Note: this list should not be construed as any indication that I’m not loving my time and life here in Seoul. When living anywhere, however, there’s bound to be more than a few ways that irk you in one way or another.

After living in South Korea for six months, I’m proud to say I’m loving life and having lots of fun – but there are more than a few things that irk me about Seoul. This list is balanced out by the previous blog post – if you’re looking to come to Korea, take both lists in at the same time to give the place a fair shake.

1) Nonsensical English – on t-shirts, bags / purses, English that makes no sense or is otherwise badly misspelled. There’s a bag I’ve seen several people carrying out with ‘MINUTEMEN MEATPACKERS ANGST’ on it, one word after another, like they belong together.

2) Public transportation shuts down around midnight (earlier on the weekends) – quite irksome since Seoul is truly a 24-hour, 7 day a week kind of city). Getting stranded far from home isn’t fun; there are usually taxis that can take you home, though they’re more likely to quote you an inflated rate. This is illegal by the way – insist they turn on their meter, call 1330 for assistance / translation, or just get out of the cab and walk away from the subway station – there’s bound to be an honest taxi a little further down the road.

3) Subway sellers / beggars. While the beggars usually pass by slowly with a cup or bowl silently asking for money, the sellers loudly demand attention, hawking their arm bands or vegetable peelers or PedEggs for a few thousand won. There are enough people that buy to make it worth their time (which is also the same reason we still have to deal with spam e-mails), so they come around every now and then. It’s a pretty rare (or short) subway trip where you won’t have to ignore a loud-mouthed seller or beggar with a bowl in their hands…

4) Koreans don’t flirt! The entire concept is, well, foreign to them. After 6 months at various bars and clubs, I’ve seen Koreans come in by themselves or in groups. Those that come by themselves rarely ‘introduce’ themselves to the aforementioned groups, and the groups rarely reach out to the aforementioned single person. The result is a lot of people sharing a space without reaching out to anyone beyond whomever they already know…

5) No matter how long you’re here, you’ll probably feel like a tourist. This goes double if you’re carrying a camera or looking at a map, and I’m likely to do one of the other whenever I travel.

6) Very very very few Koreans speak what I’ll call ‘conversational English’. While most can understand fairly basic requests through pointing and smiling, asking a Korean about their day or what they enjoy doing can’t always be simplified or accomplished through pointing and smiling. Even some of the Koreans I know that teach English can’t always answer. And forget using slang – it’s just not in most Koreans vocabulary. While it’s hardly a huge deal, it means the English speaker self-consciously edits every word they say before they say it to ensure they’ll be understood.

7) In quite a few cases, Koreans seem more like workaholic automatons than humans at times. The Korean government recently mandated a five-day work week (scroll almost the whole way down), but that hasn’t stopped most Koreans from sounding as though work is the most important thing in the world. Guys / girls, try to remember what you’re working for, OK?

8) The generation gap. While I love the group of twentysomethings that I’ll associate with at a bar or club, they’re often held down / held back by their parents’ generation. The parents’ generation (mostly ajummas and ajosshis in their 40’s and 50’s) are typically old enough to remember the Korean war, and seem somewhat leery of foreigners for the most part. Few of the older generation know more than a handful of English words, although if you’re buying something from them their attitude brightens significantly.

9) Foreigners support – there’s a lot of it out there, but it can be spread out and difficult to get a straight answer to a straight question from a reliable source. In some cases a simple opinion works well, but if you need to know something specific to stay legal, finding the answer from an official (read: government) source can be frustratingly difficult. While there are quite a few third-party websites about Korea (my favorite being korea4expats.com) the last thing you want is to trust a third-party resource with something that should be properly answered by a government / official source.

10) Ajummas (married women) or halmoni (grandmother-aged women) rummaging through trash or recycled bags for cardboard, plastic, or other recyclable stuff. It’s a rare day when I don’t pass by at least one or two. Although they seem more common in rural / outskirt areas, I’ve seen more than a few pushing their 20-year-old metal cart or stroller full of cardboard boxes (once upon a time the latter might’ve held kids). I’m sure they’re helping to save the environment in their own way, but it seems so… out of place with the modern image of South Korea.