Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Wishmaster]

Well, I've been back home for nearly one month. I have to say that my feelings are still mixed. It just feels strange to hear every single word of a conversation and understand it perfectly. The biggest thing that I've noticed is that the people back home are soooooo much more aggressive than the Koreans. Here, there is a more "in your face" mentality. I think that Koreans just have better manners than the people in our countries. Nobody ever got in my face in Korea...even during those brutal days in December and early January(ie the presidential election/outcome of the 2 servicemen).

You begin to realize that there isn't much you really miss about home. I mean, you can get basically anything in Korea that you can get over here. Sure, it's nice to go into a supermarket and get real chocolate milk, various cheeses and anything else that you craved when you were in Korea. But, you know...it really isn't that big of a deal. Sure, I've got real nature here with kickass mountains...but Korea has its own unique nature and I do miss it. Yes, I can watch all the NHL and NBA that I want....but so what. What I'm saying is that the longer that I was in Korea the less everything seems here at home. It just doesn't seem as relevant or as interesting. I have definitely had a case of "reverse culture shock"...no doubt. The place grows on you.

What I'm saying is that you should just enjoy your time there and not think so hard about the future. I always lived day to day in Korea and I think that it helped me. Just try to take it one day at a time. Will I come back to Korea? That is a tough call. There is a part of me that wants to come back but there is also a part of me that wants to just get established here and move on from the Korean experience. But I do find myself comparing everyday things here with everyday things in Korea....so, it is still in my head. I guess it all depends on what happens in the next several months. Anyhow, this will most likely be my last post...unless I come back.

[Bulsajo]

Oh, you'll be back, my friend, you'll be back!
Well, maybe not to Korea, but probably to this board- here you will find people who understand your experience and how it has changed you.

[FierceInvalid]

[William Beckerson]

It's like they say: You can never go back.

[Blue Flower]

For some reason, that statement terrifies me. So are you saying that after being over here, you never totally feel comfortable back in the western world?

[weatherman]

[chi-chi]

mods you may delete

[jajdude]

I don't really buy any of the above commentary after several years in Korea. The human mind is adaptable and can get used to many things. You can go back and get back into the culture without too much difficulty. Sure you're a little changed from your experience abroad but perhaps you are better off understanding things from another country better than most locals. You may not find others to talk about it with but I wouldn't exactly compare it to people to have been in wars. I know a guy who was in the Vietnam war and definitely does feel different and unable to really talk to and be comprehended by most people. Now that I would say is different, not just a few years abroad.

[FierceInvalid]

Yeah you can go back, you'll just see things differently. As worldly as a person tries to be, if they haven't spent an extended period of time away from their home country and looked at it from a distance there's still going to be an element of "home country-centrism" (for lack of a better term) in all their perceptions.

For me, having looked back at Canada from a distance for a while now, I just wouldn't be enthusiastic about going back right now because I've lost interest in lots of things that I used to think were really cool or important, and they haven't been replaced by anything else that I could find in Canada (since I'm not there to pick up new interests). I don't see this as alienation; I'm pretty sure I'll go back sometime, and I'll find lots of cool things about it when I do. If I can't find those cool things, then I'll go somewhere else.

[indiercj]

[Blue Flower]

I guess it would depend on how totally you embraced the Korean world while you were over here. I mean if you only eat Korean food, talk Korean, write Hangul, etc, it would be totally weird when you get back, especially if you totally love the whole Korean culture thing. I know this is almost blasphemous to some people, but I am totally conscious that I am western, and I don't want to lose my culture whilst I am here. I don't speak "konglish", i still incorporate some maori words into my teaching, etc, and I don't eat Korean food. I think this should make it easier when i do eventually go home. Though of course I am going to realise how small NZ really is!!

[desultude]

I am thinking about what I want to do next year- if I want to remain at my job here, take a different job, or go back to the States, where I actually have a good job with friends waiting for me.

For me the question is not the U.S. or Korea. but the U.S. or the world. I feel the same way about returning to the U.S. now as I did when I was in Mexico. Like it or not, and I don't want to debate that point, the U.S. is the center of world power at the moment. That reality permeates all things there. Its rather like the master-slave dialetic. People in the U.S. can afford to be oblivious to the rest of the world, but the rest of the world has to be ever vigilant about the U.S.. When you are in the U.S., you don't really have to think much about the rest of the world, or think much at all for that matter. Lots of people do there- think that is- but it is sort of optional. For the majority of people in the U.S., things are much easier than they think. I think that is where a lot of the lack of stimulation comes from, and why a lot of life there is so superficial. From the outside you can see things like how the propaganda machinery keeps people from questioning things. The world becomes a more complex puzzle. I think that is why most ex-pats becomes cultural relativists. Going out into the world for extended periods of time throws all of your old, stuck assumptions into disarray.

In Korea, and in Mexico, I am constantly aware of how the use of power by the U.S. affects others in both intended and unintended ways. As they say in Mexico, and I understant that a version of this is used by a lot of countries, if the U.S. sneezes, Mexico get pneumonia. In Korea everyone is acutely aware of how life and death can hang in the balance of how the U.S. deals with the North. If the consumer market in the States dries up, the Korean economy will be a disaster. If the U.S. sneezes. . .

When I consider whether to go back to the U.S. or not, I have to consider working with clients, for my friends business, who are wealthy and oblivious (I am talking about working in high-end import retail in South Florida- you know, decorators, cosmetically enhanced homeowners, etc.) I have to consider going back in an election year, and the truth is the G.W. could actually get elected this time. I have to consider going back to a place where it actually matters that Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy broke up, and I suppose where I am reminded that I actually know who they are, what incredibly vacuous movie they made, and when they go together.

Once you have lived "over there", wherever that may be for you, it can never be just another sand, or kimchee, or tortilla, filled country on a map. When the question of going to war against Iraqis or North Koreans or Iranians arises, those people have faces and personalities to someone who has been there. When the U.S. tightens immigration policy and sends back or keeps out Mexican workers, they are the husbands and fathers of people you know, and who you know are living in Mexico on $2.00 a day.

If you can't go back home again, in the metaphoric sense of being the same person you were when you were there, then that is probably a good thing. But it is a sad and lonely thing also. It is sad because that is really where your family and much of your heart is, and lonely because you will always be an ex-pat or an immigrant. You may become increasingly at home in your chosen second country, but I don't think that it is possible to ever be completely assimilated. Being an outsider and an observer has its pleasures, but it is a restless and disconnected life.

[DHC]

I have been living in Asia since 1992 and in Korea since 1998 , married to a Korean woman and I will probably never go back to the US. When I visit I feel like a tourist or stranger. Western food makes me sick.

For me , there is no going back and I don't mind in the least.

[Tiger Beer]

I agee with all of this.. I've been in and out of Korea since 1996.. and really I actually didn't like Korea all that much my first year here.. it was okay.. but personally I thought just about anywhere else would be better..

But.. all things considered.. when you are away from Korea.. you realize how much you had.. and how easy life was.. and the little things that maybe annoyed you seems so funny and irrelevant..

Also, no one at home can really relate.. when I've been back to the USA.. my best friends at home are the ones who also might have taught in Korea.. or even Koreans themselves.. neither is what I expected when I went home..

Korea is alot of fun to talk about when you aren't there.. and always something kind of interesting or quirky.. i miss it most when i'm not in Korea.. but when i'm in korea, i find myself dreaming of going other places..

[The King of Kwangju]

Interesting thread, and I agree with most of it, save this glaring statement: