What Is It Like Living in South Korea? 30 Enriching Years of Working, Traveling, and Creating Lasting Travel Memories Across East/Northeast Asia

Originally published on July 9, 2026 | Last updated on July 10, 2026

What Is It Like Living in South Korea? A 30-year journey of working, traveling, and exploring Southern Asia through rich cultural experiences and life lessons.

How I Came to Appreciate What Korea Has to Offer (and Maybe Stay!): Firsthand personal experience, by Hal Swindall, an American English professor, journalist, editor, and translator based in South Korea who has been in and out of this country since the late 90s.

An expat life story illustrating 30 years in South Korea and Southern Asia, taking you through cultural insights, travel stories, and life lessons.

Three Glorious Years of Living in China, First Taste of East Asia

Living in the ROK was rocky back then, especially when my first taste of East Asia had been three glorious years in China during the mid-90s, during which time I studied Mandarin and traveled extensively, besides deeply engaging with my students and reading Chinese classics. These latter have led to my co-translating Chinese literature with a former student who later earned a literary translation doctorate at Peking University (or “Beida,” as the Chinese call it).

Other long-term relationships with old Chinese students may lead to diverse enterprises such as business and journalism, but these have not yet flowered, if they ever will. But my point of departure for this story is that I had found China exciting in every way except financially, making me feel I needed to leave the country and go somewhere else in East Asia.

I quickly discovered that teaching kids was not for me, nor did the kids like me in return.

Therefore, I came to Korea in 1997 expecting a similar experience with real currency as pay, but life on the peninsula proved an anticlimax. I found the cityscapes dreary and depressing, the students unresponsive, the people brusque, the overall atmosphere unfriendly, etc.

Such reactions were common for expats in Korea at the time, so many fled their contracts in the middle of them. This was colloquially known as “pulling a midnight flyer.” At my first Korean job, a now-discredited hakwon (cram school) in Seoul’s Gangnam District, I almost did it myself. I quickly discovered that teaching kids was not for me, nor did the kids like me in return. The disciplinarian director declared himself disappointed with me after two weeks, then terminated my contract four months after my start.

This was in late 1997, right before the Asian financial crisis drove many of my former colleagues to flee the erstwhile booming East Asian TESL industry.

Living in South Korea, Working as an English Professor at A Rural University in the Southeast

Nonetheless, Korea had awakened something in me that made me want to learn more despite my generally depressive reaction to the place, so I returned the next year to a hakwon near Seoul that specialized in teaching adult professionals.

This was much better, and I did so well that the director offered me a partnership within a few months. In retrospect, I have often wondered how my life would have turned out had I accepted, but since I have a PhD, I decided to transfer to an English professor position at a rural university in the southeast.

After my elation at the university post, alas, it proved another letdown: not only were the country kids terrible students, but the department chair disliked me and refused to renew my contract after a year. Therefore, I found another new job at a large university in Incheon.

Major Korean Historic Sites Worth Experiencing

I hung on in Korea partly because I wanted a continuous employment history, but mainly because I still felt there was something worthwhile out there if only I could find it. From Lonely Planet’s Korea guide, I learned of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, which has existed since 1900 and has some of the most knowledgeable people about the country as members.

Among RASKB’s activities at the time were nationwide weekend tours that only cost a few hundred thousand won, less than US$300. I considered the price well worth the experiences I had in major Korean historic sites like Gyeongju and national parks like Seoraksan. These episodes kindled a desire to write about Korea in me that continues to the present, and I eventually lectured to RASKB twice, which is quite a distinction since it is hard to tell such folk something they do not already know.

American missionaries to Korea during the late Joseon Dynasty

But I am getting ahead of myself—the RASKB lectures were long after 2000. The organization’s tour that year to Gyeongju, the ancient national capital of the Unified Shilla Kingdom after it had subdued the other two kingdoms on the peninsula, was a weekend to remember.

The tour was led by Dan Adams, a descendant of American missionaries who had come to Korea during the late Joseon Dynasty. Like many offspring of missionaries in East Asia, he had developed an interest in oriental religion and earned a doctorate in it. Dan was assisted by his Taiwanese wife, Carol Chou Adams, who also held a doctorate in oriental religion.

Their guidance of our group through Buddhist temples like Bulguksa sparked my own interest in Korean Buddhism, especially its art.

Becoming Friends with the Abbot of a Temple in Town

In fact, in 2013, I interviewed the American English professor David A. Mason, who maintains one of the largest websites on Korean Buddhism (sanshinseon.com), for the expat website Busan Haps (now Haps Korea, hapskorea.com), about his Encyclopedia of Korean Buddhism.

We became friends, and he invited me to propose a lecture to RASKB. It so happened that I taught at Pusan National University then, and I had also become friends with the abbot of a temple in town that I had explored and written a travel article about. This abbot presented me with a book on Korean Buddhist art, in which I learned of an altarpiece at a temple in South Jeolla Province in Korea’s southwest.

Long story short, I conceived a theory about this altarpiece that I presented to RASKB in Seoul in January of 2014 and subsequently published in its journal, Transactions.

Living and Traveling around South Korea

More time passed, including stints back in China and Malaysia because I also like those countries, but now that I am in Korea again, I am expanding my Buddhist altarpiece theory article into a short picture book.

This project has the blessing of an Englishman, a friend who holds a doctorate in Asian art history from Oxford University, and a colleague at my workplace at Woosong University in the city of Daejeon who is an award-winning photographer, who has expressed interest in traveling around the country with me to photograph the relevant paintings.

As for the Busan abbot, he is now a Venerable at Jogyesa, the headquarters temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism in the Insadong neighborhood of downtown Seoul. He is very busy, but we remain in contact.

All this may seem esoteric, but it actually involves real people, places, and things. Above all, these come together to illustrate one major way my feeling that there is more to Korea than meets the eye led to reading, which led to discoveries, research, and finally accomplishments, chiefly in the form of relationships and memories of trips that are personally significant.

Meeting Someone, One of the Few Good Things That Happened, With or Without Success

An example that may be more concrete to most readers is my relationship over the years with a Korean whom I may work with when I leave full-time teaching in a couple of years. Douglas is his English name, and I met him, ironically, when I worked at the dismal rural university decades ago.

He was one of the few good things that happened to me back then when I was just getting acquainted with RASKB, but our efforts to work together have so far never met with success. We attempted to operate a hakwon of our own in 2002 and again in 2011, but the competition was too great. Both times I departed for university jobs, leaving Douglas to return to his translation and interpretation or other pursuits.

Again, however, I sensed that there is something about Douglas making him worth knowing, so we have kept in touch and are now communicating about ways we might collaborate on a digital, online, and/or AI business that includes education among other fields.

Tremendous Help with My Journalistic Endeavors

Since my attitude toward Korea has changed so much, I am exploring how to apply for an F5 visa for permanent residency. This is with the kind help of Ron, another American English professor who has done it himself, and his lovely Korean wife Lily.

I met Ron over a decade ago at a Christmas party in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood thrown by an American named Elaine, who was an editor with Groove Korea, a major expat magazine we had contributed to which still exists.

Although she later left Korea to return Stateside, Elaine remains in contact with me and has been a tremendous help with my journalistic endeavors. Her success back in our home country gives me a reason to return, something I am also considering.

Ron remains in Korea, driving to American military bases to teach English classes to their personnel while writing travel articles that I edit for him. Now in his 70s, he has become a novelist with his own website, while Lily fixes me great bacon and eggs when I visit them and regales me with tales of her work on bases.

Building My Ability to Conduct Field Research for My Buddhist Painting Book and Journalism

Working with old friends in Korea

Even if I fail to obtain the F5 and/or decide to move to Taiwan or some other country, I still intend to work with old friends in Korea who are too numerous to name in the space of this article. Among them, nonetheless, are Daniel and Paula, the kind Korean couple who run With U International Cultural Center (@with_u_center) near Woosong University.

They offer practically free Korean language classes that are building my ability to conduct field research for my Buddhist painting book and journalism, besides charming local field trips and parties. Near my university is also a badminton club whose members have accepted me warmly and helped improve my game. These are just two reasons why I am seriously thinking of staying right where I now live, especially since I am tired of moving so many times in my peripatetic life.

Favorite Cities to Live in the Southeastern

On the other hand, I could live in the southeastern cities of Daegu, Gyeongju, or Busan, which are my favorites and where I have older friendships than the ones I do here in Daejeon.

As I explore post-professorship options, I find there are attractive ones outside Korea. I have mentioned Taiwan, which ranks much higher in the expat country surveys, along with Malaysia, where I used to live. Yet there remains something about Korea, despite all my struggles here, or because I overcame them, that tempts me to stay.

This is partly because the people have developed considerably more open minds than they had circa 2000, and there are now more numerous dining options than existed back then, only in certain zones in Seoul. For example, in the streets surrounding my university, there are two authentic Chinese restaurants (a rarity when I arrived in Korea), a Turkish and a Southeast Asian halal restaurant, plus a couple of Central Asian halal restaurants, as well as Korean chains like Salady. This means I do not have to eat Korean food for lunch every day, the way I often had to in the past.

Finally, Coming to Regard the Land of Morning Calm, Korea

So I have come a long way from trying to escape Korea, yet always coming back to exploring ways I can settle here. And it is not simply because it has become more international and welcoming, but because even when it was less pleasant, it held some kind of promise that invited me to venture into it more. This is how I have come to regard the Land of Morning Calm, and I hope I help others do the same.

With just about any country, if you at least do a little background reading, learn some of the language, and form even a few relationships, you can probably discover things that are not immediately apparent.

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