When living in Korea becomes overwhelming: an expat psychologist's view

As South Korea sees the increase of foreign residents, understanding their lives and the challenges they face here is becoming increasingly important.

To explore these issues, The Korea Herald sat down with Chad Ebesutani, a licensed psychologist in both the US and South Korea who runs the Seoul Counseling Center.

"There are many great things about Korea, such as the infrastructure, consumer lifestyle and culture, but there are also unique stressors," he said.

The intense urban environment of Seoul, cultural nuances, and feelings of exclusion and miscommunication could all add up for someone who has moved to Korea, he said.

"The baseline difficulty of staying in Seoul is that it is a big city," Ebesutani said. "If the baseline stress of life is not too bad, maybe they can handle it. But if you have the baseline stress of a busy life, lack of sleep, traffic, intercultural issues, miscommunication and different expectations, you just stack and layer multiple risks."

A graduate of Brown University with a Ph.D. from UCLA, Ebesutani has taught psychology as an associate professor at Duksung Women’s University in Seoul, for over 10 years.

He founded Seoul Counseling Center in 2019, which operates at two locations in Seoul and Pyeongtaek, mainly catering to distressed Americans. Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province is where the the US Forces Korea’s headquarters of Camp Humphreys is located.

"A lot of foreigners (from the West) come to Seoul from places that are very different," he said. "Most of them are not coming from New York City. They are from rural areas or countries like Australia and Canada, places very different from Korea."

Being on a crowded subway or dealing with heavy traffic, for example, are things they have never experienced before, he continued. On the contrary, he has observed that Koreans are very tolerant in crowded and stressful situations.

The number of foreign residents in the country is now about 2 million, or 4 percent of Korea’s population. Among them, 59.4 percent reside in the Greater Seoul area.

Aside from urban lifestyles, work stress is another common concern for foreign residents, he continued. At work, differences in work styles can also cause misunderstandings.

"It is hard to generalize as everyone is different, but I think Americans or foreigners tend to be more 'ttajida (따지다),' which means they are more specific, detailed, doubting, checking, questioning, skeptical, and maybe nitpicky,” he said, using the Korean term. “This may be because foreigners are minorities here and want to ensure they are treated well.”

"Meanwhile, Koreans are a bit more 'geunyang neomeogaja (그냥 넘어가자),'" he continued, explaining the Korean phrase's meaning as "let’s go with the flow, let’s just let it go, let’s move on, it’s okay, let’s not cause waves."

Neither approach is right or wrong, Ebesutani added, but both cause problems when applied to excess.

"It is good to check and question, but you can go too far. Over time, you check more and find more problems. It gets too big. Sometimes people fixate on quality; it takes forever, and they miss the market," he said.

"In Korea, it's the opposite. And it is also normal; you can’t check everything, and you have to trust people. However, if you don’t check or question, it can sometimes cause problems. Presidents can go to jail when no one checked and said, 'We’ve got to stop.'"

Foreign workers sometimes face a kind of exclusion and misunderstanding at work, due to communication difficulties or cultural differences.

"They probably want to join, but the company may think it is fine, sometimes out of good intentions, which can lead to some exclusion. Sometimes foreigners are not invited to certain meetings," he said. "Americans are more likely to speak up, share their opinions, and be a bit more assertive in meetings or feedback. Koreans usually don't speak up in the same situations."

Work-related or not, Ebesutani said the biggest challenge that foreigners experience when trying to adjust here or navigate relationships with locals is that in Korea, there are fewer options and a lot of rules.

"For instance, you should buy a house to get married and shouldn't rent," he said. "If you have children, it becomes even more complicated."

"American partners may question, 'Why should we do it that way?' and that leads to arguments. But there is no definitive answer -- it's just how things are done, and the conversation can be very stressful," he explained. "In the same culture, people don't have to question things."

His advice for foreigners living in South Korea is to “reserve judgment and try to find yourself in the unfamiliar."

This advice is not only professional but also personal, stemming from his own experience of growing up in Hawaii, a highly multicultural state, and navigating life in Korea, a country characterized by a single ethnicity and a strong, unified culture.

He shared an episode from his university meeting of foreign and Korean professors. When the university president walked in, all of the Korean professors stood up. The foreign professors didn’t know why.

"In Korea, there are common rules that everyone knows," he said, adding that he initially found them hard to understand and was resistant to them because he grew up without them.

"But I came to understand the importance of culture in unifying behavior, preventing misunderstandings, and creating order. I learned about a whole new world that I had no awareness of," he said. "I became very humble."

He also emphasized that as members of minorities, help may seem distant, but when facing difficulties, one should actively seek support. As a psychologist, he believes in the power of counseling to heal and transform people.

"I believe special and unique things happen in counseling. When done well, with the right person and at the right time, it can be transformative."

"There are things we have to learn to let go to heal or fix relationships. But sometimes, we shouldn’t let go. We have to confront things," he said.

"Not only through counseling but also through retreats, workshops and other interactive experiences, you can experience healing."