Plan of attack for Asia?
05-26-2011, 10:31 PM
Dash-
You definitely couldn't go wrong with Busan, or with Seoul for that matter. One thing that I like about Busan, is that each area feels like an entirely different city. It's probably the most unique place that I've been to in Korea.
In North America, growing up isn't easy sometimes. A lot of us have to deal with violence, drugs, etc.... In Korea, there's none of that, but the kids have to deal with a whole slew of other bullshit. Each year of school gets harder and harder and the pressure to be "#1" is always there, so they have to study at their regular school,which is gruelling enough, then most of them get forced to go to 'hagwons'. They have school after school is over. By the time that they get to middle/ high school, their lives are basically nothing but studying. Those who buy into the system and let the pressure get to them tend to carry that with them all their lives, so they become very concerned with their 'face', or their image/ status/ appearance with others. You'll learn a lot about the concept of 'face' when you get here. When dealing with Koreans, it's important to never let them lose face, learn to navigate around that and you're golden. That's part of the reason why the suicide rate here is so high. I don't think that I'd want to be a young man going through the Korean school system. When I taught middle school, I'd try and make class fun for the kids, a place where they could be themselves for a little while.
That being said, Korea is a very fun place in my opinion. the only days that I have that aren't interesting, are the days that I stay home and jack it.
It gets better for the kids after they get out of high school. For a lot of them, university is like high school for us. they've made it, so they can unwind and be themselves a little bit more. They become exposed to new ideas- to them it's like what being 15 or 16 is like for us. The younger generation are becoming much more free in my opinion, I've even noticed a change since 2008 when I first got here.
Athlone-
I know quite a few black guys in Korea and come to think of it, most of them are pretty successful on some level here. I've only heard one dude really complain. He was a GI from Houston Texas, but the thing is, he was a huge, intimidating looking guy. He came across like a hardman.
If you listen to a Korean pop song, you'll find that it's got a lot of hip-hop influence. For the younger generation, a lot of them associate black with cool, so times are definitely changing.
I was with a hard 9 one time, very fine chick, and she talked about how her old boyfriend was black. I kind of knew the guy and I happen to know that at the time that he would have been screwing several other chicks, all of them at least 8's. The guy was the type of guy who would do well anywhere, and he was doing damn good here in Korea. He'd been there for like 7 or 8 years too.
Bottom line is,black guys may face prejudice from the older generation, but not very overt. They also may be ruled out by part of the younger generation which still wants to conform. There is still a huge pool of young girls that you can pick from. Now I'm not a black guy, so I can't answer from first-hand experience, but from what I've seen, and the guys I've talked to when we spoke on the subject, the racial problem is overblown in Korea.
One thing that you don't want to do though, is come across as intimidating, or too hard. The same would go for an intimidating looking white dude. A man who does well in his own country, or in other countries, will have a good time in Korea, regardless of race.
That being said, Koreans spent most of their history as a 100% homogeneous society, so none of us will ever be fully integrated into their society. That's more of a good thing though, because we don't have to play by all their hierarchical rules and Confucian etiquette. As a foreigner, you get a lot of freedom here, just so long as you don't break their laws.... then you're fucked.
