Korean Job Discussion Forums

[sadguy]

back from home. have you ever walked around town and recognized someone from back home that you didn't know was in korea? or have a similar experience?

[murmanjake]

kinda the opposite I guess....

Last winter I was walking around Times Square and quite literally bumped into an old co-worker from my first hagwon here. Had no idea he was in the city and had a great time catching up at a nearby bar...

[Underwaterbob]

When I first came here I met a couple who were at university (small, 3500 students) with me that I had never met until then.

[Louis VI]

Zip. I've been here since 2002 and have met a lot of people but none I had known before coming here.

I was surprised to find out that one of the two Canadians that died in the Bali bombing I knew from my home city. He'd say hi to me often. We were the same age but went to different schools, played soccer against each other on community teams.

When I first came to Korea, I had spoken with that Shawn guy who wrote a book about Geoje then went to China and jumped off of a building.

Aside from those two 'small world' moments, none other like it with any relation to Asia.

[TECO]

I was walking down the street one day and ran into a kid that was a grade behind me in high school. He of course was also teaching EFL. Anyways, we were both from the same home town and went to the same high school.

Then, once when I was walking down Bangla Road in Phuket, I ran into a kid that was in the same grade as me in high school. He was also teaching EFL, but in Saudi Arabia, and was in Phuket for some R&R.

[Skippy]

I have two small world stories.

A minor and major.

The minor. In my neighborhood was a couple of small Hagwons and one day some of the teacher where hanging out at another of the teacher apartment, just getting to know who each other was. Well the general questions, what did you study, where are you from, etc. Asking one guy - where are you from, he said no where special very small. Well I push again and he said (SMALL PLACE). Amazingly I did know the place and a little well. I commented that and that also my grandparents lived their for a while. He asked them their name and amazingly he did know them. It was that small of a town. Still it was a little neat. It is like asking somebody from the US if he knows Jim Bob.

The major small world story has some religion mixed up with it. A couple of note my last name is a little unique, it ain't no Smith or Jone, I grew up in the Mormon church and for a couple of years my father worked as teacher here in Korea. This was many years ago near my start in the place of the morning calm. Typical day, it is in the morning, chilling before work starts in the afternoon (hagwon) and the phone rings. Picking it up and hoping to not get the usual gabber of Korean and frustration of a wrong call. I get an English speaker who ask me if this "XXX XXXXXXX". Little confused I continue and say yes. The speaker say this is (NAME OF PERSON) and do you remember me. Of course I remember the name the person made my life hell for about a year.

The low down was when I was a teen I would go to seminary basically spedning an hour in the morning before talking about the Bible or Book of Mormon. Still every morning a group of older kids would hassle, pick on me and just make my life hell. Yep very Christian behavior there. The guy calling was one of those guys. So here I am on the phone and in the back of my mind going durrr. I eventually reply that yes I remember him. Not really knowing what to say., he tells me that he is in Korea as a MISSIONARY and in the same city as I was teaching in. He had heard the my father was around and went to church regularly (me I did not go) before he moved on. But also found out that I was here and got in contact.

Well after he explained why he was calling me. So somethings made sense. Still for a minute I thought some weird things of maybe this guy is trying to track me down to finish me off or this was some sort of weird AAnon/NaAnon/etc kind of apology deals. Yet, he apologizes after he explains why he is calling. He would like to meet or course permitting certain circumstances like daytime and not the local wayguk bar. So I did end up meeting him. He apologized again and we started talking. Met him a few more time and treated him to a few dinners as he was poor (part of the lifestyle), and went to church a few times. Maybe that is why he called once I think about it. Still it was nice and I made a friend out of it.

Edited for privacy.

[DeLaRed]

you'll have a good chance of meeting a friend from Nova Scotia if that's where you're from.....pretty much everyone from Nova Scotia is teaching/taught here before

[rchristo10]

I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in 10 years at Paul's Dinner in Beijing, China when I visited there last month. Didn't recognize him at all then realized he was one of my very good friends (Asians seem to morph when they hit the big 3.0.) Talk about a small world. We went to a college with 40,000 people and ended up meeting in a back alley in Beijing, China during a weekend trip. He majored in medicine and I did math, Chinese, and Japanese. Never expected to see him again.

We lost contact years ago and now are great friends again.

[Patrick Bateman]

Kinda the opposite happened to me.

I was visiting back home in between contracts. I was at a local bar in a town outside Chicago.

I went to a table where one of my friends was sitting and there was this girl there I didn't know. She started flirting and talking with me (she definitely wasn't attractive so I am not bragging).

It turns out her best friend lives in the same town as me in Korea. It's not a very big town in Korea, maybe 100k people (around 14 EPIK teachers), and neither of the 2 people (the person in Korea and the friend) were even from Chicago/Illinois, so it was even more random and unlikely.

[Bill2K]

I know two people who majored in Asian Studies/Japanese who are here instead of Japan. ESL market in Japan is tough to get into atm.

[sallymonster]

At the Boryeong Mud Festival of all places, I ran into an old friend from back home whom I hadn't seen or heard from in 6 years. We didn't recognize each other at first, but then I realized who he was when he friended me on Facebook and we had friends in common. Then I randomly ran into that same person again 2 months later at a hostel in Kyoto, Japan.

I didn't even tell him that I knew who he was. He probably figured it out, though.

We've since lost touch again. I think he went back to the US, but I'm not sure. Who knows when and where I'll meet this guy again?