Another View of Korea

At a site I'm registered at, www.iluvkorea.com (inappropriately named, I might add), there are other people have been in Korea, and who have blogged. This section of a post, comes from the guy at Spoon with Koreans, an American guy, who taught in a Hagwon for some time in Seoul. I totally understand his situation, so want to share what he said, after thinking about his experience in Korea.

Final thoughts on Korea? Don't care? That's OK, I'll give them to you anyway. My feelings towards this place have changed a lot since I first came, the first few months were all just new experiences and it was exciting. Around the 4th month, I really loved it here, it was getting easier at work and I wasn't feeling so isolated. And then there was a problem. You stay in Korea more than six months and that's enough time for the country to really bear down on you and beat you with its culture.

Simply put, foreigners just aren't treated properly in Korea. Screw the excuses about cultural differences and how Koreans aren't used to be around foreigners, you're either nice to people or you're an ass. And Korea is full of asses. The racism isn't blatant and it isn't in your face, probably one of the reasons I didn't really pick up on when I first got here, but dig a little deeper and it's there, and it's not a pretty picture. I've always felt alone in this country, even when surrounded by Koreans. It's tough to describe, but anyone whose been in Korea for any length of time knows that feeling I'm talking about.

The worst isolation, by far, has come at work. Nathan and I are up against a great beast, in the form of a bunch of Koreans who have no desire to even be remotely friendly towards us. It's easy to just say, so what, just ignore them, do your job and go home. And I convinced myself to do that a long time ago, but it still eats away at you, day by day. Somehow God forgot to give Koreans the gene that controls showing compassion towards people of different races. Here's an example, the teacher who will replace me will get here on Saturday night, just as I did last year. Then at Monday, at 2pm, still jet-lagged and probably awake since 5am, he'll be thrown to the wolves. He will walk into that office and the Korean teachers will look up from their desks for a second, smile and say hi, and five seconds later, all will be calm again. He will just be the next white guy. Besides Nathan, nobody will help him, nobody will ask him anything about his life, about how he's adjusting to Korea. He will be expected to teach 30 classes a week and teach them all well, without any direction as to how to teach, what materials to use, and if he doesn't do this, he will be looked down upon and treated like an idiot. It's an awfully difficult situation to come into, and all I can do is wish him the best. Although, for his sake, he better not see this blog until at least his 6th month here.

If I could do it all again, I wouldn't. As in, I wouldn't have come to Korea. Living abroad is an amazing experience and I think everyone should do it at least once in their life, but the world is full of incredible places and cities, and Seoul, South Korea is not one of them. I knew before I came here that I was choosing money over the experience and I also kind of knew before I came that would be a mistake. I should have gone to Thailand, but what's done is done and getting out of where I was with my life in America last year was still the best decision I've ever made.