Korea's got Seoul

So today marks the two month point in my extended visit here in South Korea. It seems only fair that I make a list of likes and dislikes, as I feel I have been here long enough to accurately gauge the good and the bad. Here it is, in ranked order:

The good:

1. Sam (or sum not sure how to spell it in English, and chances are, both are correct) gup sal: Korean barbeque, you really have to have this. Find a traditional Korean restaurant and get it, make sure it is within 100 miles of you, so you can return without too much hassle when you become addicted.

2. Soju: a cheap sort of Korean vodka, distilled from sweet potatoes. It is 20.5% alcohol and about $1 for a 360ml bottle. Also, you can drink it anywhere, and old Koreans typically are very excited if they see a foreigner drinking it. If there is anything in Korea that needs to be exported to the US, it is Soju. Soju mimosas on Christmas was about the only traditional Chritmas thing that happened for Jules and I, oh yeah, and Chinese food, Christmas Story style.

3. Public transportation: the Sates could take a page out of the Korean book on this one. You can literally get anywhere in Korea via public transportation. It is also extremely cheap, and I know from experience, if you pass out immediately when you get on the bus, the driver will recognize that you probably don't know where you are going and will surely wake you up when you arrive at your destination. Don't, however, try this on the subway, or you will wake up 20 stops past where you are supposed to get off, and they will tell you that you are on the last train of the night and have to get off, effectively leaving you stranded in one of the many places that you don't know where you are.

4. Seoul: as the second largest city in the world, it lives up to the nickname "The Seoul of Asia." Every weekend I find something new, and they have a camera section about the size of Winston-Salem.

5. The very friendly and helpful nature of the majority of Koreans: although there is a severe language barrier, especially in my town, Koreans are very welcoming and will go out of there way to help you in any way that they can. For example, I was trying to catch a local bus from Bucheon to Siheung (where Julian lives) and had not done the journey by myself yet. I could not find a bus stop where the 61 bus stopped, so I began asking people if they knew where the correct stop was. I found this Indie Korean, which is unique in itself, but the important thing is, he gave my directions to the nearest stop. About ten minutes later, he comes running up gasping for air, saying that he misdirected me. I would have been satisfied if he just gave me directions, but since he didn't exactly know, he spent the next hour running around with me, asking Koreans of all sorts if they knew where the stop was. We finally found one and he proceeded to find a Korean girl that was going near the same stop as me in Siheung. Although her stop was before mine, she continued to ride the bus with me, just to make sure that she could tell me when to get off at the right stop. This is just one example, and I am frequently baffled at how willing Koreans are to go out of their way to help foreigners. Actually, I have one more: The other day I was walking home from school, and a little girl that I don't even teach ran out of a coffee shop and said "Teacher, teacher...you like coppee?" (they can't seem to pronounce f's to save their lives) "I buy!" Even though I told her to keep her money for something else because I had just drank some coffee, the gesture was very sweet, especially since I have no idea who she was, and she doesn't even go to my school.

6. Cabbage tacos: ok, so they aren't really called cabbage tacos, but this middle eastern guy stands outside of the bar, GoGos, in Hungdae (district of Seoul), every evening, serving kebab tacos. They are amazing! He also knows where to find a Dr. Pepper.


7. Proximity to other cool places: I can get to China or Japan for a long weekend or a real vacation, for about $200, flying. By ferry it is much cheaper, but obviously takes a long time. Jeju Island, off the southern coast of Korea, from what I hear, is an amazing place, with the highest mountain in Korea and a more tropical feel to it. Round trip tickets flying are as cheap as about $60, or there is the ferry as well. Also, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines are necessary stops while I am here, and all are easily accessible.


8. Enthusiasm for backpacking: Koreans are crazy about backpacking, and put American backpacking stores to shame. I have found 5 in my town, not including the Emart, which is like Wal-mart, and they have a better selection than Great Outdoor Provision. I can't wait till the temperature isn't -25, so I can see what Korea has to offer by foot.

9. Garbage and Recycling: there are three different kinds of garbage, and Koreans charge you for a special garbage bag for each, and if you don't follow the rules, you get a fine. There is a bag for food waste, a bag for garbage, and a bag for recycling. The majority of trash can either go in the recycling, unlike the US, or the food waste bag. I like this, because it seems like a lot less goes into the landfills.

10. The under floor heating: The only reason you might need slippers with under floor heating is to keep your feet from burning, which is awesome. Not only does it heat your room, I have found a couple other uses that are awesome. The first is that since there are no clothes driers in Korea and you can't hang your clothes on the balcony without them turning into sheets of fabric and ice, if you lay them flat on the floor, they are dry in no time. You can also use the floor to defrost meat. I do have a microwave, but since I can't read any of the settings and am not entirely sure it is even capable of defrosting food, you can just throw a package of meat right on the floor and it will be nicely defrosted shortly after.

The Bad:

1. Lack of communication between native English teachers and the school: Koreans are said to be extremely spontaneous people, but sometimes it gets a bit frustrating. One minute you are teaching or getting ready to leave work for the day, and the next minute they tell you that you are going out to dinner with the parents, or they tell you with three hours notice that you are leaving for five days to go on an orientation and teacher training trip. Or you wear your "business" clothes to work and they tell you that you will be going hiking or planting flowers today. Luckily this sort of thing doesn't phase me, but I can understand others' frustrations with situations like these. I know it is not just my school, and it seems like all of the Korean teachers at my school know about these sorts of things well in advance, even if it doesn't concern them. They just leave the English teachers out of the loop, even though there is a co-teacher that speaks enough English that he/she is supposed to inform us of events like this.

2. Korea is DIRTY: I don't know if it is just the winter and a lack of foliage, but Korea is dirty. Another thing that gets me is the littering is ok policy. Granted they do have elderly people cleaning the streets everyday, but you cannot find a public trash can to save your life. It is expected that when you are done drinking a soda or coffee or eating a sandwich, you throw whatever garbage you have left over into the street.

3. Traffic lights don't mean anything but you can't j-walk when nobody is coming: This is just one of the Korean things that will never make sense and you have to just accept it. I still haven't quite figured out how it works, but as far as I can tell, red means go and green means go faster. With that in mind, even if there is no traffic coming and you are walking, you get dirty looks from everyone if you cross the street without the green "walk" light.

4. No sense of individualism: Not that this actually effects me in a personal matter as far as style or flair or whatever you want to call it goes, but Koreans have a sort of mob mentality that is inherent. Where this comes into play socially--aside from not having a real sense of individualism, which is an entirely different animal--is that there are no lines or a sense of common courtesy when in packed public places. For example, when you run into someone on the street, it goes unnoticed, there is no apology or exchange of words in any way, they pretend like nothing happened. Also, on the subway, people don't wait until those who are getting off at a stop to get on, they all just mob their way into the car, and if you aren't quick and push your way through the boarding passengers, you will not be able to get off the train. Waiting in "line" at a grocery checkout is also a sometimes foreign concept for Koreans. People form a group at the counter and push their way to the cashier. Luckily, in my town at least, everyone is very dwarflike in stature by comparrison, so they don't try to push me out of the way like I have seen them do others. Except for the ajimas (old korean women), they don't care about anything and will gopher their way to the front of any group, and although they may look old and walk with a cane, miraculously they can limbo or hop over a subway gate like you have never seen, effectively avoiding ever paying for the train. To me, however, this is just good comedy.

5. Sometimes they just don't make sense: A sense of logic is overpowered by custom. I think this also plays into the previous gripe, because I guess logic is a concept for the individual. They just don't think for themselves. For example, at school, they try to get me to wear these damn sandals everyday, because they don't want me wearing my outside shoes inside, and at home, which is perfectly acceptible, they dont wear shoes inside. Now at first glance, this is a reasonable request. But if you look a little deeper into the situation, you will notice that these "inside" shoes, once put on, are not removed for the remainder of the day. This means that the children walk through the dirt courtyards, play on the dirt soccer field, run in the dirty streets, and generally spread dirt and grime throughout the school with their "inside shoes" still on. It is not just the children though, the teachers do the same with their "inside shoes". So basically, as long as when I get to school I change my shoes they don't say anything, even if I change into hiking boots. Another note on not making sense: even though it is -25C here, they have all of the exterior doors to the school wide open. There are literally frozen puddles in the hallways. Their reasoning for this? It increases air circulation to reduce the amount of colds and illness. Do they realize that the kids going from a room that is toasty warm to one that is -25C every few minutes is more likely to cause some sort of illness than just closing the doors and letting it be warm everywhere? Or that the increased circulation is likely to carry the germs that a kid just coughed out a greater distance down the frozen hallway. Maybe I'm crazy and not even 100% on this one, but I just think they should close the doors. Also, the concept of Fan Death. It is a serious belief of Koreans, and Korean doctors will back them up on this one, that if you leave your fan on at night when you go to sleep, you will die. For this reason all fans have timers, which seems alright, but it also means that I can't leave mine on for more than two hours at a time. In the blistering Korean summer with no A/C, sleeping at night could be a bit difficult.