Four Things to Do or Not Do in Korea (A RANT)
By Jack Dashwood
Foreigners in Korea act like dicks. They do. As a mildly conjoined, sharply stereotyped group, we do. Stereotypes are harmful things, but as one of my favourite bigoted defenses goes: stereotypes are there for a reason. What I am about to point out are some things that I have noticed us foreigners doing that I think seriously contribute to our most salient dickishness in this beautiful host country of ours, followed by some carelessly constructed advice on how to minimize it. After all, we are the cultural ambassadors of our home nations, and it is our privileged duty to foster positive—blah blah blah.
1) Learn Some Korean. Korean is a language that is spoken in some parts of the world; most notably (sorry Kim Jong-Il) South Korea. Between your slovenly binges into the world of Itaewon, you may or may not have noticed this, but you might in fact be currently living in South Korea. Here are some litmus-test clues to confirm these suspicions: (i) There don’t appear to be garbage cans anywhere (ii) You got off the plane, and you were instantly a millionaire with a massive penis (or alternatively, a somewhat butch female millionaire with a couple of pounds to lose). (iii) You appear to have landed some kind of job as a speech therapist for incredibly polite people. If you do come to the realization that you are in fact living and working in Korea (those pints of Cass/Hite/Max don’t pay for themselves), then you may want to pick up the language. I became an organ donor the other day*. I realized it was the right thing to do because it finally dawned on me that I could die at any second of shame and embarrassment when I overhear one of my foreign cohorts ordering bibimbap, minus the red bean sauce, green onions, and any meat…..in English. Here is a hint for those of you out there with “food preferences” (I believe these people are also known as “corpses” in third world countries), the people making and bringing food most likely have no idea what on Earth you are talking about, so in order to render their local dishes into the boiled rice and mushroom mix that meet your personal dietary “needs,” you might want to learn how to do that in their own language.
2) Be careful with those exclamations:If you encounter something that you are not used to in this country, try, try, try not to exclaim something like “that’s so wierd!” or, “that’s gross!”. For example: if you notice that tomatoes are often used in desserts, it may be prudent not to denounce this practice as being revolting to your personage. Also, some parts of animals may not be eaten in your home country, but may be eaten here (without any consequence to your health I might add). Your upbringing may have led you to conclude that all 6-plus billion people on this Earth, across all climate zones, economic environments, and cultural foundations live exactly the same lifestyle as you do. This, however; is not quite true. Take a moment to understand that…..oh fuck it, you probably wouldn’t understand anyways— Here is a quick fix-it: If you are tempted to exclaim some criticism at an audible volume regarding another culture’s commonly accepted everyday habits, just say “That’s interesting” and leave it at that. Trust me, don’t dig the hole any deeper. 
3) Do not make fun of Koreans trying to speak English. I clicked on a Web site the other day that was paragraph after paragraph of “stupid things Korean girls text to foreigners.” The gist of it was “hey look at this broken English this girl sent me. What a tard!”. To a certain type of person, this point of view makes sense. If for example, you’re the type of person who would spike girls drinks at your college fraternity parties, or if you taunted the one brown kid in your school for being a terrorist, then this style of humour might be rather entertaining. Let’s take a moment to look from another point of view though: Imagine now you are the Korean girl who has to make all the effort because her barely-function English is still better than your half-arsed-6 word vocabulary in Korean. I wonder if there is a Web site with Korean girls making fun of the stupid things that foreigners say to them……
4) You are not the Princess/Prince in your workplace. Yes, they likely flew you out here. Yes, they most likely pay for for your apartment. Yes, most people in your workplace look up to you for your seemingly innate grasp of English (whoa). But let’s get one thing straight: all this doesn’t mean that you can demand anything under the sun from your director. You may be asked to work off the clock occasionally. That’s right, you may be doing “Work,” but not getting paid for it. “What treachery! How dare they?!” you may exhort. But then ask yourself this: Is this your first “real” job out of university? For a large portion of you it is, and I hate to break it to you, but every job requires you to work “off the clock” sometimes. If you are complaining about sticking around for a 30 minute meeting every once in a while, or a quarterly training seminar on a Saturday, you come off as not only a bit of a prick, but also pretty damn lazy too. Unless your employer is working you ragged without you seeing a cent, suck it up Princess, and welcome to the wonderful world of young adulthood.
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Jack Dashwood- yes that is him on the front page with a transgender) is a regular contributor to 3WM
Contact: jrdashwo@gmail.com
August 9th, 2010 at 7:43 am
funny article because all these items seem so obvious for foreigners who are NOT english native, meaning their job and money is not provided just because of the sake of their nationality. Then for example they may speak bad english as well as koreans, but try to improve, learn korean because it’s obvious and is an asset, and so on.
August 9th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Thank you for this checklist. I have some people who comes to mind that really needs to read this.
August 9th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Thank you for writing an article that should have been written years ago. Totally spot-on except for one thing: in order to avoid being a dick, in any culture, you might want to refrain from using offensive terms like “tranny,” unless you yourself identify as transgender.
August 9th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Good article.
August 9th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Interesting, I agree with what you have written, however, I do think you are making general assumptions and maybe hanging out with the wrong crowds at times. I assume your comments were directed more towards “teachers”, fine, but do realize that there are other “foreigners” in Korea that are NOT teachers.
Again, I agree whith what you wrote. A great Part Deux would be what Koreans should not do to Foreginers while living in Korea….
August 9th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
I agree with jj above about general assumptions – but then, the author covered it by saying that stereotypes exist for a reason? While the behavior mentioned in the article might represent a minority among us (doesn’t describe most of my friends, for instance) it is nevertheless the kind of thing that stands out and is noticed, and so it tends to get attached to the whole lot of us.
I agree with Mr Dashwood. Don’t do this stuff.
I know foreigners, English teachers, who’ve been here over 4 years and never bothered to learn the alphabet enough to read a menu … yeah, wow. (It’s very easy, takes about 4 hours to get it down.) I’ve seen foreigners on the street in Gangnam yelling obscene English (“F” word) which is they likely something they wouldn’t do back home – probably they assume Koreans don’t understand, but for a lot of Koreans it’s one of the English words they DO understand – then again, perhaps such behaviors reflect a notion inside that the Koreans around them are not entirely real …
Oh, and thanks for the laugh. Good stuff. Think I’ll tack this up my FB wall.
August 11th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
I disagree with most of this tripe – but especially numbers 2 and 3 (and the introductory paragraph). The writer can speak for himself if he’s a dick. The very concept of referring to oneself as a “foreigner” is retarded – why should one necessarily see oneself from the others’ point of view? I’m me and everyone who is not me is a foreigner.
#2 If something strikes you as weird or unappealing, feel free to exclaim it thus. Just back up your exclamation with an explanation. Personally, when I see ketchup on pizza I will not refrain from exclaiming how gross I think that is. And I would expect the same if anyone saw putting ketchup in duenjang chiggae.
#3 – broken English can be funny – don’t be afraid to laugh or share anecdotes. you are not laughing at the person, but at the unintended and alternative readings of the text messages which poor grammar and secondary language acquisition produces.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
The one thing that is almost as irritating as foreigners making fun of Korea or Koreans is foreigners chastizing other foreigners.
I’ve found that MOST foreigners here do NOT fall under your giant umbrella of, “Foreigners in Korea act like dicks.”
So, please come back down to Earth, get out of the house and go meet some people instead of judging foreigners based on some blogs you read.
August 20th, 2010 at 2:44 am
Allthough I do agree with most everything you are saying, your general cynicism and almost pitifuly negative attitude greatly diminishes any helpful information you may be granting your readers.
I find is greatly ironic that you are blatantly insulting the very people you hope to cater your webzine to.
I find myself very lucky to meet wildly passionate, cultural and diverse foreigners that are very intersted in learning the language and exporing all Korea has to offer. I am sorry your days are filled with such negativity, it must be a small world you live in.
September 5th, 2010 at 2:05 am
I love when I read an article like this that points at stereotypes proudly denoucing their stereotypical behaviour and then everyone who doesn’t fit the stereotypical stereotype jumps and says how can stereoptype me and my stereotypical non-stereotype friends! Ye can’t beet a good rant!!!
September 8th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Although I don’t completely agree with the ‘negativity’ or bashing of foreigners in Korea in the article, I do agree with his ‘helpful’ tips.
I’ve met some good foreigners who are considerate living in Korea, but I’ve also met some people who are less considerate towards others in Korea. I won’t stereotype any groups, but I do wish more people take the advice found on this page to heart.
And to be honest, I don’t think the writer needs to get off his high horse because there is a lot of truth to this article despite his cynicism.
September 8th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Hey guys, when the workplace provides a place to live, it has its pros and cons but we should never call it FREE. it is not free, it is part of your contract. let’s be honest here: with the exception of a few pretty good jobs such as Hongik, Korea uni and a handful of others, the salaries hover at around 2 mil. maybe 2.2 maybe 2.4[that is on the higher side]. Now try converting it into any dollars, be it US, Aussie, NZ…and what do you get? a pittance. it is true that most people here have less overhead than if they were living at home but the salaries here are generally low and havent increased in the last ten years.i know a lot of people here including myself are thankful to have a job but let’s not pretend that the koreans arent making a profit off us. korean bosses are infamously stingy so i would not feel too guilty about the apt and so on.teachers in korea should start demanding higher salaries – we should be making at least 3 mil a month.another problem is that in this country very few employers recognize your experience/qualifications in relation to the pay. when you start at a new job, you are getting the same pay as someone that has just arrived in korea, whether you have been here 5 or ten years.so please, my fellow teachers, let’s cut the “i am grateful crap”.korean bosses care only about profit and you can be sure they are making it off your labor.
September 8th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
[...] ㅋㅋㅋ How not to be the big prick of a foreigner in South Korea [...]
September 10th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
It seems that most of us (humans) take ourselves too seriously. We feel that what we do is really important, and really, is it? I read these articles, and it seems that the ones that get the most replies are articles about expat gripes, culture shock, and korean girls texting (funny) shit to backward hat wearing Sublime fan-date-rapists that could barely get laid in their own country. With that said, I am what I’ve described, I am you, I am the funny korean girl that sends funny texts, I am human, stupid, awkward, and quick to judge…with that said…let’s go comment on an article that actually says something!
September 10th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
We’ve often pondered over this, Wolf. We wonder why readers in our world don’t comment on long, thoughtful, explorative pieces or why poetry, art and film hardly ever get a word. If you haven’t read this article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/magazine/18ROFL-t.html , have a gander; it will enlighten and nonplus you at the same time. Thanks for reading.
October 15th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
jack this was a good read and those who fail to see it as nothing more than your negativity are obviously pricks themselves.
the main message i took from this article is that we all have a social responsibility as non-Koreans in Korea. To treat Korea as your personal playground is absolutely rude and low class.
his examples are just examples, the bigger message can be found in the title…