Inevitably a native speaking teacher will start to learn some Korean. It’s been said that one must love the society to learn the language well, that’s probably why most people that come here are absolutely horrible at it. If Korean's actually wanted English teachers to come and stay in their country, they would make it a lot easier to learn their language. What good is it if every year, most schools rehire a new inexperienced person from another country? Racial integration falls on deaf ears. I think strip clubs have a similar business model.
Korea Sparkling: Come to Korea, do your dance, take your money, get out.
So, I learned some Korean to be functional in everyday life. This, I find, was not my only hurdle. I have a fiancée that is Chinese; she teaches English here as well. To Koreans she looks Korean, which I find silly. I would think they would be able to distinguish themselves from their neighboring countries inhabitants.
If I walk into a restaurant with her (or try to do any other type of transaction) and try to use 
my Korean language, the store owner will immediately bypass my existence and try to talk to my fiancée. So much for making native speakers feel at ease. My fiancée doesn’t speak any Korean. Inevitably, they have to talk to me, but not without first ignoring me (the person standing right in front of them trying to talk to them in their own language). This has happened more times than I care to mention. I tell my fiancée to stay out of their line of sight, because they’ll find any means possible not to talk to me.
Apparently, it’s not rude to ignore the person talking to you and pretend like they don’t exist. For a society that's trying to become global, they sure do have problems with being polite and friendly.
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