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Korea - 9+ yearsKorea is a great place. Before I go into the dark side, let's look at a few outstanding goodies you get to have as a wide-eyed foreigner in exile from your own homeland.- People are basically friendly, even in big, crowded cities, unlike in many other places. And Koreans are often profoundly decent people. I’ve lost three phones in Korea, and misplaced my wallet twice. I got my wallet back, contents complete. both times; and twice I had my phones returned to me. I once left my phone on a counter at a store, and a clerk hunted me down through the telecom company, and sent it to my address - unasked. Other people have similar stories. It’s remarkable, and unheard of in other places. The underlying reasons for this and the attitudes they foster are part of the reason I love Korea, and Koreans.- People like foreigners. You’ll like Koreans, too, if you take the time and energy to actively engage them. You'll make friends that stick with you for life, and you won't ever regret it. If you put in serious effort, it doesn't go unrewarded.- Collaborative culture: Despite the claustrophobic conformity, the closeness and attention people give each other has definite advantages. I've never seen teams of people get together to complete group tasks as efficiently as I've seen in Korea. You want something complex done that requires lots of co-ordinated effort? Koreans are the people to ask. This goes for many group activities, too. But note that this is the upside to a coin with many downsides, as I later discuss).- It sounds trite, given the seriousness of the rest of these observations, but it's just so amazing it has to be mentioned: co-ordination and drive produce small miracles. For example, the transportation system is beyond comparison, and it's super cheap. The rest of the world needs to study Korea and its ability to marshal public resources. There are few cities in the world that are more convenient to get around in than Seoul; efficient and timely trains that go to the furthest corner of the country for tiny amounts of money from several well-planned central stations, and they build subway lines faster than you can say "You got a permit for this in how long?" The city boasts a continuously expanding network that already puts any other city on Earth to shame. You can travel crazy distances, conveniently, at high speeds, in relative comfort. The subways are beyond compare (except for line 1 and, occasionally, line 2; I’ll go out of my way to avoid having to go any distance on line 1). And more: an intricate network of four categories of super-useful buses, all of them fast (if sometimes feeling like roller coaster rides), so great that you eventually may want to give up on the amazing subways and just use the bus system. I pretty much just use the buses, now (it helps to read Korean). Nowhere on Earth have I seen a more comprehensive transit network, maybe not even a better public service of any kind.I suspect it's the cheapest, most effective, most extensive, most efficient public transit system not just anywhere today, but in human history. I use it all the time, and it never fails to astound me how much better it is than anywhere else I've ever been or even heard of. When I go “home” to the city I grew up in, I’m deeply ashamed of the obvious incompetence and lethargy of its planners and workers.- The food is fantastic. If you like meat and spicy foods and general yummy stuff, the place is great. It’s all fresh, with a (limited but) impressive cuisine. Korea is a foodies food-culture paradise, almost unlike anywhere else.However, all of these things come with downsides.DOWNSIDES: For You, as a Foreigner- Sameness: At first, you're astounded by the amazing windfall of neighbourhoods, places, hangouts, restaurants, and endroits with local colour. There's a thousand neighbourhoods to explore in Seoul and even the larger cities like Pusan, Taegu or Gwangju. However, you soon realize something: Every subway station and neighbourhood has the same outlet stores, the same chains, the same family restaurants, the same same sameness; soon, exploring neighbourhoods takes on less urgency, as the tendency for cultural and consumerist monotony sets in. Mainstream Korea is not the multicultural haven that many Western cities have become. Outside of a few core areas, there’s a great degree of homogeneity.But this isn't so much a dark side as it is a realization that Seoul is just like any other city - just moreso. It’s bigger, louder, vaster, more everything, more intense. The cities are amazingly well-built, for a country leveled to the ground 70 years ago, and don't let the run-down nature of some areas fool you - Koreans are A#1 at building infrastructure when they're not rushing to get a job done.But there are things left out in the mad rush to completion. For example, I offer up “the smell”: for some utterly incomprehensible reason, Seoul, especially, stinks to high heaven within vicinity of sewer grates, and by “near” I mean “anywhere within 100 metres”. I'm guessing - wild speculation - that it's got something to do with not bothering to fix a badly designed post-war sewage network that's just barely underground and out of sight, and that basically works, but that in all honesty really needs to be completely rebuilt. But this, along with the other issues you’re going to notice in short order, is something that you have to live with. Nobody is going to be completely rebuilding the sketchy sewage system or dealing with the other fundamentally irritating issues any time soon.SOCIAL DOWNSIDESAll places have their downsides. I could go on at immense length about the social negatives about my own country, my home city, my culture - there are so many, books could be written, volumes. These things called “newspapers” detail the many failings of my own home and the city I came from. Don't think I'm slagging Korea; I could write long pages about the wonders of Seoul and the amazing people who live there, and I definitely love this city and this country. I’m not exaggerating when I say that to me, it’s become a second homeland. I don't want to give the impression that Seoul is a kind of hell, but the original question asked here was about the dark side of living in Korea, and the purpose of this post was a discussion of the negative aspects of life in Korea, beyond the glitter and smileyfaces.Here are some of the dark parts of aspects of Korean life you’ll encounter as a foreigner. Depending on you and your own expectations and experiences, they may or may not apply to you.Life is CheapLow Cost: The relatively low cost of living in Seoul is great, if you have a good job. But this is backstopped by the horrible wages and living conditions for many: Taxi drivers make a tiny sum (in a culture with no tips), restaurant staff are minimum wage slaves, retail workers are required to be incredibly polite and effusively helpful but get paid a pittance, and the cops shuffle homeless people off. Street vendors - source of much colour and joy and hey they're just doing their thing - are often run out of areas when the government (!), in cahoots with locals, often hire thugs to beat the crap out of Granny and Grandpa Street Vendor to "clean up" a place or drive out competition. Things like that remind you of the corrupt, autocratic, top-down authoritarian past that Korea is growing out of, but that has not yet completely receded, and they sometimes really disappoint you.Fate and Decent JobsWhile life is good for foreigners with decent jobs, it's humiliating and awful if you don't have one. Ask a Sri Lankan labourer working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for LG and see how good life in Korea is. People from the “West” or other rich countries call themselves "expats", while Sri Lankans or Indonesians are "migrant labourers". This delineates one of many naked class differentials in a society completely structured around class. The truth is that while every foreigner is migrant labour, some are treated well and others are treated like cattle. We participate in this game by emphasizing distinctions. It saddens me how “higher-class” migrants don't pressure the government to push companies into treating lower-class migrants better. This also applies to Koreans themselves, who are always judging foreigners based on where they fall in a complex matrix of class relations. This is a very, very dark stain on the Korean body politic. It's also true in many other places, but after so many bad examples, South Korea should know better. When you broach the topic with Koreans, they will often suck in their breath and nod, not knowing what to do about the people who do their "DDD" jobs. But the foreigners who are lucky enough to get good jobs also tend to forget that their foreign peers are often trapped in crappy jobs, and that they’re migrant labour as well.ConformismThis is a highly conformist culture. As a foreigner, you don't need to worry about the pressure, because you can't ever really fit in. The downside: You can't ever really fit in. But if you look hard enough, you can find Korean outcasts and rebels to hang out with, without any difficulty, if you can’t adapt easily. Seek out the colourful, funky arts or music scene or the underground cultures that exist just behind doors and in locales easily-missed by more conventional people. As your social network grows, you end up creating your own interlinked mini-societies.Choosing to be a ForeignerAt first, you say "I want to be Korean!", then you see how Koreans live, and then, when long work hours begin to drag you down and social quirks don’t click, you say, "Hey, treat me like a foreigner." And this is the point: that wonderfully conformist culture that gets group stuff done can crush people who don't fit in, and (let's be honest) it has to be said that lots of Koreans don't or won’t fit in. You get to watch this battle from a front-row seat. Women, men, children, old people: their lives are not easy. Life is hard, and rigid conformism doesn't make it easier. Older people can be rude and obnoxious, and you eventually learn why they often act like they've said "screw you all, I'm doing whatever the hell I want, you basterds". They do it because they can absolutely say they've earned the social right to defy social rules, after a long life of social scraping and kowtowing. This crushing conformism is cultural, not political, either, as South Korea is a very active democracy. It’s the social culture that often drives Koreans to leave the country or to prefer dealing with foreigners or speaking in a foreign language, because it frees them from soul-draining social niceties and obligations that make normal life almost like punishment much of the time.Hard KnocksLife is freaking hard for Koreans. There's a narrow path considered acceptable for Koreans to follow, and straying from it comes at serious social cost (note that many are willing to pay this cost, and you can meet them, too; they’re usually amazing and very cool people). As a foreigner your life may be so-so, but the lives of your Korean friends goes from pressure to pressure to pressure. Integrate as much as you want, but be glad you're not local. If Korea is a great place to be a culturally adaptable foreigner, but still difficult, it's a brutal place for Koreans. Many Koreans want to leave not because South Korea isn't a politically free place, or because they face hardship or hard times finding good jobs. It's because of the constricting social culture.You think you have it tough, the immigration office treats you badly, the government is hard to deal with? Your boss is a jerk, there's bad workplace politics and your boyfriend won't introduce you to his parents?If you're Korean, you need to deal with this, and far, far worse: Much more hierarchical workplace abuse; fewer options for redress than you (believe it or not), because defending yourself can stigmatize you; obnoxious "seniors" (work, family, school, government offices, even social circles) that use their social power over you to browbeat or abuse you; there’s often no way to complain about problems, and those higher up, or in many kinds of relationships with you, can more or less freely abuse you.And it’s not just hierarchical abuse. I’ve heard numberless stories of dodgy relatives who scam family for money and get away with it, and business partners who cheat or run off with cash or business. The point is that all of that wonderful conformity often means Koreans need to put up with abuse and not be the one who aired dirty laundry in public. Because of this, social problems tend to fester in the darkness, instead of being solved. This is a sharp contrast with where I come from, because people there tend to hang issues out in public for everyone to see. The advantage is that the problems can then be solved, but in Korea, sometimes even talking about them is impossible.Then there’s how class intersects with this low trust problem. I saw a case where a litigious rich snob sued a poor woman in a lineup because she accidentally spilled coffee on her expensive shirt, and it was entirely an issue of opportunist contempt, including the language and tone used. It was as if the rich snob was speaking to a servant or criminal. There was no sense of proportion or humility. This is very common.There’s the painful and embarrassing quest for a marriage partner at predetermined age, after which you're basically trash, even if this age has gone up from, say, 25-26 for women to 29-30 these days (try being a 40 year-old Korean woman and talk about how much trouble you have dating). But men have it hard, too. There are wives who expect husbands to be walking wallets and personal servants, and woe betide a man with the wrong or no family connections, as he ends up being treated with contempt by everyone, especially women, likely even his wife.And so much for confucian respect for the elderly. When you get old, there’s a very real chance you'll be discarded by relatives and children who see you as a useless piece of parental refuse. You’ll be lucky to see your kids and grandkids twice a year, somtimes. But to be fair, it could be that in the past, you were also imperfect - abusive, weak, over-compensating, or (insert social pathology here), and your kids now don’t want anything to do with you.So the whole hierarchical order thing can be pretty oppressive in social relationships, and perverse, because the relationships and obligations often reverse without warning. A parent who was domineering or abusive may find themselves abandoned without means of support, or on the other hand a doting and wonderful parent may find themselves abandoned anyway. Bizarrely, your abusive former boss may end up coming to you in a few years looking for job connections and that professor who took advantage of you may be sidling up to you for a “deal” a year from now. Now you need to navigate complex personal and political factions, too.Koreans have to navigate a byzantine web of complex, competing and contradictory social relationships that are often totally opaque to outsiders - or even insiders, for that matter, which is much of the problem. Before you get resentful about not being Korean and never being able to fit in, ask yourself very carefully if you want to fit in.The All-Seeing EyesAll the time, everywhere, people are watching and judging you. People are deciding whether you are Acceptable. Are you High-Value? Are you pretty or handsome? Are you rich? What’s your social status? Once they decide what social category to put you in, they ask "are you behaving in the Proper Manner for your social category"?This never stops. Everyone is always judging you. Even when you “win”, you still need to “maintain”.Many Koreans very desperately want to exit Korea to get away from the judgmental eyes of other Koreans. You may be exempt from it for a time, but only for a time. The longer you stay, the more you’re expected to perform. But your Korean friends and relatives live as if everywhere is a small village, and everyone always has their nose poked firmly into your business.Consumerism and StatusSocial status is everything. Even if you're not rich, you need to pretend to be rich. You need the Right Manners, the Right Attitude, the Right Look, the Right Disposition, the Right Response, the Right Interests. It's a lot like Hong Kong that way. Get used to it. Do you think they’re materialistic and status-obsessed where you come from? It’s nothing compared to Korea.South Korea is among the most intense, self-focused, bitterly status-consumerist places on Earth. New York City is anti-capitalist by comparison.Confucius what?You’re going to hear a lot about Confucian values and hierarchy and order and family. A lot of people resort to this kind of lazy talk. The truth is that there’s nothing particularly Confucian in any meaningful sense about life in Korea. Sure, there may be a few rituals and some superficial age/status talk hanging around in the air like the fading memories of old photographs, but their cultural context is so twisted out of shape that, in essence, talking about confucianism in any serious sense is just a distraction.I should be blunt: easily the laziest and most trite armchair-sociological analysis of Korean society is the lapse into talking about “confucianism”. It’s nonsense.Whenever I hear people talk about confucianism in modern Korea, I feel like Yoda:When it comes to old people, for example, in Korean society older people are generally discardable. Despite the statistics for wealth, younger people have abandoned most Korean traditions and older people now die alone and in aching poverty at staggering rates. Also, the traditional deference given to the old (also according to class) is slipping away in all but superficial ways. The aged often have no connection to modern Korea, and you can see them hanging out in community and neighbourhood centres or sitting in unkempt parks, as passersby fail to even see them, shuffling around aimlessly in semi-abandoned neighbourhoods where nobody would ever condescend to give them a head-nod. It’s sad and disheartening, the kind of modern alienation that accompanies intense city life.I feel genuinely awful, seeing these people frittering about and living on the psychological edges of a spasmodically changing world. A side story: There was an old guy outside my apartment building who fixed shoes, an ot-susan booth guy, he must have been eighty years old if he was a day. He sat there, day in, day out, in his ancient booth from a bygone economic period, perhaps the last lone straggler in a busy part of the city. I had him fix a few pairs of shoes when I discovered his charges were so low that it was almost a comedy - a handful of won to fix seriously damaged shoes. So I started to bring old broken shoes to him to fix, a couple of times not even my own, because we chatted when I did. He had little family and nobody to talk to. On my way home from work I’d occasionally stop to talk and we’d exchange a few sentences. It wasn’t much, and I wasn’t going out of my way, but he once said that he never knew foreigners were so friendly and one Christmas he asked if I wanted a pair of gloves he’d fixed and no longer needed. I shared a bag of mandarin oranges on a hot summer day when he wasn’t busy. I have no idea if he was rich or poor, decent or awful, or much else about him. But the first thing that occurs to me is this: the guy just wanted to be acknowledged as a human being, a member of our shared community, a human with value, and in Seoul, where social isolation is a real threat for many people, especially the elderly, this is a precious commodity. I was surprised and a sad when his booth closed up for a month, and then just disappeared. I have no idea what happened, but there again was yet another piece of Seoul passing into history. And this is often pretty anonymous, too. The people walking by were surely trying their best never to notice, at all.Seoul doesn’t really exist in the present. It exists for the future. The present is just a staging ground for the future. If something passes out, then it’s forgotten almost immediately. This is true for people, too.Welcome to the Modern World, dialed up to maximum, with a booster rocket.People, People EverywherePopulation pressure. You can never escape from people. There are people everywhere, all the time, in every place you want to be. It's great, until you want to be alone or to relax. Good luck with that. Even smaller cities are just jam-packed.Bad AirTypical for most large Asian cities with a big industrial base, Seoul and most of Korea has chokingly bad air. Some Koreans will excuse this by literally any means - it’s from China, it’s not that bad, you’re just whining, it’s just the season or the wind or the desert dust from China or try going out in the evening, anyway who cares, etc. etc. etc., but the air can be toxic.There are times when I want to sit in my apartment and seal myself in, the air is so awful. It can have a metallic, disgusting “taste” that suffocates you deep in your lungs.And here’s the ugly truth. Some of the bad air wafts over from NW China, where the air is actually far worse (and this fact never ceases to amaze and terrify me - how do people live in China?). But the majority of the pollution, as endless studies show, doesn’t come from China. It comes from Korea, and Koreans are responsible for it, despite their deflection. Hating on China in Korea is a pretty easy thing to do. But South Korea has lots of coal-fired power plants, and an industrial history that traditionally put public welfare and concern for general health somewhere on the bottom of every list of stuff to worry about. Things are changing, but you still can’t part many Seoulites from their toxic gas-spewing cars, slammed into bumper-to-bumper traffic despite the best transit system ever devised, and everything from diesel buses to factories to, especially, coal-fired power plants do everything in their power to suffocate you.Let me tell you some tales.I’ve been in Seoul during Chuseok many a year, and at this time, by and large, the huge teeming city empties out (!); everything shuts down and people flood to the countryside to see relatives and, more oftentimes these days, get the hell out of Korea entirely, for vacations. It’s much like a Western Christmas for Koreans in terms of family/vacation holidays. I challenge you to try getting *any* kind of transportation service at this time. Anyway, when I’ve sometimes been stuck in Seoul (by choice or accident), I’ve experienced something miraculous: with no cars on the road, with power consumption way down, with no nothing at all operating, …The sky is blue.It’s not just “blue”, but rather the irridescent, magnificently pure blue of what seems like, after so long in Seoul, undreamed-of childhood memories. For the glorious week or so before people start to trickle back and the generators and cars begin to strangle the city again, Seoul is brilliantly illuminated by the most inspirational blue spasms of colour ever imagined. And then, slowly but surely, these fade and the sky goes back to the off-white kind-of hint-of-blue haze that we all try not to notice.Other parts of the country are better, but often not much. Add in summer heat (and the heat is no joke), or the doldrums of winter when the air ceases to move in the mountain valleys, and it feels like you’re being buried under an inescapable, relentlessly toxic blanket.Look. There’s a solid reason why it’s hard to get people to move to places like Beijing or Shanghai, sometimes, and air quality is a significant part of this. It’s also a big deal, if not on exactly at the same terror-emergency-level, for Seoul and much of South Korea. The truth is that it doesn’t matter that Beijing is worse, because, air-wise, places like Beijing and Seoul still sit squarely in the same province of Hell, even if Seoul is on the edge.In my home city, on another continent, a city which isn’t small and has lots of cars and real pollution, we often complain about the air. But I once remarked that when I got off the airplane for a visit back, the air at my home city’s airport - literally the worst and most disgustingly polluted air in my whole country - was like a good day in my residential neighbourhood in Seoul. I wasn’t exaggerating.It sounds bad, and if it sounds bad, it’s because it is. Of all the problems I’ve encountered in Seoul, this is easily the one I resent the most, and it’s the one for which no good workaround exists. Racism, rudeness, overcrowding, etc., these things you can, in the end, find ways to confront and adapt to. But the air?Around the world, we’re going to have to learn to deal with these problems. No people anywhere should inflict this kind of suffering on themselves, and preventing the kinds of airpocalypses that I’ve experienced in Seoul - and are utterly normal in Beijing or Shanghai or Bangkok - should be the very first order of priority for every authority, everywhere. When you’re getting tired of breathing, when you just can’t get that repugnant taste of the air out of your mouth, and lungs, and nose, and clothing, when you wipe the inside of your nose and the tissue comes out jet black after work, …There is nothing mitigating I can say about this. It’s not a joke. Koreans who go abroad notice it immediately, though they’re often so jaded that they’ve kind-of given up. Many apartments have “air cleaners” installed that filter out the toxic crap from the air the family is forced to breathe indoors. It really is a very serious problem, one that’s tacitly acknowledged but about which nobody seems able to do anything.There are days when “airpocalypse” really does describe attempting to breathe in Seoul and it’s not just a cute expression. You feel like it’s a real life-threatening impending nightmare. If anything would ever make me leave, would just push me out of this country, it’s the fact that breathing can be a dangerous pastime for months on end. How I wish and wish and wish that someone - anyone - could clean this air up, and keep it clean.And don’t tell me electric cars will do it. I mean, what about those coal-fired people-choking poison-belching power plants? We need to get the electricity for those cars from somewhere. There has just got to be a better way to run air conditioners, because this is total nonsense.Cultural, Racial and Ethnic ChauvinismThis is a less cute and far more serious issue, especially for foreigners who aren’t white, or even, for that matter, for white foreigners. It’s true for Asian foreigners, often especially so, and it’s definitely true for SE Asian, black, African or any other non-Korean foreigners. You know, sadly, thinking about it, it’s even true for actual foreign-Korean-foreigners; they get shit all the time, too.Korea has a tendency to be, not to put too fine a point on it, racist. There’s a lot of juvenile commentary on this, and it’s a complex sociological subject, but let’s just say that the “race-nation” is not a dead subject in Korea. Korean academics debate this endlessly: Racial nationalism’s roots may be deep, or may only be early 20th century, … it might often be odiously fascist in tone, or vital to the national fabric, but abandoning academic debates and before anyone gets all observational-wise when living there, note this: the study of this subject requires far more than armchair social commentary and familiarity with a few Wikipedia pages. The origin of Korean “Specificity” in cultural contexts is a hotly contested and deeply studied thing, perhaps one of the most intensely studied subjects in or about Korea, and requires nuance and lots of context to explore. Feel free to do your PhD in it. Your armchair observations are suitable for coming to the kinds of conclusions based only on your own personal experiences. Yes, there’s racism, but also yes, it’s incredibly complicated.Want to know how complicated? Even for Korean-origin foreigners, there’s a rigid social hierarchy into which they fit, which can be contradictory and impossible to navigate. Do you speak Korean? What kind of Korean? How well? Do you behave properly as a Korean, or are you poisoned by “Foreign Expectations” or behaviours? Is this difference only a problem, or is it sometimes also an advantage for you, or both a problem and an advantage at different times? What if you’re ethnically Korean from China (old Manchuria), or Kazakhstan? Where do you fit in, and can you fit in at all? What about “mixed” people, and what the hell does that even mean? And we haven’t even gotten to other Asians, South Asians, Arabs, Westerners, black Westerners, Africans, etc. Before we get to them, we can get utterly lost trying to work out the multilayered discrimination against various types of people who somehow vaguely fit into the word “Korean”. PS: as if it wasn’t bad enough, there’s discrimination, too, against actual in-South Korea born Koreans; people from, say, Jeolla-do often find people in, say, Seoul badmouthing them.So now that we’ve established that it’s hopelessly complex before we even step outside “racially Korean” Korean-ish types, we can move on to more clearly identifiable bona-fide “foreigners”.As the new internationalist-minded generations move into prominence, racism is receding slowly, but the instinct to paint foreigners as dirty, disease-ridden, socially toxic invaders of the holy body politic is still present. From time to time, you’ll see MBC-TV reports about the likely-misrepresented depraved antics of (insert predictably dirty, disgusting socially toxic foreigners here). Ignorant Koreans are numberless, just like there are ignorant, self-satisfied jerks anywhere. There’s no special genius with social harmony or cultural understanding in Korea, and Korea is as filled with stupid and arrogant idiots as anywhere else.But within the racialized social order, there’s a very clear hierarchy. The point for many foreigners is this: if you’re black, you’d better hope to God you’re American, because at least black Americans have the saving grace that they’re seen as “Western”. If you’re black and speak English and come from a reasonably well-respected country that’s wealthy and well-known, you’ll still suffer for being black, but you do get a few pluses for being, say, a Yankee. On the other hand, if you’re Nigerian, … (no) thanks for coming out.Racial insensitivity is everywhere. In the end, Black or Asian or white, you’re just not of the “Minjok”; you are not Korean. For westerners with their own social brands of racism, it’s weird to see this operate against SE Asians and Chinese, too. The class differential can be pretty harshly applied to people not “of the body” who still look like locals. It’s also usually pretty easy to spot, say, Chinese living in Korea: different modes of dress, different ways of walking, modes of speech (even in Korean), accents, etc. And you can believe that these people are made to feel their “otherness” acutely.Chinese will be treated as markedly inferior to Koreans and Westerners, perhaps one solid tier lower; this is actually a big drop and it’s highly noticeable. Some people love Japanese, some hate them unaccountably with a fervour that will shock you (and only peripherally has anything to do with the history of Japanese colonialism), and this anti-Japaneseness is the result of pretty intense social-cultural attitudes that still percolate pretty deeply in society, a kind of love-hate that can be hard to understand even if you’re Korean.Education is no guarantee of liberal attitudes. In fact, here’s something that will surprise some foreigners but be oddly familiar to many others, especially those born into lower-class foreign families: once you introduce yourself to non-elite types in Korea, you may find that the lower classes, even if they’re more prone to stereotypes, are often more open to personal interaction and mutual trust. They can be more pragmatic, more personal, and less locked into rigid social norms. If you get to know them, the apparently ignorant lower classes often make amazing friends and even family. The idea that the lower classes in any country are subhuman troglodytes with regressive views may or may not be true, but the elite often harbour far more nasty social surprises than the proles. It’s usually upwardly mobile, often highly-educated types who will show off the greatest difficulties with breaking ignorant stereotypes. By the way, this is equally true in most Western countries, a fact rarely admitted by the upper classes; Korea turns out to be the same as anywhere else, a place where the educated elite believe a lot of myths about themselves and their “enlightened” place in the pecking order.So it’s a good idea to, say, talk to local ajummas serving food or taxi drivers or to get to know the “proles”. They’re usually genuinely decent, law-abiding, charming and altogether good people, and even if they’re “racist”, like the lower classes anywhere else in the world, they may deal with you on a level of genuine interaction that the self-admiring, self-described “progressive” middle and upper classes won’t.Anyway, you should remember something vital. Wherever in the world it is you came from before you arrived at Incheon and settled in somewhere in Korea, Korea is filled with normal people and it inevitably has a different variety of the same problems you had at home.So suck it up and deal with it.As much as you want to forge new social justice victories in your newfound home, in the end, the inertia and momentum of Korean society will trundle on with or without you. If racism is a problem for you, and if all you’re going to do is whine about the (highly selective and often contradictory) racism of Korean society, you really need to just live elsewhere. I’m not saying it’s a virtue to put up with crap or that you need to just tolerate it. Feel free to point it out and construct resistance or social workarounds. But Korean society is in a constant state of flux and change, and is perhaps one of the most dynamic places in the world - or ever to have existed. Whatever you say about Korea today may not be true tomorrow morning. More and more Koreans are essentially international citizens, and the generation gaps in Korea are more like vast, uncharted chasms. If politically correct activism is your bailiwick, you need to stuff that in a bag and keep it stashed in some deep corner. Unlike elsewhere, the word “dynamic” really means something in Seoul. So feel free to be constructive, but if you’re going to sally forth to fight dragons, you should know that in Korea they’re big, well-fed and temperamental.Sometimes, the best thing is to absorb what abuse comes your way when you can and very carefully pick and choose your battles - or develop your own workarounds. Maybe you can play up your non-conformist weirdness; maybe your Korean boyfriend’s family will accept you more if you engage them differently. It sucks that you’re likely to experience some brand of racism, but, in all seriousness, welcome to the human race. Deal or leave. Maybe go back to the socially perfect place you came from.I would never say you need to respect racism in Korea, or anywhere else, but you really need to decide how long and hard you want to fight this war.You could pretend a certain detachment (even when racism impacts you), a kind of “win some, lose some” approach. The truth is that being able to see the human race for all its faults and joys, without the barrier of an officially-approved social-justice cultural/political dogma, is illuminating. Nothing moderates your own chauvinism or racism or classist assumptions better than seeing the irrationalities and ugliness of other racisms at play. You will most definitely get to see Korea’s racism and “irrationalities and ugliness” play out over time. be a survivor; the smart move is to resist where absolutely necessary and, otherwise, chalk it up to experience.One good thing to do is to respect the local culture. Do this, and impress Koreans by *learning Korean*. A black American or British or Canadian man / woman who speaks Korean and has a good job in Seoul can count on a huge novelty bonus - you could actually have certain perverse social advantages. Given the negatives, you should use those advantages as best you can.Also, when breaking down how racism affects you, try to distinguish between its different incarnations - cultural ignorance, chauvinism, racism and other forms of intellectual discrimination. These are related, they intersect, but they are not, in fact, the same things. In Korea, you have a great opportunity to parse them. The hard fact is that you’re going to have to do this if you’re going to navigate life here.And remember: *You* are the foreigner. Your commentary may be sharp or correct or both of these and even very clever, but ultimately, you’re the observer, even when you’re participating and suffering. When you choose to participate, be smart about what you say. That absolutely doesn’t mean not challenging the status quo - by all means, do it, judiciously. But you need to try as hard as possible to understand what’s actually going on - really going on - before you dismiss the entire society. Yes, there’s racism, but what you think is racism may be another kind of “ism” (classism, selfish-ism, rude-ism, pissed-off-end-of-day-ism, crowded-ism, insecurity-ism, old-crotchety-person-ism, fetish-ism, etc. etc. etc). It takes energy to think about this and observe carefully.My experience has been that Koreans welcome honestly meant, even deeply felt and harsh criticism, but only if it’s based on genuine interest and real observation. If you approach it tactfully and intelligently, they may engage you about it even if they find it uncomfortable. What won’t be welcome are crude, lazy criticisms that miss their mark, or empty generalizations and crude bitterness.I know a black man from NYC who got by famously in Seoul, but did experience substantial racism, far worse than he’d ever experienced at home. On the other hand, he spoke excellent Korean, and at one point had a discussion with his boss; instead of being angry, he gently showed his boss why he had an issue, and believe it or not, the boss understood and changed his approach to the workplace. It can happen. Not everyone will be understanding, but many people will, if you don’t treat them like they’re diseased or the enemy.Korea is a unique place, but it’s also a cauldron of living micro-societies with real people. Treat it and its people and even its very real problems with the respect and seriousness they deserve. As an outsider, this is the only approach that will get you traction when dealing with things like racism directed against you.PS: I haven’t mentioned the racisms practiced by foreigners against other foreigners and Koreans; there’s a boatload of this, too. People from other countries don’t forget where they came from. But this is about Korea, not the incestuous society of foreigners and “expats”.These are a few of the negatives that will hit you after living there for about a decade. There are a lot more, just as with every other country in the world. And if you get outside of Seoul, you’ll have different experiences. Pusan has a very different energy, and is both more inwardly and outwardly focused, in different ways; Gwangju and its environs are slower and more laid-back, with beautiful countryside and a very different social environment, its people perhaps more congenial if more small-town. Taegu is a bit isolated within Korea, culturally (it’s not Seoul, and it’s not Pusan, and it’s not small, but not big - kind of in the middle zone of not having anything remarkable about it). Take a trip to Geoje-do or Mokpo or Sunchang or Jeju or Jeonju or, for a treat, the quaint town of Naju, and you enter into oddly parallel worlds that barely resemble big city life - or even each other. Some of these places will sit with you the rest of your life.The islands in the south, off the coast, are stunningly beautiful. The mountains in the centre of the country and the north are green and hide picturesque valleys with waterfalls and meandering streams. There are temples on the crests and sides of mountains that look like they’re out of a traditional painting, and mist-drenched slopes flow majestically between rolling peaks covered in green, accompanied by the sound of bubbling streams trickling over rocks and cascades. Needless to say, the country as a whole is a remarkable place. It’s one of the gems of Asia, poorly explored and underappreciated. If you bring your attention span and some patience, this country will reward you with a kind of subtle sumptuosity you’re rarely going to find anywhere else.But while its people are great and the culture one of the great chapters in the human mosaic, like many places involving actual humans, its social order leaves much to be desired. Some people love Korea, and will never hear a bad word said about it, as if they’d converted to a new religion, and it gets tiresome to hear them in their Korea-Boo!!!!!!! “Hoo-Rah!” phase aggressively defend every wart and blemish as if their lives depended on it. Some people hate Korea and life here and grumble constantly, and listeners get tired of wondering why they’re here; just leave, then, already, and go back to wherever the hell you came from.If you want to see Korea for what it truly is - and appreciate it on that level - it makes sense to be neither blindly exuberant nor negative. Try to see Korea as another place with real people. See its good features for what they are, and yet, at the same time, be open to understanding the things that make it a tough place to be. See Korea in all its glorious triumphs and failures and understand it as a living world with a reality of its own.Understand the people. Understand the place. Don’t spend too much time passing judgment, and make a place within it for yourself as best you can.It’s a remarkable country, but in the end, it’s a place like any other. Koreans bleed red, just like you and me. We are united by the virtues and vices of our common humanity.When thinking about potential negatives, I always try to remember this: no matter how bad a particular day might seem, Koreans are, by and large, wonderful people on their good days, and that’s true for everyone in the world.We need to remember that.C Yun asked a question below, and I decided to put it and my response in the original post, because it was interesting to put this down and I’m sure many people will disagree with me, so I wanted to draw attention to it.C Yun: “My point was that you described several facets of life in Korea from the point of view of (someone whom I assume to be) a white Canadian expatriate who has settled in Korea. While you’re a foreigner, you’ve certain been extremely observant and your post described in much detail many uncomfortable but inevitable truths about life in Korea.You mentioned even ethnic Koreans from abroad face hardships there. You’re not wrong - a lot of Korean-Americans would never live in Korea, and not because they hate Korea or hate themselves, but because life is too difficult there. Having been born/raised in the U.S., it’s just too different. If you would be so kind, what difficulties do/did “actual foreign-Korean-foreigners” face based on what you witnessed?My very imperfect and personal response:I know a good number of foreign-born Koreans, from a few countries. By and large, here’s a brief and not comprehensive list of the sorts of things that hit home, based on the experiences of people I knew, and stories I heard, interestingly sometimes from both sides of the complaint. Note that there are a lot of stereotypes, stereotypes of how people stereotype, and assumptions about stereotpyes in this. I’m going to preface this with the qualifier that this is my own experience, what I’m remembering, what I saw and see, and this is possibly just me or the people I know; that it’s not comprehensive and countervailing info might be possible, because Korea and Seoul are horribly complex places with many strata and layers and social cliques, which could very well be different, and that even among foreigners, there’s huge disagreement about more or less everything. I know a lot of Koreans who are model international citizens, others who aren’t international at all but are weirdly accommodating, still more people who should be understanding and accommodating but are rigid, sneering nativist jerks, Koreans who are utterly unconcerned with your status, accent, or whatever, and don’t care to think about it, and others who find it endlessly fascinating and want to help you / learn English / introduce you to their daughter/son/granddaughter/grandson / ask your opinion about their business marketing plan / watch you eat some weird food they think is uniquely Korean as they tell you about how uniquely Korean it is, or occasionally sell you something (like car insurance, …. no joke, believe me). Very possibly invite you to their church / temple, and have you accepted Jesus into your life yet? there’s a pretty half Korean girl from Utah about your age in our church you should meet, etc.Then there are the street musician crowds where some non-Korean speaking foreigner just shows up and starts jamming with Hongdae locals he doesn’t know and strikes up friendships, in spite of his foreignness, or perhaps because of it. And the funky arts crowd, with their ultra-cool super-chill Korean artists who just date tall German girls. Or the Spanish artist guy whose Korean is better than a Korean linguistics PhD and who seems to have dated every artsy girl for 50 km and knows literally everyone. Or the haughty Korean painter who has spent half her life abroad in a dozen countries and knows every bar worth being seen in, in Chelsea and Kreutzberg and Soho anyway, and speaks English with a Franco-Korean accent. Or the 65 year-old foreigner who spent 40 years in Korea and has a huge clutch of doting Korean relatives (the older ones now dying, mostly) and is more or less some version of a Korean ajossi, talking to (other?) foreigners in a native language he only half remembers from half a century ago. And the pensive Indian guy who married a Korean woman, has two kids, who struggles with Korean because his brain is likely filled to bursting with the 72 Indian subcontinent languages he speaks, but who nevertheless won’t hear a bad word about Korea, and is addicted to Korean food and - and I mean, exclusively - wants to eat one of only three specific Korean meals at all times. And last, but not least, the Orthodox priest from the monastery in the Sinai in Egypt (!!!) who has a burgeoning tiny flock of various sorts and who invites you to come by and check out his church’s program. In all seriousness, I kid not one jot. Life in Seoul, supposedly the capital of “the hermit kingdom”, is very often like being in an Asian version of New York, and this gets more and more true every week.Seoul is an utterly vast place, and this cannot possibly be overstated. It’s also a very international city, despite what its appearance may be. Its people, Korean and otherwise, are intimately connected into a fractal-like series of networks that span the globe.The same Koreans who bitch and whine about Sri Lankan workers or Chinese Koreans committing fraud or dirty foreigners go on vacation to, …. Mauritius, China, Paris, London, Berlin. They date foreigners, or did before, or went to school in some foreign country, often multiple times, or themselves overstayed a visa by X years in Y country and had a completely alternate life far from Korea. Push buttons and the same contradictions and weird ideas will pour out that you find at your own “home”, because opinions live together in people’s brains in frozen conflict.None of these people will fit any stereotype of behaviour, and before you dismiss them as some weird minority, a city like Seoul is often made up of whole subcultures of weird minorities. So, with that in mind, you operate on assumptions and stereotypes, and stereotypes of stereotyping, at your peril. Be prepared for a continuous self-generating list of exceptions. So with that cowardly qualifier thrown out there, I’m going to claw it back a bit and say that there are, indeed, patterns that are visible, even if they can’t be assumed to be “accurate” in a granular way.Thus:Korean gyopos and others from abroad dating Korean-born-in-Korea women: the men have a weird kind of “other” status. They’re acceptable, culturally, but therefore too close to often be allowed to make mistakes that Korean-born-in-Korea men are also not allowed to make, but that obvious foreigners are often forgiven for. Ghosting a dating partner: Koreans also do this to each other, by and large, and it’s very common. Foreign born Korean women dating Korean men: often great difficulty dealing with far, far more conservative Korean values, especially for Gyopo women raised in liberal societies.Note that this is weird and often idiosyncratic, though there are patterns you’ll see if you watch. For example, overseas Korean communities tend to have an ossified, older version of Korean culture; it’s often true that overseas-born Koreans have a very 1970’s or 80’s kind of social values set, and in some ways can be inflexible, come with outdated expectations, or can make unwarranted assumptions about other party’s motivations or whatever, because SK has more or less culturally moved on, especially the big cities. But in other ways, Korean born men are often very conservative in ways that involve face, or family, in ways that foreign-born Korean women find achingly hard to deal with. Also, the in-laws can be awful. But to be completely fair, they’re often awful to Korean-born-Korean women, too.Work: Gyopos occupy this uncomfortable space where they’re not truly “uri”, but but sort-of are; if they’re not careful, they come to be expected to integrate as Koreans, without being given the social space and grace to make mistakes as a foreigner. Also, the emotional and personal lives of gyopos and other Koreans born elsewhere will be under particular scrutiny, and though this is also true for Korean-born Koreans, it can be far more judgmental. A Korean born Korean having an affair with a co-worker might be interesting or a source of gossip, but there’s often going to be a shrugging of shoulders, a kind of “yeah, well, so this happened. Another day at the office.” But if one of them is a foreign-born Korean, there is likely to be a greater degree of judgment and a harshness to it. It goes for lots of issues at work, of every conceivable kind. Speak back to your boss? Gyopos may not get the leeway a “genuine” foreigner would.The failing for a Korean is seen as a failing, at that moment. For the foreign-born Korean, it’s seen as either a sign of ongoing moral failing or a demonstration of the fundamental non-Uri-ness of the foreign-born Korean. For a gyopo, it can be a kind of cultural/moral failing that justifies greater punitive action, or, sometimes, less, depending on what it is.In any case, it’s a kind of dismissing of the person or the issue. “Oh, he’s not really Korean, see, obviously”, and thus X, Y, Z, etc.Expectations: Because they come from abroad, there are a set of expectations of foreign-born Koreans. They vary and are complexly intertwined; a discussion about what they are is best had over beer and deep into the night outside, in some park or a pojang macha or etc. But it’s a good discussion.In any case, the upshot is always that the expectations will rub the foreign born Korean the wrong way, most of the time. There will also be unsaid assumptions that need to be analyzed, and it will be extremely hard for Koreans born in Korea to generally question these assumptions.Anger at judgment: When Koreans treat a foreign born Korean as integrated or “uri”, with the right degree of “nunshi”, it will shock them when the person seems to fit into stereotypes of foreigners. It’s because, …. the gyopos are, in fact, foreigners. This is a kind of intermediate space that’s hard to get a grip on.For example, if a girl comes from LA, which has the largest Korean community outside of Korea, China and Japan, and she shows mostly modern Korean behaviour in Seoul, but is also a certified LA girl, it will go over with some shock with a few people, especially in places where there’s some specific institutional decorum required.Remember, many of these “rules” are not society-wide, but specific - often to even one institution, or an age group, or a particular environment. The Latin dancing community has a set of rules, often shifting. A sports or mountain hiking group may have another set of social expectations and rules, etc. This can cover things you say, don’t say, even the use of fake names (ie for dancers). At work, some places are button-down and others loose; some very formal even though they look cool, or sometimes very relaxed, even if they look formal. The thing is, in all of these situations, the person will be expected to kind of understand the environment and have a base repertoire of adaptation skills to be able to move through these different social environments. A foreigner will have different sets of these skills.The thing is, a foreign born Korean may understand the specific rules of a few of these, but the actual social rules vary by situation and group. Just knowing the surface requirements doesn’t help you with the root equations that underlie these things. So a foreign-born Korean can see all the surface stuff and mimic it, but the native born Korean can generate all of these behaviours without having to mimic a standard protocol in a rigid way. Also, note that if he or she desires, dissent is common, and a native born Korean will understand when, how, and what to dissent about. It’s this last thing I was getting to just now that matters a lot. When disputes arise, as they inevitably do, with mates, in workplaces, with family, even, this is where the differences between foreign born Koreans really come through.Because they’ve integrated more than other foreigners, they’ll be expected to either take shit or deal with it in ways suitable for a Korean. A foreigner (like me) will be excused, to some extent, from this rule, because he/she is expected to be “quirky”.But a dispute is a place where power is expressed. Where power is expressed, often any advantage will be exploited. It now becomes convenient to presume the foreign Korean is Korean-Korean because their behaviour can now be more harshly judged without the EscapefromJail-ForeignerBehaviour card. Even if this makes no sense - a foreign-born Korean who barely speaks Korean dating some Korean girl, or working in some office, or dealing with some government bureaucrat, who has no more “nunshi” than any other foreigner and should also this be given some line of social credit for straying - the Korean Korean side may just “decide” all of a sudden to judge the foreign Korean as a Korean Korean, to get an edge in the dispute. In other words, Koreans can use acceptance or aliennness as weapons in a power struggle.They can’t do this with the foreign foreigner. But they can do this with a “korean” foreigner. They will often deny the foreign Korean the benefits of “nunshi”, but when it comes to doling out punishment or extracting concessions, suddenly the foreign Korean is a full-blooded Korean who has Mightily Transgressed and must be held to account.Isolation and depression: This will afflict foreign born Koreans often as much as foreigners, but expect little sympathy. Ironically, gyopos often end up hanging out mostly with other foreigners, because the little personal ticks that align in a public culture are often shared with foreigners and not locals. You find this among foreigners, too. Canadians, Brits, Aussies and New Zealanders often find it easier to hang out with each other than with Americans, who usually stick with each other. It’s a tendency, not a rule.And this gets weirder and more complex for foreign Koreans from different places. Joseonjok (from the old Manchuria) are said to be often the source of crime, problems, etc., especially breaking government rules, like visa rules. They tend to be judged pretty harshly and mistrusted. Discrimination against them is relatively fierce and consequntial, for them. It’s not a lie that some of them are like most people from communist countries - treating rules like bothers or obstacles to be overcome, rather than anything meaningful, not having a huge amount of respect for agreements or contracts, buggering off without paying bills, getting involved in petty schemes, corruption, etc. - but this is mostly pretty typical Chinese behaviour, too, and they come from a country where there’s really no rule of law with a dog-eat-dog culture of “get what you can, now!”. How can you expect Chinese Koreans to get by in China if they’re not, basically, Chinese people on the make? It’s a tough place. Do you really expect them to blend into Korean society seamlessly just because they speak (a version of) the language? Come on.There’s some stereotyping there. But this is the public perception, and it affects the ability to rent housing, get jobs, make friends and date, even. A lot of unfair assumptions about Joseonjok are often made, and many try to change their accept and keep their passport/citizenship or other details secret.Zainichi Koreans are, it has to be said, mostly basically Japanese people. In mannerisms, behaviour, outlook and social life, they tend to act indistinguishably, as a group, from Japanese. However, there’s no real hostility there, and they’re often seen as kind of “cute”, and interesting, not bad, and the Korean blood thing means that, say, marrying one is fine, especially if they’re female. But, … they’re basically Japanese. Japan has an utterly different, I mean incomprehensibly totally different, social and public culture compared to Korea. It might as well be Mars, it’s so different. A Japanese person can be angry at you and you have no idea, for example; if a Korean is pissed off at you, you damned well know about it, right now, and loudly. You have to love Koreans, because they own their emotions without guile, both North and South, and in this, they’re much like Westerners, only moreso. If they love you, and you have a high enough EQ, you know it and can rely on it. If they hate you, it bubbles out of them like water under pressure. But Japanese people? Good luck figuring that out. You need a cultural PhD and a chart-topping EQ to pick up the signals, and this is, at the very least, not me.Zainichi Koreans are basically just nice, perfectly acceptable, interesting …. Japanese people. I know this might anger some people, but it’s just true. Go see for yourself.Koreans from Kazakhstan: I’ve met a couple. They tend not to speak Korean well, but have half a dozen other languages, usually including Russian, and they tend to learn languages pretty damned fast, because they come from a part of the world where it’s assumed you can speak a whole bunch. The ones who make it to Korea are often well-educated, but in the “I’m from a sad, poor, autocratic state” kind of way, as in what would be a salutary thing elsewhere (education and status) is drained away because of their looked-down-upon passports. The issue is that, while ethnically “Korean” in Kazakhstan or Russia, in South Korea, they’re more or less totally Russian or ex-Soviet. I met one woman whose grandmother spoke Korean, and none of her parents’ or her own generation had an idea. I’m told there are more and more of these Koreans in South Korea, but how they’re getting on I don’t know. One couple I met were having a genuinely hard time, though this was about 5 years ago, and both were very, very highly educated. Highly educated, … in Russian. If I said they were scraping by, both economically and socially, would be an accurate statement. I found them both refreshingly Russian in temperament and behaviour, but this is just me, so who knows. I recall they both had a deep fondness for Korea as a kind of not-quite-lost homeland, of distant family memory, ie also of a Korea that ceased to exist a hundred years ago, and might predate even the Japanese occupation. Going to Korea is like an “Irish American” going to live in Dublin, or a “Scottish Canadian” living in Edinburgh. These people were the closest to truly foreign “foreign Koreans” I had ever met. They were perhaps (partly) “racially” Korean, and they had a taste for some Korean foods (which they may have eaten at home), but even if they had preserved their identity perfectly, the Korea their great great grandparents left is 3 or 4 Koreas lost in time; there have been multiple versions of Korea on the peninsula since their families relocated to central Asia.Some specific countries:Korean Canadians: Mixed bag. Canada seems to have sucked down the children of immigrants more effectively than those in other places, and assimilated them relatively quickly. Canadian Koreans living in Seoul tend to behave more like Canadians than, say, the bulk of LA Koreans behave like Americans (though this could be for other reasons, see below).And now for a new category: American KoreansLos Angles Koreans: Many are “very Korean”, whatever that means, especially if their parents immigrated in the 1990’s. They’re usually tapped into modern Korean popular culture in ways even Koreans in Korea aren’t. They tend to get on famously with people in Seoul, less so the countryside, because the countryside is resolutely Old Korea, as is the area in the provinces outside the downtown cores of Pusan / Taegu / Gwangju. Lots can be said about them. There are tens of thousands of them in Korea, and a million in the greater LA area. Ultimately, most are Americans, and are mostly American, which is consequential for their interactions with Korean-born-Koreans. I love LA - I used to live there, and I know lots of Americans from southern California - but California has a habit of Californicating people. You could write volumes about LA Korean culture. Too much for here.Other American Koreans: These tend to be more American in a sense. Brash, bold, assertive (especially the women, by Korean standards), unafraid to be correct in public and to assert their opinions, strong. This is of course a gross stereotype, but I’ve known a lot of Korean-ish women and men from places like Chicago, Florida, NYC, Seattle, um, …. Louisiana, let’s see, …. indeed, Utah, Hawaii - and they by and large tend to be more “American” in a stereotypical sense than LA Koreans, but this is possibly due to the huge community of Koreans in LA and its constant renewal through immigration, there. These non-LA Korean Americans tend to get on well in Korea, because they do something many LA Koreans don’t: they don’t even bother to try to blend in, and be Korean-Korean. One guy from Chicago I spoke with a lot repairs cellphones, and at almost 50, he’s a sharp tack. And by sharp, I mean sharp and spiky, too - he’s utterly Chicago through and through, like an irascible grenade of tough mid-west city guy. He loves Korea, but has utterly no problem whatsoever being a “foreigner”, even one running a business.Like this guy, Koreans tend to be WAY more enterprising than others. It might be self-selection: those among this group who go “back” to Korea are often not the lazy, “okay it kinda makes sense for me to go” types. They have goals, purposes, and often don’t suffer from cultural delusions, and if they do, they bug out right away. I knew a Korean-background guy from Wyoming, of all places, who was running a business in Seoul. Divorced more than once, he was dating an Indian-background woman from Australia. Politically incorrect in the extreme, he didn’t let his disappointments with life in Korea get him down: he was goal-oriented and hard. His goal was to get his shit done, and he had no time to waste with cultural misunderstandings or local nobs.Because these people tend to be tougher, they tend not to give a wet rat’s dropping what other people think, and as a result, all of them that I know have done spankingly well, thank you very much, and if people don’t like it they can etc. etc. etc. There’s something to be said for this kind of attitude. A lot of Americans are like this, and it makes them enterprising - if, er, also spiky.AdopteesThis is a tough category to talk about, because in Politically Correct land, there are a lot of zealots with axes to grind. But I’ll attempt it, here, at some risk.Note that most adoptees are well-balanced, normal people.But some come with a bizarre assortment of expectations and desires, and some treat Korea like a kind of quest-resolution-machine, which it definitely isn’t. For a handful, Korea seems to offer some kind of cultural or social absolution, and it almost always fails to deliver, because, …. WTF? It’s just a country with people who don’t really think much about a bunch of babies who were purchased out of the country decades ago - and whose parents, incidentally, had no problem with the discarded children being removed in the first place. Korea was a shitty place to be if you were an orphan, and to a large extent, still is. These people are returning as adults to a country that got rid of them unceremoniously in the first place, and even today has a sketchy attitude towards orphans and single mothers.You have to guess this is going to be a really mixed experience for many such people, especially if they’re actually expecting anything emotionally inspiring or illuminating.A majority of adoptees are just curious about their “home” country. Those from Europe, for example, that I’ve met, are often fascinating and chill people. Like most Europeans they usually speak several languages, and are almost always (insert various European country) in their outlooks and expectations. They’re basically not looking to “be” Korean, at least those I’ve met, and they thus get on, to their level of expectations, relatively well. There is a surprisingly large number of European Korean adoptees in Seoul; just myself, I’ve met Swiss, French, Danish, Dutch, many British, German, Czech (!), and Spanish adoptees. The thing is, I met them in different circumstances, not together, the same for Canadians and the one Australian adoptee I’ve met. It means they don’t just hang out with each other.They’re all doing their own thing, on their own, often interesting (the Aussie guy was a very successful businessman at home in Australia). They tend to be just people, not part of anything in particular.Specifically American adoptees: Given how many there were, and how large a number make the trek to Korea, by and large they turn out to be culturally Americans of Korean descent who are in Korea to see what’s up. Most are well-adjusted and many treat Korea as a personal reservoir of cool stuff they can absorb and make part of themselves. It’s in addition to their being American, so no stress, right?They tend to get on well enough as Americans in a foreign land. It’s complicated in that they often track down their birth mothers and families, and can have mixed feelings about a Korea that is both a place of origin /culture and a place of family (which might not be entirely happy). Sometimes they separate these things, and sometimes they get conflated. I’ve known a couple of people who did both. They both still liked Korea, but more or less as foreigners. Koreans tend to treat them with some reserve, because there’s this weird sense of shame about this - and there’s an uncertainty. Are they foreign, Korean, Korean without families and thus orphans, so therefore no status? How do I think about them? Mostly, they just get by as foreigners.The Broken ZealotsThere’s a hard-core, identity-obsessed minority of adoptees who are on a crusade, or a jihad, either/or or both, or quite possibly something more obsessive and harsh for which I have no word. Ideologically driven by a soul-crushing weight of identity issues, mostly internal, my experience is that it’s important to identify this sort of person right away, and understand where the lines are drawn. In the end, I’ve decided that it’s impossible to meaningfully discuss cultural issues with them because they have so many unannounced, hidden tripwires, it’s like dealing with emotional landmines. They’re often riddled with hatreds, for example loathing for “white” people (though have often never traveled beyond one or two states in the USA), with only a comic-book understanding of Korea. They tend to have internalized a kind of racial-cultural essentialism, and have also magnified basic resentments of a bewildering number of things out of all conceivable proportion. Everything is seen as the result of other people’s vicious insensitivity, or racism, or classism, or ism-ism-ism, and this anger is directed not just at the typical arrogant colonialist oppressor white American male, but just as often at Korean-American women from LA who don’t understand their privilege at being culturally informed or balanced, Korean men who are insensitive to the specific cultural demands of the woman-seeking-cultural-and-racial-purity or social or cultural redemption, or the other foreigner who refuses to understand that seamless and sanctified racialist inclusivity is the single most important thing in the whole world and JUSTICE JUSTICE! or etc.I’m going to say it: What’s weird is that this particular kind of returning adoptee tends to be cosmically more actually racist and discriminatory in any meaningful sense than every small-town Korean Ajumma who doesn’t like the sound of foreign languages. A misogynistic old-school Korean businessman who thinks foreign values are poisoning Korea will be both more reasonable and easier to deal with than this broken ideological identity zealot from the US. I don’t know why, but among the American adoptees who come to Korea, there seems to be a loud, screeching minority who have a lot of bones to pick, and they may attempt to extract them from those they interact with. I’ve met a few, and they tend to conglomerate together in formal groups. Sadly, a Korean American friend said to me once that she mostly avoided social interactions with adoptees entirely, because this aggressive and ideological minority is salted into the mix of adoptees and, in her words, they “go off” unexpectedly and often with hard social consequences. A couple of other Korean-Americans have said much the same thing to me. I know a few adoptees, and they’re fine, but even they talk about the sad cases of what appear to be a version of race-identity-social-justice bible-thumpers from the US who cause a lot of noise, especially online. God help you if you say something they dislike, and have the wrong skin colour, age, privileged background or whatever they pull out of their grab-bags of hate.Note that the people who mention this and have a problem with the extremes are very often Korean Americans themselves, and Koreans, because they have the most contact with this kind of deranged identity seeker. I knew a Korean-Korean guy who dated a returning adoptee. He was just a normal job-working office Korean guy. The woman was so hard to deal with, with so many hair-trigger problems with so many things, trying to apparently cope with her own internal assumptions, expectations and disappointments, that this wasn’t even a problem of a cultural gap. His Korean-American friend had no explanation for her painful explosivity and sensitivity. So the result was that they broke up and he never understood how he could have done anything differently. He was broken up about it for some time, viewing it as his failure, which was (I thought) unfair.Sadly, this group seems to entirely self-segregate and self-police. They’re aggressive online, and have been known to make adoptee communities politically fractious.The thing is, while I’ve heard this and seen some limited amount of it, I’m not an adoptee nor do I move in these circles normally. But you hear stories on the periphery and Korean Americans are sometimes aware of this kind of thing.I know all groups can have their nutcases, but in this case, the stories seem too consistent to me and my limited exposure seems too consistent to easily dismiss this core group as a real thing.Upshot: These people do not do well in Korea. By and large, they’re going to find everything difficult and ultimately a disappointment, as well as all the people they meet, who won’t be capable of treating them in the way they want to be treated, or whose own behaviour will stray from what they expect. And the adoptees will never, ever be “local” enough to be fully included, which seems to be the real trigger. While most get on with their lives, some seem to be stuck on this identity agenda and can’t escape from it while they’re in Korea. I only knew a couple, but it was sad to see.So that was the hardest and most controversial topic in this list.OthersUnmentioned are South American Koreans, of whom there are a lot, Koreans from parts of SE Asia, of whom there’s a growing number, and I said nothing because in these cases, I know not just very little but actually absolutely nothing at all. I know there’s a substantial Korean community in Argentina, for example, and have met some people, who get on well, but was never close enough to any of them to get any information on how they were really doing.Another group of serious importance are North Koreans who have settled in the south, who generally get shit on by everyone on all sides. Their lives are filled with overt discrimination, often sneering contempt, and general social distrust - from conservative and nativist and lefty North-friendly and everyone. Welfare cases, often poorly educated, they get called useless and criminal and family-abandoners by some, and traitors to their nation (North Korea) by others. Some resent their special privileges (education breaks, subsidies for various things) and others think they’re all a bunch of criminals. Pro- and anti-North South Koreans can be as bad as each other.It’s my opinion that North Korean refugees are better off not settling in South Korea, but going to third countries, where they may not speak the language, but assuming they can learn, at least start from zero. This is better than starting from behind the line.That’s what I think about this very large and hard to summarize group of “Foreign Koreans in South Korea.”Jaeun Oh comments on Minjok and nationalism, etc.I responded, and wanted to keep the answer (in case the comments are deleted). This is really just for recording it. Feel free to ignore.You’re picking up on one feature of ethnic ultra-nationalism. The root is still the same: The idea that there’s a “club” which is defined by a mixture of cultural (changeable), physical (non-changeable) and social (attitudinal/training) attributes which define who can and can’t be “in the group”. In other societies, it can have elements of these - civic nationalism, for example, has an “ultra” form, as well. But ethnic ultra-nationalisn of the Minjok/Minzoku/Minguo form, in other words, the Bismarckian Volkisch nationalism that underpins it, deliberately conflates these.So you need to be racially a member, and this is non-optional (ie, you can’t perform racial membership, if you’re not a racial member; and you can’t deny it, if you are). You also need to be a cultural member (you must perform the elements culturally ascribed), and you must socially perform, as well (you need to replicate the official attitudes associates with the identity).Mix all three of these, and you get the Minjok.This is a highly curated identity: someone who strays from the accepted forms of performance, for example, can be said to have betrayed the identity, betrayed the collective or the minjok, and someone who refuses to embody some part of this 3-way prescription can also be said to be practicing a betrayal and/or to have been a pretender who isn’t worthy of membership.North Korea uses this version of nationalism, explicitly, tied to a social reality (worship of a god-deity). Its iconography is even similar to Imperial Japan.South Korea is kind of split - it has the idea of the Minjok, which you can see on the left. This is why the left is the priimary source of ambivalence to “multiculturalism” or “internationalism”. It’s also why the left is the main source of confusion on human rights - it denies universality and instead argues for some kind of “Korean human rights”, and thus seeks to limit criticism of North Korea’s regime on human rights issues. This is a pretty common left-wing position in SK/American - based NK studies. This is in essential sympathy with Minjokkism.While the South may not practice isolation camps, Great Leaderism, and whatnot, it has other elements that mark it as a Minjok state. There are racial requirements for membership: Someone invests their life into SK can struggle to become a citizen, while someone who speaks no Korean but who is *racially* Korean, a Joseonsaram, for example, can just go to SK and claim a residency visa; this is based exclusively on hereditary or racial terms, and is much like the German Blutrecht. It’s also relatively easy for them to become citizens. They can physically perform the racial membership, which takes precedence over the cultural and social signifiers .This is a dead giveaway.As for cultural signifiers, this is also true: some things are “Korean”, while others aren’t. A liberal membership would imagine anything done by a Korean to be fundamentally “Korean”; if some Korean does avant-garde art, than that art is Korean by definition of being done by a Korean in a Korean context. This is also something that exists in SK, but for much of SK’s history, this “Koreanness” was both highly curated and intensively policed. This action is “Korean”, that action is “not Korean” - etc. So Korean people themselves are told by others that X is “Not Korean” - “We don’t do that”. That policing is a part of the 3-way Minjokkism.Lastly, the social cues - attitudes you’re supposed to have to be a proper member of the collective. This is most obviously the case in NK, but in SK, too - the thing is, this is true for everyone, but if you want to see this super clearly, the best way is to see how NKeans function in SK. Exiles have their own Minjokkist social expectations, and in SK, they need to abandon these and adopt the SK ones. This is why the SK disappointment with North Korean exiles: They pass the racial test; they can perform (if not perfectly pass) the cultural test; but the social test they tend to fail.This means that North Koreans in SK are often seen to be failing the Minjok by not being “properly Korean”. In this case, it’s the social aspect of the Minjok ideology they’re failing, the specific one South Korea practices. They behave in an incorrect manner.Without the Minjok, they would just be seen as a different kind of member, but a member nonetheless. Canadian membership, at least ideally, for example, requires no specific social attitude. A thief is a thief; a thief can still be Canadian. A lazy worker is still a Canadian, though officially you’re supposed to be hard-working. But in SK, when North Koreans fail and are arrested for any reason, or are deemed to be insufficiently hard-working (or not hard-working in the right way), … they’re not just judged, but ** the appropriateness of their membership in the Minjok is questioned **. In other societies, one with a purely civic nationalism, this wouldn’t happen. Sure, they would be questioned, but nobody would ask if they were “truly Argentinian” for being a socialist or some other attitudinal thing.—————-So this is what I mean by Minjokkism.SK has a a nascent civic nationalism, but Minjokkism is still relatively strong. While it doesn’t have the same superficial features that NKean Minjokkism has, this minjokkism is still the same three-way membership-based performative nationalism that animated Imperial Japan, currently animates China, and also works in North Korea.The space for a civic nationalism in South Korea is growing. Increasingly, with multi-racial children and immigrants (including foreigners marrying into South Korean families, and a huge number of people culturally adapting to life in SK), the strength of the Minjok is weakening. There have been TV shows about the novelty of foreigners speaking Korean for decades; they’re kind of routine now, because * so many * foreigners speak Korean. Foreign woman AND men are marrying Koreans and having kids. In fact, if you take in foreign Asian women marrying Korean men, and add them to the foreigners in this generation marrying Koreans, the rate of intermarriage is shockingly high. The supposed purity of the Korean bloodline is being rapidly diminished. It was always an illusion - interbreeding with Chinese, Japanese, even Indians has been common for centuries, though always mentioned in hushed tones. Hamel, for example, and his other rescued-captees, all had lots of kids in Korea, and where did they go when the captees escaped? That’s one famous case. Those dozens of half-European kids just merged seamlessly into 17th century Korean society. Indian traders were all over the peninsula, as were Southeast Asians; I know people who were surprised to get 23andMe results back saying they were, for example, 3 or 6% Indian/South Asian. They had no idea this could be true. Others found out they were 5% Northern Asian (Manchu?) or some other thing that isn’t “100% Korean”.And then there are the kids of black American soldiers, very obvious; some became famous two generations ago.And where do we count the Korean diaspora into this? There are, in fact, several diasporas, at least 3: 1) The Joseonjok; 2) the earlier Kazakh and Russian Koreans; 3) The post-WWII South Korean diaspora.Each of these is very different. Yet where do they fit into the Minjok?In NK, this is clear: Your membership is racial, and you must perform Korean culture and atittudes. It’s not a question that this is the Minjokkism that Korea inherited from Japanese imperialism.This was ALSO true for South Korea, but this has begun to break up with the advent of different realities.The truth is, South Korea is being internationalized.The current popularity of SK culture abroad will only accelerate this process. This includes everything from food (LA-style Galbi now appears in and is popular in SK, and there’s also the cultural contortionism of Korean-style Mexican food, which is a mix of NW Mexican/diasporic Mexican food, a la America, and American-ized, essentialized Korean-style food), to music (there’s a whole industry talking about Korean music and its cultural nature), to art (few Koreans are as tapped into an integrated international culture as Korean artists), to literature (translation is now a huge source for Korean literature, in *both* diretions). I could keep naming things.This means that now, there are formal rules for becoming a Korean citizen made available to foreigners long resident in SK that were either informal or unattainable before. Many people are taking them up. A huge number of people go to SK to study in universities, in Korean, in subjects not based on Korean language.Korea is becoming a node on the international social and cultural system. This process can seem incomplete, because it is. The thing is, what’s driving it isn’t obvious to those who want to protect the Minjok from contamination (mostly on the left, but also on the hard right). But the process is fundamentally a result of success: because SK culture is so successful abroad, when it “comes back home”, it kind of brings things (and people) with it and also jams the door open.This is now likely unstoppable.One of the things you get when you talk to north Koreans or read what North Korea officially says is that South Korea as a whole has betrayed the Korean minjok with its new internationalism. It says it in exactly these terms: the race/nation has been betrayed. This won’t get translated into English as much, because the typical leftie types that want to excuse NK or apologize for it realize that this sounds really, really, really bad to outsiders, and ultimately paints NK as some kind of Nazi-like state (which, to be fair, it is).That “betrayal” is far from complete. But it’s definitely going on.So in a way, yes, you’re partly right; South Korea has an evolving, but still often just nascent, national identity more in line with international “civic identities” than Minjok-racial identities. To the degree this has happened, this is a good thing. But traces of the old three-way racialist-ethnic nationalism still remain. My guess it that it will take a couple of generations to fade away.But the hard reality of internationalism in SK, with everyone integrating themselves into one or another aspect of internationalism, whether they like it or not, is inescapable. Within a very few generations, “Korean-ness” will not be unattainable for foreigners; and the number of “Koreans” not practicing “Korean-ness” and even unable to perform it will likely outnumber the number of racially-Korean Koreans who can.Korea will still exist, but it will be more open and inclusive. And there will be a huge number of “lost sheep” who are basically just Canadian or Brazilian or whatever, likely more than Koreans in Korea, and culturally, what it is to be “Korean” will radically change. This has already started in earnest.The more successful Korean culture is, the more likely this is to accelerate.But as of RIGHT NOW, we’re just one / 1.5 generations out of a phase in SK where the Minjok was the rule. The “unification” dreams of Moon et al still predicate themselves on the unity of the pure Minjok, whether it’s openly discussed in those terms or not.If NK were to fall apart tomorrow and be incorporated into SK, it would set this back slightly, but the hard-wired dynamism of SK culture and its relentless integration into global culture and economics will just pause for a moment, burp that NK Minjok out and keep steamrollering.Everything pushes this: the rapidly expanding and increasingly influential diaspora in the West, the “return of the native” as this jams the Korean door open when they return (or their culture does), the rapid increase in political, social and cultural interchange, the hopelessly interdependent economy, etc.BUTWe can imagine in 3 generations a redefined “Koreanness” which people previously considered outsiders can be included in.That only exists in partial form right now. The old Minjok still exists.Weirdly, though not so weirdly, yhe Minjok is more popular among a certain set of Koreans ABROAD than it is in SK. In Sk, because this is the source of “Koreanness”, there’s no fear of its loss. But for some Koreans sensitive to this in the US or Australia, there’s a desperate need to identify with the Minjok and with Korea. These identity-politics warriors are seeking something, and are often deeply disappointed when they arrive in SK: they often perceive what they see as two betrayals.The first betrayal of the “return of the native” is the lack of acceptance they have, the way the “Home Country” uses the Minjok against “returnees”: you’re just an American; you aren’t sufficiently Korean; you’re contaminated and don’t behave properly, etc. - though note that this can sometimes be valuable, ie when a Gyopo is dating a local, or damaging, in the same situation - it can work both for and against you, often simultaneously.The second betrayal, and this is MUCH harder to deal with, is the betrayal of the idea of the Minjok by South Korea itself. Many returnees want to experience “pure” culture. Instead, they find a culture in a state of near-constant, churning, rapid change, morphing from one thing to another, like a state of being in a permanent chrysalis. Far from the unaffected, root-home motherland, they find a city (Seoul) and a country (SK) locked into the process they were seeking to escape. And worse, the locals don’t worry about it, because as the motherland, they have less to worry about with this change. Meanwhile, this betrayal can hit home really hard. This is the deepest betrayal. Let’s say the Motherland accepts you (betrayal 1 never happens to you). In effect, you need to turn around and reject the motherland, for not being sufficiently “pure”.I personally know many people very bitter about both of these betrayals. Many others also write about this. Much commentary about Korea itself revolves around these self-tortures that Koreans living abroad (or raised abroad) put themselves through. Whole schools of identity politics in the US, for example, are based on the contortions this puts foreign-born-and-raised Koreans through. They often rail against the compromises and the self-generated changes SK society experiences. In a way, what they want is a walled-off South Korea “true” to the identity they themselves are desperate to perform. Some of these people need SK to be a kind of reservoir or refuge of Koreanness, which they can draw on. Others reject this entirely, and want Sk to be more international, so they can integrate into it without compromising their own mixed feelings. There’s a range of responses. But I’ve noticed in academia that the identity-obsessives seem to have loud voices, and they speak from a sense of deep and burning betrayal at their welcome in host societies; when they get back to SK, either literally or metaphorically, they become even more bitter and enraged or despondent, crying about capitalism or imperialism or some other such thing, because SK refuses to be that “refuge” of pure Minjok that they desperately need. A very, very small number of very loud people then go over to NK, idealizing it as some refuge of the Pure Minjok - there are academic papers written by them, and they try to make noise, though they’re usually drowned out. (Of course, NK betrays the Minjok in its own exciting and dramatic ways, too, so this route would ultimately disappoint them, too).At some point, Koreanness will become just another world culture which anyone can identity with, and which many tens of millions of people will have some racial claim on- making the racial claim meaningless. When that leg of the 3-legged stool is broken, then the other two will readjust. It will be harder to police what is and isn’t Korean when a 1/8th Korean person from Camden, NJ owns, say, the world’s largest Kimchi and fermented foods operation, run in several countries with branches in SK, and just by gravity becomes a defining force in the marketing and interpretation of Korean foods.Sriracha is an American food, designed for American palates, made in the US. It has gone back to SE Asia and is now a staple there from Vietnam to Malaysia, after having been a minor regional thing. Is it seen as American or SE Asian? Are we sure? Is it neither, or both?This will happen with Korean culture. As the process of internationalization accelerates, it will be denatured of its intense localization and specificity and become a chapter in the human story accessible to anyone.I would note, however, that even Germans still struggle with this. The Volk is strong; it has divided Germany politically and socially. Incorporating the DDR is a barely begun project, really, and the resurgence of Volkisch nationalism is a real thing.However, …Korea is doing this on the basis of its own agency and authority. It’s the result not of defeat in war, but of its own profound cultural and economic success. This makes it different. When you’re succeeding, there’s no urge to guard the home front and keep it from contamination; the contamination is actually a sign of your success, something to celebrate.In a very real sense, Korea is internationalizing itself. In fact, from all sides, this seems like a desperate rush to internationalize itself. Korean TV can’t get enough multiculturalism. As a sign of success, a Korean woman or man marrying an Egyptian, Russian or Belgian and having mixed kids is seen less as a novelty and more as an affirmation of Koreanness and its values, of its international status and power. And thus, while this perception of agency increases, the “purity” of the Minjok rapidly declines.You don’t need a huge amount of this to break this Minjokkism. Whats’ the social estimate - in most of these situations (from Jihadism and radical militarism to successful integration and multiculturalism), 5% of a population not adhering to some social norm, or some such thing? And note that that 5% will be achieved pretty soon. All of those 5% will also be in superior positions of influence, too.So I would agree with you that SK different, but I would qualify that - it’s different, … but *not quite yet*.I can already see where it’s going, though. I can see some potential bumps on the road, but because the process is obvious and why it’s happening is clear, I don’t see the destination being different.As an ideology, the Minjok may see some reactionary resurgence, but it’s up against money, demographics, the global economy and even Korean success. At some point, it will become a call for “village-ism”, like a reactionary white nationalism, a retreat into some imagined purist idyll, and will be restricted to places like Hahaemaul in Andong or some town outside Seogwipo or Mokpo. Like going to Sunchangmaul today, to pick up your traditionally made dubu, for almost all Koreans it will be a ritualized or touristic activity. Those Koreans locked in this tiny and shrinking world will be resentful, but they will also be irrelevant, except as a reservoir or refuge of “Koreanness” from a past age. Sort of like what Andong tries to do now, with its “nobles culture” and its focus on staring resolutely backwards.The writing was on the wall for “pure Koreanness” - and every element of the Minjok - when Koreans abroad became successful and integrated, and started producing culture on their own, and when Korea itself became successful and integrated, and not incidentally a destination.When some future-world council of Earth is created, likely populated by representatives of the influential “nations” of the time, I fully expect Koreans to be well represented there. Those nations will share policies and attitudes and cultures and these will surely cross over a lot. They will be international. They’ll blend with each other.The Minjok is doomed, because “Korea” can no longer be easily contained behind a wall. The more successful it is, the more influence it will have on the world, and the more it will come to resemble the rest of the world.But for people on the ground in Seoul or Pusan, *not quite yet*.

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