South Korea is one of the most technologically advanced, safest, most convenient, and clinically capable countries a Canadian could reasonably consider living in. Its trains run on time to the minute. Its broadband is faster than almost anything in North America. Its hospitals are excellent. Its cities feel orderly, humane, and extraordinarily easy to move through. And Canadians can walk into the country for up to six months without a visa at all.

That last part sounds almost absurdly easy. It is easy. But the question this article actually asks is a different one: does a country being exceptionally good at running itself mean it is exceptionally good at absorbing you into it? Those are not the same question, and the gap between them is where most expat regret lives.