Korean Job Discussion Forums

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

Here is a thing that, as I've continued to learn more Korean, really 'gets my goat'. (love that phrase) Tell me: have you experienced this?

I go out with someone who is Korean. Every Korean person we interact with completely ignores me, even when I'm directly addressing them.

Here's an example of such a situation that was especially annoying, because it took place at a 100k per person restaurant. I don't pay $200 to be ignored when I'm speaking. But apparently I do. Every time a waiter or someone came to our table, here was the deal:

- The waiter approaches and immediately looks at my girlfriend.
- She ignores them because she's looking at the menu, gazing into space, stunned by my gorgeousness, etc.
- I say whatever needs to be said. Request for more bread, ordering, whatever.
- The entire time I'm speaking, the person to whom I'm speaking continues to look at my girlfriend instead of me, even though she isn't acknowledging them at all. So I'm speaking to them, but they are looking at my girlfriend! What? Appeasing me so they can wait for the translation, I guess, because I have white skin and a 'high' nose?
- The person, who was obviously waiting for my lady to speak the real Korean, waits about 5 seconds. THEN acknowledges what I said and walks away.

But wait, it's not that easy. Usually, I have to repeat myself a minimum of two times if I am with a Korean person. However, when I am alone, I typically do not need to repeat myself unless it's a complicated thing. I go unaccompanied to the doctor, restaurants, post office, bank, stores, apartment manager's office, subway station office, everywhere else with very minimal problems. But, magically, when I'm with a Korean, it becomes impossible for people to understand what I'm saying.

That siht really does piss me off. When I say something in plain Korean and they LOOK AT THE OTHER PERSON, instead of me, and say "ne?" it boils my swear-filtering blood.

I used to go out with this chick in Daejeon who knew how much this irked me, so any time a Korean drone would pull this stint, she would smarmily reply, 'Yeah, what he said..' If she can understand, why the hell can't they?

Here's another outrageous example. I went to a food court with a friend. He had ordered food from another restaurant, but walked over with me to order mine. He didn't say anything the entire time, and I gave all the specifications of what I wanted (it was Mongolian barbecue style) to the ajumma. She did not look at me even once. Every question she asked was directed to my friend, even though she knew it was my food, and I was speaking to her already in Korean, to which she was responding!

I'll be the first to admit my Korean is not that good. But it's funny to me how I can get by in my public proceedings with no problem at all if alone, but when I'm with a Korean it's as though I'm speaking pig Latin to them.

Q.

jajdude · Joined: 18 Jan 2003

Yes that is annoying. It would be funny if the one Korean you were with would say, "Sorry, I Kyopo, Korean no,

friend, yes." Try that one sometime.

aldershot · Joined: 17 Jul 2006

maybe if you understood the fact that "chogeeyo" means simutaneously "over there" as well as " hey you, come here", you'd get a better response from your 200$-a-plate dinners.

what were you eating? samgyupsal?

(reference: "koreans and pronunciation" thread, page 4)

mithridates · Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:12 am Post subject:

I like this:

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

Jajdude: I mentioned that to my lady. She said it would be funny to try, but she's got that whole Korean politeness thing going on, so she buckles under pressure.. Crying or Very sad

Aldershot: Please go back to 3rd grade and learn how to read.

Mithridates: WHY are you talking about onions and why the sudden laughter and archaic grammer? WEIRD!

doggyji · Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 1:37 pm Post subject:

It sounds so friggin annoying..! I wish I could play that gyopo role... Laughing

charlieDD · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Location: Seoul, Korea

Yes, it happens exactly like that for me too. It doesn't tick me off as much, but does make me think about how my very being, as a foreigner, stresses them so much that they have to look for relief among the familiar. Like you, I can order my meals in perfect Korean, but they will look to the Koreans to repeat my order, as if I had spoken garble.

There's a similar situation where the very fact that I am speaking Korean shocks a Korean so much that they can't understand me! I know my pronunciation is excellent. On the telephone the Korean on the other side of the line usually thinks I'm Korean - - until I reach my vocabulary limit and have to search around for the words! But sometimes I can meet a Korean person who is just so surprised, so flabbergasted by a foreigner speaking Korean that they just can't understand what I'm saying. It's like they opened a certain channel and I sent the info on another channel and they just didn't get it ! This one frustrates me more than the "look to the Koreans for a translation" one.

JeJuJitsu · Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Location: McDonald's

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

I had a funny experience when I was at a soccer match with a group of friends. A friend of a friend turned out to be a Gyopo who had been here a month, and knew no Korean nor anything about Korean culture. I went down to get beer, and about 15 minutes after the match started the confectionary ajumma came up to the stands where I was standing right beside the Gyopo. 'Blah blah blah sam-chun won blah blah imnida'. From what I could gather she thought I had forgotten to pick up my change after buying beer and was explaining it to my 'Korean' friend. 'Hangook-saram annio; Migook-saram ibnida!' I said happily in my broken, poorly pronounced Korean, pointing to the Gyopo. It turned out that the ajumma had me mistaken for some other waygook a few rows over who forgot his change, who happened to look just like me (actually he looked nothing like me, but you know).

Later we stopped by a kiosk in a subway station where a white guy in our party had to translate for the Gyopo and the look on the kiosk ajosshi's face was just priceless.

As for the restaurant thing, I don't even bother communicating with the servers if I'm with a Korean. I'd suggest the OP get his gf to tell the waitress in broken Korean that she's a Gyopo who can't speak English the next time it happens.

riley · Joined: 08 Feb 2003 Location: where creditors can find me

This whole situation is why I have a hard time wanting to learn Korean. Why should I when they're just going to speak to my wife?

What's really fun is the excuses my wife makes. (Oh, they're from North Korea. Oh, they were born in China. Really, did you ask them about their life?)

cubanlord · Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Location: In Japan!

JeJuJitsu · Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Location: McDonald's

mithridates · Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 4:31 pm Post subject:

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

Hater Depot · Joined: 29 Mar 2005

It doesn't happen to me in restaurants. It does happen in other funny places and ways though.

Last weekend my girlfriend stopped at a discount book store in some subway station. She doesn't speak much Korean so she asked me to inquire if they have any Korean-Japanese dictionaries. Convo went like this.

Hater: Excuse me, do you have any Japanese-Korean dictionaries?

Ajumma: English dictionary?

H: Ah, no, I want to buy a Japanese-Korean dictionary.

A: Oh, an English-Korean dictionary. They're over here.

H: Uh, no.... I said Japanese-Korean.

A: Right, they're over here. (points to a shelf of English dictionaries)

H: My friend is Japanese and she needs a Japanese-Korean dictionary. Do you have any?

A: Yeah, lots. They're right here in front of you. English-Korean and Korean-English.

H: Bye.

Actually that was too bad, because she had a cheap book about native Korean plants and trees I was going to buy, but that was just too much.