The Korean notion of "waeguk-saram" (foreigner)

If you've spent any significant amount of time in South Korea and picked up even the most rudimentary vocabulary of Korean, you've most likely heard the word waeguk-saram more times than you could possibly count.

That's because, in Korea, that's what you are if you aren't Korean: waeguk-saram (or sometimes just waegukin) means "foreigner".

Personally, I've never particularly liked the word "foreigner", as it isn't too far removed from a word that resounds with even more sense of isolation in "alien" (which is, in fact, the word most often used in translation for waeguk-saram in formal/bureacratic Korean). In Australia at least, it has never been a particularly polite or refined way of referring to someone of a different nationality who happens to be visiting your country, and is almost never heard with reference to someone who has actually moved here to live, work, or study. You'll see and hear terms like "international student", "international visitor", and "migrant" much more often than you'll hear a blanket term like "foreigner".

Needless to say, during 10 years of living in Korea, it often made me wince ever so slightly when I had to hear every Park, Lee and Jung refer to me (usually while I was standing right next to them) as "that there foreigner". Remembering that sensation, I'm even more sensitive about ever using the word myself now that I'm back in my own country and surrounded by such a rich array of nationalities.

However, I've always felt that I didn't have quite the full picture when it came to waeguk-saram and Koreans' understanding and use of the term. That was confirmed today when I took my wife and kids to meet a gathering of Korean mums and housewives who had decided to meet up in Melbourne for some lunch and bonding.

My main job was to take care of our son and baby daughter while my wife engaged in some much-needed chinwagging with other Korean ladies - all of whom are relatively recently arrived in Australia as migrants and applicants for permanent residence. I was doing a very good job with this and keeping my nose firmly out of their business until it occurred to me that I was hearing those terms waeguk-saram and waegukin again and again from their conversation. I got curious and listened in a bit, not all that naughtily I might add (it was apparent to everyone there that I speak decent Korean and I was seated right there at a table with them!), to figure out why this - one of my least-favourite Korean terms - was being used so much.

Abruptly, I realised that these ladies - with the exception of my wife, who knows my distaste for the word and was the only one of these particular Korean ladies actually married to a non-Korean - were referring to all and sundry around them in their new home in Australia as waeguk-saram or waegukin: foreigners and foreign-ish things! I was amused and startled at the same time by this, and later explained to my wife why.

1. The term Hoju-saram (Australian) was used very rarely in their conversational dialogue - waeguk-saram was by far the dominant referent.

2. If anyone could/should be referred to as foreigners in this environment (Australia), it would be the Koreans themselves - not the Australians, not the Chinese-Australians, Vietnamese-Australians (etc.) all about them.

3. Even if this is the basic case (that these newish Korean arrivals are the actual "foreigners" in this context), the majority of Australians wouldn't see them that way (given they are here as migrants), and would almost certainly never directly refer to them that way.

  

Bizarre as it might sound, I was listening to "foreigners" referring to natives in their own country (who wouldn't necessarily consider the foreigners as being such nor would ever directly call them that)  as the foreigners. Does that make sense, or have I twisted my own concept into too many figure eights?

It was a revelation to me, because while in Korea I got so used to being labelled a foreigner that I actually began to regularly refer to myself and my friends as being such. You'll even see "foreign teacher" being the popular term of parlance in recruitment and scheduling in Korean schools. Being called a foreigner and being constantly reminded of your foreign condition is all a part of handling the Korean context. But even here in my own country, to these people I'm still the foreigner! While in Korea, sitting around a table with other Australians (or for that matter even other westerners) I just cannot in my wildest dreams imagine anyone referring to the Koreans around us as foreigners!

I'm not relating this experience here to have a quip at Koreans about their concept of "foreigner"- rather, I'm admitting that I guess I didn't really understand just how deep the Korean root feeling of ethnicity (and a deeply ingrained sense of "us" versus "them") runs - and (I confess) I still don't know now! I can say with some confidence that no Korean really uses the term "foreigner" in an attempt to be rude or derogatory; for them it is a simple statement of fact that indicates a separation of Korean from non-Korean, irrespective of location or context. It may sound a little scary or extreme to some (I'll confess, myself included) for there to be such a quick and all-encompassing distinction made in many Koreans' minds, just as it is rather heart-warming to hear the Koreans' instinctive use of uri ("our") when they refer to family members and possessions.

  

Just when you thought you had something figured, eh?

:D

Comments

[Trylingual]

It sounds like the gaijin/gaikokujin situation in Japan. I don't think you can force a culture into changing their linguistic or semantic ways. If you do, you will often be met by fierce resistance (and often of the nationalistic kind).

Words contain values. Different cultures put different values on the same words. How is swearing viewed in Korea? In Japan, it is seen as crude and rarely used in daily life. However, in Australia, we seem to let the four letter words fly with little thought as we place little value on them (unless we choose to).

Given time, I think an increasing number of countries will start to favor more neutral or accurate language. Has the English language been forced to do this as it has come into contact with many other nationalities and cultures on a daily basis? Have our own liberal attitudes and politics guided us down this path?

I will always remember traveling to Shanghai from Japan with a few 'gaijin' friends. We arrived at Shanghai airport and got on a shuttle bus to our hotel. A group of Japanese travelers also boarded the bus. One Japanese gentleman snarled the word 'gaijin' with particular venom when he saw us on the bus. I still remember chuckling and thinking to myself as our Chinese bus driver pulled away from the curb, 'Mate, we are all foreigners somewhere in the world.'

[Alex Case]

I usually say "the locals", which sounds patronising but is about the best word I can find.

I was going to say exactly the same thing about the Japanese use of "gaijin". In fact, it was one of the few words of Japanese I knew before getting there as that strange use of the word is mentioned in a famous crime book whose name escapes me where a Japanese American is the chief suspect

[Darren Elliott]

I don't quite see the problem... I mean, if one translates the Korean (or Japanese) directly as 'foreigner', then yes. But if it is understood conceptually as 'not Korean', then it doesn't matter where you all are.

The 'gaijin' thing has never bothered me that much, although I'd rather that people use my name (which they do if they know it), or at least my nationality. But basically, yes, I'm not Japanese so fair enough (as long as they don't snarl it!)

Since I've had kids it has started to concern me a bit , though. I don't like to hear them called foreign, because they aren't. Again, not a problem with people we know but the odd stranger....

[Jason Renshaw]

Interesting how the three examples from Japan talk a little more about the negative aspects of their use of "foreigner" (at least to some degree). In my original post, I wasn't really talking about Koreans using "foreigner" in a condescending or derogatory fashion at all - and my main point, the one that really had me surprised, was how Koreans who have actually migrated to another country would then label people in that country as 'general foreigners'- not using the word to signify the local nationality, and apparently unaware that THEY are in fact the foreigners in this new context they have moved to.

Any examples of the Japanese doing the same - for example migrating to Canada, then getting together and referring to all the Canadians around them (in Canada) as foreigners?

[Alex Case]

"Any examples of the Japanese doing the same - for example migrating to Canada, then getting together and referring to all the Canadians around them (in Canada) as foreigners?"

That's exactly the situation in the book I was talking about- Snow Falling on Cedars??

[Darren Elliott]

tweeted this... hope you don't mind

[Vicki]

As a total outsider, reading this it seems to me that that terms 'waeguk-saram' and 'waegukin' might have been used factually (rather than normatively?) to describe something like 'different'?
So I'd like to know if there might actually be some potentially postive aspects to being 'a foreigner' - someone with an outsider's frame who might see new angles on things perhaps? And of course some foreigners' ideas will be tosh, but might some be worthy of attention, if only for oddity value?

[Carl]

I think the fact that it refers to non-Korean first and foreigner second it is a problem.

[Christopher]

Yes, I experienced this once myself. I was at a Japanese izakaya in New York where most of the customers were Japanese and I was with a Japanese friend. I remember she said "there's a lot of foreigners here" when more non-Japanese customers came in and I was pretty surprised and amused at the time.