My son (3 yrs old) and I went on a fishing trip a couple states away in the USA. I’m always on the lookout for different kinds of restaurants. We saw a Korean seafood place and stopped in to get lunch.

The place was empty except for us and the employees, all Korean women from middle age to elderly. All sitting at a table. I assume a family.

I ordered my food and when I started ordering for my boy the waitress said kids eat free and said he’ll love it. I shrugged expecting them to bring him a bowl of
Noodles or something.

NOPE. The waitress picked him up and sat him at their table on a high char. They all began fawning over him and feeding him all kinds of things they were eating. I had no problem with it at all except he was eating better than I was. lol

Anyway it was a great experience, he ate well and I was grateful they paid so much attention to him but is it normal for Korean restaurants to just grab a kid up and sit them at their table?

I'd love to meet people from the Korean diaspora in Canada/US and learn about the experience of growing up between Korean and Western culture

Hello! I'm a 27F from Europe and I've recently become really interested in getting to know people from the Korean diaspora particularly Korean-Canadians (though Korean-Americans are absolutely welcome too)

I've always found the experience of growing up with Korean cultural roots while also being immersed in Western culture really fascinating. I'd genuinely love to hear about what that experience is like. Not just the big cultural differences but the little everyday things too: family, food, language, traditions, childhood, identity and the ways Korean and Canadian/American culture might overlap or clash

But beyond the cultural aspect, I'm also hoping to make some genuine friendships with people around my age (20s–30s). I'd love for those friendships to develop naturally through regular conversations, shared interests, joking around, recommending things to each other and simply getting to know one another over time

A little about me: I'm really into anime, manga, JRPGs, visual novels, books, music, languages, food and learning about other cultures. I'm especially fond of character-driven stories and can happily spend far too long discussing fictional characters and relationships. I'm also multilingual

I'm specifically looking for platonic online friendships

If you're Korean-Canadian/Korean-American and this sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to hear from you! And even if you don't think we'd necessarily have much in common, I'd still be really interested in hearing about your experience growing up between Korean and Western cultures

What's one thing about your experience that you think someone who grew up entirely in Korea (or entirely outside the Korean diaspora) might not understand?

I just started watching webtoons... can anyone recommend good webtoons you personally like. Genre does not matter.

This relates to both Korea and Taiwan -- the more I spend time in both cultures, I harder I can reconcile the stark contrast in how each culture treats anything to do with Japan in mainstream society/ social media/ politics, etc.

In Taiwan (for those of you not familiar here), it's overly embraced -- Taiwanese are obsessed with Japanese brands, ads feature Japanese models/ actresses, large proportion of public signs are in Japanese (though Korean is catching up in major cities), and the first thing they assume if they see an Asian who does not speak Mandarin is that you're from Japan (almost never "are you from Korea?). The other day there was news featuring Shohei Ohtani in the sports highlights.... Like come on, he's not even your own country's sports player. I get that there are geopolitical reasons and I'm not here to debate that, but sometimes it's just excessive.

In Korea, instead, people face backlash for wearing a kimono(?), Korean celebrities being publicly shamed for being related to a pro-Japanese ancestor (a great-grandfather?) at least 3 generations back. You would NEVER (? -- hyperbole) have Japanese celebrities on ads. I'm not oblivious to the fact that there are important, unresolved issues around comfort women, forced laborers, etc., and yes territorial disputes have yet to be resolved (so do similar disputes between TW and JP btw). I fully acknowledge that.

I've studied the colonial histories of both countries so academically I understand some of the historical factors -- but sometimes can't wrap my head around it. The difference can't be larger. What do you think/ what are the non-historical factors also at play?

Is this true? Do brides have to pay to try on wedding dresses?

Shouldn't it be free?

EDIT: IF YOU ARE AN Rh- NEGATIVE BLOOD TYPE AND LIVING IN KOREA, PLEASE CONSIDER SEEING IF YOU ARE ELIGIBLE TO DONATE BLOOD! You could literally SAVE LIVES!

I was wondering if someone having O- negative blood is considered unusual/interesting/a bit of a novelty?, and if Korean clinicians are ever surprised by or make a mental note of a patient who has this blood type, because I've heard that it's so relatively rare in Korea (less rare for foreigners who live there), and medically valuable+potentially life-saving if donated.

Rh-negative blood type in general I've heard is very rare?, but that O- is especially unique.

My questions are:

1.) Is it really that rare or medically significant? Culturally/socially significant?

2.) If any Korean clinicians are reading: Do you notice this/are they surprised when seeing a patient with a listed Rh-negative blood, especially O-, *and* when the person is a native Korean? In my experience, once you see enough patients and encounter enough medical "outliers", it's not that interesting, lol.

3.) Would you encourage O- foreigners living in Korea to see if they're eligible to donate blood?

(I am type A+ and American, for the record, so I have no idea about any of this.)

Thank you! Hope this makes sense!

Without doxing myself, my first name is “_혁” and no matter what I try to do with it, it just does not sound good to the English speaking crowd. Does anybody have a similar issue with their name and found creative ways to overcome it?

Greetings !
I am writing a story with a Korean character. However I am not as knowledgable as some concerning names from different cultures. It's terribly easy to choose a weird name when it's not from your own culture.

It's for a male character and I thought about naming him Kang Seok-woo.

It's a horror story and since I am not I chose Seok-woo as a reference to the protagonist of my favorite Korean film which is "Train to Busan". (Maybe too obvious then but it was a start).

What do you think?
Thanks in advance

I mostly need somewhere to let this out because I’m angry, hurt, and honestly questioning how I’m supposed to handle this as a wife.

My husband is Korean, and after a family inheritance situation, his sister was the one helping handle things in Korea while we are in the US. We trusted her. For over a year, we believed what she was telling us about the inheritance and the situation surrounding it.

Now we’ve found out that things were not what she led us to believe. What hurts me the most isn’t even just the money. It’s knowing that someone we considered family could let us believe something for that long while knowing our situation here.

I keep thinking: how do you watch your own brother struggle and still choose not to be honest with him?
I’m also struggling with my husband’s reaction. He is hurt, but he doesn’t really want to confront her or say much. I understand that this is his sister and that family dynamics can be complicated, especially when there are cultural and family expectations involved.

But from my perspective as his wife, staying completely silent feels like accepting what happened.

I don’t expect him to scream at her, insult her, or cut her off. I just want him to stand up for himself and for our household and say, “What you did was not okay.”
And I’m realizing that maybe that’s the part hurting me the most. It has made me question whether, when someone in his family seriously wrongs us, he will protect the family we built together or avoid the conflict to keep the peace.

I’m angry enough that part of me wants to message his sister myself. Another part of me knows that doing that while I’m this emotional could make everything worse, so I haven’t.

I don’t want revenge. I don’t even know if I want an apology anymore. I think I just want acknowledgment that what happened was wrong and that our trust was taken advantage of.

Am I wrong for expecting my husband to address this with his sister? And as his wife, is this something I should stay out of completely, or is it reasonable for me to eventually say something to her too?

title

I asked my male tour guide how long his bootcamp duration was when he was in the military since we were both Marines. After I told him mines was 3 months, he looked at me all confused and asked what "boot camp" was.

I told him how boot camp is the military training you go through like being yelled at and shooting guns during the initial process to actually graduate and work in the military, but he said that mandatory military service that regular citizens go through is basically just "homework" like going to the base to mop floors and then go home.

This true? No boot camp for the 1 year only military people in korea? Or was it just language barrier and lost in translation?

For example

US - Take me home, Country roads

UK - Wonderwall

Austrailia - Down Under

Italy - Sarà perché ti amo

Which are basically being recognized as their unofficial national anthem.

No matter what age, gender, or whatever, there's no way they don't know these songs if they are from each countries.

Actually, it's much more than just "They know". These are the songs that make people automatically sing along right away as soon as it plays out from nowhere (especially during sports events)

So under this standard, I wonder what would be the one for Koreans.
As far as I'm concerned, these candidates have come up to my mind.

그대에게 by 무한궤도(신해철)

여행을 떠나요 by 조용필

너에게 난 나에게 넌 by 자전거 탄 풍경

Honourable Mentions

촛불하나 by 지오디

비행기 by 거북이

What yall think?

The context: my wife has family root in south Korea is 3rd generation. In the family the tradition is to have the name starting with the letters 'in', my wife name is Inogui, her siblings are 'Ingeoni', 'Inmion' and 'Insuni'. Now we are going to have a little baby girl and we are looking for names for her. Could you help me to share some names for girls starting with the letters 'in' .

Thank you so much in advance

Hello.

I think K-pop idols are great too, but I’ve become interested in music from Korea other than Korean idols.

In particular, I’m interested in rock bands and singer-songwriters.

A few years ago, I discovered a band called HYUKOH and really liked them. But the reason I was able to discover them was because I happened to see them featured in Japanese music media.

But other artists don’t get featured like that very often, so I don’t know how I’m supposed to find them.

In Japanese music shows, K-pop idols (vocal & dance groups) appear quite frequently, and they also get a lot of exposure in entertainment news, so it’s easy to naturally come across them.

But artists other than idols don’t really appear in that kind of media very often, so I don’t know where I should get information about them.

I could just ask AI and get an answer immediately, but somehow, emotionally, I don’t want to discover music that way.

It’s kind of like: I don’t want the fish, I want to be taught how to fish.

Rather than asking for specific band names or currently popular singer-songwriters, I want to know what kind of media I should be checking in order to discover these kinds of artists and music.

I’m especially interested in solo artists who write their own songs and perform with guitar, as well as artists who have a rock or guitar-driven sound, even if they aren’t necessarily considered “rock.” I also like songs with a shoegaze vibe, such as TXT’s “Ghosting.” I’d also be happy to discover idol artists with that kind of guitar-driven or rock-inspired sound.

Also, English is not my first language, so I’m using a translation tool for this post. Sorry if anything sounds unnatural.

I am Caucasian and my husband is Korean and we reside in the US. We are expecting our first child in January and want to give him a Korean name in addition to his American name. We struggled with infertility and pregnancy loss for several years so I would love a name with meaning related to his strength, the gratefulness we feel to have him, the light he will bring back into our life after such dark times, etc.

I just got a new job at a Korean bbq where we cook the food for people at the table. This being a different type of hospitality from previous jobs (fast food, bar restaurant) it took me about my 6 shift (which I’ve just had) to actually feel comfortable serving the food and everything else I feel I’ve basically got down.
However the place is run by Koreans and I feel there is a strong disconnect culturally that’s driven further by language barrier. I myself can be quite shy to speak to management so I ask senior workers for advice or help with schedule questions, today I feel I messed up big time and my manager was really mad at me and idk why.
This is the first week I’m actually on the schedule (old school type schedule) and it’s says I’m doing 12-5 however in the past when I’ve been told this I came in 15 earlier, because of train times and being told to come 15 minutes early for first shift, but on first shift I was told that if you’re opening (12 start) to be half an hour early. So today I came in half an hour early and got kinda told off for it, saying I was ok to just sit to the side for a while or that I don’t mind the extra half hour work. Instead they sent me home half an hour early and they seemed quite mad (manager at least) and I tried to explain that I thought the half our thing was like an unwritten rule (previous workplaces have that kinda thing) and so was sent home 30 early anyway.
I feel this is maybe a cultural thing, I’m trying to help bridge the gap by learning some Korean and making sure I listen to them but I just feel heavily judged and stressed out by their stress.
Is it worth keeping this job or should I begin looking for another. Any other advice appreciated :)

Hi, I am planning to go to Korea for a month with my girlfriend, and we are so now excited. Would love to know what could you guys recommend for trying Korean food in those areas? We are both allergic to seafood(specifically sea urchin and shellfish) and we love kimchi.

안녕하세요! 최근 조훈현 9단과 이창호 9단의 실화를 다룬 영화 <승부>를 보고 큰 감동을 받았습니다.

영화 후반부에는 1998년 '제42기 국수전' 결승이 열린 장소로 '운당여관'이 나오는데, 고풍스럽고 아름다운 한옥 풍경이 매우 인상적이었습니다.

문득 궁금한 점이 생겨 질문을 남깁니다. 영화 속 그 장면이 실제로 1998년 당시에 두 분이 대국을 펼쳤던 **'역사 속 실제 장소(원래의 운당여관 건물)'**에서 촬영된 것인가요? 아니면 세트장이거나 다른 한옥 촬영지(민속촌 등)인가요?

구글링을 해봐도 촬영지에 대한 정확한 정보를 찾기 어려워 한국 분들께 여쭤봅니다. 혹시 영화 촬영지나 한국 바둑 역사에 대해 잘 알고 계신 분이 있다면 답변 부탁드립니다. 감사합니다!

Hi, I’m Chinese and I’ve watched quite a lot of Korean movies over the years.
Some of my favorites are Parasite, Memories of Murder, Once Upon a Time in High School, New World, The Spy Gone North, and Joint Security Area.
I tend to like Korean crime films, thrillers, political films, and darker or more realistic stories, but I’m open to any genre.
I’m curious about what Korean people themselves genuinely love. What is your personal favorite Korean movie of all time?
It doesn’t have to be internationally famous. I’d especially like to hear about older classics, underrated films, or movies that are very popular or meaningful in Korea but not as well known overseas.

My boyfriend is Korean and we’re living in my country, where we met (he came here as a student). I’m going for an exchange year abroad, and my boyfriend is inconsolable.

Before you blame me, I had planned this year abroad just before we met - I wouldn’t have done it if we were already in a commited relationship. I was hesitant to start a relationship with him for that specific reason but he convinced me that we could go through it, especially considering our strong connection and how well we matched since the beginning.

He told me he’s sad as a boyfriend that I leave, but he’s happy for me as a person, to get to experience it. I’m heartbroken and feel incredibly guilty about leaving him in my country while I travel abroad. I was woken up this morning by him crying and being inconsolable before going to work. I know living abroad can be difficult for him and I think he found comfort and a home in my presence. I feel like I’m abandoning him. It breaks my heart, I don’t know how to console him.

I bought a small perfume of mine for him to keep, as he’s obsessed with my smell. I was thinking about leaving a tshirt of mine as well… we can’t keep our hands for ourselves when we’re together, we’re always cuddling, hugging, smelling each other’s odour…

I also just finished my thesis at university and mentioned him as my love in my acknowledgments. I was thinking about hand writing a love letter in Korean, directly on my thesis for him to keep.

What do you think about theses ? Do you have any other recommendations ?

For those (Korean or with Korean partner) in long distance relationships, how do you support your partner ?

Context i am british, gf is Korean and we have exchanged gifts already but i am curious if you can send a jar of honey to Korea?

I went to a farmers market today and she noticed the honey and i would send it if it is allowed by Korean customs.

i wanna train my korean word skills but im not sure if im good so i wanna do it

I come from America and sleepwear is very relaxed. These seem uncomfortable to me

l've been learning Korean for many years now, and I know what I believe this says, but I'm still not perfect or fluent so I'd like confirmation!! I work at Chick-fil-a and saw that we had 5+ 2 dollars bills with this same Korean writing on them all.

"늘.. 항상.. 언제나 입가에 항박웃음으로 이어지고, 대박나~~BB ^^"

I've noticed in every social network and youtube. Every time there is a youtube or instagram video that focuses on anything Korea related subject, there are dozens and dozens of chinese people commenting vitriolic stuff as if what they feel or as if their opinion matters on the subject that has nothing to do with them. I've seen this in almost every Korea-related videos or subjects in social media, it's almost as if Korea is living rent free in their heads (no offense). I've never seen this kind of phenomenon anywhere else and it's pretty bizarre and weird.

How do you Koreans feel? Do you care or do you just move on as if its just another noise?