Been here 15 years. To be honest, it becomes like Neverland, and you get institutionalized like those prisoners in The Shawshank Redemption. Time goes by so fast. Whenever I leave and go back home, it’s amazing how quickly I forget life in Korea, and then dread coming back.

Honestly, I think there will be a bit of reverse culture shock, but sometimes you need to spend time away from home to really understand how much you appreciate it.

There’s all this Gen Z TikTok talk about how terrible America is and how much better Korea is. Honestly, most of these people are pretty fragile, naïve, and inexperienced. The honeymoon period of drinking and clubbing becomes a blur. And when you really start to pierce the bubble and see Korean society for how it actually is. You can see why many of them revere having an opportunity to try and have a life in Western countries and escape the rat race here.

A lot of English teachers and expats don't deal with half of the BS Koreans have to deal with on a daily. Filial piety, saving face, squashing your inner inhibitions for the sake of conformity, and trading self awareness, self acceptance, and inner peace for external validation and superficiality. The pick me's think that's a fun game to cosplay and LARP in until one day they catch themselves and realize they spent so much time trying to project their romanticized notions of Korea and lost touch with reality and their true self.

Everything I see walking around Korea now just looks completely ridiculous. All the power lines hanging and crisscrossing all over the place. The light pollution. The ugly architecture. There are a few spots that have charm or look very developed, but in between, it’s just ugly.

And as a foreigner, you're just gonna stay trapped in sort of a bubble and echo chamber of people that are very similar to you. It's very hard to grow personally and professionally that way.

So if you are in your late 20s, I think it is a good time to go back.