Ok Korea, it's your turn

I have been in Korea for almost seven months and have been blogging in Korea for about four months; however, I have hardly posted anything about Korea.   I suppose that I struggle to post about Korea because I have not really felt welcomed into the culture here.  I was spoiled in Georgia by their generous hospitality and not receiving the same treatment here made me sour.  Most of the other ex-Georgian English teachers that are here share similar sentiments.  I should not have let my experiences with another culture affect my experience with Korea and have decided to renew my attitude since returning from my (amazing) South African holiday.  So, move over memories of Georgia, it’s time for Korea. 

Korea is a country with convenience stores conveniently located on every convenient corner.  From my apartment there are about six convenient stores within five convenient minutes walking distance.  They are all conveniently open 24/7.

No shoes indoors!  This includes schools and office buildings too.  When I show up to work, I take off my outdoor shoes and put on my school shoes, which are pool sandals or slippers, depending on the season. 

Poop.  The relationship Koreans have with excrement is reminiscent of the hilarious relationship I had with poo as a child.  On one family vacation, during an excruciatingly long drive out west, my siblings and I entertained ourselves by constructing a clay bathroom.  This included a man squatting over the toilet with toilet paper stuck to his butt and poo in the toilet (when it came to toilets, we were detail oriented children).  The Koreans have taken it to the next level with the establishment of a toilet-themed park that looks extremely similar to the clay mold we made as kids.  Luke, Emily and Jacob, how much would we have loved this when we were kids?  Here is the Google image search of the Suwon Toilet Park.  Still interested?  You can play this game where you shoot hands up a butt while trying to dodge falling poo.

Toilet seat building

Rice.  You cannot escape the rice.  It is served with every single school lunch and when I don’t eat a lot of it I sense my co-workers discussing why I haven’t eaten all of my rice.

I love Korean food.  It’s nice and spicy with lots of flavours.  More to come on this…

I haven’t lived in the USA since 2010 and am sure that smartphone use is up to par with Korea, but I’ll still mention the rampant use of smartphones.  It was a culture shock from the moment I got off the plane in Seoul where I saw 8 out of every 10 people on their phones mere seconds after departing from the aircraft.  They are ubiquitous. 

Korean dessert gets two giant thumbs down from me.  They try to pass bland rice cakes as dessert.  They should take the sugar out of everything else and put it into their desserts instead; I would much rather have savory chips and a sweet dessert than slightly sweet chips and slightly sweet desserts. 

Packaging.  If you buy crackers or cookies, they will undoubtedly be packed in a plastic tray and every group of 4-6 crackers or each cookie will also be individually wrapped.  Usually, zucchini at the supermarket is individually wrapped, as are eggplant and cucumbers.

Korea is home to a line of bullet trains.  To sit at a station and watch a train zip past at speeds higher than 300 kmh is crazy.  The train is literally just a blur for 5 seconds, and then it’s gone.

I often receive lots of stares when I cross the street in Korea.  Why?  Because I don’t wait for the green man to tell me when to cross.  If there are no cars coming from any direction (the whole intersection empty), I cross the street (as would you, probably), none of my fellow Korean pedestrians do so, however.  They wait and wait and wait for that green man to tell them to cross.  Similarly, in my experience, handicapped stalls in bathrooms are not used by the non-handicapped.  There can be a line of 10 people with no handicapped people in sight and the handicapped stalls remain unused.  If I gotta go, I don’t hesitate to use them, despite the stares I receive.  The phrase “rules are made to be broken” does not apply in Korea.

Masculinity is not the same here as it is in the USA.  I have always joked that it is better to be a woman in American culture because we have more “freedom” with our clothing style and choices.  Women don’t generally get judged for wearing certain colors of clothing and our closets are much more versatile than a man’s closet.  In Korea, that joke wouldn’t stand.  Men have as much “freedom” with their clothing choices.  Men continuously cross the line between masculine and feminine we have in the States.  Skinny jeans, scarves, makeup, “girl” colors, jeans tucked into boots, everything you might associate with feminine dress if you are from the States, is worn by men here.

Well, there you have it, my 2 cents on bits of Korean culture.