Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

Well Homer,

Love your cartoon, but care to state what your take is?

[bucheon bum]

homer's take seems to usually be: its our fault for being culturally insensetive. Koreans are as perfect/imperfect as every other nationality out there.

Excuse me Homer if i'm putting words into your mouth.

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Homer]

I do agree with the OP as far as the reactions foreigners get from Koreans sometimes.
We do get the stares and on occasion the feeling we are not welcome here.
I do not dispute that.
It happens to me like it does to other foreigners here.
What also happens is to meet kind and helpful people here who are trying to deal with the still recent (in their view) influx of foreigners in what is a rather ethnically homogenous society.
This does not excuse the attitude of some but it can explain it.
What I usually disagree with is the framing some people use to present their views on Korea and Koreans. This "frame" is more than not tainted by the negative feelings a person is having here and is many times due to culture shock or a simple inability or unwillingness to accept the differences they encounter.
Some Koreans are as guilty of this as foreigners are with the slight difference that they are in their home country. This makes a big difference as to on who the most of the burden of adaptation should lie.

The frame I was talking about usually involves putting the host country (Korea in this case) in the worst possible light and then proceeding on with overly general and negative comments. The goal here is usually to vent frustrations.

As far as the way Koreans react to foreigners, I found it to be quite varied. There are the idiots out there. I tend not to focus on them since they are not worth my time here. This is much the same thing that I would do back home when faced with the same kind of person.
I try to understand why things are done instead of simply how they are done. The why usually leads to a better understanding of the how.
The perspective thing is also quite important. This applies to most situations in life.
The old lady that stared at me every morning and every evening as I went and returned from work did so why?
I can only speculate. A foreigner here could and often would conclude that she is either "retarded" or "hates foreigners". This
could be true of course. It could also be she is the type of old lady that just likes to look out her window. It could be she never saw many foreigners before. It could be many things and even a combination of those things.
If she did stare at me because she hated wae-guks then whats the big deal? Would my confronting her change anything? I think not.
The point is there that to base one's judgement on what you see and hear on a certain occasion and then to bluntly apply the results of your reaction to a general population can only lead to gross innaccuracies even if this comforts the complainer.
Indeed, its easy to scratch things up as "racist" and then feel like the victim.
but, there are always many possible variables that can come into play to explain something as vague as cultural attitudes and norms.

I do not think a statement like:

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

Yes, I'm in Seoul, and that's the perspective from which I personally can corroborate the findings of the OP. However, if you're having nothing but a good time, that's not statistically significant. I don't base my judgements solely on my own experience. I talk to a lot of teachers, and I use the internet to find out about others perspectives. Even a brief glance through a selection of Korean message boards reveals the fact that a significant number of people encounter xenophobia, racism, disrespect, and general allround shoddy treatment on an alarming basis. Even if one cuts the issue down to the treatment of teachers by Hagwon owners it becomes clear there is widespread disprespect, even to the point of flauting labour laws and blatant rip-offs, happening all over the place. Or we could look at what happens to foreigners when they encounter the police and are treated as less than human, even to the point of being charged with assault after being ASSAULTED BY A KOREAN. These things are not just isolataed incidents to complain about. They point to the more general undercurrent of racism that permeates this society. By no means is every Korean racist, but what we can say is that a statistically significant proportion of foreigners here experience negative discrimination to varying degrees in a wide range of circumstances. We can also corroborate this with testimony from several of our ranks who have travelled and worked widely round the world, and obviously enjoy travel and new cultures, so would have no reason to come here and LOOK for negativity. I have read several times from such well travelled teachers that indeed, Korea ranks with the worst in terms of backwards attitudes. Obviously we're not talking about the Balkans or the Middle East, but of the countries people often go to work. My judgement of Korea is formed by synthesising a wide array of information, and thus, it IS the balanced view, with the accompanying caveat that smaller towns are better ( btw, in small towns they'll be friendly, give you the shirt off thier back, give you more bags of homemade kimchi than you could ever consume, drink with you till the cows cime home, have you in their home, take you places, help you sign up a cell phone account, but just try to marry one of thier daughters! ).

[Homer]

Kiwi,
In that case you must take into account that people with an axe to grind are usually more vocal then people who are content. This usually ends up giving a distorted view of the reality of things.

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

[Homer]

Kiwi,

I do not think all complaints are from "misguided misanthropes looking for trouble".
Many complaints are quite valid and merit consideration.
I also know that bad bosses are out there and that foreign teachers do get shafted at times. I never disputed this.
I am also quite aware that Korea has many bad points (as well as good ones). I don't like or accept everything here. Some things bother me, others don't.
I just have a tendency to doubt general and sweeping comments that try to sum up an entire culture into one basic bad trait. Same thing goes for people that insist on putting Korea and Koreans in a simple good/bad frame.
Thats just my way of looking at things. I also have many friends here who are quite happy and never post on any board. They also never complain about their life here because they seem to be content. Some of my friends here are or were just not happy in Korea. They had bad experiences (bad boss, bad luck...) and/or were simply unsuited to live abroad or in Korea. They are however more apt to voice their concerns or frustrations then people that are content or happy here.
In my experiences, and this was also a prevalent attitude back home, people who feel frustrated are more vocal about it, hence this distorts the proportion of the populace they represent. It does not mean the problems don't exist, it means these problems can be magnified beyond their true proportions.
Finally, the complaints do reflect reality here to a certain extent but with the important caveat mentionned above.


Now weatherman

[Zyzyfer]

[jajdude]

Homer,

Glad to see your views. Hey this place gets to almost every foreigner now and then. It's not an easy place to be. And we all see things through our own filters or whatever. A lot of posts are based on moods, not rational awareness. Korea's simply not very used to foreigners, and still has a chip on its shoulder for the past wrongs done here. We have to live in that atmosphere. And sometimes it's just hard to bear being in a foreign country anyway.

[Homer]

Excellent points jajdude....

Wish I could be so succint as you...I tend to ramble on at times....

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

[Zed]