James is Going to Canada and Foreigners are Coming to Korea!

Ya, I'm off to Canada/Vancouver again soon...ah, to be back in the land of fresh air, real mountains and diapers. Luckily, I think my oldest boy is out potty-trained now. Not sure, though, haven't been home for about 2 months...and a lot can happen in that time.

Now that we've done a deal here my boss/CEO would have me here all of August (well, all of the year, actually) but I have to go back as it's my younger son's first birthday, or 첫돌/Chot-dol (they have a different name for almost everything here). For Koreans the 1st and 60th birthdays are the biggies. 1st because the child made it through the often-treacherous first year (remember, Korea used to be really, really poor...so much so that is was a 100-days celebration as well, but that is starting to become less important as more babies are living past it). 60th because the Korean Zodiac is similar to the Chinese one...with 12 animals (ya, I'm a pig). There are also five colors which elude me at the moment, although I know two of them are black and gold. The Chinese use five elements: metal, earth, wood, fire and water. This year is Year of the Wood Monkey, which I guess is better than 1981...Year of the Wood Cock/Rooster. (Hehe, had to put that in there.) Anyways, at age 60 you've gone through all 12 years 5 times for each of the colors/elements...a truly magical time, I guess. Thus, by age 60 men (no mention of women) should have at least one grandchild, preferably a grandSON--one more reason to be happy that we had our oldest boy in my wife's father's 60th year!

Now about foreingers (as I/we call all non-Koreans...even in Canada for some reason). Korea ain't called The Hermit Kingdom for nothin'. Basically, there are very, very few foreigners here. Something like 200,000 in a country of 48 Million. Most of us are (like me) in Seoul and (not like me) teachers. Others are manual labour workers from China, India and Southeast Asia (doing the 3D-dirty, dangerous, difficult-jobs that Koreans feel they no longer need to perform en mass).

Foreigners (or 외국인/weigook-in or 외국사람/weigook-saram) are treated quite differently from native Koreans (and likely for good reason in some cases). We all need to register with our local 구/ku (ward/borough) office and do so (i) every 12 months or (ii) if we move to another 구 (whichever comes first). We get an Alien Registration Card that has our pic and address on it as well as our visa type (teachers are E-2, I fall under E-7 or 'other worker, director'). We need the ARC to get a job, get a bank account or do almost everything else official here. But it's not the same as a Korean Citizenship Card. Some promotions, for example the bonus card for Fantaseum, is only for Koreans, not me. So I can't get 10% off movies or get bonus points there...waaaaaaaaa!

Also, foreigners cannot easily buy land in Korea (although I've also heard that it just can't be done...not sure who to believe on this). Foreign investment companies, however, still did so--and did in great amounts after the 1997 financial crisis. (In fact, they were the first firms in Korea to EVER use due diligence/research before buying and developing land...Korean execs, it seems, did it based more on intuition than anything else before then.)

It's also hard for foreign firms to get market share here--unless they partner with a local firm such as Otis did with LG Group concerning elevators and escalators. Heck, foreign car makers have just 3% of the local market! (Not counting GM's recent purchase of Daewoo Motors, which is a small player anyways.)

One thing foreigners have had some success in doing is buying all or parts of troubled Korean companies. Korean firms put off foreign investment as long as possible, but in the end they can take on foreign investors--대한생명/DaeHan sengmyung/Life aka Korea Life Insurance is 5% owned by Australia's largest bank, Macquarie Bank. Korean firms, however are loathe, it seems, to disclose what most purchasers would consider to be important facts about the businesses. 교보생명/Kyobo Sengmyung/Life apparently had months of due diligence done on it by buyout firms, but in the end not enough was known to do a deal. Foreign firms have been able to buy billions of USD in Korean stocks, SK Life, large portions of Korean banks, other firms and one (PCA) is in the running to buy 대한투자증권/DaeHan Tooja Jeunkwon/DaeHan ITC/Investment Trust Company aka Daetoo (names here can get pretty long and complicated) though, so there is some opening up of this place.

Funny, the longer I'm here, the more normal all of this seems...not sure that is a good thing.