The Two Koreas

You have a choice when living in Korea as a liberal-minded Westerner. and that choice will define your life here, as you interact with the Two Koreas. But they're not the ones you think....

One "Korea" is a place full of warm-hearted, friendly people who are steeped in a Confucian way of understanding the world that is a direct result of centuries of a beautiful traditional culture deciding to keep doin things in the Old Ways. This Korea is wonderful.

Another "Korea" is a soul-grinding, heartless mutant child of modernity and all its ills, with morals being dictated by a runaway capitalist bottom line, racist, supremacist assumptions about how the world works, and a soul-wrenching pragmatism that is typical of people who h ave had to give up moral ground to survive. This Korea is a shitty place to live, and as an intelligent , educated westerner used to a modicum of human respect and decency, you will find it hard to live here. 

Both Koreas exist and overlap with one another.

But what you must do is decide which world you want to see and continually justify to yourself the choice not to see the other. 

Such is the struggle of the intelligent non-Korean living in this land.