Haha, I’m glad that you think my heritage is “pretty cool”.
To answer your question, yes, but it depends on where you look and how fluent you are. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I’m usually around San Francisco proper or the South Bay (i.e. Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Cupertino). And there are a lot of bilingual jobs, though not many beyond the service/administrative sector. I don’t know about Japanese, but Korean bilingual jobs demand a high level of proficiency since most of their cliental speaks exclusively Korean. They also ask you to know industry related jargon like financial terms if you work as an accountant’s secretary or something like that. There are probably a lot more in SoCal in the Los Angeles area, since there’s a greater concentration of Koreans there. They’re not exactly hard to find, but they are hard to get.
Hopefully someone in the replies will say I’m wrong but in my experience, bilingual jobs are pretty hard to get if you’re not a native speaker.
Oh wow, look at that. Answers. This is unprecedented. Okay. Uhm… I have midterms until Friday the 19th, so I won’t be able to post my lesson for a while, but rest assured, a lesson is forthcoming!
Special attention will be paid to Lee Hyori. Not really. Maybe.
I’m willing to bet that nobody answers this, so I’m very anxious to be proven wrong. Anything is fair game. Grammar points? Sure. Food? You got it. Culture and Customs? Absolutely. You tell me, and I’ll try to write something to fit your needs.
AnonymousThank you for the very kind words! =D It’s always nice to hear positive words.
I actually really like this question a lot. Like, if you were to ask me that personally, I’d have enjoyed talking with you about all of it. Unfortunately, I can’t answer it as fully as I want to. Because unlike basic language, culture of any foreign country is a lot harder to get used to. Not because of the nuances of it all, but because there’s just so much to remember. History is also a little hard for me to explain here. The first things that I thought of when I got to history was, I swear to God: Turtle Ship, King Sejong, Three Kingdoms. That’s about it.
I tried digging through Google for some places to help you, (I do this a lot for these questions actually) and I found a couple good ones. I guess it’s all about what to search for.
The first site I found is etiquette. Koreans are pretty big on that; never insult a Korean from Korea unless you hate the guy. Anyway, the first one I’ve found is from a site called Aisarooms.com. It has a bullet point format of just basic rules to observe when out and about in the country. As for history, I found this interesting Google timeline. Somewhat cumbersome, but if you want to skim some history, then I’d say it’s the best bet.
I’m gonna cop out and say that ultimately, your best source for Korean history and culture won’t be online. Culture maybe, and if you search for the right things, you’ll find sites similar to the Asiarooms site I gave earlier (which I found to be surprisingly comprehensive). I say visit your local library and, no matter how embarrassing it is, find children’s books on Korean Culture and Folk Tales. Those are very telling of values and all that. Also, I say start from this article and just work from there (i.e. footnotes at the bottom). As for history, unless you want to read a lot, your best best is Wikipedia. Otherwise, while you’re checking out kid’s books, find a book or two on Korean History. They will probably focus on the Silla Period or the Three Kingdoms Period, but better than nothing, I hope.
I’m very sorry if this doesn’t answer your question at all, but I hope you find the sites/advice I gave to be helpful. Hope you ace the test!
I know a lot of you guys like K-Pop, K-Dramas, Korean movies, et cetera. So I was wondering, what’s your favorite? Nothing’s going to happen from these answers, I’d just like to know you guys better. If you do answer, please include title and what it is.
