Korean Job Discussion Forums

Len8 · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Location: Kyungju

Has anyone heard of the Korean English club. They meet once a week to encourage English among the local communities. The format of the meetings is a 1 hour discussion of sorts, and then a socialising period for an hour in which members can drink, eat and chat. i have attended some of the get to-gethers, and I have found them to be quite well organized.

Is there a central number that one can ring to find out about where they are in different cities.

RACETRAITOR · Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Location: Seoul, South Korea

I had a friend who went to something like this. He left after lending them some money and the organiser began giving him tips on how to be more entertaining to the members. He realised all he was was a monkey to them.

adventureman · Joined: 18 Feb 2003

"Can you eat spicy Korean kimchee?"

"You use chopsticks very well!"

Junior · Joined: 18 Nov 2005 Location: the eye

I went to one similar, run by a student, and with about 6 k-friends. Basically...they treat you like a monkey yes. if you don't take their cr8p, they stop mailing you the newsletter invitation.

its the old story-- no matter how friendly you are, the painful fact that young koreans can barely disguise their dislike of foreigners is obvious. but they put on a big front so they can continue to suck english out of you.

far better idea; make your own korean friends in your hometown, preferably people over the age of 30.. and learn/ help them with their english that way. The younger generation are so brainwashed against all foreigners of every description, it would take too long to challenge and correct their perceptions/ inadequacies before you could just relax and have fun.

bobbyhanlon · Joined: 09 Nov 2003 Location: 서울

yup.. any friendship based on the learning of english is doomed to disappointment i think. your conversations will feel like some kind of textbook exercise, and you will also probably find that your new 'friends' call you every hour of every day, since meeting you is better than paying 40000 won per hour for a private english conversation lesson. luckily these clowns are not difficult to spot.

better to just find friends in a normal way, away from english hakwons, study groups, and so on. there's a lot of great people in korea who are cool and will just be friends with you for friendship's sake, but you have to sift through the free english lesson users first.

billybrobby · Joined: 09 Dec 2004

One of the great things about Korea is it is very easy to meet people just walking down the street or in bars or over the internet. The downside is you have to sift through a lot of people with ulterior motives.

People who want a free English lesson are pretty easy to spot and are the most annoying because they want to continue the "friendship" if after it becomes clear you have little in common. Be wary of those who tell you that they're soon going to an English speaking country to study, because you might be the warm-up lesson.

There are also people who have a sort of cultural fascination with America or the West. They'll always be telling you about their plans to leave Korea and how they only listen to Western music. And yet they won't have any more of an accurate concept of the West than those who hate the West, as evidenced by the fact that they expect a 25 year old American male to listen to Britney Spears.

And then there are those who seem to have an outright sexual fetish for foreigners. Depending on how desperate you are for casual sex, these are the best or the worst sort.

adventureman · Joined: 18 Feb 2003

Another interesting way to test the "english vampire" hypothisis is too keep initiating conversations in Korean with your Korean friends (if your level is high enough) and see how long it takes before the person has to "reminded" by you to switch over to their own language. Not to sound bitter, but a solid knowledge of conversational Korean can go a long way in helping to weed those sorts of people out quickly.

I've met many Korean women who in Hongdae, Itaewon, as well as dating like ublove, etc, who have openly addmitted to me that their main intention in making foreigner guy "friends" is to improve/practice their English. (Of course many western males' intentions in frequenting those places is an easy lay with a K-girl, so it does go both ways)

All this does make sense to certain degree, considering the Koreans virtually never speak English to each other outside of organized clubs/classes, and are looked upon as strange for doing so in public.

adventureman · Joined: 18 Feb 2003

Disclaimer to my previous posting:

I have been here for a while now and will be moving in a different direction with my life soon, but if you have just arrived to Korea and are reading this, it goes without saying that if you approach Koreans with this kind of skeptical attitude then you probably come across as a bit of stuck-up jerk.