I’m back with part two of last week’s blog post on ‘Workplace Culture Shocks in Korea’. This blog post also has a little advice on how to cope with all these workplace culture shocks at the end for anyone who is considering working in Korea.
Don’t expect it to be easy, but know it can be worth it
If you are considering working in Korea, don’t expect it to be easy at all, but know that it can be worth it if you want it to be. Read on to find out what to expect based on my personal experience and click here for part one.
Hours of contact
When I began working in Korea, it was really hard for me to adjust to how normal and accepted it was for our work to contact us outside of work hours. This may not seem surprising to some people, depending on your job or the country you are from, but my full time job in England before moving to Korea had a policy regarding hours of contact. For example we would not be expected to read, respond or receive any work emails outside of work hours.
Social media messaging app, KakaoTalk
I was also surprised to find that all workplace communications took place on a Korean social media messaging app, KakaoTalk. Again, depending on your line of work this may not seem strange at all, but I was used to everything being done over work email or in person communication with daily morning meetings. I no longer think it’s strange since I got used to it, but I do think it mildly affected my professional in-person communication skills.
The national anthem
Again, this one probably won’t be much of a culture shock if you’re an American reading this (or other countries that still practise this) but I was surprised to learn that everyone stood and sang the national anthem to the flag with their hand on their chest at the start of school assemblies. This is just something that we never did in school in England, so it was definitely interesting and different to me.
Dinner and drinks parties
One of the cultural expectations tied to the workplace (pre-covid) was that your boss would organise dinner and drink ‘parties’ for everyone in the workplace that you would all be expected to attend. Of course, me being the social and extroverted character that I am, I had no issue with this expectation and I enjoyed it. I was new to the country and happy to have plans. However, I know for some people they felt uncomfortable with this expectation and unhappy to give up their personal time to spend with work colleagues. Personally, I found our work events fun and even bonding- most of the time. Our boss would pour everyone shots and she would be encouraging everyone to order lots of delicious food and party on! Some of our work events got a little messy and everyone drank too much soju, but it was all fun and games.
Different personalities will have different experiences
This particular cultural expectation will obviously affect personalities differently and a huge difference in whether or not these types of events are fun depends on your relationships with your colleagues. I would not have been interested in attending a work related dinner with colleagues from my second place of work in Korea, luckily covid meant that that never took place anyway!
Unwell? You still have to attend
However, there was one event I was not very pleased about having to attend with my first job in Korea. I was unwell and it was only four members of staff having to attend, two of us who were new and scheduled for a Saturday training day out of town, one who volunteered because she wanted to attend the training event, and our deputy head to oversee. All I wanted to do was curl up in bed and recover from my illness but I had to attend our work dinner, it would’ve been rude not to.
Sick leave and the way your bosses in Korea are allowed to speak to you
Which leads me on to my next big cultural shock. You do not get any sick leave. If you are unwell you better get up and get on with it in Korea. Luckily, the Korean healthcare system is absolutely fantastic and completely efficient and fast. In my first month there I had the above-mentioned illness and my boss marched me down to the doctors, within five minutes they had a camera in my ears and down my throat, handed me antibiotics and I was well again quite quickly (and it only cost about £5 GBP/ $7 USD). During my final year in Korea I was violently sick so I took the day off work, my (different) boss was furious and demanded I go to the doctor and come into work immediately after. I was older, wiser and a little braver by this time and refused. I couldn’t believe the rude, controlling, demanding messages I was receiving simply for taking off my first and only sick day in years. The way that your bosses in Korea are allowed to speak to you is definitely something I could never adjust to and something that caused me a lot of frustration and anxiety.
Time off, it pretty much doesn’t exist
On a similar note, with regards to time off; it pretty much doesn’t exist if you work in a Hagwon (the public school system is different). You cannot request leave and the days off that you do get given are few and far between, and those days are chosen for you by your boss and/or national holidays. You are given roughly four days off in the winter and four in the summer. Depending on your luck and what school you work for you might be given some time off for Christmas. This was one of the hardest and most tiring parts of living there. In England I had worked in a college, so I was used to having two weeks off for Christmas and Easter, six weeks in the summer and other random days and weeks throughout the year!
You have to find the good in things
However, you have to find the good in things. I never wasted my time, I knew how precious my free time was. After work I would be doing something fun, on weekends I would have multiple activities and adventures lined up each week. It made me appreciate my time and use it to explore and enjoy myself whenever possible. I had the least amount of free time during this period of my life that I’ve ever had, and yet it is the time in my life where I did the most things and have the most incredible memories and stories to look back on. This philosophy on life was made possible by the lower cost of things over there, you are actually able to live your life because they don’t make everything impossibly priced for average people.
You are the lucky one
Another aspect to working so much over there is the bond that you form with your students. You are the lucky one that gets to spend every single day watching these sweet children growing and learning, you are privileged to be spending that time with them that their own parents do not get with them. You learn so much about their personalities and you love them so much, they make you laugh and also, they think you are amazing and are so excited to see you!
Something that can be really hard for Westerners to understand
Something that really shocked me and took me by surprise when I first arrived was how the children hug you, sit on your lap and climb all over you and take photos with you, and this is all normal and encouraged by the school and parents. This is vastly different to the system in the west where you cannot be touched or hugged by your students at all, and you are not allowed to take photos with them. In Korea, they take photos of you and your students constantly and they are sent via KakaoTalk to all the staff and parents and can be shared on-line and the parents will leave comments on the photos etc. This is something that can be really hard for Westerners to understand and act accepting of, some people from home judged me for having photos with my students and I couldn’t be bothered to explain to them how the entire situation is viewed differently in Korea, and that the photos were oftentimes taken by other members of staff. I even had some parents individually request photos of me with their children. It felt way more natural to be able to express affection and be allowed to give a crying child a hug, take photos when they were excited about their work or having fun, and communicate with parents who were happy and pleased to see you showing care for their children.
If you can’t be thoughtful and patient with children do not go there just for the sake of being able to live and work in Korea
My students got me through a lot of long, difficult days with their excitement, hugs and laughs. Remember, they are just children and they are studying all day long, you can be that bit of light and fun in their day. You will be part of their memories when they look back on their childhood, so make sure to be gentle, kind, fair and understanding. There were some people teaching there that should not have been allowed to reign their negative and controlling energy down on these children every day. Don’t take yourself too seriously, and if you can’t be thoughtful and patient with children do not go there just for the sake of being able to live and work in Korea.
There is simply no way to sugarcoat that part of life there
If you are considering working in Korea, be ready to be completely exhausted and exasperated, there is simply no way to sugarcoat that part of life there. However, I feel very blessed to have met some of my very best, closest friends through working there. People who have enriched my life in more ways than I could have ever imagined. I also worked with some very odd people who really tested my inner peace, life is all about balance after all. But through all the madness of adjusting to work over there, you find the most life changing joys and experiences that you would have never even known were possible.
Make an effort to keep your life outside of work as adventurous and meaningful as you can
If you want to go and work there, do it. Know that it will likely be a challenge and that you have to be resilient and make an effort to keep your life outside of work as adventurous and meaningful as you can. That said, don’t put up with terrible working conditions through fear of not finding anything better. Nicer, fairer and more manageable jobs and employers do exist out there, but as with most things in life you have to be willing to put in the effort to find them and the willingness to take the risk to try them. Sometimes it will work out and sometimes it won’t, but if you don’t ever try then you will literally never know.
Good luck
Good luck if you’re starting your journey, and if you’re someone that lives/lived there let me know if you relate to any of those feelings or experiences from working in Korea!
