Korean Job Discussion Forums

Patong Dong · Joined: 06 May 2003 Location: On Nut

Manner of Speaking:

No, I DON'T feel like I have something in common with someone, just because I'm a 'foreigner'. Teachers, maybe. Someone from my hometown, maybe. Which is why I make my friends at conferences or Korean language classes. It's up to *me* to decide who I have something in common with, not up to anybody else.

And once again, you've made the assumption that if someone doesn't want to talk to you, they're AUTOMATICALLY misfits. I can't think of anything more chauvinistic or conceited.

Are you drunk? We are talking about a GREETING. No one is asking you to make sweet, sweet love to any foreigner you stumble across. If I see a foreigner in my path I say "hello". I don't hold them gently and whisper "I simply MUST paint you" I don't cross the street and chase them down and suggest we do a pied piper and all the foreigners can go skipping across the land. I GREET them. I cannot imagine that someone would think about it enough and put so much thought into saying hi.

And no, I would not say hi back home but, and this is the simple part, I am not back home. I also don't look furtively over my shoulders when crossing on a green back home, but damn straight I do here.

OiGirl · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: Hoke-y-gun

The Evil Clown · Joined: 10 May 2004

Manner of Speaking · Joined: 09 Jan 2003

Manner of Speaking · Joined: 09 Jan 2003

Cedar · Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:40 am Post subject:

Been here a long time:

Knee-jerk reaction:
Foreigners who say hello are friendly. I feel that if they were heading the same way, maybe we'd walk together for a couple minutes and have inane conversation which COULD lead to exchange of valuable information or future friendship. Then again they could be weird, but if I was the most normal person from America I surely wouldn't have stayed here this long. I've made some good friends in Korea by not cold shouldering other foreigners on the street.
Koreans who say hello are English vampires on the prowl or not interested in saying more than hello. If they do talk to me, it's the EXACT same as the first conversation class of the term. There is no meaningful connection. They aren't going to tell me something about them that's going to make me hope to be their new best friend... it's just going to be EXACTLY like work. I don't want to work on the street, subway and bus, thank you very much. And the ones who just say hello and then giggle at their own daring? Puhhh-lease!

Apple Scruff · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

I just took a stroll down to KFC and encountered exactly eight foreigners (all White folks) on the way there. Two of them I know, and are cool. Three of them were women, and all three easily topped 200 lbs (nobody can deny that there is an inordinant number of humongous foreign women here. If you deny this, you are blind and probably fat, too). Two were total dorks with cute Korean girlfriends (real perceptive, ladies!). And one was easily the creepiest looking fellow I have ever encountered, in Korea or otherwise. He looked like the lovechild of Bette Davis and the Elephant Man.

We foreigners are most certainly a shady bunch. A fat, dorky, shady bunch.

Except me. I'm beautiful.

Patong Dong · Joined: 06 May 2003 Location: On Nut

Manner of Speaking,
Yes, if someone says "hello" to you and you do not respond you are a misfit. It does not warrant deep pondering, it's "hello" and you're on your way. Why do you keep trying to bring it back to being their friend? no one is saying that, it's "hello".

There are people here that speak Korean, eat Korean, have Korean partners, so they figure they shouldn't say hello to you because they are not strangers in a strange land. That is not true, no matter what you do you will ALWAYS be considered a foreigner here, I buy my garbage bags in English and you buy them in Korean, guess what? The ajumma considers both you and I to be foreigners, like it or not.

That foreigner factor is enough for me to say hello when I pass a foreigner on the street, simple. Your over reactions and anger suggest there are other issues at work here.

Patong Dong · Joined: 06 May 2003 Location: On Nut

Manner of Speaking,
Yes, if someone says "hello" to you and you do not respond you are a misfit. It does not warrant deep pondering, it's "hello" and you're on your way. Why do you keep trying to bring it back to being their friend? no one is saying that, it's "hello".

There are people here that speak Korean, eat Korean, have Korean partners, so they figure they shouldn't say hello to you because they are not strangers in a strange land. That is not true, no matter what you do you will ALWAYS be considered a foreigner here, I buy my garbage bags in English and you buy them in Korean, guess what? The ajumma considers both you and I to be foreigners, like it or not.

That foreigner factor is enough for me to say hello when I pass a foreigner on the street, simple. Your over reactions and anger suggest there are other issues at work here.

dogbert · Joined: 29 Jan 2003 Location: Killbox 90210

I nodded to a white guy today and he nodded in return. How's that for a compromise?

ratslash · Joined: 08 May 2003

welcome to korea dude! where fellow white man is as friendly as a does of syphillis!

you will learn, as i did (unless she is a complete babe of course, then it is worth the risk, but foreign babes are rare!!!) saying hello, or even acknowledging a fellow white man on the streets is a complete waste of time!!! best bet, wait until the acknowledge you.

towards the end, i did go back to nodding my head and flashing a smile and then looking away. that way i didn't see whether they replied so i couldn't be annoyed that they didn't if i didn't see if they didn't!!!

mysteriousdeltarays · Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 8:26 am Post subject:

Everybody is special. Oh so special.