10 Years as a Foreigner Living in Korea 🇰🇷 Pros and Cons of Living Here

so I took this photo of home plus which is like Korea's version of Walmart about 10 years ago and this is what it looks like today [Music] the center point of nice hamidong my old neighborhood and now it's not even visible from the trees and buildings covering it up you used to be able to see it from all angles of the city and in 2023 it's just kind of there amongst other buildings that are similar in height what was once a bright landmark of neshamidome is now an aging sign of the past just like Osan College Station where I lived 10 years ago and has definitely seen better days my old neighborhood in Osan used to have big open Skies and felt a lot like living in the countryside but now it feels more like a big city with buildings in place of where the sky used to be there were empty Fields Back Then where you could see the trains passing by and now you can't even see the train tracks anymore this is just an example of how much Korea has changed over the last 10 years but some changes take a long time and that's what we're gonna talk about today [Music] thank you yeah so this is the first neighborhood I lived in when I first came to Korea exactly 10 years ago I arrived at the bus terminal in Osan kind of Sunday night and I started work the next morning which uh it shocked me because I thought I'd get a little bit of training or maybe a couple days off just to get over the jet lag but Noah just starting right away the next day so that was quite the experience in this area of Osan there was nobody around you know no foreigners or anything like that at least that I knew at the time so the first six months were a little bit lonely for sure so this video will just kind of help you decide if Korea is the right place for you what it's like to live here long term as a foreigner if it's a place that's really worth living or maybe if it's just a place that's better for traveling in 2012 when I first visited here as a tourist that's when kangnam style came out and that was kind of the first big cultural phenomenon to come out of Korea so Kpop wasn't really a big thing worldwide wide until Gangnam Style I think at least in the Western World so that really blew things up and that was kind of the same time I got here so it felt like I was here just on the very start of this kind of cultural upswing and my neighborhood of Nissan in Osan was complete Countryside you know they were kind of cabbage Fields all over the place there weren't really that many big businesses or anything like that it was just kind of mom and pop shops it was really really quiet weren't many people walking around weren't many cars and at the time the hog one I was working at was just kind of in the middle of nowhere there was just like a bunch of fields around there was a grocery store across the street and just one building which is where my hogwan was so it's pretty crazy to see it now when like there's so many businesses everywhere they actually started constructing the area kind of when I was living there it's definitely interesting to see how much has changed now with all these restaurants and businesses kind of it seems like it's booming a lot you know so let's transition to the second half of this video where I'm going to talk about what it's like living here as a foreigner long term and if this is a place for you we'll start out the absolute most common thing that people hear is you will never be Korean because Korea is almost I think it's about 97 Korean ethnicity so if you're a foreigner you really stick out I just want to talk about what I think about this topic after living here for 10 years because I'm planning on staying in Korea and it's important that I'm accepted here to be able to live here long term so when it comes to this topic basically anytime you go into a grocery store or a convenience store or something and you walk in there people aren't going to expect you to speak Korean or know the mannerisms of what to do you know a lot of the times like especially if you've studied Korean and you kind of understand how to do things and you talk to them in Korean they'll be really surprised and really happy you most of the time you know they'll be like oh wow which means wow your korean's so good you're you're literally better at Korean than a Korean person which is not true at all they've been saying that since I first came here and like when I could just say like they would always shower me with compliments like it's the most amazing thing that I can say these few words it is slowly going away in Seoul a little bit especially in this neighborhood of Shinto where I live because there's so many students that are studying Korean so it's not that rare for foreigners to speak Korean but it still does happen a lot they're just trying to compliment you or they're trying to make you feel welcome just try not to take offense to it uh if you get offended by stuff like that then maybe coming to Korea to live long term is not a good idea I think this won't go away anytime soon it is changing a lot over time but just something thing to know and then there's the cultural aspect of it where let's say you're going to dinner with like a family or co-workers or friends or something like that in Korea everyone has a very very specific role and they have a very specific way of doing things people really like to take care of each other here and they like to feed each other and they like to give the other person water first they like to do stuff for other people a lot more before they do it for themselves whereas in the west we kind of do things a lot more independently like we go to a restaurant and we split the bill up everyone eats their own food that they want to eat in Korea you're in it together it's a group activity everyone's eating the same thing and like just for example at a barbecue restaurant you might have the younger people grilling the meats and pouring drinks for the elderly and then you'll have the moms and the ants like feeding the young because they they want to take care of them and then maybe the the uncles and the dads ads will be like taking care of the bill and there's definitely direct roles that Koreans are very used to because they deal with it all the time and they're very good at dealing with these group situations but people never expect these things from me you know so even though I've lived here for 10 years and I I know that you have to give other people Chopsticks before you take it yourself or I know you have to pour other people water or alcohol first one thing I want to say is if you do things as much as you can like a Korean person especially at a restaurant people will really appreciate it and it's definitely the easiest way to get closer to people so that's kind of one good way to get out of that hole you will never be Korean mindset and then when it comes to family so family is a big thing in Korea right and to be honest before I got married here I didn't expect people to take care of me so well and I expected to be kind of like an outsider you know I really truly feel like I'm a part part of Eugene's family it feels like people would go so far out of their way to help me and they really care for me and they always just make me feel so welcome and accepted and it's been like that since the very beginning and I'm I'm so lucky to be in this situation because I've seen people that aren't really and when you think about the subject of you can never be Korean I think going into a Korean family is one way where you can kind of feel like you're a part of things here and it definitely makes me feel more a part of society because we care for each other a lot and it's made me a lot closer to Korea in general and now let's talk about the topic of marriage so we can make a whole video about this but a lot of people might be curious uh maybe they want to live in Korea long term and they're kind of curious like what if you get married do do things change and is it going to be more difficult with the cultural differences and I just want to say that everybody is the same you know whenever you live with somebody for a long time no matter what culture they're from you're gonna have differences you're gonna have arguments you just kind of got to embrace the differences and trust each other respect each other no matter what culture what race you are it doesn't matter there will be different opinions for sure about different topics but everybody is like that everybody is different in this world and it's just important to know that before you get into the relationship just so that you're not expecting something to be like special or different and then you get disappointed later people are all the same in this world and that's really important to know and let's talk about work so obviously if you're living here long term you're going to need a job in Korea jobs are a lot more limited to foreigners overall as a native English speaker from one of these countries I'll just put a title here you can teach English here forever you can work your way up the ladder too there better jobs the more experience you have just like if you stay back home you can start your own business just like my friend did where he started his own kind of English study room and he's doing really really good really successful with that when it comes to things outside of English teaching though you have to realize that the only way to get a job here is if it's worth a company to hire you instead of a Korean person unless it's a restaurant that has a lot of tourists that speak your language there's probably not that many reasons for the manager to hire you it's really important to know that there won't be that many job options available unless you get really good at Korean and you kind of specialize in something for example I've done freelance filmmaking a lot here and the only reason I was able to get into it was first of all I had a lot of experience before I started it here and I spoke Korean which is really really key because we're filming a lot of Koreans and I have to be able to communicate with them as well if I didn't have any Korean ability I don't think I'd be able to do freelance filmmaking at all it's very very important it's just like any other country where you have to really stand out to get work and another thing that you really need to consider is the Visa I can work as a videographer because I have an F visa from getting married but when you get here you won't have an F Visa if you're teaching English you'll have an E-2 Visa which only allows you to teach English and it only allows you to work for that specific company as well so it's hard to gain a lot of various experience unless you've been here for a while you study Korean and then you can work towards getting an F Visa which if you don't get married there's also a point system and then once you have an F Visa you can work in a lot of different Industries but it's just good to know that you probably won't get hired unless the industry specifically wants someone exactly like yourself because there's probably a big chance that a Korean could do it otherwise so after saying all of this let's cover the question is Korea a good place to live long term as a foreigner and I'll answer it like this Korea's a great country to live in for many people but not for everybody so first of all if you're really open-minded if you can deal with really fast paced and really unpredictable environments and especially last minute and unpredictable changes for example if you're an English teacher you might just hear from the boss that the next day you have to come in two hours early and there will be no warning at all it would it'll just be hey come in tomorrow two hours early even though it's not written on your contract that you have to do that and in those cases you can fight it there is a system to protect you and make sure that your employers follow the contract but just be aware that the contract will not always be followed a hundred percent and things won't always be exactly as you predict and just things like problem solving are done a lot differently here than they are in Canada like Koreans have their own way of doing things and if you can't be open-minded and flexible to deal with a lot of these changes it's going to be really really hard to be honest then there's just the outside world like you might have a store or restaurant front that you really love in your neighborhood and then the next day it's gone things change they come and go all the time here things like going to the grocery store like the prices of fruits and vegetables one day broccoli will be a dollar the next day it'll be three dollars and fifty cents and then you're almost panicking like oh why is it so expensive all of a sudden and let's say housing you might watch kdramas and you see all these beautiful apartments and there's high rises everywhere in Korea your first year you come to Korea you won't be living in a place like that you'll be staying in a studio apartment that's really small in an older building the location might not be that great there could be mold problems the furniture could be old there could be a uncomfortable bed even though Korea is such a futuristic Society it's more common to live in an older place especially your first year when you aren't making a lot of money let's say you're renting on your own at like a newer office town or something which is just a shared building between companies and people that are living there in your housing contract it might say that you just have like a fifty dollar a month building fee and then you get your first bill and it's two hundred dollars with all of these hidden fees like maybe they didn't set up the the heating and air conditioning system properly so you have to pay the fee because they didn't install it properly which is something that happened to me and Eugene so there's just so many rapid changes and things aren't always the way they look on paper when you go into something and I'd say more so than living in Canada or America at least from my experience and then let's talk about the police like you might be used to the police being really helpful well Eugene and I got involved in a car scam in 2019 and we went to the police because we felt we had pretty good evidence of our scam and that they'd help us out and the very first thing the police said was how much did you get scammed and we said that it was in the thousands and the officer literally said well it was just six thousand and not sixty thousand so just be happy that you didn't get scammed too hard it made us lose all of our hope you know like we thought that the police would be willing to help us out and kind of catch this guy who scammed us but instead it just seemed like a huge hassle for him and it was really really hard to deal with the police and these are really important things to know before coming here because at least the police system is a lot different than it was in Canada and I've heard this from multiple people too so it's not just from my own story you can look online of different people's experiences dealing with the police there's still things like corruption going on and things are definitely getting better every year but it's just something to consider before moving here long term so as for my reasons for living here long term well first of all I met my wife but even before that I wanted to live here forever and it's just because right now we're paying about five hundred dollars U.S a month to live in our favorite neighborhood in Seoul and maybe the world you know we got access to the subway we got thousands of restaurants and international restaurants too we can easily fly all over Asia for really cheap to Japan or to Taiwan or Vietnam or all these different places and then on top of being in the big city with all these things to do we have easy access to Nature like Korea has amazing cycling and hiking and in the winter you can go skiing or you can go hiking up to beautiful mountains and in the summer you can go to Jeju and relax on the beach and the nature is pretty diverse for the size of the country so these are the reasons that are keeping me here and I just want to say they're a lot different than the reasons that I initially liked about Korea I used to think it was this futuristic Society that's just perfect and it is true that there's beautiful people here but there's also bad people here just like any country and it's really important to know that when you're coming here you're not coming to some special place where everybody's perfect there's good people and bad people just like any other country and just to compare it to Canada I would say Korea is a lot better when it comes to Transportation cost of living convenience safety access to public health care traveling to other countries a lot easier but then there's the downsides right like Korean Society is way too competitive when it comes to school or workplaces everyone's forced to compete with each other and it stresses them out like crazy like you see people all the time that are just dealing with so much stress and they're so overworked and so tired and even as an English teacher here you might work more hours and you might get less vacation than what you get in your home country so your benefits might not be as good so I've talked about how Korea has changed over the past 10 years and what it's like to live as a a foreigner long term here I love living here just so you know I don't plan on going anywhere else it's still the number one country for me I have no regrets for coming here if you want to live in Korea after watching this video first of all I just come here to travel and you can have so many good experiences like exploring soul and having all this amazing food enjoying the night life kind of looking at the Palaces and the traditional culture you can go into nature there's so many things you can do here you know after you come here for a couple weeks you might be really wanting to live here because you just had such an amazing time I'd recommend just try and find a job here for a year you know if you're a native English speaker especially try and get an English teacher job here and see what it's like for yourself apply to a bunch of schools and make sure to talk to the people that are working at the school first to ask about the studio apartment that they're living in and how the hours are and the holidays and all that kind of stuff and just try and find a decent job and see what it's like for yourself because the only way to really know if you want to live here or not is to spend that first year here and if you're not a native English speaker there are jobs in like factories and farms and stuff like that that do sponsor visas as well so just do a little bit of research because you might find people from your own country that made guides on how to get jobs in Korea yeah I don't want to make this video too long just wanted to talk about the last 10 years here it's been a huge part of my life I'm more making this video for myself just to look back on someday because uh Korea is my life now you know it's been quite the adventure for the last 10 years and here's to 10 more with the Powerade right here so hope everyone's doing good hope you're all healthy and happy and we'll see you in another video [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Lost Then Found

Views: 122,765

Keywords: lost then found, korea, travelogue, kvlog, 국내여행, 여행, 국제커플, 브이로그, adventure, 세계 여행, LTF, korean vlog, korean life, 한국, living in korea, gukjecouple, 코나다커플, living in korea as a foreigner, english teaching in korea, expat in korea, korea 10 years, how koreans treat foreigners, are korean

Id: YEyxbtRbjqs

Length: 20min 6sec (1206 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023