About Sammy Nams

Hi, Ma’m Sir!

If you’re reading this, I’d like to thank you for taking an interest in me and my humble blog. As the title of my blog states, my name is Sammy Nams and I am a Korean-American who is currently living in the Philippines – more specifically Metro Manila. This blog is the classic ‘fish out of water‘ story that is my daily life. But first let me share a little about myself.

I’m a full-blooded Korean. My mother graduated from nursing school in Seoul, South Korea, during the mid-1970s. Back then, South Korea was not the modern country that we see today, so parents decided to immigrate to the United States in 1976. My sister was born in 1978 and I followed her 5 years later. Although my parents worked and owned businesses in the US for many decades, my sister and I were effectively raised as Korean children. We spoke Korean, ate Korean food and even studied Korean history under my father’s tutelage. Like most Fil-Ams, Korean-American kids have a limited understanding of their native language. However, I attended a boarding school during my high school years that had a large Korean international student population. This resulted in me becoming almost fully fluent in Korean. After college, I worked for a Korean gaming company that is famous for developing the game Ragnarok Online, which was also hugely popular here in the Philippines. Unfortunately, over the past 5 years my Korean language proficiency has been gradually deteriorating due to a lack of use (no Koreans to speak with). I still consider myself to be well versed in Korean culture and cuisine. Oh… but I don’t know anything about Korean Drama or K-Pop, so please don’t ask.

I was born and raised in the ‘States’. I’ve voted for 2 presidents and consider myself to be a red-blooded American. In fact growing up I often forgot that I was “Asian” and my friends were “White”. The twang in my English often catches people off guard here in Manila and I secretly enjoy watching their expressions. Filipinos can’t tell if I’m Korean or Chinese Fil-Am. Most often strangers will guess by default that I am Chinese.

So, how did I end up in the Philippines? Two reasons. The first reason was that my company is headquartered in Los Angeles, but maintains a large company (about 200 employees) here in Manila. They needed someone from the executive management team to relocate to our Manila office as the token “Expat” and everyone else was unwilling to move their families overseas. Lucky for me, I have no kids. The second reason was that I met, fell in love with and married a beautiful Filipina who I met here in Manila.

And that’s the story of how how this ‘fish‘ flew 7,000 miles to ‘live out of water‘ on a beautiful tropical island. If you read this far, thank you very much.