I don't know man, I beg to differ. I am a non-ethnic, naturalized Korean who immigrated to Korea fairly young. I am fully assimilated (note that I am not saying integrated, but assimilated; this is critical) and part of society, I feel I have an equal opportunity at doing anything a "native" Korean would do. I could run for politics if I wanted to (which I am considering), my relationship with people are as normal as they could be. I don't feel "tolerated" nor "accepted", nor have I ever felt the need to. People basically treat me the same as they would treat any other Korean.
Sure, there is some minor "friction" because of my different ethnicity (basically I look white), such as random people first assuming that I am a foreigner, which is completely understandable for historical reasons. I do that myself, whenever I see a white or black person, my first reflex isn't to assume that they are Korean too, there is a 99% chance that they are foreigners. But all it takes is a 10mn conversation for them to know that I am "one of them". I sometimes get puzzled looks from people who have never met someone like me, but that's mainly because most of the population don't even know you _could_ naturalize and become Korean. At the airport, the staff speaks in English to me at first, but as soon as they see my passport they profusely apologize and switch back to "Korean" mode. That's about it.
I do however understand and sympathize with the fact that many foreigners, even long-term residents, might feel the way you described. I am just disputing your claim that it's "impossible" to become Korean.
I personally think because Korean society functions in a very binary way: either you accept everything and take it in as a whole and then can become a member of society, or you just do a few things (such as marrying a Korean person, speaking Korean to a certain level, etc.) and you don't. There are valid reasons to act like that, there is this instinct of jealously preserving Korean culture out of fear that it will be taken over by other giants: China, Japan, the US, etc. And Koreans would rather keep the bad aspects of their culture than risk losing it all. It's just part of the deal, and I think many foreigners have a hard time understanding/accepting this fact.
Sure, there is some minor "friction" because of my different ethnicity (basically I look white), such as random people first assuming that I am a foreigner, which is completely understandable for historical reasons. I do that myself, whenever I see a white or black person, my first reflex isn't to assume that they are Korean too, there is a 99% chance that they are foreigners. But all it takes is a 10mn conversation for them to know that I am "one of them". I sometimes get puzzled looks from people who have never met someone like me, but that's mainly because most of the population don't even know you _could_ naturalize and become Korean. At the airport, the staff speaks in English to me at first, but as soon as they see my passport they profusely apologize and switch back to "Korean" mode. That's about it.
I do however understand and sympathize with the fact that many foreigners, even long-term residents, might feel the way you described. I am just disputing your claim that it's "impossible" to become Korean.
I personally think because Korean society functions in a very binary way: either you accept everything and take it in as a whole and then can become a member of society, or you just do a few things (such as marrying a Korean person, speaking Korean to a certain level, etc.) and you don't. There are valid reasons to act like that, there is this instinct of jealously preserving Korean culture out of fear that it will be taken over by other giants: China, Japan, the US, etc. And Koreans would rather keep the bad aspects of their culture than risk losing it all. It's just part of the deal, and I think many foreigners have a hard time understanding/accepting this fact.