Korean Job Discussion Forums

[lpcool]

I've been living in Korea for some time now and have witnessed a few things, some great and some downright disturbing. Among them:

1. This national sense of insecurity in Koreans, this sense of nationwide inferiority complex.
2. The way they totally abuse each other in every facet of life: the driving, abuse at work, cutting in line, the rote-learning education, general mutual contempt for each other that underlies all this.
3. This "idea" that they believe like the gospel that they're "one ethnicity" and that whites are somehow superior to them and that "darker races" are inferior to them.

I'd say that by far the hardest to explain to my friends back home is No. 2 - the way in which Koreans tend to abuse each other. They just can't believe that a whole nation's worth of people can have a collectively messed up psyche and that they'd somehow abuse each other and favor "foreigners", since all the racism they've ever come across has been a people of one race favoring its own kind over others, not the other way around. They think that it's the figment of my imagination and "negative attitude".

Have you ever successfully explained this to your friends? Can you think of any good analogies?

[Tiger Beer]

i think this one would be hard to explain, as its of your own observation.. so its going to reflect to some extent the way you look at Korea.. so you'd probably come off as having a negative attitude and kind of skewed view of things..

I'd say its better not to try to try to explain that.. and just go with pc-bang galore and tiny mini-cellphones.. those two as simple as they seem, seem to go over quite strangely back home as well.. but at least you have some solid evidence to back you up..

[gang ah jee]

friends back home?

huh?

[FierceInvalid]

I never try to explain anything about Korea to anyone anywhere else. I don't know enough, and they don't want to hear it anyway. Stick with the odd wacky anecdote, it'll serve you better.

[Trinny]

Ipcool,

I don't tell anybody back home about Korea that much. My friends aren't all that interested and they are all wrapped up with their obsessions. You will also forget about the quirkiness of the Koreans, once you leave the place and go back home.

[Butterfly]

[Tiger Beer]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

One way is to take some Koreans back home with you on holiday - like your students, for instance. Bring them to your friends for a BBQ, your aunt's for dinner, etc. Let them tell your aunt all about Dok-do and play with your friend's little white children like they were little dolls and sit them around your sister's table chomping away on pizza, every last one of them eating with her mouth open and go out to a restaurant and watch them all take photos of their food. Once your friends and family have met them they'll believe anything.

[billybrobby]

seriously, all these old threads are messing up the board.

[Mashimaro]

Explaining to your friends? What makes you think they would care in the slightest about Korea's perceived flaws. Might put them to sleep but thats about it.

[SPINOZA]

[Qinella]

[Moldy Rutabaga]

[....]

[rothkowitz]

Friends.....???

Home.....???

[Pateach]

I am very new To Korea. But here's the brazen opinion of an admittedly ignorant newbie...I find that my friends who have lived abroad are interested, I think because they have adjusted to culture shock previously. It's always nice to have someone interested in what you say, obviously. Mostly I write to my friends who've lived in really different cultures or been in the Peace Corps (I'm a bit of a leftie, so I know these kind of folks). Also, if you have a travel blog, it's geeky, I admit, but it's a good writing outlet and only the people who give a ______ comment.