Korean Job Discussion Forums

[metalhead]

Lots of nitpicking in this thread, so here's one more:

The Chinese does not literally mean 'Outside Country Person', it means 'Out Country Person' (great contribution, I know).

The term doesn't bug me at all, you ever hear the word 'Uitlander'? Means the same thing, and is also applied to 'people that aren't one of us'. And unless you have 100% Korean blood, then no, you are not one of them, and why is this so hard to accept? Out of all the things to whine about, this is really a non-issue.

I agree that too many people here are living in some PC self-hating love-everything-different sewer, which is fine, but don't expect other people or countries for that matter to devolve to your conditioned way of thinking.

[Steelrails]

If waygookin is the worst thing you get called in your life, consider yourself lucky.

Seriously, that bent out of shape over 'waygookin'?

I can think of about 100 different words that are worse than wayookin in 100 seconds.

Heck, I can think of about a dozen words in Korean they'd call you if they actually thought you were scum.

Considering this place has mandatory middle service for adult males, I have no problem with being called a foreigner and viewed as such. Yes, I am not on the team.

[Adios_Corea]

The word waygookin in itself is not offensive, but some of the ways that it is used here is....it does crack me up how my gas bill is addressed to 외국인, and not to my name. I can't think of another example off hand, but there have been other instances where I have been referred to as 외국인 on written documents instead of by my name.

It's offensive when people (even children) use the term waygookin while pointing and gawking...I do understand the root causes behind this behavior, but nevertheless Korea still has a LONG way to go before they are truly an international country and really part of the international community. The fact that Koreans don't call each other by name is irrelevant to the fact that it's rude to stop and point at a stranger at the street and call them a foreigner simply because they look different and are walking down the street.

It is also clearly offensive when the children of immigrants are called foreigners.

[machoman]

[Drew10]

[Adios_Corea]

[T-J]

This thread is hilarious. Five pages about the meaning of 외국인 and not one poster has posted it using Chinese characters to clarify it's meaning.

外国人 end of thread.

Or you could argue about 外国人 meaning "not pure Han" or some other Dave's nonsense. You people are amusing.

[interestedinhanguk]

[sublunari]

Just a few hours ago I was having dinner at one of my favorite little restaurants when the the resident imo and halmoni both began talking about how the waygookin's hair was so nice, his face so symmetrical, and how he was, indeed, Mr. Universe (the halmoni used some kind of garbled konglish term). As I am at best a moderately attractive guy I thought it was all pretty funny---and an instance of how being the foreigner is not always a bad thing. So many times I've gotten away with the Korean equivalent of murder thanks to my foreignness.

A Korean teacher at my school spent a year in Japan and told me that she only thought of the Americans she ran into as foreigners, and not the Japanese; based on this anecdote my guess is that waygookin is more or less a neutral blanket term, like Asian or European or African, used when Americans can't really tell where someone is from exactly---and it's probably more or less interchangeable with migook salam and baegin.

But as others have said you'd have to be quite the bumpkin to call someone an Asian or an African to his or her face if that person lacked an American accent; the most polite thing to do is just ask. But we'd also just use that person's name as well, so, obviously, the two cultures are very different, and the politics of address here are far more complex.

Still, it's annoying to be constantly reminded that this culture will never accept me, and that the foreigners wandering the streets of Korea are not really expected or encouraged to stay, and will never become Koreans.

And in English I think foreigner absolutely has negative connotations and is probably only bandied about by the people who will vote for Sarah Palin in the next election. Otherwise I think Americans use it sparingly.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[ESL Milk "Everyday]

I wouldn't go all the way to 'offensive', but I don't really like hearing the word. Even if it is a 'neutral' term (doesn't everything start out as a neutral term as well?), it still makes me feel more distant from the people around me, and is sort of like indirectly telling me that I will never belong.

[interestedinhanguk]

[redaxe]

[eamo]

Waygukin doesn't bother me at all................but the perception among many Koreans that all white people must be American does........haven't they heard of Europe??!

[Adios_Corea]