January 2014 – January 2016 · Seoul, South Korea
Two Years
When I took the job, people looked at it as a hardship assignment. It wasn't. This is two years of Seoul — arriving and figuring out the rules, working inside Samsung and its translation gaps, Sundays on the mountain, family visits, travelling across Korea and Asia, and leaving with mixed feelings that surprised me.
Moving to Seoul in January 2014 was thought by others to be a hardship assignment. It wasn't — Samsung supported me well and Seoul is a modern city. As an example, I had a mandatory medical exam at the end of my assignment where I discovered that I had a potentially life-threatening condition that was hereditary — was able to treat and notify family members to treat themselves. Probably would not have found the condition in the USA until it was too late — so it was truly a life-changing experience to come to Seoul.
Within 36 hours of landing, I had my first organised company event — a team hike to celebrate the new year — 2,000 feet of elevation in ice spikes, a prayer “to ever who pray too,” rice wine from a bowl, and I had to give the second toast in front of 200 people in my first week. After four hours up and down, naps on the bus home. Pretty much set the tone for the two years ahead.
Seoul is the capital and largest city of South Korea, with approximately 9.7 million people in the city proper and close to 26 million in the greater metropolitan area — comparable to the New York metro area. The city sits on the Han River and is surrounded on three sides by mountains. South Korea's economy grew from one of the world's poorest in the 1950s to the world's 13th largest by GDP today — a transformation often called the “Miracle on the Han River.” Samsung, the company referenced throughout these posts, is South Korea's largest conglomerate (chaebol) and its revenue represents roughly a fifth of South Korea's total exports.
Seoul is a world-class city. The only real comparison I can make is to New York — about the same size, similar density, but with more modern infrastructure. The subway system puts every US city to shame. The Samsung campus had a cafeteria where you ordered via badge on a kiosk and a fitness centre where your badge logged your workout time — meet your commitment or get suspended. Efficient.
Getting around on my own took some adjustment. A $140 bike bought in an alley near the Olympic Park opened up the city — 8 miles to work on river trails, then branch off into a neighbourhood I hadn't been to and find a cheap place to eat. The locker room shoes incident (headphones, screaming man, pointed finger) was my introduction to certain unwritten rules like always removing shoes in bathrooms. The boy-band haircut salon that only styled, never cut, was my introduction to others.
Food was an early adjustment. The call button at most restaurants — some with separate buttons for meat or beer — was the best feature. The cafeteria had 18 options, same every day. It stopped being “Asian food” fairly quickly and just became food. The thing I couldn't get past immediately was anything that came to the table with a bowl of black paste-looking stuff described as “not the seaweed I assumed” — after which the phrase “not my favourite” became a core survival tool.
Being asked to give the second toast to 200 people in your first week — in a country where you don't speak the language and haven't yet figured out what is on your plate at the company canteen — is either a welcoming gesture or a hazing ritual. Based on the pride and camaraderie on display, it was the former. The OSU-Sooners conversation at 6am on the first day, unprompted, with a Korean executive who went to graduate school in Texas, was a reasonable preview of the two years ahead.
Working at Samsung meant working inside a company where things sometimes got lost in translation — literally. The real-time wireless translation system in meetings was impressive technology that also meant you heard everything, including assessments that were probably meant to stay internal. Early in week eight: “Mr. Jarrett is a little stupid, but he is new and recoverable.” Delivered in a tone that suggested it was meant as encouragement.
Korean workplace culture runs on relationships built over meals and time together. I was told fairly directly that I wasn't socialising enough — and that this was considered part of the job. Team building dinners became a weekly fixture: shredded jellyfish (pretty good), sea sprite (not my favourite), and on one occasion the explanation of why you should just say “not my favourite” rather than recoil, delivered immediately before a bowl of boiled silkworm arrived at the table.
The Korean concept most relevant to working life is “jeong” — a deep relational warmth and connectedness cultivated through shared experience over time. In Korean professional culture, relationships built through shared meals and social time outside the office are considered a legitimate and important part of work. The instruction to socialise more — from both a former Samsung employee and younger team members — reflects this directly. Soju, the clear distilled spirit served at these dinners, is the world's best-selling liquor by volume — the brand Jinro alone outsells all Scotch whisky globally. It is drunk in small shots poured for others, never for yourself.
The decision vs. recommendation translation issue alone explained two years of confusion. In Korean professional culture, a “decision” in a meeting is often understood as a provisional recommendation subject to further alignment, not a directive for immediate action. Westerners expecting decisions to trigger action repeatedly found that Korean colleagues were still consulting and aligning after what felt like a concluded discussion.
The Samsung medical exam was a full-day production at the Samsung Medical Center — I could write a book on it, but that is way more information than anyone would want, but as I noted earlier, it was well worth it for me.
The Samsung fitness centre tracked your progress with your badge — the less you worked out, the more it costs. The cafeteria was subsidised by salary, the volunteer day that was “not really voluntary” — all of it spoke to a company that was genuinely paternal in ways that were occasionally impressive and occasionally invasive. On one of our volunteer days, we served a table of Korean War veterans in ROKMC hats at the adult day care centre, probably friends since the 1950s, receiving lunch trays from Samsung staff.
The language gap never fully closed but it did narrow. Korean is an alphabet-based language, closer to learning Greek than Chinese. My pronunciation, according to my very patient teacher, produced sounds not previously known to Koreans. She passed me anyway — probably to avoid having to teach me the remedial class.
Given a six-day workweek for much of the assignment, Sundays became the day to explore — and Seoul rewarded exploration. The Han River trail system runs for over 200km of dedicated paths connecting the city's major districts. Most Sunday mornings involved the bike: ride an hour on the river, find a neighbourhood, find a cheap place to eat, ride back with a headlight. Very safe. A lot of people out. Good exercise and a running cure for the blue soju situation.
Mountains are everywhere and Koreans take hiking seriously. The New Year team hike in week one — 2,000 feet in ice spikes — turned out to be a preview of what was available most weekends. Bukhansan National Park is inside the city limits: granite peaks, 18th-century fortress walls, and on a perfect day approximately 100,000 of your closest Korean professional hiking friends. We got close to the top once. The last 100 feet was just too crowded. After six tough hours we had a great Korean BBQ but were done, and after an hour on the subway home I was in bed by 7pm.
Seoraksan National Park — the Korean equivalent of Yosemite — was the standout. A 5-hour bus ride for 150 miles because of traffic, a valley hike instead of the 12-hour summit round trip, spectacular, and very crowded. Everyone was courteous, everyone offered to share food and drink. I skipped the all-day makgeolli.
Bukhansan National Park sits entirely within the Seoul city limits and covers approximately 80 square kilometres of granite peaks and forested valleys. It is one of the most visited national parks in the world by visitor density — with over 5 million visitors per year. The park contains Bukhansan fortress walls built in the early 18th century to defend Seoul from attack. Seoraksan National Park in Gangwon Province was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1982. Daecheongbong, the park's highest peak at 1,708 metres, is the third highest in South Korea. The full summit hike is typically 12–14 hours return.
Korean baseball was a revelation. Teams named for corporations — Samsung Lions, Doosan Bears, Hanwha Eagles. Split 50/50 crowds at every game because teams share stadiums across cities. Cheerleader sections, non-stop chanting built on old US song melodies, a guy walking around with a mini-keg on his back serving drafts. No fights, no falling-down drunk people, positive interaction between fan sections. If baseball were this exciting in the USA, many more people would like it. The Ansan Valley Rock Festival was three days of bands I mostly didn't recognise, with the exception of Noel Gallagher and Foo Fighters — both worth the all-night effort. The Paul McCartney concert in Seoul at 73 was amazing, with the young South Koreans knowing most of the words and singing along to all of the songs.
Sharon and Annelise visited in April for spring break — the first real test of whether I had oversold the place. First rule of sales is be on time: I was an hour late to the airport (50 miles took 3 hours with traffic). Second rule is don't oversell something you can't control: the first morning in my neighbourhood, which I had praised as trouble-free, produced a man falling down in the street who turned out to be still working off a long Saturday night. We got him some food. He really wanted more Makgeolli. He seemed OK after a bit.
The rest of the visit hit everything: Lotte World (the Disneyland of Korea), Bukhansan at 50% of the way up where we turned around, Hanbok dressing with a famous designer, the primary palace, Jamsil with its 90–100 storey marina buildings, and the Gyeongbokgung area. Annelise got no special attention walking around Seoul — which she liked — but at tourist sites where visitors came from other parts of Korea, she had a line of people wanting a photo with her. She approached the school visits with an open mind and was intrigued by the discussion of volleyball tournaments in Manila and senior trips to Thailand. If she didn't pick a certain school, there was going to be a very sad volleyball coach.
The distance never became normal. The longest stretch apart was the hardest. I had my first “normal” night — off work at a reasonable time, home to change, good workout, McDonalds, two episodes of 24 — and it was nice for exactly one night. Without Sharon and the girls, normal wasn't normal.
Living in Seoul made Asia accessible in a way that felt similar to living in London and having Europe an hour away. Tokyo at this point was just another conference room — fly in, meetings, fly back. But the occasional free hours made it worth it: Imperial Gardens on a perfect weather day with three of my customers visible in the buildings behind me, the Botticelli in the trading company conference room (photo of the postcard only — cameras not allowed), 40 different body parts of the chicken available on a skewer. Tried all but one. The unlaid eggs were left for someone else.
I had a couple of day trips to Busan — Korea's second city. The first visit was by Saturday afternoon train, wrong-turn temple hike with the city spread out below, Haeundae Beach before the million-person season hit. The second visit was in October for BIFF — the Busan International Film Festival, Asia's largest, which I was expecting to involve preppy guys in sweaters until someone clarified. The coastal temple Haedong Yonggungsa, built 800 years ago on the ocean. A surfing cove we decided against in favour of a boat ride.
BIFF — the Busan International Film Festival — is Asia's largest and most prestigious film festival, founded in 1996. It takes place each October and regularly attracts over 200,000 attendees. The festival was instrumental in bringing international attention to directors like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho before their global breakthroughs. Gangneung on the east coast hosted the ice sports venues for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. A dedicated KTX Gyeonggang high-speed rail line was built connecting Seoul to Gangneung specifically for the Games, reducing travel time from the 2.5-hour drive described here to approximately 2 hours by train.
Jeju Island is Korea's Hawai‘i — volcanic, scenic, the one place in Korea with a noticeably different feel. The east coast beaches at Gangneung were a 2.5-hour drive through mountains at peak fall colour — the trip back was eventful when a 22-year-old elastic cord securing the bike to the rack snapped at 60 MPH. No major damage but it got my attention.
After two years completed, last day at work on a Friday, flying out Saturday on a long break until my next assignment started. Mixed feelings leaving, which was not what I expected when I arrived.
Work wasn't as rewarding as I had hoped, and the workload was heavier and less flexible than advertised. But the Korean people — both at work and in the community — were incredibly welcoming and the overall experience was genuinely great. It is amazing how quickly you can adapt to a completely foreign environment when you have no choice. After 2 years I was navigating Seoul by bike, taking trains to cities three hours away for the day, ordering in restaurants by pointing and using hand gestures, and had developed genuine friendships with people with whom I shared not a single word of common language in week one.
What I would tell someone taking the same assignment: Seoul is a world-class city and an easy place to live once you get past the first month. The food is excellent if you approach it without the “but in the USA we wouldn't” mindset. The Korean people work hard, care deeply about relationships, and are among the most welcoming people I have encountered anywhere — and I have been a lot of places. The language gap is real and doesn't fully close, but it narrows more than you think.
The other thing: when you move abroad, people look at it as hardship. It isn't. It's opportunity. Experiences outside your comfort zone are good. I moved to Seoul thinking it was a career move. I left having made lifelong friends, seen things I wouldn't have otherwise seen, and developed a perspective on work, culture, and daily life that I didn't have before.
“When you move abroad, people look at it as hardship. It isn't. It's opportunity.”
I had a mandatory medical exam at the end of my assignment where I discovered that I had a potentially life-threatening condition that was hereditary — was able to treat and notify family members to treat themselves. Probably would not have found the condition in the USA until it was too late — so it was truly a life-changing experience to come to Seoul. It is one of those things that reframes the whole two years differently in hindsight.