Top Ten Observations of South Korean Culture

10. They love their fur. As most of you may know, they also love their dogs. Dog meat was a traditional delicacy (believed to make men stronger), which more recently has been shunned. While steps are being taken to protect animals, dogs are still treated very differently than they are treated in the United States. Puppies are everywhere. They are sold in the subways, on the streets, and in the thousands of pet stores (seen on just about every other street corner). One could probably assume that, given the huge population of puppies, they are mistreated and inbred. In addition, those dogs that are still produced for meat, though they are more and more rare, are beaten to death. It is believed that the proper way to produce dog meat is to take it from a dog that was terrified before death. On that note, there are fur coats, collars, and other clothing accessories sold in nearly every shop. South Koreans love their fur, and believe me, it is not fake.

9. There are mirrors everywhere. I notice them on the elevators, on the walls of restaurants, and in shops and bathrooms of course. Well, there are many more than in America. It makes checking one's teeth after a meal of green seaweed and rice very easy to do.

8. I have already complained to my parents about this one. No dryers! They have fancy washing machines, pink, and purple, and red ones, with rhinestones, and silly little jingles that play when your load is finished, but not a single dryer (that is, in the city of Po'hang). This means you have to dry your clothes on a rack, and if you are a genius, like I am, use a heating lamp.

7. The city is divided into shopping sections. If you want furniture, go to Jukdo. If you want clothes, go downtown. If you want coffee, go just about anywhere. But really, different shops appear in different sections of the city. So, say I needed some tool one would only find at a hardware store. Turn a corner off of the main shopping mall, and an entire street will be lined with hardware stores. I even saw a block with shops selling primarily fans. While this makes shopping exceptionally easy (if you are looking for a fan, you have a great selection to choose from if you just go to the right part of the city), I can't imagine the competition between individual shops. Do shopowners start grabbing people off the street, in order to promote their store? If your shop is not in plain site, or last in a row of similar stores, how do you make money? I would guess that by the time the shopper gets to your store, s/he has already found what they are looking for. I am not sure how this works, but it is of interest to me.

6. You can always find meat shops because they have a red glow coming from them. I am not kidding. Red, you think blood, right? Well that must be their thought too when they are building these places. The majority of indoor lighting in these buildings comes from red, or pink, bulbs. I don't know if they serve any other purpose than to make the meat appear bloodier than it already is, but it can make me nervous.

5. When you shop, the employees follow you around the store. Coming from America, this feels like they are pressuring you to buy, buy, buy. However, here in South Korea, it is simply how things work. Unfortunately, this means the only thing you can do is pretend they don't exist. At first I felt bad doing this, but you have to ignore their hovering and constant suggestions if you want to escape the store without having spent your life's savings. Needless to say, when you do have a question, they are very helpful and clearly available.

4. You will never go without a cell phone. Cell phone shops are everywhere, and like Starbucks is taking over the world, cell phone stores have taken over South Korea. In Daegu, where my boss and his wife live and where I stayed for the first weekend after training, cell phone stores actually dominate the shopping district. And in case you don't notice them for some unknown reason, each one blasts their own brand of Korean music from speakers actually hanging outside the shop. I am not sure what the connection is between cell phones and loud music, but perhaps this started back in the day as a way of grabbing people's attention.

3. If you have an MCM bag, show it off in South Korea. They love MCM, though it is not nearly as popular in the states. Not sure why?

2. I will take this as an opportunity to share with my readers the strange and amusing story my coworker and friend told me just this week. First, let me say that young Korean girls are not ashamed to express how they feel, which is a very positive and good thing. This means, though, that they are not afraid to obsess over our male teachers. While the same may go for the male students (I haven't heard much), our female students have gushed to my coworker (she is a female too) about one of the men on our staff. Before I arrived, students and teachers were told of my plans to work in Po'hang. This is where her story got interesting. The children interogated my coworker about my looks and what I would be like. When she asked them why they were so interested and concerned, they looked at her sadly and said, "Teacher, we don't want to have to compete for his (meaning the unnamed male staff member they are most interested in) attention. If she is pretty, then she will be competition." I have never been exposed to a culture that is so concerned about looks in this way. In America, while women too are competing for male attention, the pressure to look good is about the second glance, the interest others have in seeing sudden physical beauty. Here, however, it is more than that. It appears that the women are nearly obsessed with snagging the few available foreign men here, and because of the culture difference, this can often times end badly. Many Koreans believe that they should be able to marry a man that they are committed to. I am not saying this is wrong, but American women seem to have become accustomed to having no expectations. In Korea, their expectations are clear sometimes within the first few weeks or months: love, marriage, loyalty, protection, etc. While I learned a lot about these expectations in the first few weeks speaking with friends who have been here a few months already, I was shocked to learn about how the children at our school acted upon hearing of my job acceptance and arrival in Po'hang. They not only spoke with other teachers about their feelings, but actually considered me a threat to their fantasies. Upon hearing this news, I didn't quite know what to say.

1. For my last observation, I have compiled a list of social customs and etiquette that my readers may find interesting.

a. When receiving something from an elder, take it with two hands. The same goes for giving an elder something - give it with two hands.
b. If an elder bumps into you, it is your fault and your responsibility to say "Excuse me."
c. It is illegal to jaywalk in Korea (or at least in Po'hang), but I do it anyways - the police are very lax or nonexistent here.
d. To get the waiters attention at a restaurant, every table has a bell. It is a very excellent system.
e. The male at the restaurant table, if there is one, hands out spoons and chopsticks to all women.
f. Watch out for cars, they will run you over. Pedestrians are second class citizens here. That goes the same for bicycles and scooters - watch out!
g. Signal a taxi with your hand down, not up.
h. As a foreigner, you will be given many gifts. Show your appreciation - I always think this is very kind and flattering. Koreans are very curtious and caring.
i. Don't be a loud American, you will be told to quiet down. It is unfortunate when this happens, because it only spreads stereotypes.
j. Koreans who speak some English will approach you and try to talk with you. Sometimes they just want to practice, other times they want to get a free English lesson out of you. Either way, just smile and nod, and go along with it.
k. People don't always wash their hands upon using the bathroom (some bathrooms don't even have soap or a working faucet). But I suppose no one really knows how many Americans do the same thing.
l. You can buy designer facemasks anywhere. By designer, I mean little panda faces painted on surgeon masks. People use these daily when they go outside to protect themselves from pollution or from dust from the Gobi desert.
m. Everything is sweet here. If you buy garlic bread, it will be sweet. Of course, anything spicy will not be sweet. I miss salt.

I think that is enough, maybe not for you, but certainly for me. I have to think of more observations. I forgot to write many of them down, so these are only the ones off of the top of my head. Goodnight and goodmorning to those of you uncool enough to stay on the other side of the world.

~ Kate