I lived in Seoul, South Korea for two and a half years and now Tokyo for five years. Drinking culture, I think, in Japan and in Korea is very different.

When it comes to beauty standards for women, any differences you noticed? Yeah, so when I was living in Korea, actually, that's the biggest difference.

The people who went to Korea, I think they know what I'm talking about. About getting a visa, I feel in South Korea is a bit easier than in Japan.

Can you say something in Japanese and Korean so that people can tell you're speaking both? You all, hey guys, I'm Takashi, so today I'm going to interview people who lived in both Japan and Korea, asking them which country is better to live in as a foreigner.

Okay, let's get started. Please introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is Shannon. I'm originally from LA, but I'm half Korean and half white, and I live in Tokyo.

You lived in Korea as well, right? Yeah, I lived in Korea for two years. My name is Armen. I'm from California. I lived in Japan for four years from 2016 to 2020, and then I was in Korea for two years during COVID and I just moved back to Japan last year.

I'm from Spain. I've been in Japan for two years and I also lived in South Korea for one year.

My name is Elia. Um, I'm from Houston, Texas originally. I lived in Korea for about two years, for 15 months in Seoul and about nine months in Cheonan.

And now I'm currently living in Tokyo, working as a researcher for anthropology research.

I'm from Connecticut, New York City area. I lived in Seoul, South Korea for two and a half years and now Tokyo for 5 years.

Yeah, my name is Aru. I'm from Russia. I was living in Korea, Seoul, for one year by studying at the Korean University and now I'm living in Japan for almost one year.

Tokyo. I am from a British family, but um I was born and raised in Japan. Um, our family has been in Japan for three generations now.

Um, so yeah, I lived um in Korea about six months um and now I'm back living in Japan again.

You came to Japan from Korea? Yes. What are the differences between Japan and Korea? Certain groups in Korea are very outspoken when it comes to politics or the things that they think about and like the views that they have on certain issues maybe easier to meet like Korean people when you're out at a bar or like nightclub or something like they're more they're more social um for the first like they're more you know talkative they're more maybe kind of interested to know like who you are or uh maybe they want they just want to practice their English, which is fine.

In Japan, I think like people are obviously still nice and like open to foreigners, but it takes a little bit more time to like build a relationship with uh Japanese people.

But then once you become friends, it's like a really strong friendship.

It takes some time, but once you become friends, they're like friends for life. So Tokyo is a much larger city. There's a lot that you can do here and there's a lot of different populated areas.

It's beautiful and each one has its own culture. You can walk forever cuz it's not a super mountainous area this area of Tokyo.

So you can walk for a really long time. You can bike for a really long time and not be too exhausted, which I love about this city, whereas in it's a lot more hilly there.

popular areas are kind of spread out, so like Hongdae, Gangnam, and then kind of in between that it's more like residential, so there's not much to really do or see in between kind of those major areas, whereas in Tokyo it's more integrated.

You compare Seoul and Tokyo and you think Tokyo is quiet? Yeah, I compare Seoul and Tokyo and Tokyo is much more quiet than Seoul in terms of locals, because of course in Tokyo there are a lot of foreigners even in Seoul, but Seoul people are more loud than than in Tokyo actually.

That's the biggest difference. The people who went to Korea, I think they know what I'm talking about. So I worked in the K-pop industry in Korea and what I noticed is a lot of times they're more direct and they kind of say it how it is, um, which on one hand, you know, it's hard if you're maybe more sensitive, but on the other hand, you know, it's kind of endearing.

I think there's a lot more like playful teasing and like personal questions, so that line between work and personal life is more blurred in my experience and in Tokyo, I kind of feel like that line is more divided.

So, you know, people at my job don't really like chat to other co-workers unless there's kind of a reason or like it's about work.

So in that way it can maybe feel a little bit more lonely.

Um, but I think, you know, if you're more introverted or you like your privacy, it can be a good thing. Um, but it's just different from Korea.

In South Korea people is more is competitive not about themselves like with other people. In Japan I think like they are competitive with themselves like Japanese people like just trying to improve themselves.

So when it comes to housing, in Korea, different system from Japan, the deposit is a big lump sum of money that the owner will invest and then they'll make um some money off of that while you've been living in in the house and then when you leave the house, they'll return the original amount that you've um put in.

So it was quite an interesting system where you have to make sure you have that money ready to give over because in Japan I think it's only just like one or two months worth of deposit.

So um very different system. Which country it's harder to live in as a foreigner if you don't know the language?

I think both countries are hard to live because in Korea and in Japan, if you don't know local language, it's really hard to live in. I felt like more the service industry in Korea didn't really speak a lot of English, so it was tough for me to do stuff day to day like go shopping, get in a taxi, um order at a restaurant, um unless I knew Korean.

Whereas in Japan, the tourist industry is so large here that most restaurants I they can find someone that I can communicate with or and most taxi drivers know a little bit so it's a bit easier here in Japan.

You can go literally days without talking to anybody.

Like for the first three days that I was here, I didn't really speak or interact with a lot of people and a lot of the restaurants, a lot of the activities are maybe not designed for one, but they're comfortable with having one person.

If you're an extrovert, Korea is the place to be.

It's just a different vibe and there's also like not so many things you can do by yourself like for example, if you go to a restaurant and a soul barbecue place, for example, uh, usually you have to go with somebody because the minimum order amount is like two people.

About getting a Visa, I feel in South Korea it's a bit easier than in Japan. They are like more types of visas and it's a bit more easy to get. In Japan is a bit complicated though.

Maybe another thing in Korea is that washing machines or like refrigerators are already in the house, so you don't have to prepare as much.

Yeah, the only thing I had to prepare was like a bed, um, and maybe a table, but it's very minimal that it makes it easier for foreigners to just start living, whereas in Japan everything has to be prepared, right?

You have to buy everything and move everything over, so that part was really easy.

What about Japanese people and Korean people? Any differences? Like locals. And in Korea it's really fast, uh, Koreans like to say Bali Bali, which means like hurry hurry.

That goes into everything I think, not just making friends maybe, but lifestyle, everything is done quickly in in Korea.

So if you're like a extrovert, you like to get out and do things, meet people, maybe Korea would be more fun so to speak.

Key culture like drinking culture, I think in Japan and in Korea is very different. So people, Korean people force you to drink.

I would, okay, I wouldn't say force, but you're not forced by your boss to drink. There's a there's a unspoken and sometimes spoken societal pressure to drink because it's seen as something that is either bonding with co-workers in a workplace environment or it's like a community thing with your friends.

I think what both places have in common is people passing out though. People pass out, they throw up, whatever.

but I think in Korea it's a little bit more intense. What about English skills of local people? Yeah, Korean people on average, I would say, speak way better English than Japanese people.

If you think about it, there is way more Korean people living abroad or interested in living abroad really than Japanese people.

Maybe that's it. I think because of that, like if you're just somebody who's going to decide they're going to live their whole life in Japan, then why bother to learn English?

Japan is very accommodating, especially nowadays, uh to tourists and foreigners that are living here.

Um, but so is Korea. Definitely, like the young population in Korea, they start English a little earlier, they're embracing the Western culture a lot there.

So from what I've heard, maybe even in just the last five years, the younger population is speaking much more English and they're definitely very engaging when I went back in September to talk to me and and speak English.

Probably in Korean society, they put like a very high, uh, priority on education in general, but, uh, English education, I think, uh, in particular, uh, there was very many English language Hagwon, and so I think just like amount of studying that Korean children does is is is pretty high.

So that's led to a lot of younger people being able to speak English.

In Korea, they speak English better, the pronunciation is also better. Well, not better, like just more like they speak more English in Korea. Maybe in Japan, yeah, I can't find less people that can speak English, but they try their best.

That's so nice. Like even if they don't understand, they try to, I don't know, right on the Google Translator.

Yeah, they try to help anyway a lot, so it's it's so nice, so cute.

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The views towards foreigners, especially Western people, any differences you notice, Korean locals in Japanese? Because maybe it's a little bit hard to answer because you know you're from Japan.

But yeah, yeah, I felt like in Korea there was only one job that foreigners did and everybody assumed you were that one job, an English teacher.

It isn't the same in Japan though, very similar, but I feel like there's a bit more variety in what foreigners can do in Japan, maybe IT or stuff like that.

But um, in Korea, like if you're a foreigner, the first question they all ask is, are you an English teacher?

And so that was quite interesting. The conversations always went in that direction, but I think in general, like Japanese people kind of have a more enthusiastic reaction, like, oh, America!

Like, and then after that, you know, it's the same for Korean and uh Japanese people, it's like, oh, I'm studying English or I want to learn English, and then the conversation's kind of about language, so it's pretty similar, but I think Japanese people do get more like enthusiastic.

Yeah, I would say in my experience, I had a lot more people kind of randomly come up to me in Korea compared to Japan.

In general, there's probably like a higher level of interest in foreigners in uh Korea, like on average there's a bar that's really close to my apartment that I usually go to, and there it has like a lot of people who are quite interested in talking about like, you know, foreign subjects and things like that.

If you're, you know, interested in making those international connections, there's like a fair amount of opportunities in both countries to do that.

I think that Japanese people got used to live with foreigners like, yeah, already there more foreigners in general.

Yeah, yeah, more more foreigners than in even in whole because uh South Koreans like love foreigners, they always try to help them, but I don't think that they got used to live with foreigners.

In Japan, it's a little bit easier to be Foreigner maybe.

Maybe like Korea was not very famous like just 10 years ago. Now it got like popular because of the K drama Idols, so maybe they are not too used to foreigners yet.

I mean the new generation used to them, like they speak English well though radical change like from non foreigners to a lot of foreigners.

So elderly people maybe it's not too used to foreigners and I sometimes felt like they don't like so much or compared to Japanese.

Yes exactly, in Tokyo foreign Community is like pretty huge right everyone knows each other it's it's it's quite big you know Right, what about, so I'm not really involved in the foreign community in both.

You have Japanese friends? Yeah, yeah, all my friends are basically Japanese because I wanted to really learn Japanese, so I tried not to spend time with uh foreigners.

But Japan, yeah, like you said, everyone kind of knows each other.

You run into people at events. I'm just now kind of getting into that because I speak Japanese now, so I'm like okay, I can be part of the foreign community now comfortably.

That's what I've noticed. Like, I definitely run into people. As far as Seoul, I really was just focused on job hunting.

I could talk about my time in Jungju, which I was going to university, and of course, we were just like few foreigners, so we were always like going to the bars together and hanging out together and this kind of stuff, but that was because we lived in a small town and we all went to the same school.

I would assume that Seoul is pretty similar to Tokyo in that way. I know that they have a lot of pub crawls in Seoul aimed for foreign audience.

Definitely you can find a community there. Doesn't matter where you're from and have a good time even if you don't speak the language really.

People in Korea are very outgoing. They're they're definitely open to being friends with foreigners, which is cool. I think if you're into K-pop and you like K-drama and that type of society, like fashion and cute coffee shops and that kind of vibe, it's definitely a smaller city, so as an expat you're more integrated with the community and there are women's groups, men's groups that you can be a part of to meet people and it it's super easy, but you definitely have to work a little harder, whereas in Tokyo, there's such a huge expat population, there's a lot more opportunities I think to meet foreigners here.

So if you're not super social, I could see Japan being a little bit better of a place.

You can be kind of more in your zone if you want, or you can venture out and meet people.

It's a little easier to meet people here I think. I think in Korea you get different nationalities coming to Korea.

Like you had a lot of like Polish or people from Uzbekistan. I think Korea has different ties, like schools invite different people or give visas to certain countries, whereas Japan maybe more Southeast Asia.

Um, you get more Vietnamese or Indonesian or maybe Filipinos.

Um, just different variety of people. So it was interesting to see like a lot of Polish people. It's kind of easy to make friends with other foreigners because you're kind of both in a similar situation in terms of like being kind of you know, in a situation where there's not as many of you compared to the general population.

When I was in Korea, like I was very fortunate that the neighborhood I stayed in, there was, uh, like in Seoul there's a neighborhood called Nonhyeon, like a district, and there there's many of these English language schools or just the Hagwons in general.

And so at that time, uh, like all my street, there was very many foreign teachers and things like that, so it was quite easy to make a large, like, uh, group of foreign friends.

I feel like I get along better with foreigners living in Japan than foreigners living in South Korea though.

Most of the people I met there, they are very into Korean drama or K-pop. So as American do you think Japan and Korea is more Americanized.

I feel like Tokyo is more Americanized in a lot of ways than Seoul, but Seoul's more modern in a lot of ways, like their banking systems, those types of things can be done online.

Japan or Korea? which country is better to live in as a foreigner

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