Expatriates and Creative Bitching

I’ve often got this song on a loop in my MP3 these days when I ride the subways: Before you read the following, seriously, listen to this song, check out the lyrics, of which the following passage grabbbed me (hard, by wrist) when I first heard it: I understand the culture’s Of a different kind, But here [the] word celebration Just doesn’t come to mind! This resonates with me in the context of the story the song tells: a band that describes itself, in its early days, as “a bunch of immigrants jamming” who met at “a Russian wedding in …

Continue Reading

Super Expat Man

Ganked from an old post at Seoul Daddy. What can I say except it’s a stereotype for a reason? (Though there’s another stereotype lurking in there — the angry expat woman — which is also, well, a stereotype for a reason.) Or maybe archetype is the word I’m really thinking of? An archetype that gets taken up and roleplayed, in some cases? Hmm. Makes me think of Graham Greene novels, now…

Continue Reading

“Low Quality Foreigners” and Mockery Thereof

Right, so if you’ve been around the Korean expat blogosphere at all, you’ll have seen this image: Okay, so yes, this is a cartoon about a “low quality foreigner,” a creature which has been a bugbear in several different communities in Korea, not all of them Korean. Yes, mostly it’s Koreans who’re talking about it in terms of “low quality foreigners,” because that’s how the term gets translated and that’s the kind of terms Korean media would use to say what Westerners living here would call “total f*cking losers who don’t belong here.” But before I get into that, I …

Continue Reading

Last Bit on This Discussion

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Who's Complaining in Korea

The wider discussion that The Korean and Rob have sparked off continues with two more recent posts on the subject, here and here. Along the way, a very interesting post was contributed by Matt, that reads almost like a “bitching expat blog” roundup, except all the complaints were made by foreigners in Korea a century or more ago, long before blogs ever existed. I loved this post, and I wanted to link it, but I had it in my head that I’d be posting it with another installment: that’s not going to happen, so I am posting the link as …

Continue Reading

The Expattes Compleynte

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Who's Complaining in Korea

Roboseyo and The Korean (of Ask a Korean) have teamed up to pose a question that really does strike to the heart of the corner of the Internet that deals with Korea in English: Why do expats in Korea complain so much [online]? Note that I didnt use the word “blogosphere” anywhere: though lately I’ve been spitting insults at The Marmot’s Fleas (as I call the commenters at The Marmot’s Hole) the way some cowboys (used to?) spit chaw, let’s face it, there are other sinkholes of negativty, the forums on Dave’s ESL Cafe being a prominent one, and Dave’s …

Continue Reading