Time flies. Before I knew it, I’m about to spend my second spring in Seoul. The transition from spring to summer here is neither as crisp as Beijing nor as persistently drizzly as Shanghai. The occasional surprise shower catches young commuters off guard. After weathering life’s own storms, an umbrella has become standard gear for a middle-aged man. I prefer dry weather, but the occasional sprinkle is tolerable.

My connection with Korea started a decade ago when I joined Samsung China. That’s when I began to learn more about Korean culture, though mostly limited to the food. I never imagined that ten years later, I’d get the chance to pick up where that left off.

Why Korea

Working abroad was never in my plans. But my company happened to offer an opportunity to relocate to Seoul. The distance wasn’t bad – flying from Beijing to Seoul is actually quicker than going back to my hometown. On top of that, the benefits were compelling: the Korean government offers foreign employees a flat 19% income tax rate for up to 5 years (later extended to 20 years). What does that mean in practice? In China, any income above 960,000 RMB is taxed at 45%. If you only look at cash compensation, HR typically caps it at around 960,000 and fills the rest of the total package with stock options or RSUs. So the cash portion’s effective tax rate isn’t too different from Korea’s 19%. The big difference is in equity. The 45% personal income tax is just the first cut. If the stock price at exercise or RSU vesting is higher than the grant price, there’s a second hit – a 20% capital gains tax waiting for you. A 10 million RMB stock grant shrinks by half before it reaches your pocket. Wouldn’t that sting?

It stings, sure. But what can you do? As an employee, as long as you’re in the system, there’s absolutely nothing you can do – unless you step outside the system. For high-income earners, the tax benefit is like nectar, tempting and hard to resist. Better yet, Korea’s 19% rate doesn’t tax stock income on the full amount – it taxes the spread (vesting value minus grant value), just like capital gains. Save a few hundred thousand to over a million RMB a year – tell me that’s not sweet.

Preparations

From making the decision to being fully ready, the whole process took less than two months. Although Beijing’s COVID restrictions were already easing by late 2022, there were still plenty of hassles. Visas and medical exams alone took about half a month. Applying for the kids’ school took roughly another month from application to acceptance letter. With everything in place, all that was left was packing. Thankfully, the company had vendors providing end-to-end relocation services – from packing to finding a place to live. When I watched 17 boxes of our belongings get shipped out, I finally exhaled. I was worried 17 boxes might be too many – we barely brought any furniture; the only piece was my office chair. Then I heard a colleague shipped over a hundred boxes. OMG, did they move their entire house?

The Unexpected Airport Welcome

Right before boarding, I received the contact info for our airport pickup. After about a 2-hour flight, we landed at Incheon Airport. The moment the plane stopped, we heard an announcement calling my wife’s name. I was puzzled: “Did the company send someone to greet us? This doesn’t match my idea of an airport pickup.” I started picturing K-drama scenes of powerful conglomerates controlling everything. “Has Coupang become a chaebol? Their reach extends to civil aviation now?” Then it hit me: “Wait – why are they calling my wife’s name instead of mine?”

A Korean flight attendant walked straight toward us and “invited” us to deplane first. Under the gaze of the entire cabin, our family of four stepped out. A staff member led us to the arrival hall, where three tall, well-built guys were waiting. Judging by their attire, I quickly realized they weren’t ordinary airport staff – they looked like plainclothes police. In Korean-accented English, one of them asked: “Have you been to Korea before?”

I’d clearly been watching too many K-dramas. Of course the company pickup would use my name. I replied: “This is our first time in Korea.”

“What brings you to Korea?” the plainclothes officer continued.

“I am here for work. I am an employee of Coupang.” (I made a point of mentioning the company name – Coupang is practically a household name in Korea, after all.)

They checked our passports and let us through. I was completely baffled, with no idea what just happened or why we’d been questioned. Nothing else came of it, and everything went smoothly after leaving the airport. I didn’t give the episode much thought – until my wife’s application for a driver’s license got rejected. The reason: a problem with her entry-exit records. With the help of an assistant from the relocation agency, we finally pieced the story together.

It turned out my wife’s name and passport number matched those of a Chinese woman who had overstayed in Korea ten years ago. How did we know she overstayed? Because her last immigration record was an entry – with no departure record after that.

Unbelievable. Of all the odds, this happened to us. Fortunately, our passports were newly issued in 2022. Both the timeline and our old passport numbers proved we had nothing to do with it. The agency wrote us a note in Korean to hand to the local immigration office, which then reprinted a corrected entry-exit record. We finally got the driver’s license.

We thought that was the end of it. But on our second trip to Seoul, we once again received the “priority deplaning treatment.” After we explained the situation, the plainclothes officers gave us a document with a phone number to call and get the matter resolved for good. I joked to my wife: “Most people don’t get this kind of VIP deplaning service.”

“The priority deplaning is nice, but the interrogation part isn’t. Next time, let them question you instead.”

Cost of Living

The day we arrived in Seoul, we checked into the Oakwood hotel near Coex. After settling in, it was already evening and we were hungry. We headed out to find some Korean food. We walked a big loop around the block but couldn’t find any restaurants. Walking down the street, I felt like an illiterate person – couldn’t read a single character. The kids were exhausted. We finally spotted a restaurant that looked like a seafood place from its sign. We went up the stairs to the second floor, where a large fish tank sat by the entrance. The server spoke only Korean, which we couldn’t understand. We tried English – she didn’t seem to understand that either. As a last resort, they brought out the only Chinese-speaking person from the kitchen. He spoke broken Chinese, but it was understandable enough. We ordered a few dishes that looked like Shanghai street food. Then the bill came: 140,000 won. I’d never seen a number that big on a restaurant check. It took a moment to register. I pulled out my phone calculator – roughly 750 RMB. For that little bit of food, it would have been 300 RMB tops back home. That was my first visceral encounter with Seoul’s prices.

The next day, we decided to cook in the hotel. The room had a kitchen with all the utensils. We found a supermarket downstairs. One look at the meat prices – 2,900 won per 100g – and my brain couldn’t map it to Beijing prices fast enough. A head of cabbage: 80 RMB. Ten cloves of garlic (basically 1-2 bulbs): 15 RMB. We didn’t buy much, but the bill came to over 1,000 RMB. Back at the hotel, I used Google Translate to go through the receipt item by item. Prices were roughly 3x Beijing levels. The supermarket downstairs was probably a premium one, so slightly pricier than average. That evening we set up the Coupang app and experienced our own product firsthand. Speaking of which, it was kind of absurd – a dev team of over a hundred people building an app that none of them had actually used as real customers. That’s probably rare even on a global scale. I tried the Rocket Delivery service: fresh groceries arrived at the hotel door at 7 AM sharp, with two ice packs in the delivery box to keep everything fresh. Prices were a bit cheaper than the supermarket downstairs – roughly 2x Beijing levels.

I’d heard about Seoul’s cost of living before coming. There’s that story about Koreans being amazed at Chinese people scooping watermelon with a spoon. I thought it was a joke. Then I saw the watermelon prices at the supermarket and realized it was no joke at all. Back in Beijing, I already thought a 30 RMB Qilin melon was pricey. Now picture a green-skinned watermelon going for 200 RMB. Forget financial freedom – let’s start with fruit freedom.

To get a real picture of the annual cost of living in Seoul, I tracked income and expenses every month. After a year, I found that without at least 20,000 RMB per month, life gets pretty tight. And that’s just daily expenses. Add winter coats and a ski trip, and 30,000-40,000 RMB vanishes like nothing – not including rent or the kids’ school fees. On average: 30,000 RMB per month.

Healthcare

A few months after arriving, one of the kids got sick with a fever. A late-night ER visit to a nearby hospital started at about 1,500 RMB. Thankfully we had private insurance. Except for dental, it was generally sufficient. As my colleague put it: “If you actually used up the full coverage, you’d basically be on your deathbed.” You have to book appointments in advance, but who knows when they’ll get sick? By the time you’re actually ill, it’s too late. The ER doesn’t solve the problem – it just buys you time.

At hospitals that supported direct insurance billing, the experience was actually quite good. Someone accompanied you through the entire process, and medication was delivered to your hands. Genuine VIP treatment. Since we don’t speak Korean, every hospital visit was conducted in English. As you can imagine, medical terminology is brutally hard to remember. Every visit doubled as a vocabulary lesson. For particularly obscure terms, the doctor would open Google Translate and explain with Korean-Chinese side-by-side. It worked out fine.

I remember going to a nearby hospital for a toothache. They immediately took me to get an X-ray. I’d barely ever been to a dentist – the only time was when a tiny Sichuan peppercorn stem got stuck between my molars during hotpot and caused inflammation. I’d never heard of X-rays for a toothache. It scared me. I asked the dental assistant why they wanted an X-ray before I’d even seen the doctor. I said I didn’t want one – let me see the doctor first. Reluctantly, the assistant took me to the dentist. He was a young guy who patiently explained: the gum was swollen, so they couldn’t see whether a wisdom tooth was hiding underneath. They needed the X-ray to confirm. Fine. I went along with it, and sure enough, there was a wisdom tooth. The doctor recommended extraction. Good thing I’d checked the dental insurance reimbursement policy beforehand – you pay upfront, and there’s a cap on reimbursement.

I’ve never had a great impression of dentists. Every annual checkup, the dentist would suggest pulling my wisdom teeth. I never understood why such a dubious practice gets promoted so aggressively. My gut told me: once you get on that train, you never get off. Tooth extraction is a racket. The only time I actually saw a dentist was in Beijing – they removed the peppercorn stem from between my molars, prescribed some anti-inflammatory medicine, and that was it. If I’d let one of these extraction-happy dentists treat me, who knows what they’d have done.

So I told the doctor: “I don’t want to have an extraction right now. Please prescribe some antibiotics first. If there’s no improvement after I finish the medication, I will consider the extraction.” He gave me a week’s supply. The toothache was gone before I even finished the course. From that point on, I was even more convinced: don’t let those dentists talk you into anything.

(To be continued…)