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Adjusting to Slow Times and Happiness: South Koreans in Malaysia

Gaik Cheng KHOO
한국학중앙연구원 (The Academy of Korean Studies)|2022.12|Korea Journal|제62권 제4호|pp. 48-77|DOI 10.25024/kj.2022.62.4.48

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happinessMalaysiaKorean migrantsslow timemigrant temporalityppalli-ppalli
주제분류한국어와문학

초록

South Korean migration to Malaysia is a relatively new phenomenon that began in the new millennium. By 2019, approximately 20,861 Koreans were residing in Malaysia under various types of visas: work, study, and under the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) program. This paper examines Korean attitudes and adjustment to Malaysian temporality (after accounting for their reasons for emigration) to make causal connections between developmentalist modernity, hypercelerity (extreme speed) and the lack of happiness that drive them to search for better opportunities in the Global South. Coming from a culture of hypercelerity and expected efficiency and immediacy, Koreans have to acclimatize to a culture of slowness. Drawing from a broad span of respondents interviewed between late 2014 to 2021, that includes university students, education migrants (parents), working expatriates, retirees and those on business visas from ages 16 up to their 60s, I argue that Koreans are filled with ambivalence regarding slow time. Such ambivalence is shaped by factors such as age, occupation, circumstance and context, their life course, and extent of openness to cultural difference (cosmopolitanism). This essay focuses on the challenges Koreans face and the strategies they deploy while negotiating the slower temporality of living in the Global South.

Abstract

South Korean migration to Malaysia is a relatively new phenomenon that began in the new millennium. By 2019, approximately 20,861 Koreans were residing in Malaysia under various types of visas: work, study, and under the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) program. This paper examines Korean attitudes and adjustment to Malaysian temporality (after accounting for their reasons for emigration) to make causal connections between developmentalist modernity, hypercelerity (extreme speed) and the lack of happiness that drive them to search for better opportunities in the Global South. Coming from a culture of hypercelerity and expected efficiency and immediacy, Koreans have to acclimatize to a culture of slowness. Drawing from a broad span of respondents interviewed between late 2014 to 2021, that includes university students, education migrants (parents), working expatriates, retirees and those on business visas from ages 16 up to their 60s, I argue that Koreans are filled with ambivalence regarding slow time. Such ambivalence is shaped by factors such as age, occupation, circumstance and context, their life course, and extent of openness to cultural difference (cosmopolitanism). This essay focuses on the challenges Koreans face and the strategies they deploy while negotiating the slower temporality of living in the Global South.

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