Are You Just Tired, or Is It Something Deeper? Naming and Navigating Expat Social Fatigue in Korea
By Maria Lisak
- Have you been feeling drained by every social interaction lately – even the ones you used to enjoy?
- Do you dread the next teacher dinner, book club, language exchange, or weekend hike?
- Are you avoiding group chats, ignoring event invites, and mentally rehearsing how to say “I’m just too busy”?
- Do you feel lonely but also weary of trying to make new connections?
- Do you ever think, “Maybe I don’t belong here anymore” – but can’t say exactly why?
If any of this resonates, you might be experiencing something that doesn’t get talked about enough: expat social fatigue.
What Is Expat Social Fatigue?
Expat social fatigue is a form of emotional, mental, and physical burnout that arises from the cumulative effort of trying to connect and belong in a foreign cultural and linguistic environment. It goes beyond homesickness. It’s the sense that everything – even the search for friendship, support, or community – has become effortful, hollow, or even harmful.
It’s what happens when the expat social playbook (“Just join a language exchange!” “Go to a meetup!” “Say yes more!”) starts to feel like a lie – or worse, a trap.
But Wait – What Do We Mean by “Expat”?
Let’s interrogate the term itself. “Expat” carries with it a web of class privilege, racial implications, and unspoken assumptions. White professionals are often labeled “expats.” Meanwhile, those from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, or the former Soviet bloc – whether engineers, caregivers, or teachers – are more likely to be called “migrants” or “foreign workers.”
Even within EFL, native-speaking teachers from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand might be treated as “guests,” while their equally fluent colleagues from the Philippines, India, Nigeria, or South Africa are subjected to more intense scrutiny, prejudice, and exclusion.
So maybe what we’re really dealing with isn’t just “expat fatigue” but the fatigue of navigating an identity constructed through uneven power, language, and status. Perhaps a better term would be migrant or transnational social fatigue: the exhaustion of performing adaptation in systems that don’t always reciprocate inclusion.
Causes of Social Fatigue Among EFL Teachers in Korea
Let’s zoom in on South Korea, where many of us in KOTESOL live, work, and try to build lives. What are the unique contributors to social fatigue in this context?
- Professional Precarity: Visa renewals, school contracts, sudden policy shifts – many of us live year to year without real job security.
- Language Labor: Even fluent Korean speakers often have to perform linguistic code-switching, emotional translation, or endure moments of “foreigner infantilization.”
- Social Gatekeeping: Some spaces are hard to access if you’re not Korean. Others become echo chambers of expat drama, hierarchy, or superficiality.
- Cultural Misrecognition: You might feel hyper-visible (always the foreigner) and invisible (not seen for your full humanity) at the same time.
- Disconnection from Peers: Many of us watch close friendships fade as others leave the country, burn out, or grow distant over time.
- Unprocessed Microaggressions: From backhanded compliments to outright exclusion, small acts accumulate – and the emotional cost is real.
Managing Expat Social Fatigue (A Few Things That Have Helped Me)
I’m not going to tell you to “just put yourself out there” or “try harder.” Honestly? That advice exhausted me. Instead, here are a few things that have helped me live through the weariness – especially when the people I thought would be there weren’t.
1. Choose Depth Over Breadth
In 2024, I attended everything: meetups, KOTESOL mixers, dinners, group chats. But very few connections endured. In 2025, I did less, and more came to me. Hanging out with one person over coffee can be more nourishing than a dozen bar nights.
2. Give Yourself Permission to Withdraw
When I was sick, some people ghosted. Others moved toward different crowds. I learned not to chase them. Letting go is its own kind of care.
3. Find the Third Space
I began reconnecting with the arts: drawing classes, gallery walks, writing workshops. These spaces were neither all-Korean nor all-expat – and they didn’t demand performance, just presence.
4. Reframe “Community”
Community isn’t always who lives near you. Sometimes it’s a friend who responds once a semester, or an email conversation with a writer in another country, or a long-lost colleague who resurfaces when you need it most.
5. When Humor Hurts
A friend once called me “fat, old, and ugly.” Hilarious, right? I didn’t think so either. That was when I realized that not all jokes are funny – and that not all friends are worth the punchlines. Now, I save my laughter for things that don’t hurt.
Final Thoughts
While this might sound personal, it has direct implications for teacher retention, classroom presence, and professional sustainability.
If you’re feeling tired – not just physically, but existentially – it’s not just you. And it’s not weakness.
Naming expat social fatigue is the first step. Understanding its structural roots – how race, class, migration, and language all intersect – is the next. If any part of this rings true, maybe it’s time we started talking about it more – at conferences, in workshops, and in the quiet corners where we can be real.
But maybe the most important thing is this: You’re not alone. Not weird. Not broken. Just someone trying to live well in a world that makes belonging hard. And that deserves gentleness, not guilt.
_______________
The Author
With over 30 years of EFL experience, Maria Lisak, EdD is a full-time professor in the Department of Administration Welfare at Chosun University, where she teaches social entrepreneurship in English using experiential learning and sociocultural approaches. Her work integrates constructivist and emancipatory frameworks, with research focusing on funds of knowledge, Gwangju as method, and social justice education. She also designs educational technologies and materials for diverse ESP contexts, linking classroom practice with community needs. Dr. Lisak’s current interests include literacy, culture, and language education, as well as participatory frameworks for teacher wellbeing. She is the current president of the Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter of KOTESOL, and a lifetime member of KOTESOL and AsiaTEFL. Her interdisciplinary work invites reflection on multimodal pedagogies, material making, and context-driven innovation in borderland spaces.
