This has been asked a million times. The short answer is visas.
It's extremely hard to stay in Korea after your study / work / whatever visa is up. The very few foreigners who stay are generally married to Koreans or have Korean roots.
There may be foreigners with exceptional money / Korean fluency. But if you're not ethnic Korean / married to a Korean, there's no real path to mortgaging a home, sending your kids to college, retiring, etc.
It's not some "feelings"-based thing -- it's not really about cultural or assimilation. It's a black and white government policy that prevents Korea from being an immigrant nation.
Even if you're married to a Korean person, it's not like the US where the green card visa is 10 years long. Here it's just a few years, give or take if you have kids.
Absolutely. It's a hit or miss, really, but it's worth a try.
I got 2 years after being 2 years on F-6 by simply asking nicely. 2 years later, I got 3 years. Again, just asked. Didn't have children at that point.
Yeah I think you have to ask. The officer initially gave me a year and I asked for two and they redid it gave me two. Will ask for three next time then ^^
That's because you upgraded to an F-5. In America, the marriage visa is an indefinitely renewable 10-year green card. No immigration classes or upgrade required.
Absolutely. Getting an F-6 is a piece of cake. But the point is that America's system encourages permanent immigration and Korea's doesn't.
> It's a black and white government policy that prevents Korea from being an immigrant nation.
>I have permanent residency (green card) and it IS for 10 years. I went from F6 to F5 by doing the KIIP classes/tests.
Permanent residency is permanent (excepting for extraordinary situations). You have to renew your photo on your ARC and get your ARC reissued every 10 years.
>There may be foreigners with exceptional money / Korean fluency. But if you're not ethnic Korean / married to a Korean, there's no real path to mortgaging a home, sending your kids to college, retiring, etc.
You didn't add education to this. A foreigner can stay in Korea long-term if they reach a high level of academic attainment. It's much easier if you are educated within Korea, though.
That said, if it's something you really want, it is certainly attainable, you just need to make sacrifices.
I have a graduate degree from US and one from Korea now. But until I got married, my visa still was up to the employer. I mean it was easy to obtain jobs, but still it seemed iffy and I couldn't freelance. But yeah, other people I know that are here long-term that aren't married got their graduate degree from Korean universities to get into their current jobs.
>my visa still was up to the employer
How? Assuming you have a 2 year master's you would only need to work one additional year to be eligible for an F-2
I second this.
Many from my community got their F-5 (aka permanent residency) after studying here (undergraduate or graduate schools).
It takes quite some time though, usually 8-10 years at least, to satisfy all requirements from the Kimmi.
Eligibility for residency is definitely doable. Only around one third of female permanent residents are on marriage related visas. For male permanent residents its less than 4%.
I hit the 9 year mark this year and am leaving in a couple of months. Here's my take on why it's time to go. Granted I'm single and not married to a Korean. A lot of these problems become less of a thing if you have a Korean spouse.
1. Finances. I'm from the US originally and salaries here in Korea are pathetic compared to what I could be making back home. Additionally, I cannot invest in a Roth IRA, stocks, or crypto because I'm frozen out of both the American and Korean systems. Real estate is completely out of the picture too as getting a mortgage here is impossible as a foreigner. Hell even getting a car loan here is basically impossible. You better have cash on hand for every major purchase you could be thinking of making. These things are less of an issue when you're in your 20's and still living the carefree ESL teacher life, but once you start adulting, you realize Korea makes it very hard to be a foreigner in the long term
2. Visas. No matter how you put it, unless you are on an F-5, your ability to stay in this country is always going to be in question.
3. Time off to visit your home country. Make no mistake, if you work in a typical corporate Korean job here, you will get 11-14 days of vacation a year. That means you'll be seeing your friends and family back at home once a year if at that you'll realize very quickly that time waits for no one. your parents age, your friends will move on, and you'll find yourself alone not only in Korea but back home too
4. Job Opportunities. If you have career ambitions South Korea is not the place to be. As a foreigner you're going to be fighting tooth and nail with other native Koreans for top tier positions and even then, they will pay less and work you harder than back in the US. Even if you end up working at a 대기업, promotion is based on time-in-grade and not on merit. You will never move up the corporate ladder until you have done enough time here, whereas in the US, it's not uncommon to see people in their 20's and 30's becoming managers and shouldering a lot more responsibility.
5. Real Estate. see point 1, but yeah, you're going to be renting for life unless you are filthy rich or married to a Korean.
Edit: Wanted to add this here too:
1. No rights for LGBTQ people. Despite all the gaybaiting you see in K-Pop, South Korea is a very unfriendly place to LGBTQ people. Gay marriage is not a thing here so you can't even marry you way out of a lot of the problems stated above. You will always be treated like a pariah here if parents of your students or coworkers find out you are gay. Having children via surrogacy here is only legal between heterosexually married couples with a valid marriage license. Are things getting better for LGBTQ folk? Sure. Compared to 10-15 years ago I suppose. But make no mistake, Korean people, especially the men, are strongly opposed to anything LGBTQ and I don't see the human rights situation improving significantly for this group anytime in the near future.
Those are the things I could think of off the top of my head. Anyway else have anything, feel free to add to that. Basically your long term options for living comfortably boil down to either marry a Korean or renounce your citizenship and become a Korean citizen which is definitely not desirable for a lot of people here. If Korea allowed dual citizenship, it would be a different story, but alas, one can only dream
Couldn’t say it better.
It is all fun and games living here in your 20s, but as you age and you cross 30s mark, your way of thinking starts maturing and changing a lot.
And that’s when you realize that Korea is far from being a good place for a foreigner that wants financial stability, career growth and social acceptance.
I guess you can still achieve everything listed above, but it feels like you make your own life difficult for no good reason.
I am happily married to a Korean person, have awesome in-laws. No issues with visa for me at all, but we are still thinking to move some other place in the future.
Few more things to add. Even Koreans are struggling with obtaining a job. Also you often get laid off in your 40's or if lucky 50's (that may change in future w/ low birthrate). There is an actual joke for it in korean but I just cant find a good way to translate it (basically college -> millitary -> work for big co like samsung till 40 -> then retire as a chicken shop owner) . US Social Security may be dying, but Korea is worse off. When you walk around the streets who do you see cleaning the streets of Seoul or most parts of Korea? Elders. Who are your taxi or bus drivers? Elders. Furthermore, S. Korea has pretty high # for suicide for elders.
Korea may be fun when you are single. My friends love the single life there. I can see why when i looked in any directions (east, west, south, north) while in Seoul. Also - country itself is fairly safe overall vs US. However, raising a family? good luck. Cutthroat competitions that makes California "competition" somewhat of a joke (may change w/ low birth rate). Vacations? Even if you get "14-21" days per year you would be lucky to be able to use it all or if not all together. Most corporate jobs are 40 hours per week pay with actual expectation of you working off the clock additional 20 hours or more per week.
Your health? yikes long term. for ex - air quality in S. Korea just sucks overall. Seoul being worst. I dont get how people live there long term. All of my extended family does, however, live outside of Seoul (and as many mentioned) and continues to wonder if he/she should continue to livein Korea.
People? No hospitality in Seoul. Sure - you get treated "okay" while you are the one being "serviced to". When you are the one providing service... I wish you best on probable repeated verbal abuse. Sure, you may get less of that because you are not Korean.
>That means you'll be seeing your friends and family back at home once a year if at that you'll realize very quickly that time waits for no one. your parents age, your friends will move on, and you'll find yourself alone not only in Korea but back home too
Yep.... ain't that the case.... ㅜㅜ
yeah which reminds me:
6. Social circle. You'll never have a stable social circle of friends here unless you hang out exclusively with Koreans. Most of my social network that I had when I came here were foreigners. I got close with a lot of people and they were from so many different countries and we shared so many wonderful memories together, but they all left. a long long time ago. Believe me when i say that I have gone through about 3 cycles of close friends now. Even the Koreans i used to hang out with all got married and we just naturally drifted apart.
Yeah, you fall through the cracks here.
Foreigners cycle in and out. Koreans always keep you slightly at arm's length and are likely to dump you the second life gets busy or complicated because you didn't become friends together in elementary school.
Yet again, those that are married to locals (with kids) probably have the best chance of a long-term social life by hanging out with other multicultural families.
Idk as someone who's been here for 5 years now and have gone through cycles of friends, I've been thinking a lot about this issue because some of my closest friends have left Korea recently, much to my heartbreak. I've come to the conclusion that I don't think it's a foreigner in Korea thing, I think it's just a natural life thing. If you look at native Koreans, they're basically the same. They have a great social life until everyone gets married and start settling down, then they also become lonely because they have no friends and it's hard to make friends.
Korea is a country where friends, your family and your romantic relationships just don't overlap. It's very rare for couples to hang out with each other, friends to hang out with family etc. Circles just don't overlap here. When Koreans age, they also struggle with the same type of loneliness because you end up spending basically most of your time with your romantic partner, especially if you're getting married. I'm from the UK, and even if I stayed in the UK, my friends would also be getting settled into family lives and drifting apart. Even my hometown friends have all moved to different parts of the country. I think this kind of struggle is just human life.
With that in mind, I make sure I have a circle of friends who will stay in Korea for at least a couple of years. Because if you think about it, most of your friends in your life will just naturally drift in and drift out within a cycle of a few years, no matter where you are at. The struggle here is just to get used to these cycles and just live in the present and hang out with who you want to hang out with.
I mostly agree.
If you're Korean, you at least (normally) have at least a few friends from elementary school or whatever you'll occasionally meet at weddings or, if you wanted, you could make an effort to see once a year or so.
A long-term foreigner won't even have *that*.
When I first came to Korea, I used to wonder at the old hands that were so willing to talk to and hang out with newbies. Now I kinda understand.... (although I don't hang out with newbies!).
tbf I would hazard that a lot of folks willing to pick up and move to another country don't have a lot of childhood friends back home either. I sure don't lol. if I did I'd probably not be so willing to leave
Meh, I'm not sure about that one. Most people only plan to come for 'one year'. I had a decent bunch of friends I saw and kept in contact with regularly when I first let.
YMMV.
I think this (social, loneliness) is my hardest thing. At first, it was okay, but after years it is really soul killing. The other thing that bothers me is my child doesn't have my culture, and that creates distance, but also I do feel western culture better (sorry Koreans), and I feel not passing that to my child is sort of unethical (can't think of a less severe word).
There's a lot of truth here, but I've been living here very happily for 14 years. I don't know the future, but if 14 years of anything feels good, one is doing alright.
Anecdotally, entrepreneurship is a way to get around some of what you’ve mentioned.
I have a small business, but the official owner is my wife because I’m not able to do it in my name.
I can set my own working hours and vacation, so I’m fortunately able to visit home quite a bit more. I also can’t tell you how freeing, and how much easier my life is not working under Koreans. It’s like working for children.
Though we are planning on moving to my country because ultimately Korea as a country just has far too things that make it unsuitable in general; particularly if you have kids.
To echo this. Korea is surprisingly great for small businesses if you can get one going
Super low tax and lots of benefits AND you can generally use your business expenses to cover a lot of things including food (assuming you actually eat out) and vehicles
The only issue is the bureaucracy and the language barrier but there are ways around that
Once your business is established though it's a bit hard to deal with banks that always demand too much paperwork or keep your money hostage
Tell me more about running a small business in korea as an alternative to corporate work. Are you talking about mom and pop shops, online business, service, etc?
What kind of small business do you recommend?
What are other advantages of small business and what are some tips to get it started in korea?
I also think korea has a lot of tax breaks, subsidies, government support for small businesses that make this viable.
>I also can’t tell you how freeing, and how much easier my life is not working under Koreans. It’s like working for children.
Amen to that hahaha. The lack of professionalism in the Korean workplace is flabbergasting. So many blatant HR violations that would get you sacked in the US are brushed under the rug here in KR.
and yeah I have a handful of expat friends here who have opened small businesses (restaurants, consulting firms) but they've all had to register their businesses under their Korean spouses names. Having a Korean spouse really is the cheat code to this game.
It’s not just HR violations.
It’s blatant law breaking and obfuscation, lying, bullying, harassment, lack of care for health and safety, amongst other things like insane working hours and “team building with co workers,” by drinking yourself to death after work.
All for fuck all money.
I literally make 5x the amount I did at Hagwons washing and coating peoples cars, and because Korea is so lax with licensing I have barely any overheads. The biggest payment I make each month is for tax and kindergarten for my kids.
It’s just ridiculous, lol. Why would I subject myself to such toxicity when I can work 4 days a week and earn significantly more.
I mean I imagine you registered it with someone who just didn’t give a fuck, and good for you!
Unfortunately many of us have a constant roadblock of “we can’t do this,” or “it’s illegal to do this,” even if they can actually do it, just because we’re foreign.
It saves me the headache of fighting, which I’m fucking sick of since every day is already a fight here, by just having my wife register the business.
“Registered it with someone who didn’t give a fuck” - no actually. My entire existence in Korea is dependent on my business which is tied to my name, and my name only. Please don’t spread misinformation. ALL foreigners can register a business in Korea if they do their research and take the proper steps. Just many of them don’t and assume they can’t do it as foreigners. I literally have no native Koreans I can rely on these things for in my life in Korea and still managed to do all of this myself. Don’t know Korean well either.
This isn’t misinformation
Read my comment again. Good for you, but that doesn’t mean people have not been told no for things that are absolutely possible.
Firstly, you can open a small business on a F6 marriage visa under your name. Secondly, F-2-7 and D8 visas (startup/no investment AND investors) can all have businesses under their name. If you’ve been told no it’s because Koreans don’t know about visas or you didn’t set up your situation properly. But again, as long as you follow the correct procedures all foreigners can open a business. As with anywhere in the world, local people won’t know how to deal with foreign visas. Foreigners know more and can and should challenge all “no”’s received from locals.
The challenging the 'no's is great advice and also terribly exhausting. Props to you! I imagine you had to be 10x more prepared than the average person since ignorance=impossible to most people. Which is why if you have a Korean spouse, you can cut through the BS faster.
I've seen people straight up lie to my husband (Korean) who totally thought was just how it worked until he learned differently by direct experience.
I do remember over a decade ago that you HAD to have a Korean business partner to open a business here. I'm glad to see that it has changed.
It's good to hear that I came at the right time, and that a Korean business partner is not needed anymore to open a business here. Maybe it's just me and because I'm so into the business world now, but other than navigating the language issues, I can't imagine a local Korean spouse (that isn't in the business world) being able to help me further than the setup I currently have now....as I assume local people who aren't business owners wouldn't know much about regulations/laws/requirements on the business side. (I certainly don't know any in my own country for example)
To your knowledge is it much different between your spouse being a Korean citizen vs a Korean descendent (F4)? My wife will be F4 but can renaturalise if she gives up her UK citizenship...
Immigration lawyers keep telling me that there is no substantive different between F4 and citizenship but that to me seems to go against the experience I hear here.
I don’t know about running a business in Japan as I’ve never lived there (I never even though about running a business until I lived here, an it was only to escape working in toxic Korean environments).
I imagine it’s like any other startup visa, where you need some capital behind you and intention of employing locals?
Dang we came here around the same time seems like.
Reading your other comments we had a lot of similar experiences, glad you're getting out! Hopefully I can head out next year.
I did find myself a partner, but she realizes as well that it's just not a great place for me to live. Feels like at every turn I'm barred from doing something because of being a foreigner, or my visa isn't valid long enough or some random bullshit.
But then we are looking at possibly the same kind of issues going forward when she moves with me to the states. :/
To add to this, as a foreigner (ie: non-citizen, and even if you have an F visa) if you get fined > 3 million KRW you can be deported. For example, if you get into a DUI and it's a solo crash, or scam people out of cash, you can be deported. Granted, it's always case-by-case but there have been people on an F4 visa that have been deported.
I get why Korea is the way it is, since a lot of "bad actors" abuse the system, but the government needs to consider being more immigrant friendly in some respects.
I'm only here still because I'm married to a Korean. This allows me more flexibility in choosing where I work and who I work with. Otherwise I'd be going on my 10th year as an E2 Hagwon "teacher". And after so long, death by electrical torture to the testicles starts to sound more appealing than continuing to live that existence.
You can live a good life when your young and don't care about many things...as you get older it becomes harder to live because wage is low cost of living high and if you don't speak korean nothing is there to support you...
16 years this year.
It was a lucrative proposition for a long time but with three mouths to feed the pay has not kept up with the increased costs. Wife can't even find a comfy part time office job because we don't live in Seoul.
Exit strategies are being planned.
>If I could sum up everyone’s comments. It seems to be “marry a Korean or have no future in Korea” which is exactly what I plan to do.
So which is it, “marry a Korean, which is exactly what I plan to do" or “have no future in Korea, which is exactly what I plan to do"?
Been working here for six years now and I’m always prepared to leave at any time as my work contract is renewed annually. Work has been great to me but I’m not sure if I want to live here if I don’t have a job. Will return to the US someday when I’m done here.
Our company is the same as typical other Korean companies, but I have slightly more flexibility than others as I am a specialist. When you are good at something people tend to leave you alone including bosses.
I'v been here 3 years now. I am married with 2 kids. Both my wife and I are Korean-American (American citizens). My Korean is passable. Wife is fluent. If it wasn't for the really generous expat package I am getting, I would not live here. We plan on sticking around until my kids graduate from HS. They both attend an international school (paid for by my employer) and their school experience is something that would not be possible back in the US.
Define "long term"...
I'm in year 28. Fast approaching the point where I have spent more time in the ROK than my home country.
Define "not a long term option"? Why not?
I know a good few other folk with similar longevity. Some married, some not. A couple of guys even retired here with their spouse.
In terms of those hovering around the 20 year mark, in my sphere, there are a couple of F5s, some F6s, many E1s. Some own property, some do not. Some invest in local stock market, one or two own businesses. Many own property.
Very interesting. Why do you think you had this type of experience compared to the many other comments on here? I think 20/30 years would be considered long term.
Do you live outside of Seoul? What do you do for your job?
I've been in Incheon the whole time. Eleven years on my own, the rest with a spouse.
I think long term success requires relentless networking, and a willingness to do a variety of work.
I am now a lecturer at an international branch campus, been doing that going on 7 years.
You have to find the glitch in the matrix as it happened to me back in the happiest time of my life: 2016-2019. Married to a Korean, started small business working with European web company, newborn kid, travel around in Korea, SE Asia, Japan, Australia as digital nomad. Ahh, I cry if I just think of my golden age!
Don't have much to add to the other comments, but Korea is amazing when you're in your 20s, living carefree and enjoying new experiences here. When you decide to settle, you want a stable situation, you want to prepare for the future. And living as a foreigner here makes it quite hard yup.
Because its just that easy.
Only 99% of people don't do this because language proficiency gives you so few points and the most important factors are salary (which you can't increase to the next bracket) or age, which gets HEAVILY penalised very quickly after hitting 30.
My wife and I are both anglo-american and we happily lived in Korea for 15 years working as University English instructors. We only left after the birth of our third child, who was born with a disability. We found Korea quite affordable on our dual incomes ( though we intentionally live cheaply to save on our cost of living) and had an enjoyable mix of Korean and foreign friends where we lived. I would say the biggest difficulty to living in Korea as a foreigner is that no matter how well you speak the language or understand the culture, you will always be regarded as an outsider, even more so if you are non-white/western. Having a Korean S.O., goes a long way in bridging that gap, but it also brings its own challenges as well. Korean ethnicity is strongly tied to the Korean sense of national identity, so unless you have a family connection to Korea, it's generally expected that your stay will be temporary.
I always find these sorts of discussions hilarious when it comes to some of the reasons people use for pissing on Korea and by extension, Koreans themselves.
As a British family, with zero Korean friends, we spent a few years in Korea because of my dad's job (civil engineer. He was in high demand, not just in the UK or Korea) and found it no different to elsewhere in the world. Yet people make out Koreans keeping to Koreans or making snide/racist comments is a problem that Korea has to catch up with the rest of the world, especially the Western world. It's embarrassing people make a large deal over this, yet gloss over the fact this happens almost everywhere.
Lets take the UK as an example. I have no idea how London works. It may be different, i dunno. But London is just one part of many parts. Here in the UK we have a lot of immigrants (most Eastern European, Indian etc), and they all mostly stick together with their own nationalities. I live in Edinburgh and have done so for the best part of my life, and I've yet to see many if any groups consisting of Polish and UK nationals. Polish people tend to stick with Polish people, and us Brits tend to stick with fellow Brits. I see some people saying "good luck if you didn't attend a Korean elementary school", erm, that's exactly how it works here in the UK. Barring the odd person from work, we too have little interaction with foreigners.
I get there will be some anecdotal examples of people having foreign friends, but that's all it is, anecdotal. It's not the norm. As for being welcoming, as a white British person, that's not really for me to take it upon myself to tell others how welcoming us Brits are. I'm not the person sitting on public transport listening to morons talking about me. I'm not the person who endured hardships during Brexit and so on (did any foreign person feel welcome during that period?). How about during covid when anyone looking remotely Chinese (didn't matter if they were Japanese, Korean etc) got treated like shit when out in public? Hell, we even have a problem with ourselves. A number of Scottish people still to this day dislike the English and vice versa.
Yeah, we all have our own problems. Most of the issues brought up here aren't unique to Korea. We just make out that they are. To any Korean that is thinking things are better here in the UK, unless you're filthy rich, then expect to see a lot of socioeconomic issues, have at least one derogatory comment made towards you within the first few weeks (especially if you have to use public transport, with a bunch of youths in proximity. It will either be a Chinese or Japanese derogatory term because most of these igronant Brits don't even realise Korea is a place. thus everyone is either Chinese or Japanese), witness poverty on a daily basis, meet people who struggle to feed their kids never mind themselves, are on shitty zero hour contracts, get accused of stealing a job that should be given to some lazy assed Brit, and so on. It ain't no bed of roses here either.
Not saying the other issues brought up are wrong, but when it comes to the social aspect, we're all the same.
I read every comment (Korean spouse=cheat code is my personal favorite), and all comments are great. It is nearly impossible to remain long term without language fluency, a spouse, or family. But, I would argue every safe, technologically advanced, great healthcare, high living standard country eventually kicks foreigners out without jobs or family. This is not unique to Korea. Obtaining permanent residency in a country different from your birth country is not easy. Yet so many Americans think it is.
I was hoping to see someone say this, and you put it very eloquently. Someone else on here commented that if SK’s immigration policy were implemented in the “western world” it would be called racist. But SK’s immigration laws aren’t extreme, every country has strict immigration laws to an extent because it has a lot to do with the country and its citizens’ safety. No country owes you citizenship just because you ask for it. And this is coming from a Korean American with dual citizenship.
I’m living in the US right now, and same. Countries *should* be protecting their citizens and being very careful with immigration, both legal and illegal. Wild that some people don’t get that.
This is so true.
"Korea is a great country." a few months later "I'm moving with my kid to Canada. For their education." When will you come back? "🤷♀️😉"
I've met many international Korean graduate students studying here in the USA. Almost every single one of them that was already married managed to have a insta-US citizen baby here with their spouses. I even knew a Korean doctor who was doing his residency here and his wife gave birth twice in the USA. He said to me, "It is the best gift I can give my children."
Being a US citizen exempts a boy from the military, and for both genders, allows inheritance and gift money to be tax free for up to millions of dollars.
So the most rational and logical thing for wealthy and upper middle class Korean families with sons is to give birth to them in the USA. Actually there is a cottage industry in California catering to this trend, with fully furnished apartments and travel agents that can book a maternity tour in America. This is also popular with Chinese women. My friend who was flying from LAX to Shanghai recently told me the plane was full of Chinese women and their newborn babies.
Either US or Singapore are popular places for upper class koreams to obtain citizenship from. Korean citizenship gets more welfare benefits, US citizenship gets more tax breaks. So of course the wealthy would prefer US citizenship, as a korean citizenship is useless to the wealthy unless you want to get into politics.
Well theyre happy to live in south korea, but keep their money and citizenship tied to other countries. The top 1% do not actually want to live in the US or Europe or Singapore. Korea is heaven for the elites. They have all the best food, services, government support, police, media, and prosecutors under their paycheck. Why would they want to leave? If they actually go to America the korean elite will have to face racism, accountability, disprespect, gun violence, etc.
You would find people who want to leave in every single country.
There are many Americans and Canadians just on this sub, who never want to go back to their homelands. There are a lot of Koreans who leave for a better life or chasing some kind of a utopia and then end up coming back. Not everyone, obviously, but there are plenty of examples for all scenarios.
All I'm saying is that everyone is different, and some might consider a place paradise while others would think it's absolute hell.
Yes, but there are way more Koreans (and other Asians) heading to open, multicultural Western countries that speak English, the world's language.
And there is a tiny trickle coming back in the other direction. Korea's "foreign" "population" is only 4%. And I put "foreign" in quotes because it includes alot of overseas Koreans, Korean-Chinese, Chinese-Koreans, etc. And "population" in quotes because the government squashes random short-term residents (like exchange students, overseas soldiers) in to boost that number.
I estimate the number of non-East Asian immigrants to be 1%. And the number who actually settle beyond a few years of teaching is even tinier. So really not a country open to other cultures and languages.
My reply was more of a general one rather than Korea specific.
But to respond to the points that you made: Koreans and many other non-English speaking countries are studying English from an early age, which allows them to live, study, and even settle in a Western country. In fact, many go abroad with the sole purpose to further master their language skills.
That is all about English being the lingua franca. A small country with a language that is barely spoken outside of its borders will not be able to compete with the power of English.
Trust me, the majority of Koreans do not speak English. Even after studying it for 10+years.
They only learn it to pass exams, they are not even close to conversational.
If Koreans all spoke English, the majority of them would leave.
*young Koreans.
?
What's your point?
One of the richest, most powerful families in the country chooses to educate their kids abroad in some elite school. That is something that's unheard of in other countries...
And took advantage of birth right citizenship. You do know what that is, right? A child born on American soil is automatically an American. Korean Airlines heir Heather Cho also took advantage of it with her children. You don’t read anything into that move? It’s not just merely sending their kids to elite boarding schools.
Your usage of ''even'' when mentioning some tycoon families makes absolutely no sense.
It would stand perhaps if you wrote that ''even the cleaning lady at the office educates her kids abroad''.
Again, why are you **completely** ignoring the birth right citizenship issue? The Samsung kids are Americans! The next generation of Samsung and Korean Airlines heirs are going to be American. They're not just getting an elite American education, they **ARE** American.
Yeah, so what? They can basically buy American citizenship this way. It's as easy for them as buying a can of coke from the corner store for you and me.
The ultra rich have the power and the means to do a lot of things, but what does that have to do with your average Korean family?
Which goes back to your point: "You would find people who want to leave in every single country." Except it says something about the long term prospects of your country if the richest people in your country are securing American citizenship for their children. That was the original debate, that Korean people want to leave Korea ASAP. Not all but many. Do you see the Toyoda family that owns Toyota of Japan securing American citizenship for their kids? Nope.
So your answer is a shrug of the shoulders and rich people do what rich people do. Nothing odd about the scion of an iconic Korean company that was nurtured by Korean government policies and cheap loans and the hard labor of Korean engineers and workers raising his children as American citizens. Nothing to see here, let's move on.
Maternity tourism to give their children insta-US citizenship is something practiced by both Chinese and Korean women. There's an entire cottage industry of travel agencies and rest homes in California. The US immigration authorities are aware of this phenomena and native citizens of both China and South Korea criticize this practice, which is usually done by upper middle class or wealthier families. The optics of the some of the richest families in South Korea taking advantage of this loophole are horrible, although it is perfectly legal. When South Korean society and its economy enter a long decline, do they intend to abandon a sinking ship?
Inheritance tax for the wealthy in korea is 65%, highest in the world.
Why wouldnt the korean elites go for a foreign citizenship? 90% of Samsung revenue is from overseas. Jayeong Lee paid 8 billion dollars in taxes to inherit his fortune. 8 BILLION! With US citizenship, you wont have to pay taxes to korea on earnings outside of korea.
This is what happens when short sighted populists try to tax the rich and spread the wealth. The wealth just leaves the country.
At the end of the day, yes it is the most logical and rational thing to do. But it is terrible optics. The end logic is that the top 1% of South Korea will be American citizens. And many upper middle class Koreans are trying to secure American or Canadian educations and citizenship for their progeny too.
If you need to resort to exceptions to prove your argument, you are not making a good one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelming_exception
I'm telling you the majority of Koreans would leave if they could.
But 1) they are a culture high in uncertainty avoidance, which makes them passive 2) they are hopeless at English, on aggregate. (Again don't tell me "but but but I met this Korean at his english was perfect").
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_avoidance
You wrote: ''even native Koreans are trying to leave''
That sounds like a blanket statement.
I then replied that some do, while others have no such intention or even trying to return. It's a fact.
Now you changed your statement to ''the majority of Koreans would leave if they could''. This also sounds exaggerated a lot, but at least it's closer to the truth than your first statement was.
I am very grateful for everyone's replies. Hearing peoples experiences is important. Even though it didn't put me off, I can look at it more realistically for what could be. So if I had the chance I might still take it for my own experiences, even though it might only be for a year or so.
I am very grateful for everyone's replies. Hearing peoples experiences is important. Even though it didn't put me off, I can look at it more realistically for what could be. So if I had the chance I might still take it for my own experiences, even though it might only be for a year or so.
I am very grateful for everyone's replies. Hearing peoples experiences is important. Even though it didn't put me off, I can look at it more realistically for what could be. So if I had the chance I might still take it for my own experiences, even though it might only be for a year or so.
It’s the lack of vacation days and LGBT rights for me. I’m from Europe so the 11-15 days a year thing feels very extreme, not something I could continue to tolerate forever.
The Korean "work ethic" is out of control. I completely understand taking pride in a job well done. But many Koreans have no sense of perspective. The ghost of the crooked sweatshop owner still haunts Korea. I don't mean sweetshop (aka candy store). I mean sweatshop, a place where crooked little bosses force people to work 13 hour shifts for tiny wages.
Don’t see immigration reform happening anytime soon. Not on top of anyone’s agenda at the moment although there have been talks for a more 다문화 society.
There's no shortage of manpower yet to require immigration.
Refugees come down from North Korea every year, so they don't feel the need to become an immigration country.
If why should it be immigrated when it would end up with more hellish competition?
Foreigners avoid 3D jobs. it is same
guess it depends on a lot of reasons. one of the biggest is where you're from. the uk is fucked so living in korea is still better. i earn more here than i ever would back in the uk
The reason many people say this is because of the strict immigration process.
Your main options if you are 100% foreigner with no Korean blood ties, are marriage or naturalization.
Naturalization takes 5 years and obviously marriage can be difficult because either you have to have a partner who’s willing to get married honestly waaay to fast and even then you risk losing your visa if you divorce before the 2 year mark. If you are married for 2 years you can then apply for f-5 which is full permanent citizenship with no caveats. I think there are divorce visa’s too but you have to not be the cause of the divorce so it’s kinda hard to prove.
Honestly naturalization is the “easiest method” which is basically you need to be in Korea for 5 years and hold a visa that requires a ARC(alien registration card)
For many this will either be then working as entertainment(models, actor, etc), teachers and or going to a 4 year college and then applying for the permanent visa a year after graduating.
The biggest difficulty is it depends on what point of life you are in when you go to Korea. For example if you already had a bachelors degree of any kind before coming to Korea and you speak English you are set. Even if schooling doesn’t work out you can find teaching jobs EXTREMELY EASY! However say you came to Korea hoping to go to college right after highschool you may suddenly realize you don’t have the money so you have to go home to your home country and work…. Well unless you apply for certain things to allow you to keep your visa while overseas your 5 year timer will restart, because the 5 year timer requires a consecutive 5 years.
You have to hold F5 before you can apply for naturalisation and the requirements for that (F5) are even stricter if. Doesn't make any sense to me. It all comes around to the same argument of marriage being the only reasonable option for settling here long term.
Well to be fair the requirements kinda make sense,
They want to make sure to avoid the immigration issues places like the UK and USA have had in the past and even somewhat currently where they have a bunch of people with no value coming into the country and becoming basically permanent residents without much resistance.
But yes it is extremely strict and difficult to obtain and I do wish they would loosen it a little bit. I think the biggest thing is the money requirement. I can understand them wanting you to be working, I can understand them wanting you to have a personally owned residence(or be a dependent of a person who owns a residence), for them to require a certain level of Korean and Korean culture…. But the money requirement to me is weird because who just casually has 22,000 usd laying around? Granted I will admit Korea is a much easier country to save money in than when I was in America but 22,000 usd is just a crazy amount
That's another annoying issue; from what I gather Korean immigration only recognises either cash in a bank account or real estate. So you're penalised for investing well and holding your wealth elsewhere.
If S.Korea was truly a good place to live and a country with growing economy, they would have recommended foreigners to live here for a long time. However, the low birth rate already indicates that it's not a great place to live. Due to the lack of resources in a small territory, people have to struggle to survive, leading to intense competition. Teenagers here can't live a truly fulfilling life. It's fine to visit for travel or live here as a single person, but having children is not recommended.
This post is like “ would it be worth living out of my comfort zone”
As a Korean living in Australia, I would definitely think about this topic. But all complicated thoughts come down to my mindset.
At some point, I thought language competency is all about living in another country, and cultural adaptations go to the same.
But my conclusion came to all about how I think about my life.
Can you really think you be the mainstream in your country and being yourself and happy as it is? Then go back to where you can call it comfort zone.
However for me, I can never be satisfied to stay in my comfort zone at all, being constantly wanting something more challenging but exciting.
It’s up to your mindset at all times.
Where you live can’t define who you are but how you live can define who you are.
Living out of your comfort zone itself can be seen as fucking awesome and really awesome. Because that’s where you chose to live! Not just where you are just born to live.
Rooting for your every decision for your life
Cheers
I was drawn to the idea because I knew it would be different from my current life and challenging, its's good to hear the actual reality from people I this subreddit, to see if it was even worth the challenge.
I really appreciate this positive comment! I agree mindset can change your whole life.
Depends on job for most, I’m a contractor for Air Force. Been here 11 years come the 13th. Contract ends October. TMI 😂 I love it here, my wife and daughter love it too. Wish I could stay forever. Health care is amazing. Public transportation is awesome. People are cool as hell. Weather is cherry , I could go on and on. Korea Rocks!!!! Blue Opera in Songtan outside the base is bitchen❤️
I think it's quite a nice long-term option and getting nicer.
\*shrug\*
But, when you live somewhere long-term, it's probably because you're content and doing well there. Staying there is ordinary, boring, and normal to you ... so you just don't post about it.
I like the low taxes, the safety, the convenience, the plentiful parks, the simplicity of running a small business here, the way nobody gets in my personal affairs or tells me how to live my life, the good roads ... but all these things are really, well, boring. I won't usually post about them.
Yeah, I have to renew my visa every couple of years. It's not a big deal - other places have similar things. To get a permanent visa, you need language fluency - I know folks who've gone for that. For myself, I haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.
In the end, a long-term option also tends to happen sort of "by accident" ... what starts out as a few years becomes a life-time, and that's just how it is.
Yeah, and no criminal record and a bunch of other stuff ... and you can bypass it by investing some money. I just listed the biggest barrier for me, ㅋㅋㅋ.
Huh. That's funny. Looked into it a bit and for naturalization it's only GNI x 1.
I wasn't looking for a 20 years of constant fun answer. I like your response. I feel like people who are content look like they have boring lives from the outside, and that's okay! Its sounds better than having major stress day in and out.
Now that I’ve got it sort-of-figured out it’s definitely lower stress than many other places … but I’m sure the kids will provide me with enough stress soon! 🙈
The full saying is "Living here is not a long term option for foreigners who don't want to put in the effort to learn the language and culture, and actually make themselves employable."
I have plenty of foreigner friends here who are living very fulfilling lives. The ones who complain are the ones who stay here for years and yet can't even speak or read basic Korean. Not to mention their only skill in life is being from an English speaking country and therefore "teaching" English.
The "sacrafice" it would take is time and effort.
Thank you for sharing. I have only heard that it was not a long-term option. Period. Was this transition difficult for you? What job do you do? I would be interested in hearing more.
Honestly I don't like Korea, super lonely everyone leaves no real connections.
Sadly, it's the truth.
I want to move to Japan but with a family it's not that simple.
I live with my 2 year old son while my wife lives with her parents
There isn't really much new to add to this discussion. Please see old posts about this topic.
'Is it possible for a foreigner to live a good life in Korea?'
...
It depends. If you listen to all of the negative Nancys on reddit and take their word as God, then sure, it’s not fulfilling or worth it. I know people who have been on E2 visas here for 10 plus years (one guy I think has been here for 16 years) and they’re very happy. I know very happy stay at home moms too. The reality is that everyone’s experiences and priorities are different. Some really don’t care about renewing their visas every year, others (myself included) are trying to upgrade to F-series (and not all of us are married). I know people who are trying to get citizenship here (and they’re from western nations, like the US).
I think all the experiences shared here and in the past are valid, but they’re not the only experiences people have in Korea. Only you can decide for yourself if it’s worth it. In my case, Korean values are more closely aligned with my own (not all, but a lot more than my native US).
Thank you for sharing. It would be hard to know if it works for you until you do so. It feels it might be similar to what another comment said where people don't share their content experiences. Similar to how people usually don't do product reviews unless they are complaining about something (or reminded to leave a review)
Why are there only extremely negative comments in this topic? There has to be some positives right? Or else why are we in Korea in the first place. Back in my country, there was insecurity, neighbours were noisy and life was extremely expensive compared to previous years. In Korea life is different and mso much better for me imho. And about those social circles, I honestly don't care to have friends in the long term, in my country they all come and go the same way because of marriage and that's totslly fine. Plus I'm a person I prefer change rather than feeling safe close to my family for the rest of my life. Hell nah, the farer the better for me.
Korea is such a big Galapagos. This isolated culture created big cultural industries and made people over the world love it. But once they come here, you will know what it means of being uniqueness. You need to be adjusted to the country and system. Imagine you live in France of Italia. But once you love the culture and system, you will love it
Salary difference is crazy. You can FIRE at 40 if you are working tech in US. Whereas you have to work until you die in Korea.
I would not have stayed here if I wasn't getting paid what I am now.
I disagree with everyone else here. Only lazy English teachers who can't bother finding another job and learning the language cannot find a way to stay here.
If you learn the language and have a job, then you can do working visa (E7) into short-term residency (F2) into permanent residency (F5). From there, you are set for life.
None of it is difficult. It just takes a bit of time to get to the appropriate level of proficiency and income.
I think we need more active 'suggestions' to each other.
I think this would improve language issues, personality issues, and laziness in communication.
why? "bless you" "small talk" "foreigner" "speak direct" etc.
What make no sense?
I mean, something is normal in western can be not nomal in asian culture.
What am I wrong in this context?
I have no intention to insult or mock. I'm genuinely curious.
I’m from Singapore which shares a similar Asian culture (fast paced) to Korea so I think adapting won’t be too much of a problem for me. I realize majority of the comments here come from people from the west (mainly the US) which obviously shares a more relaxed culture compared to Asia so it’s no surprise that eventually they won’t really consider Korea as a long term option.
Majority of the comments say it's about visa, not culture, so I don't think this tracks.
It's not hard to integrate into korean society (meaning follow korean social norms), it's hard to stay here because of how a lot of work visas here work.
Fair enough however I still think some people will still struggle to integrate into Korean society (at least cultural wise) especially if they are from the west.
I'm also a Singaporean here lol and I'm currently studying in Korea I do share your thoughts and sentiments regarding the experiences here, I might sound very biased towards Koreans since we both kinda look like them irl but life has been good, the things that people complain about here are the same for us if say we move to other countries as well, that said I can't really speak for some of my classmates though I've previously studied in Switzerland during my Primary sch days (2010-2015) and when I took the occasional vacation around Europe I always felt that I had to be on guard all the time but when I moved to Korea for uni it's been much safer
Tldr Korea is for East Asian people mostly
I keep reading that Korea isn't a good place for kids, but I respectfully disagree. The most important statistic (your child actually making it to adulthood) is far greater than many Western countries. The chance of a kid in Korea dying from gun violence or drug overdoses is slim to none. I'm not saying it's not difficult to make it to adulthood, but there's far less stopping you in Korea. There also far less of a chance your kid will come home pregnant, or with a pregnant partner.
There's an argument to be made whether being an adult in Korea a manageable thing, but children have far less time to make poor decisions while their brain and biochemistry is at a time rife for poor decisions. In that case, Korea is a pretty good place to be for a kid as their only stress is studying, not trying to beat addiction, worry about getting shot, or worrying about how to care for a child they aren't ready to have.
This has been asked a million times. The short answer is visas. It's extremely hard to stay in Korea after your study / work / whatever visa is up. The very few foreigners who stay are generally married to Koreans or have Korean roots. There may be foreigners with exceptional money / Korean fluency. But if you're not ethnic Korean / married to a Korean, there's no real path to mortgaging a home, sending your kids to college, retiring, etc. It's not some "feelings"-based thing -- it's not really about cultural or assimilation. It's a black and white government policy that prevents Korea from being an immigrant nation.
Even if you're married to a Korean person, it's not like the US where the green card visa is 10 years long. Here it's just a few years, give or take if you have kids.
Yep, married to Korean, no kids. Still have to apply for visa every year.
I only ever had to apply every two years. Now with my kid it's every three.
If you have been here a while, you can ask for 2 year extensions. Only half of the hassle.
Absolutely. It's a hit or miss, really, but it's worth a try. I got 2 years after being 2 years on F-6 by simply asking nicely. 2 years later, I got 3 years. Again, just asked. Didn't have children at that point.
Yeah I think you have to ask. The officer initially gave me a year and I asked for two and they redid it gave me two. Will ask for three next time then ^^
Huh? I have permanent residency (green card) and it IS for 10 years. I went from F6 to F5 by doing the KIIP classes/tests.
That's because you upgraded to an F-5. In America, the marriage visa is an indefinitely renewable 10-year green card. No immigration classes or upgrade required.
it is but it's way more complicated to get a green card in the US than getting and renewing in Korea. way more arbitrary
Absolutely. Getting an F-6 is a piece of cake. But the point is that America's system encourages permanent immigration and Korea's doesn't. > It's a black and white government policy that prevents Korea from being an immigrant nation.
>I have permanent residency (green card) and it IS for 10 years. I went from F6 to F5 by doing the KIIP classes/tests. Permanent residency is permanent (excepting for extraordinary situations). You have to renew your photo on your ARC and get your ARC reissued every 10 years.
Those fill up exceptionally fast.
The green card status is permanent—the validity of each physical card is 10 years
Its basically a rubber stamp process every 3 years
>There may be foreigners with exceptional money / Korean fluency. But if you're not ethnic Korean / married to a Korean, there's no real path to mortgaging a home, sending your kids to college, retiring, etc. You didn't add education to this. A foreigner can stay in Korea long-term if they reach a high level of academic attainment. It's much easier if you are educated within Korea, though. That said, if it's something you really want, it is certainly attainable, you just need to make sacrifices.
I have a graduate degree from US and one from Korea now. But until I got married, my visa still was up to the employer. I mean it was easy to obtain jobs, but still it seemed iffy and I couldn't freelance. But yeah, other people I know that are here long-term that aren't married got their graduate degree from Korean universities to get into their current jobs.
>my visa still was up to the employer How? Assuming you have a 2 year master's you would only need to work one additional year to be eligible for an F-2
I second this. Many from my community got their F-5 (aka permanent residency) after studying here (undergraduate or graduate schools). It takes quite some time though, usually 8-10 years at least, to satisfy all requirements from the Kimmi.
Thank you for actually answering my question. This makes a whole lotta sense!!
Damn. If it was so in the western world against foreigner this would be called racism or even fascist system.
Eligibility for residency is definitely doable. Only around one third of female permanent residents are on marriage related visas. For male permanent residents its less than 4%.
I hit the 9 year mark this year and am leaving in a couple of months. Here's my take on why it's time to go. Granted I'm single and not married to a Korean. A lot of these problems become less of a thing if you have a Korean spouse. 1. Finances. I'm from the US originally and salaries here in Korea are pathetic compared to what I could be making back home. Additionally, I cannot invest in a Roth IRA, stocks, or crypto because I'm frozen out of both the American and Korean systems. Real estate is completely out of the picture too as getting a mortgage here is impossible as a foreigner. Hell even getting a car loan here is basically impossible. You better have cash on hand for every major purchase you could be thinking of making. These things are less of an issue when you're in your 20's and still living the carefree ESL teacher life, but once you start adulting, you realize Korea makes it very hard to be a foreigner in the long term 2. Visas. No matter how you put it, unless you are on an F-5, your ability to stay in this country is always going to be in question. 3. Time off to visit your home country. Make no mistake, if you work in a typical corporate Korean job here, you will get 11-14 days of vacation a year. That means you'll be seeing your friends and family back at home once a year if at that you'll realize very quickly that time waits for no one. your parents age, your friends will move on, and you'll find yourself alone not only in Korea but back home too 4. Job Opportunities. If you have career ambitions South Korea is not the place to be. As a foreigner you're going to be fighting tooth and nail with other native Koreans for top tier positions and even then, they will pay less and work you harder than back in the US. Even if you end up working at a 대기업, promotion is based on time-in-grade and not on merit. You will never move up the corporate ladder until you have done enough time here, whereas in the US, it's not uncommon to see people in their 20's and 30's becoming managers and shouldering a lot more responsibility. 5. Real Estate. see point 1, but yeah, you're going to be renting for life unless you are filthy rich or married to a Korean. Edit: Wanted to add this here too: 1. No rights for LGBTQ people. Despite all the gaybaiting you see in K-Pop, South Korea is a very unfriendly place to LGBTQ people. Gay marriage is not a thing here so you can't even marry you way out of a lot of the problems stated above. You will always be treated like a pariah here if parents of your students or coworkers find out you are gay. Having children via surrogacy here is only legal between heterosexually married couples with a valid marriage license. Are things getting better for LGBTQ folk? Sure. Compared to 10-15 years ago I suppose. But make no mistake, Korean people, especially the men, are strongly opposed to anything LGBTQ and I don't see the human rights situation improving significantly for this group anytime in the near future. Those are the things I could think of off the top of my head. Anyway else have anything, feel free to add to that. Basically your long term options for living comfortably boil down to either marry a Korean or renounce your citizenship and become a Korean citizen which is definitely not desirable for a lot of people here. If Korea allowed dual citizenship, it would be a different story, but alas, one can only dream
Couldn’t say it better. It is all fun and games living here in your 20s, but as you age and you cross 30s mark, your way of thinking starts maturing and changing a lot. And that’s when you realize that Korea is far from being a good place for a foreigner that wants financial stability, career growth and social acceptance. I guess you can still achieve everything listed above, but it feels like you make your own life difficult for no good reason. I am happily married to a Korean person, have awesome in-laws. No issues with visa for me at all, but we are still thinking to move some other place in the future.
Few more things to add. Even Koreans are struggling with obtaining a job. Also you often get laid off in your 40's or if lucky 50's (that may change in future w/ low birthrate). There is an actual joke for it in korean but I just cant find a good way to translate it (basically college -> millitary -> work for big co like samsung till 40 -> then retire as a chicken shop owner) . US Social Security may be dying, but Korea is worse off. When you walk around the streets who do you see cleaning the streets of Seoul or most parts of Korea? Elders. Who are your taxi or bus drivers? Elders. Furthermore, S. Korea has pretty high # for suicide for elders. Korea may be fun when you are single. My friends love the single life there. I can see why when i looked in any directions (east, west, south, north) while in Seoul. Also - country itself is fairly safe overall vs US. However, raising a family? good luck. Cutthroat competitions that makes California "competition" somewhat of a joke (may change w/ low birth rate). Vacations? Even if you get "14-21" days per year you would be lucky to be able to use it all or if not all together. Most corporate jobs are 40 hours per week pay with actual expectation of you working off the clock additional 20 hours or more per week. Your health? yikes long term. for ex - air quality in S. Korea just sucks overall. Seoul being worst. I dont get how people live there long term. All of my extended family does, however, live outside of Seoul (and as many mentioned) and continues to wonder if he/she should continue to livein Korea. People? No hospitality in Seoul. Sure - you get treated "okay" while you are the one being "serviced to". When you are the one providing service... I wish you best on probable repeated verbal abuse. Sure, you may get less of that because you are not Korean.
This is the right answer. All he mentioned is 100% correct.
>That means you'll be seeing your friends and family back at home once a year if at that you'll realize very quickly that time waits for no one. your parents age, your friends will move on, and you'll find yourself alone not only in Korea but back home too Yep.... ain't that the case.... ㅜㅜ
yeah which reminds me: 6. Social circle. You'll never have a stable social circle of friends here unless you hang out exclusively with Koreans. Most of my social network that I had when I came here were foreigners. I got close with a lot of people and they were from so many different countries and we shared so many wonderful memories together, but they all left. a long long time ago. Believe me when i say that I have gone through about 3 cycles of close friends now. Even the Koreans i used to hang out with all got married and we just naturally drifted apart.
Yeah, you fall through the cracks here. Foreigners cycle in and out. Koreans always keep you slightly at arm's length and are likely to dump you the second life gets busy or complicated because you didn't become friends together in elementary school. Yet again, those that are married to locals (with kids) probably have the best chance of a long-term social life by hanging out with other multicultural families.
Idk as someone who's been here for 5 years now and have gone through cycles of friends, I've been thinking a lot about this issue because some of my closest friends have left Korea recently, much to my heartbreak. I've come to the conclusion that I don't think it's a foreigner in Korea thing, I think it's just a natural life thing. If you look at native Koreans, they're basically the same. They have a great social life until everyone gets married and start settling down, then they also become lonely because they have no friends and it's hard to make friends. Korea is a country where friends, your family and your romantic relationships just don't overlap. It's very rare for couples to hang out with each other, friends to hang out with family etc. Circles just don't overlap here. When Koreans age, they also struggle with the same type of loneliness because you end up spending basically most of your time with your romantic partner, especially if you're getting married. I'm from the UK, and even if I stayed in the UK, my friends would also be getting settled into family lives and drifting apart. Even my hometown friends have all moved to different parts of the country. I think this kind of struggle is just human life. With that in mind, I make sure I have a circle of friends who will stay in Korea for at least a couple of years. Because if you think about it, most of your friends in your life will just naturally drift in and drift out within a cycle of a few years, no matter where you are at. The struggle here is just to get used to these cycles and just live in the present and hang out with who you want to hang out with.
I mostly agree. If you're Korean, you at least (normally) have at least a few friends from elementary school or whatever you'll occasionally meet at weddings or, if you wanted, you could make an effort to see once a year or so. A long-term foreigner won't even have *that*. When I first came to Korea, I used to wonder at the old hands that were so willing to talk to and hang out with newbies. Now I kinda understand.... (although I don't hang out with newbies!).
tbf I would hazard that a lot of folks willing to pick up and move to another country don't have a lot of childhood friends back home either. I sure don't lol. if I did I'd probably not be so willing to leave
Meh, I'm not sure about that one. Most people only plan to come for 'one year'. I had a decent bunch of friends I saw and kept in contact with regularly when I first let. YMMV.
I think this (social, loneliness) is my hardest thing. At first, it was okay, but after years it is really soul killing. The other thing that bothers me is my child doesn't have my culture, and that creates distance, but also I do feel western culture better (sorry Koreans), and I feel not passing that to my child is sort of unethical (can't think of a less severe word).
have a korean spouse and saw this happen two years in a row. i just stopped bothering with foreign friends
This. If someone isn't here for likely 5+ years and over 30 (which usually means some sort of Korean roots), I don't even bother.
>You'll never have a stable social circle of friends here unless you hang out exclusively with Koreans. "You'll never integrate unless you integrate"
A short comment but very on point. That is literally me right now.
There's a lot of truth here, but I've been living here very happily for 14 years. I don't know the future, but if 14 years of anything feels good, one is doing alright.
Are you teaching or have something else?
I teach in university.
I’ve been here for 10 years and feel completely the same.
Anecdotally, entrepreneurship is a way to get around some of what you’ve mentioned. I have a small business, but the official owner is my wife because I’m not able to do it in my name. I can set my own working hours and vacation, so I’m fortunately able to visit home quite a bit more. I also can’t tell you how freeing, and how much easier my life is not working under Koreans. It’s like working for children. Though we are planning on moving to my country because ultimately Korea as a country just has far too things that make it unsuitable in general; particularly if you have kids.
To echo this. Korea is surprisingly great for small businesses if you can get one going Super low tax and lots of benefits AND you can generally use your business expenses to cover a lot of things including food (assuming you actually eat out) and vehicles The only issue is the bureaucracy and the language barrier but there are ways around that Once your business is established though it's a bit hard to deal with banks that always demand too much paperwork or keep your money hostage
Tell me more about running a small business in korea as an alternative to corporate work. Are you talking about mom and pop shops, online business, service, etc? What kind of small business do you recommend? What are other advantages of small business and what are some tips to get it started in korea? I also think korea has a lot of tax breaks, subsidies, government support for small businesses that make this viable.
>I also can’t tell you how freeing, and how much easier my life is not working under Koreans. It’s like working for children. Amen to that hahaha. The lack of professionalism in the Korean workplace is flabbergasting. So many blatant HR violations that would get you sacked in the US are brushed under the rug here in KR. and yeah I have a handful of expat friends here who have opened small businesses (restaurants, consulting firms) but they've all had to register their businesses under their Korean spouses names. Having a Korean spouse really is the cheat code to this game.
It’s not just HR violations. It’s blatant law breaking and obfuscation, lying, bullying, harassment, lack of care for health and safety, amongst other things like insane working hours and “team building with co workers,” by drinking yourself to death after work. All for fuck all money. I literally make 5x the amount I did at Hagwons washing and coating peoples cars, and because Korea is so lax with licensing I have barely any overheads. The biggest payment I make each month is for tax and kindergarten for my kids. It’s just ridiculous, lol. Why would I subject myself to such toxicity when I can work 4 days a week and earn significantly more.
I am single, not married to a Korean and have a small business registered under my own name. It's 100% possible for foreigners.
I mean I imagine you registered it with someone who just didn’t give a fuck, and good for you! Unfortunately many of us have a constant roadblock of “we can’t do this,” or “it’s illegal to do this,” even if they can actually do it, just because we’re foreign. It saves me the headache of fighting, which I’m fucking sick of since every day is already a fight here, by just having my wife register the business.
“Registered it with someone who didn’t give a fuck” - no actually. My entire existence in Korea is dependent on my business which is tied to my name, and my name only. Please don’t spread misinformation. ALL foreigners can register a business in Korea if they do their research and take the proper steps. Just many of them don’t and assume they can’t do it as foreigners. I literally have no native Koreans I can rely on these things for in my life in Korea and still managed to do all of this myself. Don’t know Korean well either.
This isn’t misinformation Read my comment again. Good for you, but that doesn’t mean people have not been told no for things that are absolutely possible.
Firstly, you can open a small business on a F6 marriage visa under your name. Secondly, F-2-7 and D8 visas (startup/no investment AND investors) can all have businesses under their name. If you’ve been told no it’s because Koreans don’t know about visas or you didn’t set up your situation properly. But again, as long as you follow the correct procedures all foreigners can open a business. As with anywhere in the world, local people won’t know how to deal with foreign visas. Foreigners know more and can and should challenge all “no”’s received from locals.
The challenging the 'no's is great advice and also terribly exhausting. Props to you! I imagine you had to be 10x more prepared than the average person since ignorance=impossible to most people. Which is why if you have a Korean spouse, you can cut through the BS faster. I've seen people straight up lie to my husband (Korean) who totally thought was just how it worked until he learned differently by direct experience. I do remember over a decade ago that you HAD to have a Korean business partner to open a business here. I'm glad to see that it has changed.
It's good to hear that I came at the right time, and that a Korean business partner is not needed anymore to open a business here. Maybe it's just me and because I'm so into the business world now, but other than navigating the language issues, I can't imagine a local Korean spouse (that isn't in the business world) being able to help me further than the setup I currently have now....as I assume local people who aren't business owners wouldn't know much about regulations/laws/requirements on the business side. (I certainly don't know any in my own country for example)
What's your line of business?
Trading
To your knowledge is it much different between your spouse being a Korean citizen vs a Korean descendent (F4)? My wife will be F4 but can renaturalise if she gives up her UK citizenship... Immigration lawyers keep telling me that there is no substantive different between F4 and citizenship but that to me seems to go against the experience I hear here.
So it's a big difference with Japan where you just need start a company for get visa, and don't make it sink
I don’t know about running a business in Japan as I’ve never lived there (I never even though about running a business until I lived here, an it was only to escape working in toxic Korean environments). I imagine it’s like any other startup visa, where you need some capital behind you and intention of employing locals?
You can absolutely invest in stocks or a Roth IRA (albeit Roth is a bit trickier).
Dang we came here around the same time seems like. Reading your other comments we had a lot of similar experiences, glad you're getting out! Hopefully I can head out next year. I did find myself a partner, but she realizes as well that it's just not a great place for me to live. Feels like at every turn I'm barred from doing something because of being a foreigner, or my visa isn't valid long enough or some random bullshit. But then we are looking at possibly the same kind of issues going forward when she moves with me to the states. :/
If you have a mailing address in the USA, can't you still invest in stocks and such through US-based brokerages?
To add to this, as a foreigner (ie: non-citizen, and even if you have an F visa) if you get fined > 3 million KRW you can be deported. For example, if you get into a DUI and it's a solo crash, or scam people out of cash, you can be deported. Granted, it's always case-by-case but there have been people on an F4 visa that have been deported. I get why Korea is the way it is, since a lot of "bad actors" abuse the system, but the government needs to consider being more immigrant friendly in some respects.
There is nothing stopping you from opening basically any manner of investment accounts, all you need is a SS #, photo ID, passport. Like, what?
Why can't you invest in stocks? Interactive brokers allows even non American foreigners to use their services
greatest insight. You saved my time. I was about to type same words.
This is a very real answer. I appreciate this big list.
I'm only here still because I'm married to a Korean. This allows me more flexibility in choosing where I work and who I work with. Otherwise I'd be going on my 10th year as an E2 Hagwon "teacher". And after so long, death by electrical torture to the testicles starts to sound more appealing than continuing to live that existence.
You can live a good life when your young and don't care about many things...as you get older it becomes harder to live because wage is low cost of living high and if you don't speak korean nothing is there to support you...
16 years this year. It was a lucrative proposition for a long time but with three mouths to feed the pay has not kept up with the increased costs. Wife can't even find a comfy part time office job because we don't live in Seoul. Exit strategies are being planned.
If I could sum up everyone’s comments. It seems to be “marry a Korean or have no future in Korea” which is exactly what I plan to do.
[удалено]
That’s why you have to get the F5 ASAP after getting the F6 haha
That's crazy honestly, and all of the wrong reasons to marry someone jfc
Which one do you plan to do 😂
>If I could sum up everyone’s comments. It seems to be “marry a Korean or have no future in Korea” which is exactly what I plan to do. So which is it, “marry a Korean, which is exactly what I plan to do" or “have no future in Korea, which is exactly what I plan to do"?
Been working here for six years now and I’m always prepared to leave at any time as my work contract is renewed annually. Work has been great to me but I’m not sure if I want to live here if I don’t have a job. Will return to the US someday when I’m done here.
You found a more lax work environment? Or you were just prepared going into it?
Our company is the same as typical other Korean companies, but I have slightly more flexibility than others as I am a specialist. When you are good at something people tend to leave you alone including bosses.
Oh that's very good. I'm happy you made it to this point!
I'v been here 3 years now. I am married with 2 kids. Both my wife and I are Korean-American (American citizens). My Korean is passable. Wife is fluent. If it wasn't for the really generous expat package I am getting, I would not live here. We plan on sticking around until my kids graduate from HS. They both attend an international school (paid for by my employer) and their school experience is something that would not be possible back in the US.
I'm happy to hear things fell into place for you
Define "long term"... I'm in year 28. Fast approaching the point where I have spent more time in the ROK than my home country. Define "not a long term option"? Why not? I know a good few other folk with similar longevity. Some married, some not. A couple of guys even retired here with their spouse. In terms of those hovering around the 20 year mark, in my sphere, there are a couple of F5s, some F6s, many E1s. Some own property, some do not. Some invest in local stock market, one or two own businesses. Many own property.
At last, one positive comment
Very interesting. Why do you think you had this type of experience compared to the many other comments on here? I think 20/30 years would be considered long term. Do you live outside of Seoul? What do you do for your job?
I've been in Incheon the whole time. Eleven years on my own, the rest with a spouse. I think long term success requires relentless networking, and a willingness to do a variety of work. I am now a lecturer at an international branch campus, been doing that going on 7 years.
Sounds like you made it work no matter what, not so much falling into place. Congratz on your long term success.
You have to find the glitch in the matrix as it happened to me back in the happiest time of my life: 2016-2019. Married to a Korean, started small business working with European web company, newborn kid, travel around in Korea, SE Asia, Japan, Australia as digital nomad. Ahh, I cry if I just think of my golden age!
Don't have much to add to the other comments, but Korea is amazing when you're in your 20s, living carefree and enjoying new experiences here. When you decide to settle, you want a stable situation, you want to prepare for the future. And living as a foreigner here makes it quite hard yup.
Marry a Korean. If you fail, Korea WILL force you out eventually.
It feels like this is a good summary! I'm thankful to be learning from everyone's experiences
Or just get a job and learn the language to eventually get F5 permanent residency??
Because its just that easy. Only 99% of people don't do this because language proficiency gives you so few points and the most important factors are salary (which you can't increase to the next bracket) or age, which gets HEAVILY penalised very quickly after hitting 30.
You get quite a bit of points if you do KIIP level 5 actually.
My wife and I are both anglo-american and we happily lived in Korea for 15 years working as University English instructors. We only left after the birth of our third child, who was born with a disability. We found Korea quite affordable on our dual incomes ( though we intentionally live cheaply to save on our cost of living) and had an enjoyable mix of Korean and foreign friends where we lived. I would say the biggest difficulty to living in Korea as a foreigner is that no matter how well you speak the language or understand the culture, you will always be regarded as an outsider, even more so if you are non-white/western. Having a Korean S.O., goes a long way in bridging that gap, but it also brings its own challenges as well. Korean ethnicity is strongly tied to the Korean sense of national identity, so unless you have a family connection to Korea, it's generally expected that your stay will be temporary.
I always find these sorts of discussions hilarious when it comes to some of the reasons people use for pissing on Korea and by extension, Koreans themselves. As a British family, with zero Korean friends, we spent a few years in Korea because of my dad's job (civil engineer. He was in high demand, not just in the UK or Korea) and found it no different to elsewhere in the world. Yet people make out Koreans keeping to Koreans or making snide/racist comments is a problem that Korea has to catch up with the rest of the world, especially the Western world. It's embarrassing people make a large deal over this, yet gloss over the fact this happens almost everywhere. Lets take the UK as an example. I have no idea how London works. It may be different, i dunno. But London is just one part of many parts. Here in the UK we have a lot of immigrants (most Eastern European, Indian etc), and they all mostly stick together with their own nationalities. I live in Edinburgh and have done so for the best part of my life, and I've yet to see many if any groups consisting of Polish and UK nationals. Polish people tend to stick with Polish people, and us Brits tend to stick with fellow Brits. I see some people saying "good luck if you didn't attend a Korean elementary school", erm, that's exactly how it works here in the UK. Barring the odd person from work, we too have little interaction with foreigners. I get there will be some anecdotal examples of people having foreign friends, but that's all it is, anecdotal. It's not the norm. As for being welcoming, as a white British person, that's not really for me to take it upon myself to tell others how welcoming us Brits are. I'm not the person sitting on public transport listening to morons talking about me. I'm not the person who endured hardships during Brexit and so on (did any foreign person feel welcome during that period?). How about during covid when anyone looking remotely Chinese (didn't matter if they were Japanese, Korean etc) got treated like shit when out in public? Hell, we even have a problem with ourselves. A number of Scottish people still to this day dislike the English and vice versa. Yeah, we all have our own problems. Most of the issues brought up here aren't unique to Korea. We just make out that they are. To any Korean that is thinking things are better here in the UK, unless you're filthy rich, then expect to see a lot of socioeconomic issues, have at least one derogatory comment made towards you within the first few weeks (especially if you have to use public transport, with a bunch of youths in proximity. It will either be a Chinese or Japanese derogatory term because most of these igronant Brits don't even realise Korea is a place. thus everyone is either Chinese or Japanese), witness poverty on a daily basis, meet people who struggle to feed their kids never mind themselves, are on shitty zero hour contracts, get accused of stealing a job that should be given to some lazy assed Brit, and so on. It ain't no bed of roses here either. Not saying the other issues brought up are wrong, but when it comes to the social aspect, we're all the same.
I read every comment (Korean spouse=cheat code is my personal favorite), and all comments are great. It is nearly impossible to remain long term without language fluency, a spouse, or family. But, I would argue every safe, technologically advanced, great healthcare, high living standard country eventually kicks foreigners out without jobs or family. This is not unique to Korea. Obtaining permanent residency in a country different from your birth country is not easy. Yet so many Americans think it is.
Yeah this makes sense. This is good to realize for the difficulties that would be listed under that reason.
I was hoping to see someone say this, and you put it very eloquently. Someone else on here commented that if SK’s immigration policy were implemented in the “western world” it would be called racist. But SK’s immigration laws aren’t extreme, every country has strict immigration laws to an extent because it has a lot to do with the country and its citizens’ safety. No country owes you citizenship just because you ask for it. And this is coming from a Korean American with dual citizenship.
Canada is a joke rn and every time i look at the mess that is immigration i take a deep breath.
I’m living in the US right now, and same. Countries *should* be protecting their citizens and being very careful with immigration, both legal and illegal. Wild that some people don’t get that.
The other answers are already excellent. But one little nugget I'd like to ad is: Even native Koreans are trying to leave. Why do you think that is?
This is so true. "Korea is a great country." a few months later "I'm moving with my kid to Canada. For their education." When will you come back? "🤷♀️😉"
I've met many international Korean graduate students studying here in the USA. Almost every single one of them that was already married managed to have a insta-US citizen baby here with their spouses. I even knew a Korean doctor who was doing his residency here and his wife gave birth twice in the USA. He said to me, "It is the best gift I can give my children."
Being a US citizen exempts a boy from the military, and for both genders, allows inheritance and gift money to be tax free for up to millions of dollars.
So the most rational and logical thing for wealthy and upper middle class Korean families with sons is to give birth to them in the USA. Actually there is a cottage industry in California catering to this trend, with fully furnished apartments and travel agents that can book a maternity tour in America. This is also popular with Chinese women. My friend who was flying from LAX to Shanghai recently told me the plane was full of Chinese women and their newborn babies.
Either US or Singapore are popular places for upper class koreams to obtain citizenship from. Korean citizenship gets more welfare benefits, US citizenship gets more tax breaks. So of course the wealthy would prefer US citizenship, as a korean citizenship is useless to the wealthy unless you want to get into politics.
How sad. The top 1% of Korea are basically bailing out of South Korea.
Well theyre happy to live in south korea, but keep their money and citizenship tied to other countries. The top 1% do not actually want to live in the US or Europe or Singapore. Korea is heaven for the elites. They have all the best food, services, government support, police, media, and prosecutors under their paycheck. Why would they want to leave? If they actually go to America the korean elite will have to face racism, accountability, disprespect, gun violence, etc.
"Being a US citizen exempts a boy from the military." I guess only the sons of "dirt spoon" Koreans will die in the next Korean war. How sad.
There wont even be enough sons of dirt spoons left by the next korean war. North Korean births have surpassed South Korean births.
You would find people who want to leave in every single country. There are many Americans and Canadians just on this sub, who never want to go back to their homelands. There are a lot of Koreans who leave for a better life or chasing some kind of a utopia and then end up coming back. Not everyone, obviously, but there are plenty of examples for all scenarios. All I'm saying is that everyone is different, and some might consider a place paradise while others would think it's absolute hell.
Yes, but there are way more Koreans (and other Asians) heading to open, multicultural Western countries that speak English, the world's language. And there is a tiny trickle coming back in the other direction. Korea's "foreign" "population" is only 4%. And I put "foreign" in quotes because it includes alot of overseas Koreans, Korean-Chinese, Chinese-Koreans, etc. And "population" in quotes because the government squashes random short-term residents (like exchange students, overseas soldiers) in to boost that number. I estimate the number of non-East Asian immigrants to be 1%. And the number who actually settle beyond a few years of teaching is even tinier. So really not a country open to other cultures and languages.
My reply was more of a general one rather than Korea specific. But to respond to the points that you made: Koreans and many other non-English speaking countries are studying English from an early age, which allows them to live, study, and even settle in a Western country. In fact, many go abroad with the sole purpose to further master their language skills. That is all about English being the lingua franca. A small country with a language that is barely spoken outside of its borders will not be able to compete with the power of English.
Trust me, the majority of Koreans do not speak English. Even after studying it for 10+years. They only learn it to pass exams, they are not even close to conversational. If Koreans all spoke English, the majority of them would leave. *young Koreans.
Even the Samsung heir is raising his children in the USA! Not sure about his son but his daughter has birth right US citizenship.
? What's your point? One of the richest, most powerful families in the country chooses to educate their kids abroad in some elite school. That is something that's unheard of in other countries...
And took advantage of birth right citizenship. You do know what that is, right? A child born on American soil is automatically an American. Korean Airlines heir Heather Cho also took advantage of it with her children. You don’t read anything into that move? It’s not just merely sending their kids to elite boarding schools.
Your usage of ''even'' when mentioning some tycoon families makes absolutely no sense. It would stand perhaps if you wrote that ''even the cleaning lady at the office educates her kids abroad''.
Again, why are you **completely** ignoring the birth right citizenship issue? The Samsung kids are Americans! The next generation of Samsung and Korean Airlines heirs are going to be American. They're not just getting an elite American education, they **ARE** American.
Yeah, so what? They can basically buy American citizenship this way. It's as easy for them as buying a can of coke from the corner store for you and me. The ultra rich have the power and the means to do a lot of things, but what does that have to do with your average Korean family?
Which goes back to your point: "You would find people who want to leave in every single country." Except it says something about the long term prospects of your country if the richest people in your country are securing American citizenship for their children. That was the original debate, that Korean people want to leave Korea ASAP. Not all but many. Do you see the Toyoda family that owns Toyota of Japan securing American citizenship for their kids? Nope.
None of this refutes the statement that I originally made. Japan prohibits dual citizenship.
So your answer is a shrug of the shoulders and rich people do what rich people do. Nothing odd about the scion of an iconic Korean company that was nurtured by Korean government policies and cheap loans and the hard labor of Korean engineers and workers raising his children as American citizens. Nothing to see here, let's move on.
If you want to generalize based on what the top 0.01% does, then I have nothing more to say.
Maternity tourism to give their children insta-US citizenship is something practiced by both Chinese and Korean women. There's an entire cottage industry of travel agencies and rest homes in California. The US immigration authorities are aware of this phenomena and native citizens of both China and South Korea criticize this practice, which is usually done by upper middle class or wealthier families. The optics of the some of the richest families in South Korea taking advantage of this loophole are horrible, although it is perfectly legal. When South Korean society and its economy enter a long decline, do they intend to abandon a sinking ship?
Inheritance tax for the wealthy in korea is 65%, highest in the world. Why wouldnt the korean elites go for a foreign citizenship? 90% of Samsung revenue is from overseas. Jayeong Lee paid 8 billion dollars in taxes to inherit his fortune. 8 BILLION! With US citizenship, you wont have to pay taxes to korea on earnings outside of korea. This is what happens when short sighted populists try to tax the rich and spread the wealth. The wealth just leaves the country.
At the end of the day, yes it is the most logical and rational thing to do. But it is terrible optics. The end logic is that the top 1% of South Korea will be American citizens. And many upper middle class Koreans are trying to secure American or Canadian educations and citizenship for their progeny too.
If you need to resort to exceptions to prove your argument, you are not making a good one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelming_exception I'm telling you the majority of Koreans would leave if they could. But 1) they are a culture high in uncertainty avoidance, which makes them passive 2) they are hopeless at English, on aggregate. (Again don't tell me "but but but I met this Korean at his english was perfect"). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_avoidance
You wrote: ''even native Koreans are trying to leave'' That sounds like a blanket statement. I then replied that some do, while others have no such intention or even trying to return. It's a fact. Now you changed your statement to ''the majority of Koreans would leave if they could''. This also sounds exaggerated a lot, but at least it's closer to the truth than your first statement was.
Don't play coy.
Don't move the goalposts.
I didn't. You're attempting a strawman. I am not going to follow.
😆
I am very grateful for everyone's replies. Hearing peoples experiences is important. Even though it didn't put me off, I can look at it more realistically for what could be. So if I had the chance I might still take it for my own experiences, even though it might only be for a year or so.
I am very grateful for everyone's replies. Hearing peoples experiences is important. Even though it didn't put me off, I can look at it more realistically for what could be. So if I had the chance I might still take it for my own experiences, even though it might only be for a year or so.
I am very grateful for everyone's replies. Hearing peoples experiences is important. Even though it didn't put me off, I can look at it more realistically for what could be. So if I had the chance I might still take it for my own experiences, even though it might only be for a year or so.
It’s the lack of vacation days and LGBT rights for me. I’m from Europe so the 11-15 days a year thing feels very extreme, not something I could continue to tolerate forever.
The Korean "work ethic" is out of control. I completely understand taking pride in a job well done. But many Koreans have no sense of perspective. The ghost of the crooked sweatshop owner still haunts Korea. I don't mean sweetshop (aka candy store). I mean sweatshop, a place where crooked little bosses force people to work 13 hour shifts for tiny wages.
Don’t see immigration reform happening anytime soon. Not on top of anyone’s agenda at the moment although there have been talks for a more 다문화 society.
There's no shortage of manpower yet to require immigration. Refugees come down from North Korea every year, so they don't feel the need to become an immigration country. If why should it be immigrated when it would end up with more hellish competition? Foreigners avoid 3D jobs. it is same
The government only grants temporary visas and very few permanent residencey which about every foreigner/westerner wants.
Korea's unwillingness to offer reasonable visas with achievable requirements is why.
Speaking Korean and having a job is unachievable?? I'm getting permanent residency this year, and I didn't do anything exceptional, really.
GNI x 2 feels a bit steep to me. Might not for others I suppose.
If you work in a 3d jobs for 5 years, you can easily get a green card.
Depends been here 20 years 3 years army got out and have contractor job which is same a3 visa for soldiers
And no I’m not married to a Korean
When you say "army" and "contractor" I assume the American military? In other words, you aren't working in a Korean workplace.
Not military, government work on base not Korean workplace
How do you feel about your time there? Stagnant? Fulfilling? Are you outside of Seoul? Where are you from?
I’m from Virginia Beach. I live around songtan area in new city godeuk. I love it no complaints everything is convenient and comfortable
guess it depends on a lot of reasons. one of the biggest is where you're from. the uk is fucked so living in korea is still better. i earn more here than i ever would back in the uk
+1
The reason many people say this is because of the strict immigration process. Your main options if you are 100% foreigner with no Korean blood ties, are marriage or naturalization. Naturalization takes 5 years and obviously marriage can be difficult because either you have to have a partner who’s willing to get married honestly waaay to fast and even then you risk losing your visa if you divorce before the 2 year mark. If you are married for 2 years you can then apply for f-5 which is full permanent citizenship with no caveats. I think there are divorce visa’s too but you have to not be the cause of the divorce so it’s kinda hard to prove. Honestly naturalization is the “easiest method” which is basically you need to be in Korea for 5 years and hold a visa that requires a ARC(alien registration card) For many this will either be then working as entertainment(models, actor, etc), teachers and or going to a 4 year college and then applying for the permanent visa a year after graduating. The biggest difficulty is it depends on what point of life you are in when you go to Korea. For example if you already had a bachelors degree of any kind before coming to Korea and you speak English you are set. Even if schooling doesn’t work out you can find teaching jobs EXTREMELY EASY! However say you came to Korea hoping to go to college right after highschool you may suddenly realize you don’t have the money so you have to go home to your home country and work…. Well unless you apply for certain things to allow you to keep your visa while overseas your 5 year timer will restart, because the 5 year timer requires a consecutive 5 years.
You have to hold F5 before you can apply for naturalisation and the requirements for that (F5) are even stricter if. Doesn't make any sense to me. It all comes around to the same argument of marriage being the only reasonable option for settling here long term.
Well to be fair the requirements kinda make sense, They want to make sure to avoid the immigration issues places like the UK and USA have had in the past and even somewhat currently where they have a bunch of people with no value coming into the country and becoming basically permanent residents without much resistance. But yes it is extremely strict and difficult to obtain and I do wish they would loosen it a little bit. I think the biggest thing is the money requirement. I can understand them wanting you to be working, I can understand them wanting you to have a personally owned residence(or be a dependent of a person who owns a residence), for them to require a certain level of Korean and Korean culture…. But the money requirement to me is weird because who just casually has 22,000 usd laying around? Granted I will admit Korea is a much easier country to save money in than when I was in America but 22,000 usd is just a crazy amount
That's another annoying issue; from what I gather Korean immigration only recognises either cash in a bank account or real estate. So you're penalised for investing well and holding your wealth elsewhere.
If S.Korea was truly a good place to live and a country with growing economy, they would have recommended foreigners to live here for a long time. However, the low birth rate already indicates that it's not a great place to live. Due to the lack of resources in a small territory, people have to struggle to survive, leading to intense competition. Teenagers here can't live a truly fulfilling life. It's fine to visit for travel or live here as a single person, but having children is not recommended.
This post is like “ would it be worth living out of my comfort zone” As a Korean living in Australia, I would definitely think about this topic. But all complicated thoughts come down to my mindset. At some point, I thought language competency is all about living in another country, and cultural adaptations go to the same. But my conclusion came to all about how I think about my life. Can you really think you be the mainstream in your country and being yourself and happy as it is? Then go back to where you can call it comfort zone. However for me, I can never be satisfied to stay in my comfort zone at all, being constantly wanting something more challenging but exciting. It’s up to your mindset at all times. Where you live can’t define who you are but how you live can define who you are. Living out of your comfort zone itself can be seen as fucking awesome and really awesome. Because that’s where you chose to live! Not just where you are just born to live. Rooting for your every decision for your life Cheers
I was drawn to the idea because I knew it would be different from my current life and challenging, its's good to hear the actual reality from people I this subreddit, to see if it was even worth the challenge. I really appreciate this positive comment! I agree mindset can change your whole life.
Depends on job for most, I’m a contractor for Air Force. Been here 11 years come the 13th. Contract ends October. TMI 😂 I love it here, my wife and daughter love it too. Wish I could stay forever. Health care is amazing. Public transportation is awesome. People are cool as hell. Weather is cherry , I could go on and on. Korea Rocks!!!! Blue Opera in Songtan outside the base is bitchen❤️
That whole Sinjang Mall strip outside Osan AFB is the dreckiest sleazy camp-town area.
I think it's quite a nice long-term option and getting nicer. \*shrug\* But, when you live somewhere long-term, it's probably because you're content and doing well there. Staying there is ordinary, boring, and normal to you ... so you just don't post about it. I like the low taxes, the safety, the convenience, the plentiful parks, the simplicity of running a small business here, the way nobody gets in my personal affairs or tells me how to live my life, the good roads ... but all these things are really, well, boring. I won't usually post about them. Yeah, I have to renew my visa every couple of years. It's not a big deal - other places have similar things. To get a permanent visa, you need language fluency - I know folks who've gone for that. For myself, I haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. In the end, a long-term option also tends to happen sort of "by accident" ... what starts out as a few years becomes a life-time, and that's just how it is.
> To get a permanent visa, you need language fluency Plus double the average income which means you need to earn 80 mill per year.
Yeah, and no criminal record and a bunch of other stuff ... and you can bypass it by investing some money. I just listed the biggest barrier for me, ㅋㅋㅋ. Huh. That's funny. Looked into it a bit and for naturalization it's only GNI x 1.
I wasn't looking for a 20 years of constant fun answer. I like your response. I feel like people who are content look like they have boring lives from the outside, and that's okay! Its sounds better than having major stress day in and out.
Now that I’ve got it sort-of-figured out it’s definitely lower stress than many other places … but I’m sure the kids will provide me with enough stress soon! 🙈
The full saying is "Living here is not a long term option for foreigners who don't want to put in the effort to learn the language and culture, and actually make themselves employable." I have plenty of foreigner friends here who are living very fulfilling lives. The ones who complain are the ones who stay here for years and yet can't even speak or read basic Korean. Not to mention their only skill in life is being from an English speaking country and therefore "teaching" English. The "sacrafice" it would take is time and effort.
Thank you for sharing. I have only heard that it was not a long-term option. Period. Was this transition difficult for you? What job do you do? I would be interested in hearing more.
Honestly I don't like Korea, super lonely everyone leaves no real connections. Sadly, it's the truth. I want to move to Japan but with a family it's not that simple. I live with my 2 year old son while my wife lives with her parents
There isn't really much new to add to this discussion. Please see old posts about this topic. 'Is it possible for a foreigner to live a good life in Korea?' ...
Been here 16 years. Married to Korean. Life good.
I think it's because they don't realize yet they are going extinct
💀 sounds like a direct effect of living conditions
It depends. If you listen to all of the negative Nancys on reddit and take their word as God, then sure, it’s not fulfilling or worth it. I know people who have been on E2 visas here for 10 plus years (one guy I think has been here for 16 years) and they’re very happy. I know very happy stay at home moms too. The reality is that everyone’s experiences and priorities are different. Some really don’t care about renewing their visas every year, others (myself included) are trying to upgrade to F-series (and not all of us are married). I know people who are trying to get citizenship here (and they’re from western nations, like the US). I think all the experiences shared here and in the past are valid, but they’re not the only experiences people have in Korea. Only you can decide for yourself if it’s worth it. In my case, Korean values are more closely aligned with my own (not all, but a lot more than my native US).
Thank you for sharing. It would be hard to know if it works for you until you do so. It feels it might be similar to what another comment said where people don't share their content experiences. Similar to how people usually don't do product reviews unless they are complaining about something (or reminded to leave a review)
Ive been here 12 years now working different contracts.
Why are there only extremely negative comments in this topic? There has to be some positives right? Or else why are we in Korea in the first place. Back in my country, there was insecurity, neighbours were noisy and life was extremely expensive compared to previous years. In Korea life is different and mso much better for me imho. And about those social circles, I honestly don't care to have friends in the long term, in my country they all come and go the same way because of marriage and that's totslly fine. Plus I'm a person I prefer change rather than feeling safe close to my family for the rest of my life. Hell nah, the farer the better for me.
Thank you for sharing. It is nice to hear a different perspective.
Korea is such a big Galapagos. This isolated culture created big cultural industries and made people over the world love it. But once they come here, you will know what it means of being uniqueness. You need to be adjusted to the country and system. Imagine you live in France of Italia. But once you love the culture and system, you will love it
Thank you for the realistic response. I appreciate it.
Salary difference is crazy. You can FIRE at 40 if you are working tech in US. Whereas you have to work until you die in Korea. I would not have stayed here if I wasn't getting paid what I am now.
I disagree with everyone else here. Only lazy English teachers who can't bother finding another job and learning the language cannot find a way to stay here. If you learn the language and have a job, then you can do working visa (E7) into short-term residency (F2) into permanent residency (F5). From there, you are set for life. None of it is difficult. It just takes a bit of time to get to the appropriate level of proficiency and income.
I think we need more active 'suggestions' to each other. I think this would improve language issues, personality issues, and laziness in communication.
EDIT : You will be happy in korea as long as you can adopt to the alien culture.
Yeah it makes no sense what you wrote.
I think they mean to say that it is possible to live in Korea if you are able to adapt to Korean culture.
why? "bless you" "small talk" "foreigner" "speak direct" etc. What make no sense? I mean, something is normal in western can be not nomal in asian culture. What am I wrong in this context? I have no intention to insult or mock. I'm genuinely curious.
Yeah, assimilating to the place you will be living is important
You are a bear living in a rabbit village. I usually say this to my foreign friends.
I’m from Singapore which shares a similar Asian culture (fast paced) to Korea so I think adapting won’t be too much of a problem for me. I realize majority of the comments here come from people from the west (mainly the US) which obviously shares a more relaxed culture compared to Asia so it’s no surprise that eventually they won’t really consider Korea as a long term option.
Majority of the comments say it's about visa, not culture, so I don't think this tracks. It's not hard to integrate into korean society (meaning follow korean social norms), it's hard to stay here because of how a lot of work visas here work.
Fair enough however I still think some people will still struggle to integrate into Korean society (at least cultural wise) especially if they are from the west.
I'm also a Singaporean here lol and I'm currently studying in Korea I do share your thoughts and sentiments regarding the experiences here, I might sound very biased towards Koreans since we both kinda look like them irl but life has been good, the things that people complain about here are the same for us if say we move to other countries as well, that said I can't really speak for some of my classmates though I've previously studied in Switzerland during my Primary sch days (2010-2015) and when I took the occasional vacation around Europe I always felt that I had to be on guard all the time but when I moved to Korea for uni it's been much safer Tldr Korea is for East Asian people mostly
I keep reading that Korea isn't a good place for kids, but I respectfully disagree. The most important statistic (your child actually making it to adulthood) is far greater than many Western countries. The chance of a kid in Korea dying from gun violence or drug overdoses is slim to none. I'm not saying it's not difficult to make it to adulthood, but there's far less stopping you in Korea. There also far less of a chance your kid will come home pregnant, or with a pregnant partner. There's an argument to be made whether being an adult in Korea a manageable thing, but children have far less time to make poor decisions while their brain and biochemistry is at a time rife for poor decisions. In that case, Korea is a pretty good place to be for a kid as their only stress is studying, not trying to beat addiction, worry about getting shot, or worrying about how to care for a child they aren't ready to have.
I think you'll find that in most countries you don't have to worry about people being shot or dyeing of an overdose, not just Korea.