What should I know before meeting a Korean local for the first time?

"Cheoeum boepgesseumnida" means roughly "I am meeting you for the first time" and is the standard first-meeting phrase. Following it with "bangapseumnida" (pleased to meet you) is natural. Both are worth practicing until they come out without hesitation, because the opening sets the register for everything after it.

Exchanging names usually includes asking what to call each other. If your name is hard to pronounce in Korean, offering a short version yourself saves the other person an awkward attempt.

Korea moved to international age reckoning in official use in 2023, so stated ages now generally match what you would expect. Birth year is still commonly asked instead of age, because year of birth is what determines school cohort and therefore social position.

As a visitor you are outside this system and nobody will hold you to it. Using the polite -yo ending with everyone, regardless of age, is correct and safe for the entire trip.

At a table, the oldest person sits first and usually starts eating first. Elders are served first, and if someone older pours you a drink you hold the glass with two hands and, traditionally, turn slightly away when drinking. You do not pour your own drink; you keep an eye on other people's glasses and fill them, and someone will fill yours.

Chopstick rules are short and worth knowing. Do not stand chopsticks upright in rice, which resembles a funeral offering, and do not pick up the rice bowl to eat from it, unlike in Japan or China. The spoon is for rice and soup, chopsticks for everything else.

Agree the meeting point precisely, using a station exit number rather than a landmark. Seoul subway exits are numbered and signposted, and "exit 6 of Hongik University Station at 2pm" is unambiguous in a way that "outside the station" is not; large stations have more than ten exits several hundred meters apart.

If plans change, change them by message early rather than silently absorbing the inconvenience. Cancelling with a day's notice is fine; cancelling an hour before is not.

A comfortable convention for a first meeting between a visitor and a resident is that each pays for their own coffee, or one pays for coffee and the other for a snack afterwards. This is common enough that proposing it will not seem odd. In a matching context such as localseoul, the resident is not paid by the traveler at all, so splitting is the expected default.

If someone insists on paying, let them, thank them, and pay for the next round or the next stop. Reciprocating later is more appreciated than refusing at the time.

Avoid physical familiarity. Back-slapping, shoulder-touching and hugs with someone you have just met are read as intrusive, even though same-sex friends in Korea are physically affectionate with each other once close.

Avoid photographing people without asking, including staff, market vendors and residents in Bukchon. In residential hanok areas this is a live local complaint rather than an abstract courtesy, and signs asking for quiet and privacy are there because of visitor behavior.