Life for Koreans

[99percentbamboo]

Hey everyone, my girlfriend is from South Korea and while searching for which city we should settle in I came across some troubling comments regarding life for Asian immigrants. One of her biggest concerns is the difficulties she may face while job hunting and from what I read it sounded like NZ could be very unwelcoming towards her and it would be especially difficult finding a decent job there.

Can any Koreans currently living in NZ offer some advice?

Thanks

[JandM]

Where did you come across these comments? It's worth considering the source(s), and what those commenting hoped to achieve. If the source is a newspaper report, unfortunately what makes the big headlines and boosts sales is the bad side of things, and there's no way to look up 'Asians having a happy life and good relationships with their neighbours in NZ'.

[Asteger]

Can any Koreans currently living in NZ offer some advice? Thanks

I'm not in Korea but have lived here for more than 4 years. I was recently talking to a co-worker with NZ PR but now back in K. She initially when to NZ to study and did an IT degree, and later stayed on (I think 7 years in total, maybe 9) to get her PR. She didn't have any bad stuff to say when I prompted her, though I noted that although her degree was in IT she wasn't able to get work after graduating (and, apparently, IT skills are in demand). After a year of full-time job searching, she ended up working for a Korean agency that aided students coming over to study, like she had. I offered a guess that it had taken so long for her to get her PR because her eventual F-T job wasn't related to her bachelors, and she said I was correct. I can sort of imagine how she wouldn't impress when job searching, as she's pretty withdrawn and not a big communicator, although that might stereotypically be want some IT-types are like.

I asked how Korean students liked NZ and she said 80% were happy there, and the biggest complaint for the remainder was that they found it boring.

[Asteger]

I'm not in Korea but have lived here for more than 4 years.....

Whoops, just noticed one of my (frequent) earlier typos: I meant, '... not Korean, but have lived here for more than 4 years...' Sure you got it, though