Their response about living in Korea
I have searched many about how foreigners really felt about living in Korea and this one really catches my eye. Well even though I wrote about Korea here but I do believe that not everything is perfect and yes maybe the society they lived in Korea was a bit new and awkward but I do believe that the smallest different brings out the best thing. This young lady stories really catches my heart. I mean even if they sometime ( I meant about the koreans )stared at you it wasn't because of you're being judge or something. Sometimes it just meant that they were awe by your appearance and wanted to talk but too scares. I don't know I mean I've met one before. I was just like them too, I gets so excited everytime I seen a korean people. I mean I wanted to be their friend, but at the same time i was scared that they might have been awkward or scared to talk to me.
But one day while i was on the train i saw a bunch of korean University student gettin on the same train too, and their bags was stuck at the door since they didn't manage to get in fast. But after the help of the authority they are fine, my friends pokes me asking me to speak with them since i can speak korean (*well just a simple conversation anyway) and so i did. I only ask where were they heading and they ask me the same question after i get their answer. Then i sat again with my friends feeling so happy just by saying hye to some koreans ( I really am so happy at that moment even its just for like 5 second )
But then they came and approach me. Speaking in koreans with me. Well i do understands them and replied them one by one. They were so amazed seeing how can such tiny girl learn and can be so fluent!( But really im not that fluent, still have more to learn) Hahahaha and they can speak english well too but everytime i replied in english they ask me question again in korean and ask me to replied in korea. You know when you were talking with them in korean and the look in their eyes with those shining eyes beaming was just terrifyingly cute. They were so adorable. I love korean people!
Living in Korea as a foreigner
Please note: this post is in reaction to one I read earlier this week onChris in South Korea (one of my regular blog reads). I don’t agree with everything he said but it was a good and thought-provoking article. Thanks to Yuri for starting the conversation about Chris’ post on Facebook… which inspired me to write about my opinion on living in Korea as a foreigner.
Now, if you’ve read my blog before you know I love Korea. But it’s not all roses. I love Canada too (my native country) but can still see both the good and bad points. Every country (and every person) has both good and bad characteristics. Nothing (and nobody) is perfect.
So what was it like living in Korea as a foreigner? While it can be hard to generalize, my experience can be put into two categories: what it’s like living in Seoul and what it’s like living elsewhere in Korea. Let’s start with living elsewhere in Korea. My first year in Korea I lived in Ulsan, the smallest of the seven major cities in Korea. Population-wise, it’s a lot like living in Mississauga. In reality, it’s a lot like living in a small town or city (and trust me, I know small towns – I grew up in one).
There aren’t a lot of foreigners there so we really stood out (and I look visibly white, I’m not fully but that’s another story). Living in Ulsan, I can sympathize with what was written in “Embracing my un-Korean-ness”. The first Korean word I learned (not from my Lonely Planet Phrasebook) was “waygookin” (외국인) which means foreigner because people would often point at me and say it. I had older Korean ladies and children count the freckles on my arms; children, teens and university students say “Hi” then giggle and run away (which is super cute when it’s a five-year old but a tad odd when it’s a 20something guy); and I was propositioned a few times (apparently some middle-aged men think all white foreign girls near Busan are prostitutes, it even happened once while dressed in business casual). But the worst part was how many people seemed nervous around us. I wanted to make friends, not make people uncomfortable. In my first year, I did have more foreign friends than Korean and almost all my Korean friends were co-workers. And I did spend a lot of time in foreigner bars in Ulsan because there was a sense of community there. Plus the Koreans who also frequented them seemed more comfortable around us.
Yeah, some odd things happened in Ulsan… and sometimes I was made uncomfortable by some people’s bad behaviour (although to be honest, some of that bad behaviour was on the part of other foreigners). But some amazing things happened too! I made some fantastic friendships; was invited to friend’s family’s homes for dinner; was given some neat gifts (like a homemade pencil holder from a friend’s father that I still use); and was taught about Korean culture and history (thus igniting my love of it).
In Seoul, things were different as most of the Koreans were more comfortable around foreigners. I lived in the same neighbourhood in Seoul – Bangi-dong – for two years and it felt like my home. Yes, people would often ask me to speak to them in English but they also said hello to me and called me by name. In Seoul, many of my friends were Korean, especially by the second year so when I went out to dinner or shopping or clubbing, I was often the only visible foreigner (several of my friends were Kyopos). Maybe that’s why I felt more like I fit in… I don’t know. Plus oftentimes being treated a little differently was an advantage – like when I would get extra fruit for speaking Korean or get free Sprite/Cider because I made friends with the restaurant owner’s daughter. Random people would often strike up conversations with me on the subway or in stores, and I made some interesting friendships just by chatting with strangers. I never minded when people in shops, restaurants or the gym I frequented would practice their English on me (and ask me questions) because I always learned something too. It’s one of the reasons I know so much about Korean culture – I often exchanged English lessons for Korean culture lessons.
Of course, there were occasionally times when I stood out and was stared at. My friend Angi (a Korean-Canadian) and I joined a gym that had a small jimjilbang (찜질방, a Korean bathing house) attached. The first time I went into the change room, yeah I was stared at… same with the first time I went into the showers… and the first time I went into the saunas… you see where this is going. But I was the first and ONLY foreigner at the gym. And after a few times, the staring stopped and I was treated just like any of the other women. I would even get offers from the older ajummas to scrub my back! But being different also had benefits too… I got (and Angi too since we always went together) a lot of extra free personal training by some super hot (oops, did I say that) trainers. After six months of going to that gym; I looked great, had a flat stomach and I learned to love spinning class.
Another place where I felt a little stared at was when my friends and I went to a waterpark in Kangwondo (강원도). I even bought a Korean four-piece bikini to fit in. Yep, I said four-piece. It had the regular top and bottom plus a little skirt and tank top-like top (all made of bathing suit material). But it didn’t help, I still got stared at. However, I was the only visible minority/foreigner in the entire waterpark (I looked). I’d probably stare at the one person in a thousand if they stood out that much too.
Beyond the staring, there were always the occasional Korean guy who wanted to “ride the white horse”, an expression that means, umm, that he wanted to have sex with a white girl to see if it was different. I love clubbing because I love dancing so this was an occasional annoyance but guys in Canada can be jerks too. So I never really took this to be a “you’re only a foreigner, you’ll never fit in” thing but just a “some guys are jerks” thing. But it did bother me when a guy I was dating told me his mother was making him break up with me because I wasn’t Korean. I’d never had anyone break up with me because of my race (or lack of the “proper” one). That being said, it was probably just a convenient excuse… if he truly had feelings for me, he would have fought for me and our relationship.
So yeah, in part I agree with the post that spawned my post, I did get stared at sometimes and treated differently sometimes. However, I think the more I embraced the culture and the people… the less it happened. I do think that it could be possible to fit in for the most part. But remember, most foreigners in Korea look different from Koreans – we’re visible minorities – and so yeah, we will stand out. Just the same as when the first non-Caucasian or non-Native-Canadian moved into my hometown (growing up in Buckhorn there were only white and Native people – or mixes like me until I was in high school). It’s human nature to stare at something or someone that’s different. But by learning the language, the culture, making Korean friends and living a Korean lifestyle… I did start to fit in and loved it. I found at the end, I stood out WAY more when I was with a group of my foreign friends than when I was with my Korean friends.
Living in Korea as a foreigner may not have been perfect but I loved it. And while not everyone welcomed me with open arms, quite a few did and made me feel like part of the community in Bangi-dong. Ulsan was a different story, I like it there but it never felt like home. Seoul, on the other hand, I would move back to in a heartbeat!
