South Korea is a hugely popular expat destination. Each year, thousands of people from across the globe head to the country for a new adventure. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of this exciting opportunity from someone with first-hand experience.
1. Learn Hangul
Hangul, the Korean alphabet, consists of 24 letters. Memorising these letters takes about 30 minutes. It will help you decipher signs, menus and notice boards.
Taking the time to learn Hangul will make South Korea much more accessible. Even though you might not know what words mean at first, you’ll build up a memory bank of words you can recognise. This helps when you’re looking for specific city names whilst buying bus or train tickets. Knowing the names of dishes also helps you scan menus in restaurants.
2. Be open-minded about new food
From snacks like beondegi (boiled silkworm pupae) to sundae (blood sausage), South Korea is known for its strange street food. Being a picky eater will make it hard to adjust to expat life.
Push yourself to try everything at least once. Food is an important part of Korean culture. An openness to trying new food will help you connect with your Korean coworkers and students. It also helps you feel less foreign. You might reach the point where you’re completely addicted to Korean barbecue and kimchi, unable to imagine life without it.
3. Get tech-savvy
South Korea has some of the world’s fastest internet speeds. It’s also highly technologically advanced. Using this to your advantage will make expat life much easier.
Small things like buying groceries can be overwhelming. The products are different from what you’re used to, and everything is written in Hangul. After your first shopping disaster, you’ll realise you’re going to depend on technology for a while.
Download the Google Translate app. This app can translate words even when you’re offline. You can also take pictures and then translate directly from the image. Google Translate can be your lifeline for the first few months. It helps you get your hair cut, buy medicine and direct taxi drivers.
South Korea has an app for everything. Download apps to track the local buses in your city and one for the subway system in Seoul. The Kakao apps are also worth downloading. Kakao Talk is the biggest messaging platform used here. You’ll use this to communicate with anyone in the country. There is also Kakao T (the taxi-hailing app), which allows you to conveniently order taxis.
4. Be proactive about making friends
There is a large expat community in South Korea, so you might expect it to be easy to make friends. You might imagine walking down the street and strangers waving at you and starting up a conversation. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen. Even though expats share the experience of being foreigners, they’re still just strangers to each other. You’ll need to be proactive when it comes to making connections.
Luckily, once you start, making friends in South Korea is easy. Go to language exchange meetings and make a few friends from there. Almost every town in South Korea has at least one ‘foreigner bar’. Simply taking yourself out to one of these bars is the best way to meet new people. You might be lucky enough to make friends with a group of people who eventually become like a second family.
5. Don’t accept the first job offer you receive
One of the worst moments to live through in South Korea is losing your job six months into your contract. Many expats rush the process of job hunting in the hopes of getting their new life on track as fast as possible. As a result, they accept the first job offer after just a five-minute conversation with the employer. You might start to realise you’re in a dodgy situation when the apartment you were promised turns out to be a room in your new boss’s home. Things can progressively get worse until the school finally closes down due to financial issues.
First, shop around when looking for a job and use reputable websites and recruiters. Look for established programmes and read reviews from current and former teachers. Check that contracts clearly specify your salary, working hours, accommodation details, and leave entitlements before signing. Be willing to negotiate a good expat package and discuss your salary, accommodation, working hours and annual leave allowance. Don’t be afraid to take your time.
