Tl;DR: I am a non Korean person and found myself in a completely Korean office in the US. Not sure how to assimilate due to language/culture barrier. Also have questions about showing tattoos in the office.
Hi there, I am not Korean myself however I just started a job at a Korean company (in the US). I was told by the recruiter before I got hired that the leadership and culture is “very Korean” and didn’t know what he meant until my first day which was yesterday. I might be one of maybe 5 non Korean people in the corporate office. Most people in my office are in the US on visa sponsored by the company and basically were specifically brought to the US to work at this office. Everyone speaks amongst themselves in Korean which doesn’t particularly bother me as it seems obvious to engage with others in your native language if they also speak the language. Most of my coworkers have very thick accents as they just moved to the states maybe a couple years ago at best.
I myself am a child of immigrants and grew up around other people from the same country however, i am South American which is a very different culture from Korea. I mention this to basically say that it doesn’t bother me at all that they are foreigners and have a tight knit community. I think it’s really awesome that they share that with each other. Needless to say, I do feel very left out and sort of culture shocked. I really didn’t realize that the whole company would be like this in the US office.
So I’m basically wondering how I should navigate this? Everyone has been very kind to me but they do leave me out of the conversation frequently (it doesn’t feel intentional at all). I feel like an outsider and it’s honestly been a really rough two days. Today I looked up how to say “hello” and said it to everyone I passed by along with bowing since it seems customary and it’s gone over well, some people even mentioned my pronunciation was very good and most seemed pleasantly surprised. I also want to mention I have a sleeve of tattoos and have been hiding them with long sleeves since I can’t tell if they would be accepting of them or not. There is nothing in the handbook about tattoos but I know in some Asian cultures it’s frowned upon.
Is there anything I can do to assimilate or will it just come in time? Is there anything I should know about Korean workplace culture? What do I do about my tattoos? Please help lol
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