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No Couches in Korea
A 2016 Finalist for the Foreword INDIES for Travel, and a 2017 Finalist at the International Book Awards for Non-Fiction/Narrative.
This gem of a classic describes Pusan of South Korea in the mid-1990s. A decade when western English teachers descended upon, meandered about, and discovered a place within an ever more modern Korean society. From the point-of-view of Adam Wanderson, you will be led on a first-person narrative of the job, the experiences, the landscape, the expat scenes, and the many colorful western characters that made their way to South Korea, to make a new home. All the while, Adam struggles with separating entirely from his past, or entirely embracing the new.
NO COUCHES IN KOREA is even timelier today than when the story first took place. It shares a foreigner-experienced glimpse into South Korean life just prior to cellphones, the internet, and the current craze of Korean films, TV, and K-Pop.
The 2nd Edition was released November 2016.
AUTHOR:
Kevin M Maher first arrived in South Korea for a one year stint in 1996, but continued to live there off and on over the next few decades. Korea never entirely left him, and some of the characters that found their way into his book, continue to frequent the bars, the streets, and the alleys of Busan and Seoul to this day. Now, all of them will be eternally memorialized, as they’ll come alive in your own mind as you experience No Couches in Korea.
View www.kevinmaher.com to connect to his Facebook page and YouTube channel.
This gem of a classic describes Pusan of South Korea in the mid-1990s. A decade when western English teachers descended upon, meandered about, and discovered a place within an ever more modern Korean society. From the point-of-view of Adam Wanderson, you will be led on a first-person narrative of the job, the experiences, the landscape, the expat scenes, and the many colorful western characters that made their way to South Korea, to make a new home. All the while, Adam struggles with separating entirely from his past, or entirely embracing the new.
NO COUCHES IN KOREA is even timelier today than when the story first took place. It shares a foreigner-experienced glimpse into South Korean life just prior to cellphones, the internet, and the current craze of Korean films, TV, and K-Pop.
The 2nd Edition was released November 2016.
AUTHOR:
Kevin M Maher first arrived in South Korea for a one year stint in 1996, but continued to live there off and on over the next few decades. Korea never entirely left him, and some of the characters that found their way into his book, continue to frequent the bars, the streets, and the alleys of Busan and Seoul to this day. Now, all of them will be eternally memorialized, as they’ll come alive in your own mind as you experience No Couches in Korea.
View www.kevinmaher.com to connect to his Facebook page and YouTube channel.
308 pages, Paperback
Published April 2, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 20, 2024
I enjoyed the beginning of No Couches in Korea when Kevin Maher gets off the plane in Busan and has to teach the same day. He teaches split shifts seven days a week! He portrays the other teachers and their frustrations with Korea well. Then the book gets repetitive and he says 'I reflected on' and 'years later' way too much. He spends inordinate time trying to recapture the wonder of those initial weeks in Korea in 1996.
The end of the 2023 edition is bizarre as he wanders around Busan 20 years later in 2016 looking for foreigners to give a free copy of the book to. One way to promote it I guess!
Maher also tries his luck in Budapest, Santiago and Sao Paulo. Knowing more about his time in these places would have interested me. But he admits he just cant get Korea out of his head. The sections in Portland with the agonising chronicle of his break up with Sasha I mainly skimmed.
The editing isn't as bad as some reviews claim (maybe the 2016 version was worse). However, there is still a diary or blog-like aspect to this...his prose needs paring down.
As a comparison, Shaun Mathews´ focused memoir of teaching in Korea, The Island of Fantasy, is more in the Hemingway mould of much can be ascertained by the reader from what isn´t spelled out. But unlike Maher, Mathews struggles to make connections with Korea and other foreigners and is very isolated.
Maher successfully captures a time and place and what it meant to him. He shows how scenes and countires change over time. He does all this with a hammer not a chisel. 4 stars for topic and effort, 2 stars for structure and prose style for No Couches.
The following has to make you laugh:
“Okay, before we begin, anything you guys want to talk about today?” Six students sat at the same table as I did. A young, serious man quickly blurted out, “Erection!” I looked around at them, “An erection?” “Yes,” he assured me. “Erection.” I looked at all of the students again, scanning their faces for smirks, enthusiasm, smiles. There was none. “An erection? You all want to talk about an erection?” I looked in the women’s direction, and they nodded their heads in agreement. I was puzzled, unsure how to make this into an appropriate topic. “You not know erection?” “Well, sure, I know about erections. But what exactly about an erection do you want to know?” “You know American erections.” “American erections?” “Yes, Bill Clinton. American erections.”
The end of the 2023 edition is bizarre as he wanders around Busan 20 years later in 2016 looking for foreigners to give a free copy of the book to. One way to promote it I guess!
Maher also tries his luck in Budapest, Santiago and Sao Paulo. Knowing more about his time in these places would have interested me. But he admits he just cant get Korea out of his head. The sections in Portland with the agonising chronicle of his break up with Sasha I mainly skimmed.
The editing isn't as bad as some reviews claim (maybe the 2016 version was worse). However, there is still a diary or blog-like aspect to this...his prose needs paring down.
As a comparison, Shaun Mathews´ focused memoir of teaching in Korea, The Island of Fantasy, is more in the Hemingway mould of much can be ascertained by the reader from what isn´t spelled out. But unlike Maher, Mathews struggles to make connections with Korea and other foreigners and is very isolated.
Maher successfully captures a time and place and what it meant to him. He shows how scenes and countires change over time. He does all this with a hammer not a chisel. 4 stars for topic and effort, 2 stars for structure and prose style for No Couches.
The following has to make you laugh:
“Okay, before we begin, anything you guys want to talk about today?” Six students sat at the same table as I did. A young, serious man quickly blurted out, “Erection!” I looked around at them, “An erection?” “Yes,” he assured me. “Erection.” I looked at all of the students again, scanning their faces for smirks, enthusiasm, smiles. There was none. “An erection? You all want to talk about an erection?” I looked in the women’s direction, and they nodded their heads in agreement. I was puzzled, unsure how to make this into an appropriate topic. “You not know erection?” “Well, sure, I know about erections. But what exactly about an erection do you want to know?” “You know American erections.” “American erections?” “Yes, Bill Clinton. American erections.”
June 18, 2016
Keep moving.
Keep moving. Awkwardly written, badly proofread fictionalized account of wooden self-serving characters moving through landscapes. Features such things as a misspelling of the book's own title, 50%of the book taking place in a Portland apartment, and women who only exist to reciprocate love or be scorned. How dare a woman take an interest in someone other than the narrator! He is such a nice guy! She owes him! How dare people in their own countries try to make a living and exist in abject poverty rather than the eastern wisdom fantasy the narrator craves! Honestly I expected a lot more from this book and was disappointed at every turn. There are far better books if you want to learn about Korea. This one is about self-possession, not any particular place or time.
Keep moving. Awkwardly written, badly proofread fictionalized account of wooden self-serving characters moving through landscapes. Features such things as a misspelling of the book's own title, 50%of the book taking place in a Portland apartment, and women who only exist to reciprocate love or be scorned. How dare a woman take an interest in someone other than the narrator! He is such a nice guy! She owes him! How dare people in their own countries try to make a living and exist in abject poverty rather than the eastern wisdom fantasy the narrator craves! Honestly I expected a lot more from this book and was disappointed at every turn. There are far better books if you want to learn about Korea. This one is about self-possession, not any particular place or time.
June 2, 2016
More of a Korean Drama than History of Korea
I liked some aspects of the book with regards to how people viewed foreigners in 1996 in Busan all the way to him living in Seoul today. He mentions about when people used pagers and then they used small cell phones and those things brought back memories. Yet most of the book was about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Sasha (who annoyed me) and yet he kept trying to make it work. This book was more about one unknown guy's biography about his crazy adventures of working at a hogwan with crazy coworkers. I wanted more tidbits about Korea but I got all the drama of this guy's work and relationship drama instead.
I liked some aspects of the book with regards to how people viewed foreigners in 1996 in Busan all the way to him living in Seoul today. He mentions about when people used pagers and then they used small cell phones and those things brought back memories. Yet most of the book was about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Sasha (who annoyed me) and yet he kept trying to make it work. This book was more about one unknown guy's biography about his crazy adventures of working at a hogwan with crazy coworkers. I wanted more tidbits about Korea but I got all the drama of this guy's work and relationship drama instead.
September 10, 2017
This is not a bad story, but it's fairly standard in terms of books I've read about peoples' experiences in Korea. Having also arrived in Korea in early 1996, it was great to remember some of the aspects of the culture that have changed over the last 20 years. My biggest problem with the book was with some of the awkward language that survived the editing process. More proofreading would've solved this problem.
June 21, 2021
Experiencia de un profesor de inglés en una ciudad de Corea del Sur. Es levemente interesante y se nota mucho el cambio en el estilo de escritura del autor. Si hubiera escrito todo con el estilo del final habría sido de 4 estrellas.
May 14, 2016
This little gem of a book describes South Korea in the mid-1990s, as foreign English teachers descended upon, meandered about, and discovered a place within an ever more modern Korean society. New to Korea, and Korea new to them, both try to understand each other during this turbulent decade of much social and economic change. From the point-of-view of Adam Wanderson, you will be led on a first-person narrative of the job, the experiences, the landscape, the bars, and the many colorful western characters that found their way to Korea, to make a new home.
AUTHOR: Kevin M. Maher first arrived in South Korea for a one year stint in 1996, but continued to live there off and on over the next few decades. Korea never entirely left him, and some of the characters that found their way into his book, continue to frequent the bars, the streets, and the alleys of Busan an Seoul to this day. Now, all of them will be eternally memorialized, as they'll come alive in your own mind as you experience No Couches In Korea.
AUTHOR: Kevin M. Maher first arrived in South Korea for a one year stint in 1996, but continued to live there off and on over the next few decades. Korea never entirely left him, and some of the characters that found their way into his book, continue to frequent the bars, the streets, and the alleys of Busan an Seoul to this day. Now, all of them will be eternally memorialized, as they'll come alive in your own mind as you experience No Couches In Korea.
December 14, 2017
White man travels to Asia, marginalizes the locals as bumbling oafs and perpetuates the stereotype that the only reason white men venture to the other side of the world is to score with Asian chicks. As a former EFL instructor, I was hoping for a window into the Korea of the 1980s and 90s from the eye of the old guard expats who still haunt the back corners of Itaewon today. What I got was a very bland and boring read. I have yet to find a good book about teaching EFL in Korea!
July 12, 2017
As someone currently living in Busan, South Korea, I can say that this book was like reading about my current everyday happenings, but as if I'd been transported back in time (and on a much more drastic scale). It's worth picking up.
In terms of the actual writing and grammar... could be better, but should not discourage you.
In terms of the actual writing and grammar... could be better, but should not discourage you.
November 18, 2017
Poorly edited. No exciting revelations about living in Korea. More about the wholly uninteresting teachers who came to teach English. I cut my losses at 100 pages.
May 18, 2016
This wonderful little book is a must-read for anyone already living in, or considering life in an overseas country.
As young American expat, Adam, takes us with him through his new life in South Korea, his journey offers us astute insights into both the psyche of the young adventurer and the culture into which he tries to build a life. The results are highly entertaining and No Couches in Korea is a joy to read.
As an expat living in South Korea, I couldn’t put the book down from the start. It was comforting to read about another’s journey through all the different aspects of living abroad – maintaining relationships back home, family pressure to ‘settle down’, finding ways to deal with and adapt to difficult situations without even knowing the language, a completely unknown and sometimes incomprehensible working environment, wandering the streets not being able to find your home because of different address systems, trying to connect with locals and with whichever random group of expats happens to be thrown into the journey with you.....
Through Kevin Maher’s thoughtful and colourful portrayal, Adam shows us that although it’s not always an easy journey, it’s one that is filled with richness of experience during which lasting friendships are often formed within hotchpotch communities with a bonding that is unique to the expat situation. Low periods can be extreme and subsequent highs are inevitable. Adam explores periods of loneliness and vulnerability but emerges finally with an uplifting acknowledgement of an absolute love for human beings only strengthened by the ups and downs of his transition to that point.
As we journey with Adam, we come to understand and appreciate that by choosing this way of life we can give ourselves an opportunity to realise dreams, and a freedom to truly develop and emerge as a more fulfilled, complete, flexible, open and compassionate human being.
I came away from this book with a huge smile and a warm glow, feeling glad to be alive. I thoroughly recommend it for adventurous spirits of all ages.
As young American expat, Adam, takes us with him through his new life in South Korea, his journey offers us astute insights into both the psyche of the young adventurer and the culture into which he tries to build a life. The results are highly entertaining and No Couches in Korea is a joy to read.
As an expat living in South Korea, I couldn’t put the book down from the start. It was comforting to read about another’s journey through all the different aspects of living abroad – maintaining relationships back home, family pressure to ‘settle down’, finding ways to deal with and adapt to difficult situations without even knowing the language, a completely unknown and sometimes incomprehensible working environment, wandering the streets not being able to find your home because of different address systems, trying to connect with locals and with whichever random group of expats happens to be thrown into the journey with you.....
Through Kevin Maher’s thoughtful and colourful portrayal, Adam shows us that although it’s not always an easy journey, it’s one that is filled with richness of experience during which lasting friendships are often formed within hotchpotch communities with a bonding that is unique to the expat situation. Low periods can be extreme and subsequent highs are inevitable. Adam explores periods of loneliness and vulnerability but emerges finally with an uplifting acknowledgement of an absolute love for human beings only strengthened by the ups and downs of his transition to that point.
As we journey with Adam, we come to understand and appreciate that by choosing this way of life we can give ourselves an opportunity to realise dreams, and a freedom to truly develop and emerge as a more fulfilled, complete, flexible, open and compassionate human being.
I came away from this book with a huge smile and a warm glow, feeling glad to be alive. I thoroughly recommend it for adventurous spirits of all ages.
August 28, 2021
This book is an entertaining and insightful glimpse into a period of self realization and camaraderie that arises as a string of interesting characters from North America sign a one-year contract to teach English overseas. It is indeed the story of a handful of recent university grads that end up working together in a private language institute in Pusan, Korea, but it is also a coming of age story that follows these individuals as they try to navigate and negotiate their confusing existence in a (very) foreign society. Pre-Internet Korea was truly another world to these twenty somethings. They were sponsored to come and work, but their presence was unprecedented, at this time in Korean history, and outside of their teaching hours they were left to fend for themselves. Strong, but impermanent, relationships were quickly forged, and the way that these new friends supported each other through the confusion is endearing. The anecdotes that make up this story are touching, and anybody that has ventured out of their comfort zone will find them easy to relate to. Whether or not you are ever going to travel to Asia, whether or not you are, or were, a wandering westerner looking for something that seemed like it was far away, you will enjoy this read. It is an inspiring tale of how individuals come together when they need community. It is a tale of how our true character emerges when it is all we have to rely on, having left family and friends on the other end of a very long flight. It is a story that makes you wonder what you would have done in their place.
May 25, 2016
A great account of what it was like to be an English in Korea during the mid 1990's. Having been there myself during the same period albeit a little further north up in Gongju, I can attest that the characters Kevin writes about were definitely real as I saw similar people myself.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews