Expat Meetings

When I lived in Thailand for many years, I rarely spent time with the expatriates (expats) there. I didn't like to focus on the negatives of living in Thai culture, and groups of expats naturally start talking about everything that annoys them about the culture. Focusing on all that negative stuff all the time leaves many people bitter and angry. I didn't want to be affected like that.

When I first moved to Korea three years ago, I tried to spend my time with Koreans, learning Korean culture and enjoying what it has to offer me. I didn't even know any other expats for the first year and a half. I made friends with many Koreans and kept a fairly busy social life, though I didn't join anyone who asked me to drink on weeknights: I don't drink before work because it affects my performance and that would make me seem unprofessional. Eventually, though, I lost almost all my Korean friends because I'm not Korean and have certain habits or beliefs which come from my western heritage and which aren't accepted by many Koreans. When a Korean would demand that I change my opinion about something and I politely declined, I would generally lose that friend.

Eventually, I got tied into the expat community in Dong Hae. Since EFL teachers are generally a little strange, expat meetings and parties are always very ... interesting. Many of the people we met regularly were either alcoholics or on the road to alcoholism. Some of them had lived in Korea for so long that they no longer spoke English well, but rather spoke a kind of pidgin. The parties would last until dawn and often ended with people passed out in the restaurant, vomiting in the bathroom, or even pissing themselves.

I was kind of happy that Gale and I took some time to stay in Thailand, away from all that. We were able to focus on our goals more than social interaction. We accomplished a lot in the three months we stayed in Thailand.

Now, though, we're back into the expat scene. There's too much drinking. We want to meet our new friends often, but we can't afford to drink so much so regularly. We keep saying that we'll stop drinking so much, but it doesn't seem to happen.

For example, this weekend, we had a party with some friends over. We ate and watched movies until about two a.m. Over the course of the night, we drank several bottles' worth of soju and beer. The next day, we went to a friend's apartment and started drinking at about seven p.m. We didn't stop until seven on Sunday morning.

This is just too much. We can't keep going like this. We have goals and dreams. We don't want to drown them in a pool of Korean liquor.