Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Night Ranger]

Dear fellow white brethren and other non-persons. Some of you are under the impression that if you study a lot of Korean, marry a Korean woman/man, eat with chopsticks, pour drinks with 2 hands, wear a pink hello kitty t-shirt etc. that somehow you will be accepted by your Korean peers and society at large. This will never happen. You could live here until you were 95 years old and you would still be seen by Koreans as a non-person/waygookin etc. The guy that jumped off the plane from Canada/U.S./England 20 minutes ago is the same as you. Of course you would like to think because you have been here X amount of years, got married, spent an ungodly amount of time with Korean language studies...that you are better than that guy...more accepted by the society. The Koreans still think of you as a waygookin first and a human second....so you 2 will always the same. Hell, I'm married too here...with a kid...apartment..all that bullcrap and I'm still the same as that dude who touched down in Incheon 20 minutes ago to the Koreans around me. I just hate to see some of you disillusioned.

[princess]

I totally agree with you. A coworker of mine and I were just discussing this very thing awhile back. She has been here for like 10 years and she said we are always going to be the foreigner here. True, so very true. Also, the conversations you had with Koreans the minute you stepped off the plane are going to be the same conversations you get 5, 10, 15 or even 100 years later...things like...."Oh, you like kimchi"? Isn't it too spicy for you"? Even if you tell a Korean how long you have been here, you will get asked silly things like "Oh, you know the meaning of opseoyo"? Isn't shin ramyeon too hot? Then they look at you with such amazement when you say it isn't hot at all, and you were raised on hot foods. I can eat habanero peppers for heaven's sake. Just a few days ago, I was eating at a hotel restaurant and I ordered a Mexican style pizza. I just knew the waitress would say something and she did. She said "This will be a little bit spicy, is that OK"? I told her yes, and that I love spicy foods. It wasn't hot at all... DUH!!! If I order it, I can eat it. Last year I went to a friend's birthday party at JJs, and the group ordered a pizza. The waitress told my Korean friend, "You have a foreigner sitting here. This is spicy. I cleared my throat because DUH I was sitting right there, and I heard and understood what she said about me in Korean. I told my friend a spicy pizza was fine...Again, not a bit spicy...

[michael5799042]

How long did it take for you to figure that out?

[Night Ranger]

[Whistleblower]

I always suprise friends and family in Korea about the way I have tried to become more adaptable to Korean culture. In some ways, they say that I am virtually Korean because I know this, that or the other and can eat this, that or the other. However, I will never be Korean and am proud to be British migrant in this country.

When you return back home, think about how the migrants feel in your own culture. They are not going to be accepted to be British fully, but the second/third generation are going to be British.

It happens in your own culture as well as Korea.

[Whistleblower]

One good phrase to throw your way when you order some spicy food:

좀 멥게 해 주세요.

[Kiarell]

"Oh helloooooooooooo! Where are you from?"
(First thing out the mouth. Like "Where's you return address?")
Then,
"When do you go?"

(You meet someone and the first two questions that person asks are about your point of origin and when you will be going back there)

"How long have you been here?" or "How long will you be staying?" pop up, but not as often as I'd like. I'm sure there's some cultural differences at work and some broken English...but sometimes it gets to me and I'll think about it.

So yeah, there is little notion that you can ever be "one of us". But that happens in lots of places. Think of how many people in the West might refer to a naturalized citizen or even a fellow countryman by their original ethnicity.

You just won't get the validation you desire from society at large. Defend yourself and stand with people who will accept and then tell off or ignore the others. That's all you can do. You're wasting your time (and dignity) if you think wearing pink t-shirts will raise you from second-class status.

[R-Seoul]

Mate, whatever happened to Pimp of Korea? - that guy was a funny son of a bitch. Night Ranger is way too serious for my liking.

[Kiarell]

[princess]

[Young FRANKenstein]

[Night Ranger]

[warren pease]

Holy crap, white people sure do complain a lot. GO HOME!

[sojourner1]

Yea, the fact that I could never fit into Korean society makes me not motivated to learn Korean language as much as I could and should, get married, and make a lifetime stay. It's just simply not heterogeneous here like in Western countries, but that is slowly changing with foreigners having kids with Korean women though only a handful of foreigners are doing this.

If you were living in Europe, you could fit in and be one of them... I looked so German that the Germans don't know that English is a better way to talk to me and they treated me as one of their own, but the job market situation for non E.U. nationals is no good so I can't live there. I lived there for 3 years while serving in the US Army and just absolutely love living in Europe, because I fit in, it's open minded, so outgoing, very artsy, and it's where my ancestors came from.

[Oreovictim]