Are you curious about the lives of POSCO’s overseas expatriates who enjoy working and leisure in an exotic environment? POSCO Newsroom reports on the local lives of overseas expatriates. In Part 1, we meet Don-Gun Kim, an resident engineer working at Renault in France.
Hi. I am Don-Gun Kim, a resident engineer who has been working as an expatriate at the Renault Tech Center in Guyancourt, a suburb of Paris, since November 2021. POSCO Group has maintained a close cooperative relationship with Renault Group in the steel sector since 2014, and is gradually expanding the scope of technological cooperation to include secondary battery materials and hydrogen. Our cooperation does not end with making eco-friendly cars, but is expanding in scope to all areas of eco-friendly materials to create a carbon-neutral and eco-friendly car market.
I joined POSCO’s Gwangyang Forming Research Group (formerly the Automobile Processing Research Group) in 2010 and have been working at the Songdo Steel Solution Research Institute since 2012. Anyone who enjoys challenges and romance would dream of working and living abroad at least once. I also thought working overseas after joining POSCO would be a good idea. I realized that I would need experience in a variety of fields to do so, and I was dispatched to the Automotive Materials Solutions Group in 2018, even though I was still affiliated with the research center.
After I started working with Renault Nissan and continued working in Songdo, I naturally had the opportunity to challenge myself as an expatriate overseas. I heard that many people applied for the Renault resident engineer position, but I was selected to work as an expatriate at the Renault Tech Center in 2021 in recognition of the work I had performed over the years.
Renault’s departments have different policies, but the one I belong to operates on a flexible work schedule. Anyone can commute to work according to their schedule between 7 AM and 8 PM as long as they keep a 35-hour work week. This policy was created after the COVID-19 pandemic: if you work at the office for at least two days a week, you can work from home for the remaining days. As you may have expected, I work according to POSCO’s working hours. I stay home on Fridays unless Renault requests a meeting. Even the cafeteria is closed that day because most employees are not in the office (Smile).
You might think that I am fluent in French since I am an expatriate in France. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Most of my colleagues are French, but we communicate in English. I wanted to learn French when I arrived in France, but it took work. So, I can only say hello or simple greetings. One useful expression is “Je ne parle pas français,” which means “I don’t speak French.” Everyone understands it well, although my pronunciation is poor. It is very useful when I receive an advertising call since they hang up immediately.
My colleagues are mostly French or Canadians. I am the only Korean there. I was initially worried about how to deal with them, but I found that French people are friendly. The American teacher who teaches me English says that Korean and French people are surprisingly similar in many ways. He thinks we are very curious about each other and like talking.
I think it is really true. They enjoy talking over coffee breaks, and I get more information and ideas during tea time than during meetings. Since business meetings are official events, expressions are limited, and thoughts are bound to be rigid. However, as we chat about personal matters, the atmosphere becomes more relaxed, and better ideas emerge. I have this kind of occasion more often. I learned about the overall need for materials for eco-friendly cars through conversations with Renault colleagues and held an event called POSCO Group Tech Day at Renault on November 16, 2023. Moreover, as communication became smoother, we had opportunities to supply new materials and strengthen collaboration between technology and sales in various areas.
People who are thinking about becoming an expatriate often ask, “Will I adapt well to a foreign country?” I had the same question at first. But people are similar wherever you are. I was initially shy, and they seemed uncomfortable talking to me, so I approached them proactively, said hello, and started talking to them, and from then on, everyone started to treat me comfortably. There was a time when I said I wanted to go on a trip to Annecy, France, and a co-worker with whom I was not very close told me it was his hometown and led me to his desk. I followed him, and he unfolded a map and explained the attractions I should visit. I remember him patiently answering all the questions I had.
It is not easy to find a place to live, go to the hospital, and find a school for your child in France. You have to have a phone number and bank account to get a house, but you need a home address to get a phone number and bank account. Being a foreigner in an unfamiliar place and solving these things one at a time was difficult. We all know that these procedures are carried out very quickly in Korea. Sometimes, I wondered why everything was so slow and frustrating. I received a lot of help from the Korean community whenever I faced a difficulty. There was a lot of information on how to get to the hospital and how to get the items I needed, which was very useful in helping me adapt to local life. Asking colleagues was also helpful. You can obtain useful information by actively asking questions and seeking opinions on things related to the local area.
The most important thing in expatriate life is family. If you have children, it is no exaggeration to say that their school life determines your quality of life. Expatriates send their children to international schools, except in English-speaking countries. Since the official language of international schools is English, teaching them the language in advance will help them gain confidence in school life.
It is a word that represents French culture, which is related to understanding and accepting differences. French people say that even when they cannot go to work because the subway workers are on strike, it should all be for a reason, and they do not complain since they believe that it will help them in the end. I am not sure if that is true…(Smile)!
The phrase means “It depends” in English and is often used to explain the slow French administrative services. It may take 4 weeks or even 4 months to produce a single document, and you will get the answer “Ça dépend” when you ask how long it will take. It also means not to worry about it, accept it and wait if it is not very important in your life. It should be noted that “not very important tasks” include administrative services such as obtaining a driver’s license or residence permit. The culture encourages you to pay more attention to the people around you and enjoy a happy life than trivial things. Of course, the reality is quite different. ^^
① Tourist attractions in Paris
France is the world’s no.1 tourism country. It is not an exaggeration to say that France has the most cultural heritage in the world. In addition to the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre Museum, Musée d’Orsay, Notre Dame, and the Palace of Versailles, you can also see Giverny (Monet’s garden), Van Gogh’s tomb, and Disneyland within an hour’s drive. I remember going to see an exhibition of the Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests’ Zen Teachings, the world’s oldest extant book printed with movable metal type, at the National Library in Paris. I wonder if there could be a better education than getting an annual membership to the Musée d’Orsay or the Louvre Museum and taking your child there every weekend. Of course, it is not easy to visit them once a month.
② Tourist attractions outside of Paris and Europe
You can easily travel to Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium by car from Paris. It takes 10 hours to travel to Barcelona and 15 hours to Rome. You can visit most countries in Europe within 4 hours by plane. You can travel to countries that have joined the Schengen Agreement* without separate passport verification, so it is worth taking full advantage of it if you are stationed in Europe. I went to the Netherlands to visit the Yi Jun Peace Museum in the Hague and the painting by Rubens that Nero and Patrasche, the main characters in the movie The Dog of Flanders, last saw.
*Schengen Agreement: An open border treaty providing for visa-free travel between member states of the European Union (EU)
③ Bread
Bread can be categorized into three types in French: Pain (bread like baguettes), Viennoiserie (Viennese pastries like croissants), and Pâtisserie (pastries and cakes like cakes and macarons). French people are very proud of their bread. Soon after I arrived in Paris, colleagues asked me if I had found my own bakery. I wondered why they were asking this question, but it wasn’t long before I found my own bakery. I thought bread was bread and how could one differ from others, but I completely changed my mind after trying baguettes made in Paris. Moreover, the price was unbelievably cheap at around 1.2 euros, so it was very satisfactory. There are many kinds of bread other than baguettes, and I encourage you to enjoy them.
④ French wine tour
France has many famous wine-producing regions. Bordeaux, the farthest city from Paris, can be reached in about 6 hours by car, and other places such as Champagne, Loire, and Burgundy can be reached in 3 to 5 hours. So, if you are at all interested in wine, I highly recommend enjoying various wine tours on weekends!
⑤ Course meal for fine dining and raclette
Fine dining course meals are expensive in Korea at 200,000 to 300,000 won, but they are not as expensive as you might think in France. Course meals priced around 100,000 won are wonderful, so I recommend visiting local restaurants even without Michelin stars. Many tourists visit Paris, so it sells a variety of meals. Personally, I recommend raclette, a winter food most Europeans enjoy. It is a leading Swiss cheese dish, along with fondue, made by dipping potatoes, vegetables, ham, etc. in melted cheese. Casual dishes include onion soup, veal, duck, etc. Try them whenever you get a chance.
On April 15, I attended the Expatriate Leadership Course Before/During Assignment held at POSCO Group University. I received specialized training in leadership, global negotiations, and communication during the 5-day program. Most expatriates work alone, and talking or asking about the head office is difficult. However, this program was a good opportunity to satisfy the thirst for information about changes and trends in Korea and the head office. The content, which helped you to change your thinking to a discussion/participation type and refresh your future career vision, was a big professional and psychological help.
When I return to the Songdo Steel Solution Research Institute, I plan to conduct research and development for technological cooperation and sales expansion with customers. The global capabilities and negotiation skills acquired through this training program will greatly help me to communicate and work with customers. The Expatriate Leadership Course Before/During Assignment is an integrated program and was great because I was able to communicate with people working or planning to work in other countries, share local experiences, and empathize with them. I was very proud to be able to convey our experiences vividly to junior expatriates.
I now have about a year left in my expatriate position. I plan to achieve good results at Renault in the time remaining. Personally, I want to make many good memories with my family. I will travel often and capture the scenery around France in my heart so I can smile later and say, “I made these memories in France.” This was Don-Gun Kim, a POSCO special correspondent currently working as a resident engineer at Renault in France.