Join family and friends for sports, cultural outings, gardening


On a typical weekend, one can find Danish business executive Steen Lauge Kokkenborg at a traditional Korean market, scouring the stalls for locally sourced, hard-to-find ingredients.

“My wife and I share the Koreans’ passion for food ... (so) one of our favorite pastimes is to go and look for ingredients among the hundreds of stalls selling vegetables, fruits, meats and herbs,” he said.

Kokkenborg, who currently serves as the general manager for Lego Korea, said he and his wife particularly enjoy spicy foods. They have collected quite a number of cookbooks on Korean cuisine since they first arrived in Seoul about two years ago, he said.

These excursions help him to practice his Korean, which he has been learning for the past one and a half years.

“I am a guest in (Korea) so it is very much my duty to learn to cope with your world rather than the other way around,” he said.

An increasing number of foreign business executives are living and working in the Land of the Morning Calm.

This has even attracted the attention of the Korean government. Statistics Korea announced this month that it will conduct, for the first time in its history, an in-depth nationwide employment survey of about 10,000 foreigners living and working in Korea. It will publish the findings this November, according to the agency’s officials.

And as leisure time remains a precious commodity for many foreign executives, the weekends give them a chance to recharge their batteries and wind down from their hectic work weeks.

Most of the foreign businessmen interviewed by The Korea Herald said weekends tend to be skewed heavily toward spending time with their spouses, other family members, and friends. And common weekend activities ranged from going on excursions in and outside of Seoul, outdoor activities, and partaking in personal hobbies.

Several said family usually takes precedence over friends and work colleagues on the weekends.

“When I am off, I always make a commitment to my family first because during the work week I’m rarely home before bedtime and miss them a lot,” said Ashley Cheeseman, the executive assistant manager for the Grand Hilton Seoul.

Cheeseman, who has lived and worked in Seoul for the past 14 years, said working in the hospitality industry does not always guarantee weekends off, but said he tries to reserve three day weekends for visiting his Korean in-laws, who live Yangpyeong.

“It’s the most beautiful, quiet, scenic, and cleanest area, and only just over an hour’s (drive) from Seoul,” Cheeseman said.

For Barry Howe, the chief executive officer of Alstom Korea, weekends are usually spent in Seoul, due to the difficulty of getting back to the city in the evenings.

This means regular games of squash at the Seoul Club, followed by lunch and dinner plans with friends on Saturdays.

On Sundays, he and his wife tend to focus on history and culture, Howe said.

“Our tastes are eclectic and so we are happy to go to musicals, classical or rock concerts, opera, and ballet,” he said.

Other foreign executives said they partake in personal hobbies during the weekends.

Merck Korea’s president and representative director, Juergen Koenig, for example, likes tending to his green thumb during spring and summer. 

“As soon as the weather allows it, we start working in our small garden so as to have as many flowers as possible,” he said.

Though his weekend social calendar is often packed with official functions and or personal invitations from friends and acquaintances, the Koenigs make a point of attending cultural events such as classical music concerts and art exhibitions like the Howes.

They also enjoy meals out.

“A tasty dinner at a good restaurant is a nice way to end an active day and we like to discover new spots as much as we can, provided they are not too far away from home,” he said.

But the German-Brazilian business executive said he and his Swiss-Peruvian wife try to regularly fit in outdoor activities or excursions as well, such as long walks with their dog along the Hannam River or at Namsan Park, located in southern Seoul.

The Han River area is especially nice for sporty types as it offers walkways, bicycle tracks, and water sports centers, according to Koenig. 

German business executive Thomas Geyer also likes to take advantage of outdoor activities on the weekends, especially with his wife and two children, aged 11 and 17.

Particular favorites include sailing and swimming, said the head of Vector Korea IT, a Korean branch of a German company that supplies tools, software components and engineering products related to the automobile industry.

“(But since) Europeans are used to going swimming in May (through) October, the Korean ‘swimming season’ of July and August is kind of a problem for us,” Geyer joked.

Like many foreigners, the Geyers regularly make use of a private club membership to avoid problems such as overcrowding, a common phenomenon found at public facilities.

On occasion, the family of four brave traffic jams and take short excursions out to the “real” countryside out of Seoul, to places like Muuido off the coast of Incheon, he said.

Most of the interviewees said that in general, they were pleased with the number of weekend options for foreigners.

“All kinds of sports and leisure activities are being offered ... (so now) it’s just a question of choice,” Koenig said.

By Renee Park (renee@heraldcorp.com)