A year and a month ago, I realized the dream of 19-year-old Me: I moved to South Korea to live there.
A Working-Holiday Visa in my pocket, ready to experience Korea for the 6th time in total and for the first time as a resident rather than a tourist.
I was psyched.
That year flew by. One moment I was there. The next it was all over. As I write this, I’ve just left Asia as a whole with no clear idea when I’ll get the next opportunity to go to all these countries I love around there.
Now, was Korea perfect? It sure wasn’t. Like any country, it has its fair share of problems, and my experience was filled with ups and downs. I’ll share more about some of them although I’ll keep some for a more private setting.
One of my first reflections about my experience was on a walk down my last small hike in Seoul, on Inwangsan (인왕산). I spoke and got transcribed my thoughts in an app as I was going down, enjoying the mesmerizing Seoul night view. The first conclusion I came to was quite a depressing one:
I know I will look back on my time in Korea and see it as a great opportunity I wasted.
In some ways, I still think that way a bit but I’ve gained an extra month of perspective and I reckon the word “wasted” feels a bit strong here.
But hey, you tell me what it sounds like.
A year divided in two
My year in Korea had two widely different sections. Without knowing this, understanding the rest of my experience wouldn’t make much sense.
In short, I spent the first four months or so in a relationship and the rest not in one. Obviously, being in one or not will impact life in general but that was likely the biggest difference I’ve had so far.
While in a relationship, I spent every available moment outside with the girl I was with. I had some great memories and some less great. Again. Just like in any relationship. The problem was that I arrived with few if any true friends in Seoul so my only contact was my girlfriend and even if I didn’t realize it at the time, it certainly ate at me.
On the contrary, during the rest of my visa, I met a lot of people. And when I say a lot, I mean a LOT. I went weekly to a language exchange meetup for about 6 weeks and at least 20 times to a Japanese bar where everybody chats together. I didn’t count but I reckon I talked to close to a hundred people.
Interestingly enough, neither was exactly what I was looking for.
During the first part, I had someone who would truly listen and care for me but I felt somewhat constrained by not having other friends. In the latter, I knew tons of people but didn’t have many true friends. There’s only one that comes to mind and I look forward to seeing him again in the future.
The Korean language in a year
As you certainly know if you’ve been following me for some time, I’ve been learning Korean for quite some time (since 2009, on and off) and could already speak it when I landed last year.
For as long as I can remember, Korean has always been in my Japanese skills’ shadow. I could never help myself but to compare it to my proficiency in Japanese and think I had a very long way to go.
I still believe this.
I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t improve at all this past year. Here’s just a short list of things I did and wouldn’t have dreamt of doing a year prior:
Read 4 books, including one about AI
Got Level 5 of the Test Of Proficiency In Korean (TOPIK), missing the highest, Level 6, by only 11 points out of 300.
Had conversations on a wide range of topics, from daily life (not surprising to me) to politics, feminism, social issues, and much more.
Getting TOPIK 5 was a highlight because, while I was aiming for it, I was pretty sure I’d only get level 4 or, if I was lucky, barely get it. Instead, I passed with “flying colors.”1
On the harder-to-evaluate improvements, I improved my capacity to switch back and forth from Korean to other languages without much trouble, something I’ve been able to do in Japanese for a few years but that seemed far away for Korean.
I became more confident in my Korean skills overall.
But I also know some “limits” are still here. For one, I still can’t seem to use the sentence enders ~거든(요) and ~군(요). No matter how many times I hear them and recognize them, my habits don’t seem to adapt. I wonder if I’ll ever make those part of my active toolbox of skills.
I also still think words don’t fly out smoothly from my mouth, no matter how easy it sounds in my head. My pronunciation clearly improved overall but I can hear how foreign it sounds in some spots. I’ll probably do some shadowing in the future to improve this.
I, of course, realize I could have improved much more had I spoken Japanese on a less regular basis.
I had originally met the girl I was with during my exchange program in Japan (in 2012) and she spoke Japanese better than I do so we would often speak 한본어 (Japorean?) together to keep the conversations going without either of us getting stuck in either language.
Once we broke up, most of the people I met were Korean who could speak Japanese so I ended up speaking mostly Japanese too. It had the advantage that it allowed me to prevent my skills from disappearing but it surely prevented my Korean skills from rising as fast as they could have.
Still, I’m extremely happy with how Korean has become a complete part of my life. I feel warmth whenever I hear and see Korean out in the wild now and I can open a book without constant fear of being stuck looking up every other word in a dictionary.
During my 3 weeks in Taiwan, I felt my heart lift whenever I heard some Korean. Just as I do whenever I hear Japanese “in the wild” outside of Japan.
Otherworldly Nature
Now, for other random stuff, 2023 was most likely my most physically active year ever. I went to the gym rather regularly for 5 months and started running again.2 I went on quite a few hikes and saw incredible views from the top of the many mountains I climbed. I even hiked Hallasan (한라산), the highest mountain in South Korea in less time than the average, despite my myasthenia—a disease that makes one localized bunch of muscles weaker, in my case: the legs.
Until 2023, I had only seen Korea during summer so it was quite an experience to live through all 4 seasons:
The countless flowers of Spring and the cherry blossom festival in Jinhae
The numerous festivals throughout Summer
The mesmerizing Autumn foliage in places like Olympic Park or Nami Island
The freezing cold and snowy sceneries of Winter throughout Seoul and high in the mountains
I sprained my ankle in late August and got stuck home for some time but, apart from this, I saw loads of beautiful places.3
And those coffee shops! ☕
I knew Korea had tons of coffee shops but I didn’t realize how much I’d miss their presence and varied styles before I left Seoul for Taiwan and realized how difficult it could be to find one that’d satisfy all I needed.
I know I’ll miss those even more as time passes by in France, and I’ll miss having tiny chats with the owner of one where I went often.
A society rapidly yet slowly evolving
For all I loved in my time in Korea, it was also clouded by some less pleasant experiences and realizations.
The first is xenophobia in the Korean society. Not the people—although, like everywhere, there are some racist people—4 but rather from a society that used to not have many foreigners and suddenly saw them skyrocket.
I can’t count how many time I saw a notification or message saying something like “내국인만5 사용할 수 있습니다.” (“Only locals can use this”). I even received such such a notification after registering at the Seoul library with my Alien Registration Card and my Korean phone number, proving I was not “just” a tourist.
The Korean society still has a long way to go when it comes to welcoming the ever-growing number of foreigners. It better hurry because that won’t fly forever.
Spending more time with Korean friends, I saw with my own eyes the over-drinking culture. Despite years in Japan, I still managed to be rather shocked by it in Korea. While I can handle my liquor pretty well, this served as a good reminder I’m not into this as much as I was a decade ago.
Of course, there are also other problems too, such as a culture of overwork, depression, and all very patriarcal. But I have to admit I probably only saw the tip of the iceberg for each of those.
Finally, there are the small details that pile up over time. For instance, the fact metro lines don’t indicate the direction but rather the next few stops can be frustrating, especially when you’re in a hurry.
Conclusion
I’m pretty sure I’ll keep this experience as an important one that shaped me for the future.
One of the things I didn’t get around to mentioning is the thirst for improvement found in some of the young Korean people. While this doesn’t always stem from a positive place, I found inspiring their constant thrive for, well, more and better.
I met one of my friends only 3 months after he started studying Japanese. 6 months later, I didn’t have to satisfy my Japanese at all anymore and he could respond to anything, all this while he had also started to learn Mandarin (and improve fast) while holding a job that made him finish on a regular basis after 10pm.
Is this too much? Maybe. But it’s also motivating in some ways. It reminded me of a time I could not stop myself from wanting to learn more. A feeling I’m now striving to get back.6
I loved my time in Korea.
It was what life is: varied and messy.
Still, it also gave me an answer to the question I always wondered: which of Japan and Korea felt better for me to live in. Japan won that battle but it’s also where I spent 6 years of my life so that was an unfair battle.
So is it “a great opportunity wasted”?
In the end, I reckon it isn’t. It’s an experience filled with surprises throughout. Good and bad. There are a lot of things I know I could have done and didn’t. But, again, that’s what life is. Better look ahead now.
I’m not saying I’ll never go back to living in Korea but know it’s highly unlikely. What is sure, however, is that I’ll go back again to visit.
And until then, I’ll cherish the countless memories I’ve made there.
Updates
I know I missed a week but the return home got messier than expected and I didn’t want to rush this piece.
Next week, we’ll be back to our regular The Language of AI piece and I’ll get back to more practical general language-learning thoughts, tips, and so on in two weeks.
Cheers for reading!
Mathias
Obviously not entirely, otherwise, I’d have gotten level 6 but you see what I mean.
I wanted to run one 10k before leaving Korea but the last two months were just too busy and cold. I’ve ran a few 10ks in 2020 so I want to become able to do it again and then push to 20k by the end of 2024.
The 4 pictures throughout this piece illustrating the 4 seasons were tough to choose out of the many incredible ones I have!
I remember in particular a taxi driver saying the fare would be double after hearing the person taking the taxi with me was Japanese…
The term 내국인 (person from within the country) is in contrast to 외국인 which means “foreigner” or literally “person from outside the country”
I’ve taken on 2 month-long online bootcamps on topics I’ve been interested in for a while: Power BI and Deep Learning.