Our First Month in Korea as a Multicultural Family: A Step-by-Step Checklist
On February 23, 2023, my Vietnamese wife, our young child and I arrived in Korea after living in Vietnam. I'm Korean, so I thought the first month would be easy. It wasn't. Almost every step needed a document we didn't have, an appointment we hadn't booked, or a rule nobody had told us about. Two things surprised us most. First, even though we had already reported our child's birth in Vietnam, we couldn't enroll our child in daycare until we sorted out the resident registration number. Second, a simple phone plan got stuck because my wife's name was written differently on different documents. I'll explain how we solved both below. This is the checklist I wish I'd had on day one. It's written for foreign spouses of Koreans and for Korean partners helping them settle in. Quick summary Order What to do Where 1 Book the foreigner registration appointment for your spouse HiKorea website 2 Do the move-in report (전입신고) Community service cente...