[2020-10-12] why I wouldn't live in korea again [FVm1WL24Has]

Hello and welcome back to a new video.

I'm going to be talking about why I would

never want to live in South Korea ever

It's quite chilly here in my new apartment

because the, the boiler has broken again.

It keeps doing this for some reason. It

keeps turning itself off every few hours

and then turning itself back on. It's

really annoying. So the radiator

just turns itself off for a few hours

every day, and then the whole place

becomes really cold. So every day,

thousands of people ask me if I would want

to live in Korea again. Would I ever go to

Korea to live there again? And I thought

I'd make a video about it since talking

about Korea is quite a popular topic. And

I have lived in Korea a total of 5 times

now. My last time was at the beginning of

this year, I lived in Korea for about 1

and a half months, and I was supposed to

be living there for much longer, but

because of the you-know-what, I decided to

leave Korea early, earlier than planned.

And the first 4 times I lived in Korea,

I was actually living with my

ex-girlfriend, so I wasn't really living

by myself. I wasn't having to do anything

by myself. I was just relying on her for

everything. But then finally, the 5th time

I went to Korea, I was finally by myself

and I was independent. I had to buy my own

food, I had to get my own apartment sorted

out, I had to do everything by myself.

And I can easily say that the 5th time I

lived in Korea was probably the worst time

I had ever lived anywhere. And I've lived

in quite a few countries now— Japan,

England, Germany, Netherlands, and South

Korea— and I was definitely the most

depressed and sad and lonely when I was in

Korea, and I'm not really sure why that

is. So I did a bit of thinking about it,

and I think one of the reasons why I felt

so sad there was because I was just

completely alone and isolated. And I don't

know what it is about Korea, but the

people there just seem a bit cold and not

very friendly. And I know that they're not

not friendly because I have had Korean

friends in the past and they were very

friendly. But I'm just saying that when

you don't know them and they're just

strangers, they look a bit intimidating,

a bit scary. For example, I would go into

a shop and I wouldn't speak in Korean

because I'd be too nervous and I thought

they would understand English anyway. But

they would respond to me in Korean or they

would refuse to speak in English. And then

if they said something in Korean and I

asked them to repeat themselves, I asked

them— no, I asked them if they could say

it in English, or I would say I don't

understand, and then they would just

repeat themselves again in Korean. If I

didn't understand the first time, what

makes you think I'm gonna understand the

second time when you say it even quickly?

So some of the staff in shops in Korea

were a little bit intimidating and scary

because of the whole language barrier

thing. I got this feeling I don't know if

it's true or not,

but— what was I trying to say? Yes, I was

trying to say that I felt kind of

intimidated going shopping because

sometimes they might say something and I

would say, sorry, I don't understand, and

then they would just say the same thing

again in exactly the same way,

which is just so dumb. And I got this

feeling that they might be annoyed because

I didn't understand and I'm trying to get

them to speak in English and I, I felt a

little bit scared when I went shopping.

When you go shopping in Korea, you either

have 2 extremes of staff

members, extreme attitudes. You get the

grumpy looking people who look like this

all day and they just look

like they're really unfriendly and scary

and then you've got the really loud staff

members who are way too enthusiastic and

have way too much energy. And as soon as

you walk into the store, they start

screaming at you and they're in your face

trying to help you. This happens usually

in tech stores. So if I want to go and

look at a camera or a phone and just look

at the camera or phone, you would get a

bunch of staff members coming over to you

and being way too friendly.

So it's like they, they don't get this

balance? Why can't they just have a

balance of not looking completely

miserable and not jumping in front of your

face shouting enthusiastically?

It's like there's no balance. Buying food

was also kind of annoying as well. So

usually when I want to do cooking, I go to

the supermarket because that's where you

get the cheapest food. And in Korea,

everything in the supermarket was insanely

expensive. Everywhere else in Europe, in

Japan, I could spend $10 and that would

last me for 4 days. And I could buy meat

and vegetables and seasoning and

pasta and rice and it lasts me for days.

In Korea, no chance. If I wanted to get

some meat in a package that I could fry

up, that would cost at least $15 or even

$20 just to get some pork steaks or some

lamb chops or some pork belly. And the

weird thing about it was it was really

expensive to go shopping in a supermarket,

but then it's really cheap to eat out in a

restaurant. I went to a restaurant and

they had all-you-can-eat pork belly and it

only cost about $8 for all you can eat.

And that might sound great if you love

going to restaurants, but I don't like

going to restaurants. I like buying food

at a supermarket and then coming home to

cook in my kitchen because I like my

cooking. I know how to cook food to my own

tastes and to how I like it. And I like

watching TV and being by myself and

relaxing on the sofa. I don't really find

it relaxing to be in a noisy, busy

restaurant.

So as someone who likes to cook their own

food and meals, being in Korea Um, the

supermarkets were just way too expensive,

and you're supposed to go to these cheap

markets that old people run. That's where

you're supposed to get the cheap stuff,

but I don't really like those markets

because they look really run-down and they

look cheap and it doesn't look nice. And

the products, the produce isn't high

quality, and if you want high quality or

normal quality, you have to go to a really

expensive supermarket. Here in Europe, we

have Lidl, and cheap places like Aldi

and Lidl, and it looks fine. The store

looks great, the products and the produce

look good, and the cost is very reasonable

and affordable, unlike Korea. Maybe I

was just going to all the wrong places. I

didn't stay there long enough to learn

where to go shopping, but in my

experience, shopping in— shopping for food

and groceries in South Korea was just way

too expensive, and I don't understand why

it's so expensive. It really shouldn't be.

The other thing I didn't like about living

in Korea was the whole dating situation.

So at the time, I was a single man and I

was looking for a girlfriend or some kind

of female companionship, and I just found

it really hard to connect with the women

over there. I didn't find it hard to get

dates. I had about 7 dates with some

pretty attractive-looking Korean women,

but we never had a second date. Nothing

happened on the first date. I did try my

best to get intimate and physical on the

first date, but they just rejected me.

They didn't have any interest. And I just

get this impression that Korean women,

they look nice and they care way too much

about their appearance, but they're kind

of boring and dull, and they're definitely

not up for doing anything on the first

date, unlike Japanese women. Japanese

women, on the other hand, most of the time

when I went on a date with a Japanese

woman, it wasn't really hard get them to

karaoke and do something interesting,

if you know what I mean.

And I wasn't really doing any special

tactics or any underhand moves. I was

just, you know, being a normal guy.

But in Korea, I tried the same things and

it just didn't work. And I went on 7 dates

and absolutely nothing happened. We just

met up, ate, talked, walked around for a

bit, and then none of them wanted to meet

again. So I feel like the whole dating

situation, the whole dating environment in

Korea is just not very good. It's very

difficult and you need a lot of patience.

Patience isn't really something I have a

lot of. I run out of patience very quickly

and I want results straight away. And if

that's what you're also like, then maybe

you're not going to like dating in Korea

and you're going to be miserable and

lonely the whole time like I was. The

other reason why I think I felt so

miserable in Korea was because everywhere

just looks kind of gray and old and

collapsing and rubbish. I'm sure not

everywhere in the city looks like this and

there are some nice places, but a lot of

the places in the capital city just look

really ugly. Just walking around the

streets during the day would be enough to

make me feel miserable and sad and

depressed. And even though there's parks

everywhere, it's just the way the streets

look and the way the buildings look that

really make me feel sad inside. As of now,

I am quite happy in the Netherlands apart

from— well, apart from that one

unfortunate experience I had that I talked

about in my last video. Everything else

has been great here, and if I

had to choose another country, if for some

reason I had to leave this country and

choose a new country to live in, I

definitely would not put Korea high up on

that list. Maybe for other people they

really loved Korea, but for me personally,

it just didn't really jibe with me very

well. I don't know why, but there was just

not much of a— not much of a connection

between me and Korea compared to Japan.

For some reason, I just really enjoyed

being in Japan and living in Japan and

just the whole living in Japan experience

was just 100 times better than the living

in Korea experience. And maybe that's

because of my own personal experiences and

my personality, and obviously everyone

else is going to be different.