“I have a love-hate relationship with Korea,” said my African American friend who has been teaching English here for five years. My Korean American friend who moved here six months ago to learn Korean says the same thing. So does the Frenchman who has been running his own consulting business in South Korea for seven years. My white American friend who first came to Korea on a one-year Fulbright teaching gig five years ago concurs.

Korea incites extremes in people.

Take the newly arrived editor in chief of a major international newspaper whom I met at a press luncheon in Seoul last April.
“What are your impressions of Korea so far?” I asked.

“I think Korea is the center of the universe,” the seasoned American newspaper journalist proclaimed. “This is the most exciting place for news. Just last week, you had squatters in a building fending off the police like something out of a ‘Mad Max’ movie, you had the Korean ‘comfort women’ protesting outside the Japanese embassy, and the impeachment of President Roh — all in one week!”

I wished I felt as excited about living in Korea as this editor. But after 10 months in Seoul, I understood what my expat friends were talking about; I, too, had developed a wildly erratic relationship with Korea.

Some days, I loved living in Korea: learning about the history and the culture; being surrounded by Korean people wherever I went; and mundane things like chit-chatting with the shop owner who sold me a café latte every morning. I marveled at living in the midst of a society changing so fast that things like Bikram yoga and Pilates, which hardly existed, if at all, when I arrived in 2003, had sprouted and flourished.

I was touched when strangers made unexpected, kind gestures. Once, while standing in a crowded subway car with a heavy bookbag on my shoulder, a girl sitting in the seat in front of me gestured at the bag. Before I knew what she was doing, she took the bag off my shoulder and held it in her lap for the duration of the ride. Another time, when I was carrying a heavy suitcase up a set of subway stairs, a Korean guy going the same way took the bag from me and carried it to the top of the steps without a word. When I tried to thank him, he brushed me off like it was no big deal.

The writer, having decided that she will return to the United States, tries to check off all the items on her “Things to do before I leave Korea” list, including a trip to Gyeongju, which starts at Seoul Station.

On bad days, I hated Korea — especially when I thought Koreans were being mean. In particular, I despised impatient sales people who showed their irritation when I took too long formulating a sentence in Korean or picking out my purchase. My feelings were hurt when Koreans stared curiously when they heard me speak the language, then dismissed me as a wae guk in, or foreigner.

An unpleasant encounter with a Korean left me depressed for hours. My reaction, I knew, was extreme. After all, plenty of sales people had been rude in the United States and I never cared, but for some reason, it hurt my feelings when Korean people were rude.