About 7 months ago, I made one of the most important decisions in my life. I decided to move back to where I came from after living in Canada for 13 years. It has been such a huge transition which I think is still in progress. I have to admit that I’m having a bumpy ride since I came back “home”. Adapting myself to my home country is not as easy as I thought it would be. Well, I’m not sure if Korea is still the sole home country since I left for Canada when I was 14.
It’s a long story to tell you why I wanted to move back and how I came to this conclusion. I’ve been through quite a lot in the past seven months, but I think I should write about my journey in another post. I’d like to share what I’ve realized so far from working in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, as a semi-foreigner for a month.
I’m not a bilingual
When I moved to Canada, I was desperate to fit in. Kids in Grade 9 weren’t so patient to wait while I tried to formulate a sentence with my limited English vocabulary. I obsessed about using English all the time. At some point, I started to think and dream in English. It doesn’t mean that I stopped speaking my mother tongue. I visited my family in Korea once a year and I didn’t have to speak English with Korean friends in Canada. I thought I became a bilingual, but I sort of did.
During one of interviews in Korea, an interviewer asked me to describe the most recent project written on my resume. I tried to go over as much details as I could remember. And guess what? I butchered at least half of sentences. It was not because I couldn’t remember what I built. I kind of slurred the end of sentences because I simply couldn’t translate my answer into my first language. The interviewer had to ask more questions just to make sure what he heard was the same as what I meant to say. Luckily, all the interviewers read my resume thoroughly (at least I think they did) and understood the lack of fluency in my mother tongue.
I still struggle with the language barrier at work. Everything I learned about Software Engineering is inscribed in my brain in English. Also, I’ve only worked in Canada and the US before my current job. One of browser tabs in my work laptop is dedicated to an online dictionary, since I often have to search for Korean words that show up on Slack. I let English words come out of my mouth occasionally even when I speak Korean. Thanks to extensive English courses throughout Korean education system, everyone at my work does speak some English. Especially, developers are familiar with English terms used in software development. The language barrier does exist, but it’s quite a short one.
Realizing that I’m not a bilingual is probably the most unexpected discovery since I came back to Korea. I do feel slightly uncomfortable once in a while at work because I know my communication could get more effective. It will take a bit of time to get used to speaking professional Korean. I believe that getting better at speaking my mother tongue in working environment is a lot easier than desperately trying to speak perfect English.
Reverse culture shock
I didn’t even know this terminology until recently. Here is the definition from Investopedia:
Reverse culture shock is the emotional and psychological distress suffered by some people when they return home after a number of years overseas
I’d replace “distress suffered” with “disorientation experienced” (the latter is from Google Dictionary). The reason why I looked it up is because I’ve experienced it many times in Seoul and I wondered if there is a specific term for it. Let me tell you some of moments when I found out that I’m culturally different.
No one talks to a random person in an elevator. When I lived in a condo in Toronto, people often started a conversion. Whether it was about the weather, complaining about the condo management, or Raptors in the NBA finals, it was not surprising to talk to someone in an elevator. It’s definitely not the case in Korea. Even when I take an elevator with someone who works at the same company but never had a conversation with me before, the silence prevails. Maybe I could try to talk to them, but their eyes lock on their phones as they walk into an elevator. I have a sense that casually talking to a stranger is frowned upon in Korea.
People are used to being pushed in the subway. It’s almost like a social norm, I’m not even kidding. Platforms and subway cars get so crowded during rush hour and you cannot even move. When a door opens, people flood into both directions. If you try to be nice and wait for people to exit, you will probably get pushed into a car by passengers behind you. I have to endure this predicament on the way to work every morning. Of course, everyone hates getting crammed in the subway, but they seem to make nothing of it. I think it’s because there is no alternative. The subway system in Seoul is amazing. I’d even say that it’s the best as compared with public transportation in other cities I’ve been to. There are more than 20 lines and the most of platforms have screen doors, which prevent people from falling into tracks. Taking taxi is almost always slower because of traffic. I guess being jostled in the subway is the price I have to pay to live in Seoul.
It’s very common to brush teeth after lunch at work. I’ve never seen anyone brushing their teeth at work until I joined the current company. On the very first day at work, someone from People team showed me around the office. I was amazed by a separate section designed just for brushing teeth. There is even a small rack that sterilizes toothbrushes. A welcome packages includes a toothbrush as well. It still feels a bit weird and I often forget to brush my teeth after lunch. I thought I upped my game by starting to floss, but people here are on another level.
Work
The actual work I do everyday is not different from what I did back in Toronto or Seattle. Even culture at my company is very similar to what I experienced in tech companies in those cities. It is pretty unique in Korea and this is one of the reasons why I joined this company. That being so, I don’t have anything interesting to say about my company yet (as I said earlier, it has been only a month). I’m going to talk about common denominators in the workplace that I’ve either observed or been told.
Internship means almost nothing in Korea. I said “almost” just in case it might be different in other fields. My resume includes 2 years of full-time position at the last company and 4 internships (each one is 4 month co-op program). All the companies at which I interned have great cultures. I worked on meaningful projects and I’ve never had to do anything like “you have to do this because you’re an intern”. Especially, I was treated like a new grad software developer in the last two internships. None of this, however, mattered when I was looking for a job in Korea. No interviewer asked me about internships on my resume. I wasn’t sure if it was because the last internship was 3 years ago, or they just wanted to focus on the most recent experience. A job application form at some companies specifically says “do not include internships” (fortunately, this was not the case at where I currently work). It looks like it’s a common perception that internship doesn’t count. When I asked some of my acquaintances about this, they mainly agreed. I could’ve saved space on my resume and spent less time translating my work experience.
It looks like all tech companies I visited lack gender diversity. I didn’t see a single female engineer in all of my interviews. The percent of female engineers appears substantially lower than that in previous companies I’ve worked at. Don’t quote me on this though. I didn’t actually count the number, nor did I get actual raw data. It’s also possible that Korean companies I visited happen to have less female engineers than others. However, the comment I made is what I visually noticed and those companies play big roles in the tech industry. I think I’ll get a better view of this matter as I continue to work. If my remark holds true, I wonder if there are any steps they’re taking in order to rectify the lack of diversity.
In the past 7 months, I’ve made new friends who are mostly in their late 20s or early 30s. Almost all of them are currently employed. One common feature among them is that they seem to be on the edge of burnout, regardless of industries in which they work. I can see that they have telltale signs of burnout because I was a victim of burnout and overcame it. Whether they have 9-to-6 workdays or clock in insane hours, they all grudge going to work. One of my friends said that waking up on Monday mornings is an ordeal. They might be exaggerating, but everyone I’ve talked to hates their work and it’s obvious that they’re stressed out. I suppose they have great resilience to hold out at work. They may have adapted to get stress out of their system as they leave their desks. In the worst case, they might not be doing anything about it. I’m really curious why they feel in such a way, but I’m hesitant to ask. Who knows if I’ll be like them in 6 months or a year? I’ll just have to see how it goes.
I hope this post gave you a glimpse of my journey into a somewhat unknown world. One month is a very short period of time in anyone’s career. There will be more surprises and moments of culture shock as I continue to work in Seoul. If there is anything new and worthy of writing, I’ll share it in another post.
