I’m Humurf. That’s not my real name, it’s just what I go by here.
I’m Korean, in my fifties, and I’ve lived in Korea my whole life. Right now I’m in Cheonan, which is about an hour south of Seoul depending on how you get there. I work at a metal processing company, ten hours a day, the kind of job where you’re standing at a machine most of that time. I’ve changed companies three times over the years, all of it in manufacturing.
So I’m not a journalist, not a tour guide, not someone who moved here and found it fascinating. I’m just a person who happens to live in the place a lot of people are curious about right now.
What this blog is
If you want the straight version of Korea — the honest talk, the facts, the parts nobody puts in the videos, how it actually looks from a Korean’s point of view — you’re in the right place.
New posts twice a week. Sometimes more, if something gets me going.
Why I write this in English
Honestly, part of it is practice. I’ve been training my English listening for years — podcasts mostly, a lot of it running in the background while I do other things. By this October it crosses fifteen thousand hours.
Here’s where that actually got me, and I’m being honest because there’s no point pretending:
- Simple English, spoken clearly — I understand basically all of it. Close to 100%.
- Speaking it back — halting. I stop, I restart, I lose the word I wanted.
- Slightly harder English, if you’re being kind and slowing down for me — 70 to 80%. Though honestly, some of that might not be the words at all. It might be me reading the desperate look on your face while you’re trying to get through to me. lol
- The same English at normal speed, with slang in it — I’m gone. Completely blank. Just nodding.
My writing got even less practice than my speaking, and I know it shows. You’ll find sentences here that run on too long, articles I dropped, a word that’s slightly the wrong size for the sentence it’s sitting in. I’m leaving those alone. That’s what my English actually sounds like, and cleaning it up would make this something other than what it is.
Why not just read the other blogs
I kept reading English articles about Korea and thinking: that’s not wrong exactly, but that’s not how it feels from inside. Most English writing about this country is by people visiting, or by people who moved here and are still noticing things. That’s a real perspective and I’m not knocking it.
But nobody was writing the boring version. What things cost. What everyone here already knows and nobody bothers to say. Why we do a thing that looks strange from outside and completely normal from here.
And nobody was answering the questions people actually have. Is the K-drama version of this country real, any of it. Are Korean men really that considerate and attentive, the way they get written. Does a person like Jinu from KPop Demon Hunters exist anywhere here — I mean the behaviour, not the face, obviously the face is its own separate problem, lol.
I can answer that kind of thing. Not always the way you’re hoping.
What you’ll find
Food, work, daily life, the odd cultural thing that makes no sense until someone explains it. Prices, mostly in won with a rough dollar conversion, because “is Korea expensive” has a very different answer depending on what you’re buying.
I try to say when I don’t know something. There’s a lot I don’t know. I’m one person in one city with one job, and Korea is not small enough for one person to be an authority on it.
Ask me something
If there’s something about Korea you’ve wondered about, leave a comment. I’ll explain it from a Korean’s point of view — what it actually is, not what it looks like from outside. If I don’t know, I’ll say I don’t know, and I’ll probably ask around at work.
One offer
If you’re ever coming to my area — not Seoul, the part most people just pass through on the train — and you want someone to show you around on a weekend, ask me. Doesn’t matter who you are. I’m serious about this.
Whether my English is at guide level is a different question. Slow down for me and I think we’ll be fine. Probably.
Contact
Comments are the easiest way, or there’s the contact page. I read everything, though I’m slow to reply sometimes.