Korean Job Discussion Forums

[catman]

I've only met a couple of senior citizens in Korea who could speak English.


I would love to speak to (even thought a translator) a Korea who is around 80-90 years old. They would have lived in Japanese occupied Korea and survived the war.

South Korea has gone through more change in the last century than almost any nation on earth.

[catman]

Korean Woman turns 114

I'm guessing she is one of the very few Koreans left who lived during the last days of Joseon!

[Captain Corea]

I regularly talk to two in their 70's.

Always interesting.

[Italy37612]

There is an old taxi driver, 84 if I remember correctly, that was a translator during the Korean War. I never get tired of hearing his stories. Often I catch his taxi when leaving from work and I am the last fare before his shift is over. On more than one occasion he has come out for chicken and beer with my and my mates. Stand up guy.

[Gaegeum2003]

On occasion, I've talked to my grandmother-in-law, with my wife as the translator. And she always has very interesting stories to tell, like her Japanese name during occupation, and how they were forced to study Japanese. All interesting stuff!

[happiness]

i have dinner with my teachers father, who is about 82 now, now and then. He is rather wealthy and well travelled though. very interesting guy.

i helped a 95 year old granny in Dunkin once. She was eating a donut and having a coke before going to the doctors. She asked me what time it was, and then told me how old she was. I held the door for her.

[schwa]

A Korean friend once took to me to her home village & introduced me to a couple great aunts in their 90s. They stopped their work (!) in the fields to come greet us with broad toothless smiles.

We drank tea with another of her relatives, close to a hundred, who lived independently in a tiny house & mostly just watched tv anymore but still split her own firewood.

This was in a little valley not far from the DMZ that somehow got passed over by the war. My friend's ancestral family home was still intact, 200 years old with original furnishings.

[Tundra_Creature]

I met an adjusshi in his late 70s when I went to the Korean Folk Village. He was quite well travelled and his English was quite good. However, his son and his family were living in America, and his wife had passed away, so he was on his own. It was very nice though, he translated shows for me going on at the folk village and mentioned how as a child he used to live on farms and such things similar to that. He was a very pleasant guy to talk to.

[English Matt]

I had an old lady (in her 70s so she said) yell "Hello, hello??" to me on an overpass near Suwon Stadium. So used to the hellos, I just waved and said hi back. Next thing I knew she was speaking fluent English to me....she'd spent 20 years living in LA working in a shopping mall. She said she had loved it and missed her friends from there. She'd moved back to Suwon a couple of years before to look after her sick mother (who was in her 90s). She couldn't complain enough about Korea.....from people spitting, to people shoving past eachother on the sidewalks, to the buses being too warm in the winter and driving too fast.....it felt like reading this website.

She followed me to the bus-stop, where I said goodbye to her and got on a bus to Seoul. Never saw her again, but I remember how sad she looked.....very odd encounter.


Oh and I've met a few elderly Koreans here in Berlin who speak German....they've lived here most of their lives though, so almost German in the way they talk and act.

[catman]

[ajuma]

I've met a variety of older Koreans, but the most memorable was when I met a man on a bus in Ulsan (70ish?) who had worked on ships running between Korea and the US. He had some great stories!!

Every so often I give my uni students a homework assignment. They have to talk to the oldest person in their family and ask questions such as: What was it like when you were young? Where did you go to school? Where did you shop?

Every time I give that assignment, I get a bunch of students telling me "Wow! I didn't know that about my grandma! Thank you for giving me this assignment!"

So many incredible stories are being lost because the current generation has no clue about the lives of their grandparents!!!

[fezmond]

heard proud mary by CCR blasting from a stereo last summer in mapo-gu and stopped to talk about good music. 3 guys in their 60s, all seemed decent, we bought each other beers and talked (kinda) decent music.

i wish there were more people her with a decent sense of music

[Lao Wai]

I was taking a train from Busan to Seoul back in 2002 when a woman in her 70s came up to my group of friends. For some reason, she fixated on me. She kept saying "Oh you have such golden hair!" (In English). She then proceeded to start stroking my head (like you would a dog). At the time, I was 21, whiter than white, blue-eyed, skinny, and had dirty-blond hair rather than 'golden'.

At first, it was quite funny and she talked rather wistfully about how I looked like a man she once knew. However, the longer she stayed the more we got the impression that she wasn't 'all there'. I don't care what country a person is from, I can usually tell when there's a screw loose.

Eventually, she left us alone but she did come back few times to chat some more, smile and give us that 'not quite there' look.

[Cedar]

thought this was a joke thread, since why would it be an issue, but then I saw the OP doesn't speak Korean.

My answer? Heck, I don't know how old, but I was chatting with three people in their 80s and two in their 70s on Thursday. I've certainly talked with people in their 90s. Never occurred to me to stir up potentially painful memories by asking about occupation and what not. Sometimes when I interview older folks it does come up naturally, though.

One time my professor (who was already emeritus) started talking about being in HS during WWII. Pretty freaky stories, I think it's the kind of stuff he was saying that made sure I won't ask other people blithely about the tough old days.

[PatrickGHBusan]

94 years of age.

He was a fascinating guy. Lots of amazing stories to tell. He hung out at a nearby park where older guys play changi (korean chess). I played that game on and off and one day I ended up playing a few games with him. He had had quite the life. He passed away 2 years later.