Korean Job Discussion Forums

[D.D.]

I was at this bus station yesterday and this 3 year old kid was doing the hello thing. Her and her brother were like hellllooo and I said helloooo so they said hello and I did like 5 more hellloos.

Then the kid breaks into nobody nobody but you. As if it isn't bad enough that everytime the word nodody is mentioned at school my students break into that song. Three year old kids?

If I had a top ten list on reasons to leave Korea number one would be

1. nobody

[Starla]

I used to say hi back and then continue with what I was doing. Now I just ignore them. The only kids I say hello to are my students. Really, if you're going to act so pompous, you deserve to be ignored, even if you're a child. Where do they get the idea that this is okay? I think the parents have seen them doing this to other foreigners before and have never gone to the trouble and of telling them that they shouldn't do that.

[MrRogers]

starla:

[nebraska1]

[VanIslander]

If a "Hello" comes from behind me then my backside is all they get!

(of course, if my name is mentioned I turn a 360 in search of who to wave and smile at.)

If a "Hello" comes from my right or left then I turn my head, smile and nod, maybe "Hi".

If a "Hello" comes from in front of me, and isn't too loud or said a number of times then I reply with a "Hi". Otherwise just a smile and a small nod.

[Starla]

For me, it's an eye for an eye, even with my students. If they skip up to me and say hello, I start skipping too and say hello to them. It makes them smile. Some of my students lately like saying "Okay, okay, okay..." to me as they wave their hand to shoo me away when I'm telling them something. It annoys me to no end and I do the same thing back. It usually silences them and elicits embarrassed giggles from their friends. I've had my students' classmates try to explain or apologize for their friends' bad behavior to me. These kids need to be kept in check.

[moosehead]

[Chamchiman]

[Perceptioncheck]

[Starla]

They wouldn't be saying hello if it was another Korean person. Sometimes those hellos are accompanied by finger pointing, gasps and giggles. I don't like to feel like I'm a clown walking down the street. I think societies in most of the settled world have progressed beyond treating people as walking oddities and attractions. Where I'm from, most people wouldn't give two sh*ts about me as I walked down the street. That's the way I prefer it...unless it's some hot guy checking me out. Then it's okay.

And to moosehead, you're right. The parents can be clueless too. I've had several instances where the child stared at me and the mother did nothing but just looked on. That's when I usually start staring at the mother and very hard.

[jkelly80]

A good response is a "what?" or a confused "I don't understand you" face. If you think they're skittish about English normally, you should see how they react when they think they're not saying 'hello' correctly.

[yeoja]

[T-J]

Those of you that are complaining about this phenomenon, are you really surprised?

Do you really think you are the first westerners that this has happened to?

OMFG, I can't believe I am wasting my time responding to this drivel.


You travel, and I'm assuming traveling to see things that you haven't seen back in Kansas was one of your reasons for moving here, and then you bitch about what? They notice I'm a foreigner and say "hello" to me.

I'm going back to bed.

[cdninkorea]

I usually just say hello. If they're being annoying I'll tell them that I'm Polish and don't speak English (in Korean).

It doesn't happen to me often though, so that might be part of why it doesn't bother me much.

[Oreovictim]

When my students would sneeze, I'd sing, "I want nobody, nobody AH-CHOO!" The little kids loved it, but I gave up that joke once flu season came.