KoreaToday 120 Dasan Call Center reaches out to foreigners

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Staff reporter

On the first floor of the 120 Dasan Call Center building in Dongdaemun, central Seoul, 10 counselors are busy providing advice on various problems experienced by expatriates from travel directions to overdue wages. They provide the service in five foreign languages - English, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Mongolian.

Since it opened in February, the foreign language department of the call center receives some 150 to 200 calls a day, which is relatively small compared to the general 120 service which receives an average of 40,000 calls a day. The most popular languages are English and Vietnamese followed by Mongolian and Chinese. Japanese counselors received the fewest number of calls.

Currently, a total of 20 foreign language speaking counselors work at the center, four for each language and they work one-day on, one-day off. Ten of them are Korean, while the rest were born in China, Mongolia and Vietnam. The Chinese and Vietnamese counselors are naturalized Koreans.

Dasan operates from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and the calls are directed to the tourist information center, which also can be reached by dialing 1330, during the after-hours. The center is considering expanding to a 24-hour service, as offered by the 120 service, after watching developments.

English counselor Dave K. Park, 36, receives the most diverse inquiries - from pregnancy test strips to lost hockey gear in a taxi.

"I am learning from expatriates things that I didn't know as a Seoulite," he told The Korea Times during an interview last week. "Though Koreans are speaking English better than in the old days, still the biggest problem for foreigners is the language."

He once received a call from a foreigner who was unable to get an Internet connection after moving into a new house. "He did not know he had to close the contract at the previous house and establish a new one at the new house, so I helped him through the telephone office," Kim said.

Lim Hyun-jung, 29, was a general counselor at the 120 call center from 2008, but transferred to the foreign language department with her fluent Japanese.

She said Japanese residents or visitors tend to resolve their problems on their own and thus the number of calls is relatively fewer compared to other languages.

"I receive about 20 calls a day and half of them are from Japanese tourists," Lim said.

Most Japanese tourists want to visit film sets for dramas or films - the Banpo Bridge with its rainbow fountain appearing in the hit thriller "Iris," or the house used as Gang Dong-won's residence in the 2003 drama "Something About 1 Percent."

"Once I received a call from a Japanese family asking me to explain the history of Korea, especially about Kings Sejong, Jungjong, Yeongjo and Jumong. All these kings had appeared on popular Korean dramas and the parents wanted to teach Korean history to their children," she said. "I searched and told them as accurately as possible, but I realized that I knew so little about Korean history. I hope I didn't tell them anything wrong."

So Lim has to be familiar with films and dramas to deal with tourists. "I watched 'Queen Seondeok,' but it wasn't very popular among Japanese visitors," she said.

One of the most popular calls the counselors receive is asking for interpretation, especially from the family of married immigrants.

Kim Jung-ae, 40, the Chinese consultant, has been interpreting between an interracial married couple for months now.

"They first called me when the Chinese wife was six months pregnant; but their baby has been born by now," Kim said. "Their calls tend to last longer than usual. The record is 55 minutes."

She tries to explain and reduce cultural differences between the married couple. "For instance, the wife bought 10 kilograms of millet and hundreds of eggs after giving birth and the husband could not understand her as Koreans eat seaweed soup after delivery. But in China, women eat mullet gruel and boiled eggs after giving birth. I had to explain the different customs to each of them to clear up the misunderstanding," she said.

Most calls from Vietnamese people are from migrant workers, said Kim Min-seo, 26, the Vietnamese counselor. Kim is a naturalized married immigrant and worked as a counselor at the Seoul Global Center before transferring to Dasan.

"I am happy and pleased when I help immigrant workers settle their problems with employers or the immigration office," Kim said.

Once, she had to call an employer of a migrant worker from Vietnam to cancel an absence report to the immigrations office. The worker had troubles with his employer and the user reported him as deserting his position, which made the worker's status illegal. An employer can report absence when the worker does not come to the workplace for more than five days.

"I had to persuade the employer to go to the immigrations office and take back the report and he did cancel it. Later, the worker called me again to thank me and wanted send me a present, but I didn't give him my address as I just did what I had to do," Kim said with a smile. "I had a hard time getting accustomed to life in Korea when I first arrived here and I want to help those who are going through the same difficulty."

Magnaibayar Jadambaa, 34, the Mongolian counselor, said Mongolian people only ask for help when they are in a real emergency urgent situation.

In March, Jadambaa helped a hotel clerk when a Mongolian guest collapsed in a sauna with a kidney problem.

"At first, I got the situation wrong and thought it was an employer-migrant worker situation. I wondered why he was not taking him to the hospital immediately," she said. Immigrant workers are also frequent callers to 120 for the Mongolian service.

She interpreted where the guest had the problem and kept speaking with the hotel staff member on the way to the hospital and after a medical examination there. She also contacted the guest's friend to come and act as a guardian.

The hotel employee later thanked Jadambaa again through the call center's website.

The foreign language counselors are eager to promote their service.

"I wish we could do volunteer work at events for foreigners to help them and let them know about our service," Lim said.