The Other Side of the Coin

I mentioned some of the good things about being foreign but I left out some of the bad things of being foreign. Life can be very hard for foreigners in any country, that is pretty standard fair. A lack of communication, racism, getting charged more for things; these can all be very common things.

I really haven't had much of a problem with racism. In East-Asian countries (read not Southeast Asian countries - I don't know about those) it is a good thing to be white. The Korean people are usually very kind and I have found very willing to help in a number of circumstances. As I have found out it is not as good to be brown or black in this country.

Getting charged more for items, yeah it happens on occasion. Truth is you can normally tell when it is going on and if you are careful it won't happen much. Truth is this, as are all the other items, happens to foreigners in all countries.

Lack of communication is the biggest problem for myself. Between cultural assumptions and me not hearing everything, I get skipped on a fair amount of information. Korean being a language I can speak some of, I can do all of the necessary things; I can buy soap, I can get a taxi, I can buy train tickets a week ahead of time, etc. But having a real conversation with real thoughts, can be awfully hard to come by. As I recently had, I needed to have a conversation with an individual about a very important issue and spent around an hour only to find myself unsuccessful. I had to call a friend who intervened on my behalf and was able to get everything taken care of and translated back to me in about 10 minutes. Situations like that make you feel helpless and very needy.