How is the life in Korea?

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:04 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

ap0stat3, I don't think it's that off topic since Korean view of Americans might actually influence your life in Korea if you are American, which a lot of the users on this board are.

Korea was a hermit kingdom for a long time, so now that they are dependant on other countries, of course the transition isn't smooth. However, the direction to a globalized Korea is undeniable and if everything stays the way it is and nothing really drastic happens (North Korea...) then Korea should open itself to outsiders more and more as time passes. There will be hate against foreigners for a long time and the transition to a multicultural country won't be an easy one, but the process of more and more interaction, intermarriage and integration of foreign thought is going to continue to change Korea very drastically. Korean society is changing at lightning speed anyway as the now so "Western" divorce rate and other shifts in attitude to more Western ideas testament to. They might hate Americanization, but it's still going to happen.

However, I think that Korea will always be unique somehow and no matter what, won't ever be exactly like anywhere else in the world, even though it will become a lot more similar to the present-day US.

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:47 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:20 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Well, thank you for your intelligent input!

Thanks for your suggestion that a lot of resentment might stem from imported goods, although I feel that this is a more recent phenomenon with the FTA and is the overwhelming cause only now and that the inferiority complex is a more lasting cause that is always in the Korean subconsciousness. But thank you for bringing that up - despite the whole buzz about the FTA and all the demonstrations, I totally forgot about it.

As for the diminishing culture thing, well I don't generally think that Koreans are very vocal about objecting to all parts of Westernization (in case of Western clothes and instruments, they might not even be consciously aware of having been Westernized), but I sometimes hear people complaining about the abundance of McDonald's or Burger King and how it was a sign of colonization (and, as I mentioned, I believed colonization is a very sensitive issue for Koreans). Obviously, a lot of people still eat at McDonald's or Pizza Hut or they wouldn't make any profit and therefore wouldn't be everywhere, so the people who are totally adverse to the idea of Western fast-food joints in Korean streets are probably a minority found only in the most extreme anti-American bootcamps... although I do know that at the height of anti-Americanism following the death of those school girls, demonstrations were held outside of American fast-food joints and protests against their existence arose. Generally, though, I do get the impression, that quite a few Koreans who are so anti-American they would speak of having their country "stolen" (which are the group of people I tried to explain to the original poster, fully knowing that they don't make up 100% of the population by far) are very suspicious of American presence in Korea, especially the military base and to a smaller extent, the cultural imports, too.

Well, only my impression. Smile

(and I guess it is starting to get off-topic now, this discussion would be best done in a US-Korea relations thread.)

BACK ON TOPIC *clears throat*

One aspect of life in Korea that nobody has discussed so far (that I've seen) is getting around without knowing Korean. Since that's a rather important part you should know before visiting, I'll state my experiences.

When I first came to Korea a few years ago, I didn't speak a beep of Korean apart from 안녕하세요 and yes, getting around was a bit tough. You can get lost quite easily on a bus as you might not understand the transmission, which on some buses, is only in Korean (on the subway it's in Korean and English), plus the bus drivers typically stop for only a short time so you might have trouble getting off. Whenever I got lost, I asked people for help, but they usually didn't speak any English at all (or, they were too scared to use it). Today I know a lot of Koreans who have taken English at school for years and years and yet entirely forgot how to speak it. Again, my male friends are typically worse than my female ones.

Your best bet for English-speakers seem to be young women. Women seem to speak English better than men on average, as they don't have to quit learning anything for 2 years at the army (it is also my impression that women tend to naturally be better at languages) and I read some statistics somewhere that actually more Korean females than males spend some time abroad. So if you don't know any Korean, asking young women has the highest success rate. At least, it has had for me (kobe will like this pinch

).

I would warmly recommend learning some Korean, though. Especially important: learning numbers (so you know how much you're expected to pay at the convenience store) and words such as subway station, bus station and etc. Korean is not an easy language, but learning just a little will help you a lot. You can get around knowing nothing... but it's not convenient.

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:45 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

woww this is a really heated debate... can u marvelous not be so mean please? your patriotism is basically racism... i'm really patriotic too (chinese), but i wouldn't go criticizing at white/ non-chnz ppl like that... consider other ppl here's feelings too...

the reluctant americanization u guys describe happening in korea is basically happening all over the world, esp asia. take japan for example, they were isolated for sucha long time, but now their cities are even more advanced/westernized than america's.. even though china's still communist and patriotic as hell.. they're becoming more and more capitalist and know they should follow more of america's form of economy/governing... but admitting it won't come easy.

all grls wear high heels over there!? dangg my feet would die =[

ohhh well i'd still like to visit korea even if they do care alot about looks? gosh skinny asian grls... -__-''

ohhh a krn friend of mine said that after her dad came back from korea from a business trip, he told her EVERYONE looks the same on the streets now.. like they get plastic surgery to look like the ideal beauty (men and women). (notice that's wat my krn friend told me, don't kill me marvelous)

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:05 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Okay, on topic. =P

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:08 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Everyone looking the same? That's an excellent point (when I'm done writing all this, I'll upload all of this to my website to have a nice archive of different aspects of life here).

That's exactly what Koreans seem to be striving to look like and it's long been my impression that the range of accepted beauty in Korea is just so much narrower than anywhere else. Like, if you were to pick up 10 American or German or French or whatever men off the street and asked them about the ideal American/German/French woman, you'd get 10 different responses. Some would say they preferred shorter women, some taller, some thicker, some thinner, some with curly hair, some with straight hair, some blondes, some brunettes, some with pretty girl-next-door looks, some with model-like aristocratic features etc. etc. but if you picked up 10 Korean men off the street and asked them about the perfect Korean woman, at least 8 out of the 10 would most likely answer with this: slim body (쭉쭉 빵빵), long, straight black hair; big, double-lidded eyes; high nose; full lips; slim, oval face, wears mini-skirt and high-heels and is slightly younger than them. There is no room for discussion. While in most Western cultures, the notion that everyone is beautiful in their own way is encouraged (to some degree at least), in Korea, what's beautiful and what's not is set in stone. I remember that once, I asked a Korean guy on Skype what kind of girl he liked, and he answered, "all Korean guys like the same kind of girls."

As a result, Korean girls look, dress and act very similar and they are rather few girls who dare to willingly go out of the norm. Unlike in Japan, where you will see lots of girls with unique fashion in places such as Harajuku, Korean fashion style is far more rigid and less imaginative from what I've seen. That's just how it is, it's neither good nor bad - you know exactly how to improve yourself to appeal to nearly everyone as a Korean female but at the same time, of course it gets rid of a lot of variety on the street.

My impression.

(Now before someone flames me, yes of course there is a standard of beauty everywhere, and the vast majority of Western men will for example say a 125 pounds woman is more attractive than a 200 pounds woman, but I feel that, apart from those extremes, there is a lot of little variation in what men are into. The notion and range of what is beautiful is broader. In Korea, it just appears far more rigid to me and a lot of girls seem to try to reach that set-in-stone ideal).

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:29 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:39 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

strange before seein korean drama n stuff my number one goal was to go to japan, learn japanese n everythin else, but after watchin numerous korean dramas i cnt get enough of korea i really want to go to korea n learn the language i still also want to go to japan n also learn the language but not as so much as i wanted to before. n thanx for all the info it just makes me more anxious to c korea n learn the language. cheers

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:58 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:16 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

On the topic of all Korean girls looking the same:

I totally agree...well not to the extent of all but most. Whenever I walk down the street and look at the girls, I notice they are all dressed nicely but their styles are so alike. Its like there's a way in which they must dress.

Learning some Korean would be nice. My Korean isn't great but I actually know a lot and that helps because like Néa Vanille said, the people won't know a lot of English or they'd be reluctant to use whatever little English they know. When I visited a school, the guys and girls were way to shy to come up to me because they didn't want to speak English to me. I told them it was okay to speak in Korean but they felt the need to speak in English to me and I guess they weren't confident enough. It's not really that hard...I learned a few conversational and shopping phrases and that's helped out a lot...also use common sense...I don't understand half of the things Korean people say to me but I notice their body language and the situation that I'm in

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:15 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

It's obvious everyone has been infected by Americanism. Everyone behaves like a robot or slaves. Hmmm..

People need to see the true light. It's a race war in the real world for dominance over others!

You talk of racism when racism is handed to you on a silver platter by whites and most people eat it up.