Culture shock on moving to Korea
PSY’S Gangnam Style was at the peak of its popularity when my family and I galloped to Busan, South Korea. I know that’s a terrible pun but not as terrible as my knowledge of Korea before moving here. I am a Sabah born and my husband is from Penang, where we lived. Our two sons were six- and two-year olds when we moved to Busan in year 2012 to work and live.
Everyone has heard of Seoul but hardly anyone mentions Busan. The name itself sounds like the word for ‘boring’ in Malay. It’s since been a little more than four years and I thought I should pen down our first experiences and impressions in The Land of the Morning Calm that we all have come to love. There are several but I will mention the ones that stood out most during our first year.
My husband and I first went for a scouting trip in May 2012 and landed in Seoul first to get a few documents done. The main thing that stood out for me upon landing was, every sign was in Hangul, the Korean script.
I learned Hangul briefly so my brain had been tuned to read anything in Hangul automatically but it made me rather dizzy with the endless sights of it and I was still very slow at that time.
Exiting the airport and entering the city, everything started to become surreal as I was entering this new place and with new people.
I will say the obvious that the people were nicely dressed and well-groomed. The Koreans obviously take great pride in being tidy and properly attired; they wouldn’t take kindly to seeing punks and ruffians in their midst. The streets were impeccably clean, the public transportation was excellent and the cars were Korean.
Unlike Malaysia which is multicultural, multiracial and multireligious, South Korea is a unicultural country and when I saw the people my instant reaction was, “Goodness! Everyone looks the same!” Of course this was reckless first-impact impression but it was a result of seeing since forever how in multicultural Malaysia everyone looks so much different from each other.
There was also one other point about the people on the streets and people I met that I quite couldn’t pinpoint at first but I soon realized that everyone, no matter the age, is either thin or not overweight at all!
It’s just impossible to see anyone obese in Korea. I had previously heard of this characteristic about Koreans but it still shocked me to see it with my very own eyes!
I could write more about the diet and food but for now I will mention that it’s not because they eat any less than us. In fact the Koreans are known for their love of their food.
Still on appearance, in Malaysia, I used to just put on any clean clothes I own and go out without makeup, but in Korea, women of all ages and even some young men put on makeup, even just for a short trip to the supermarket.
Our real move as a family was on August 2012. Language was my biggest challenge living in Korea. “Anyonghaseyo!” was an easy enough word to say but I soon realize that it’s not the only way to greet people.
There are also other ways to say thank you and I was quite taken aback by that.
“How could there be more than one word to mean just thank you?” I quizzed myself. But to my surprise, the Korean language and the Sabahan dialect intonation has this one fun similarity.
We asked for direction to Gyeongbukgung Palace from an old man and he explained in Korean and pointed to a straight direction finishing with this long throaty exaggerated sound that my husband and I still joke about until today.
It’s very similar to when you ask a Sabahan for direction and they will reply with “Di saaaaaaaaaana!!” the longer the first syllable of ‘sana’, the further the distance.
There are also a few ways of saying ‘yes’ and I later had to be careful never to say “Ya” after I had found out that “Ya” is rather an impolite way of calling a person, quite similar to an angry “Hey!” and its absolutely rude if you use it on an older person!
Amusingly, during our first week in Busan, an older woman pointed to tell me that my son’s shoelace was undone. On noticing it as well, I blurted out with a “Ya, ya!” to express gratitude for her concern. The lady’s face immediately changed, obviously insulted, and she quickly walked off in a huff before I could say sorry!
I never again used the word “Ya” after that, not even at home when we spoke English and Malay. In fact, we tried hard not to offend Koreans because you never know what’s polite and what’s not polite until you’ve learned it the hard way.
The standard of manners and politeness in Korea is nothing I’ve experienced before. People in the service line of any scale or level would always, and always, greet you and say thank you in the most sincere way afterwards.
People even greet each other at our apartment lift. It’s such a norm that the first time I came home to Malaysia for a break, I felt this reversed culture shock when seeing a cashier of a hypermarket (of the same Korean company!) was able to not mutter a single word when I was paying.
There is one unseen but crucial quality of Korea that we felt. It’s the sense of security especially having two young children. Apart from crossing streets, taking lifts and escalators, it feels very safe to let go of their hands and let them be. I have seen young children walking back home from school for a mile or so with no fear of trouble.
It also feels completely safe to do things I normally wouldn’t do in Malaysia like walk on sidewalks with a handbag in full snatching view, take a walk at night, leave a laptop bag in the car and put my phone in full view on the table of a restaurant.
I once left my phone in a public toilet and it was still there when I came back for it – after three worried hours! Thievery is definitely not part of the shoppers’ mentality here.
I have been told you can charge your phone at an electricity socket in full view and reach of people passing by but it would still be there many hours later.
We have heard stories of people who tried shoplifting but as soon as they were exiting the supermarket, policemen were already waiting at the front door to arrest them. Well, the rarity of crime is not just due to the people being honest but also the effect of a city having numerous CCTVs installed everywhere!
As for Busan, it’s the side of Korea I never knew existed and that shocked me as well. It’s Korea with beaches, seaside, blue skies, hills and not to forget the heavenly cherry blossoms in spring but at the same time an ultramodern city.
I love Seoul with its historical lure and non-sleep city life but Busan is quite balanced, much like Penang. Not too fast, not too slow. It’s been great and there are definitely more stories I can tell about it to my fellow Sabahans.
Laura, who hails from Tuaran, Sabah, is a civil engineering graduate with her expatriate family in Busan, Korea, where her husband is posted as an executive of Intel.