Workplace Culture Shocks in Korea

There are many aspects to Korean life that I became accustomed to during my three years living there, and many things that I now crave and miss greatly. There were also aspects that I never found myself able to adjust to, ones that I don’t miss. Many of the ones I personally found most challenging were the workplace culture shocks in Korea.

In order to keep things coherent for you, I will be separating my posts on culture shocks into categories. I also don’t want to bore you with long walls of text, so for this particular topic of ‘Workplace Culture Shocks in Korea’, I’ll be separating it into two posts.

Let’s get into it…

Tall Shared Building

As mentioned briefly in my last post, I was surprised to find my school in a tall shared building, on the third floor. When I hear the word ‘school’ I imagine somewhere on a ground floor, an outdoor playground, lots of windows and space for children to run and play. Don’t you? Not a tall, industrial looking building, with business men and women coming and going all day long.

No windows

Upon entering the third floor where my school was located, there was bright hospital style, artificial lighting everywhere. Why? Because many of the rooms had no windows whatsoever, and the few that did were covered in some sort of sunlight blocking, sticky film all over them!

CCTV in every room

There was a large screen in the reception which had CCTV footage from each classroom on it. The parents would all gather round it at pick up time and watch our every move. At first, I found it very uncomfortable and unusual that there was CCTV in every room. I simply wasn’t used to that level of surveillance. Over time I became so accustomed to it that I am actually now confused by the lack of surveillance cameras in places in America! I still haven’t shaken off the feeling that I’m being watched all the time! Later on I would work at a different school, at that one they even had a CCTV camera in the bathroom!!! Granted it was pointed at the sinks, not the stalls, but still I was never able to accept that one necessary.

No shoes

When entering the ‘teacher’s room’ (which was a cramped and poorly laid out space!) everyone would remove their shoes and put on inside slippers. The entire work day would be spent in slippers or sliders. Even the children would change into slippers for the day. Call me crazy but I genuinely believe this caused my feet to increase shoe size, they spent three years relaxed out and expanding all day!!

Overcrowded teacher’s room

Anyway, back to the overcrowded teacher’s room. Overseeing the room was the deputy heads desk, with the Korean teachers desks running around the edges of the room and the foreign teachers all squished together on an island style desk in the center of the room. There was paper and raggedy old textbooks all over the place, and forget about having any personal space in there. Occasionally it could be fun, our boss would gift us with snacks or parents would gift us with coffees and everyone would get along for a moment in time, but oftentimes the energy in that room could be deeply uncomfortable. If one person was saturating it with bad energy, everybody was feeling it.

Cultural expectations

It is also considered rude to leave the building on any of your breaks there, and immediately upon finishing your shift. Having the deputy heads desk overseeing everyone’s desks, meant that if you weren’t there on your break you had defied the cultural expectation and gone outside. This definitely caused some tension and hostility when some of us foreigners would choose to leave during break times and immediately at the end of the day. Generally the Korean staff would stay in the building, with many of them staying longer after work. I found this ideology particularly difficult to accept. If it’s my break, I’m going outside. If the day is done, I’m leaving! Living with this cultural expectation for so long has now caused me some anxiety when I leave work on my break or at the end of my shift here in America, despite it being a very normal and accepted practice in my current workplace!

Provided lunches

On a more friendly note, Korean schools provide the staff with a cooked lunch each day. The provided food is much healthier than western style food, and the children are generally not fussy eaters and eat the same food as the adults. Every day there would be rice, kimchi (I miss kimchi so much!!!), and an assortment of meats and vegetables. Of course, I had to learn quickly how to use chopsticks. The children would laugh at me trying to use them at first, amused by my clumsiness. Every other day we would rotate with our Korean co-teacher on who would spend their lunch break with the children. At first I was confused and honestly a little aggravated by this system, I wanted to get fresh air, coffee and some peace and quiet during that time! Eventually though I came to enjoy that time with my class. It was nice to spend time with them that wasn’t just reading and writing.

Of course, there are more workplace culture shocks in Korea to be discussed, which I will share with you in part two of this same topic! Let me know in the comments if any of these shocked you!