what do you need?"
"Well, first I was wondering how many Finns live in Seoul."
"I think about 30 or 40. Not too many. Are you Finnish?"
"No, but I was there for two days and Estonia for a month before. I'm studying it again. Do you help people out with that?"
"No we don't."
"I see. Where do these Finnish people in Seoul work?"
"Companies, I think." (?????)
"Ah... do you speak Finnish?"
"No."
"Have you been there before?"
"No."
"Ah. May I ask how you got the job working here then?"
"No..."
"Ah, I mean, it's kind of funny that you're working in the Finnish Consulate of all places isn't it?"
"..."
"Because there's what, about four people working here right?"
"Three."
"Ah. So, you really don't want to tell me how you got the job?"
"No I don't. Do you want some information?"
"....okay." (she goes off and gets some pamphlets)

So I got some pamphlets, maps, and the like. Mostly useless except for one book and the map itself as I like hanging maps on my wall.

Today's 'adventure' made me think about the nature of consulates once again.

[mithridates]

kimchikowboy
...I thought you were Kiwiboy for a second. Thanks for the site, he is Finnish.^^

[buddy bradley]

If you like the later stuff by Amorphis, you'll also like Finland's Xysma, Disgrace, Convulse - there was (is?) a very unique Finnish metal movement that never took off quite like Sweden's death metal and Norway's black metal movement simply because, well, the word 'weird' comes to mind.

Of course, the greatest band to ever come out of Finland is Impaled Nazarene, one of my all-time faves.

[mithridates]

^^
I thought it would be at least an hour before you responded to the bit about Amorphis. As far as I can tell there are only three of us on this board that are/were real metal fans...

[J.B. Clamence]

[Tiger Beer]

[mithridates]

[Rhoddri]

haha umm but seriously with Finland being the number one country in terms of economic growth in the world, it would be pretty cool to learn some of the lingo. Learning in whatever form is always a good pursuit.

Good luck -Hawddamor ac nos da

P.S. the pursuit for the knowledge of death-metal bands doesn't count..

[mithridates]

That's true, that's partly why I do it. I don't feel like I'm learning much new with a language that looks and feels too much like English; it's kind of like picking up the mandolin after playing the guitar for a few years.
Do you economic growth or hi-tech industry? I don't recall their growth being that great but I haven't looked at the news there for a bit.

[Neil]

[rapier]

the Finns i've met have been nice...quite proud and nationalistic, genuine, good natured types.. I gather they're quite good at sports.
Unfortunately I'm a tropical type of person, so Finland's not on my list of destinations.