Korean Quirks and Customs

I have been meaning to write a short little entry on the quirks and customs that we have experienced in Korea for a while now, so here goes. Some of them are pretty common- for example taking and receiving with both hands and bowing slightly to your elders when you greet them or thank them. In Korea you use different words depending on who you are speaking to. For example if I were to say 'Hello' to somebody older than me (or a man) I would use 'Anyungseo' but if I speak to a child or somebody younger than me then I would use 'Anyung'. It greatly annoys me when my children address me using 'Anyung' as this shows their total lack of respect for me! I make sure I always correct them!

There is quite an obvious gender divide in Korea though I would like to think this is changing with the younger generation. Women are most definitely seen as sexual objects and men as sexual predators. This view was summed up when we decided to try some gender specific chocolate. The chocolate for women actually tasted of flowers and light perfume- the chocolate for men tasted of cigarettes, alcohol, a sleazy bar and aftershave. It's no joke!

It's common, accepted and encouraged for most wealthy men to have a wife and children and many mistresses. Even in a rural city like Gimhae there are 'bars' at the top of every building in which a man can go and pick up women and this is incredibly common practice. While I appreciate that this happens in the UK, the scale to which it is happening here in entirely different. Half naked teenage girls dance outside shops at the weekend in an attempt to lure in more customers and women at work (including my place of work) are constantly being sleazed over by their vile 'superiors.' Although I appreciate that I have to accept cultural differences I find this behaviour insulting and disgusting. It frustrates me that this nation has advanced so fast in so many ways (technology, education, business, trading etc...) yet there is no sign of feminism anywhere. It's probably a good thing that I am only here for a year, otherwise I would be forced to start some kind of revolution!

Korea also seems to be incredibly narcissistic! Looks really do matter here. The streets are lined with plastic surgery clinics and billboards advertising wider eyes or a smaller face. I spoke to some of my older female students and they said that so many of their older friends (aged 16-18) have had surgery on their eyes and nose to make them look more Western. When I asked them if they thought that plastic surgery was a good or a bad thing they didn't seem to understand- they just thought it was fairly normal. We had a meeting at work the other day hosted by one of the directors and it was designed to encourage us to praise each other more. At the end of the meeting we were given a piece of paper with someone else's name on it and we had to write a couple of really positive things about that person. I have done this excercise before in the UK and everybody has always written about people's strengths in terms of their personality.
Not in Korea.
Every single comment that was written by one of the Korean teachers had references to the person's level of attractiveness and at the end of the meeting this turned into a debate about who was the sexiest teacher. It was a cringeworthy experience!

The use of 'rock, paper, scissors' here is also incredibly important. Locally known as 'kowie, bowie, bo' this little game is used to make decisions when they need making. It is used everywhere- all my children constantly use it in the classroom when a solution needs finding. I had a class with some 15 year old girls in which we spent 40 minutes looking at a well used philosophical problem -"Who gets the heart?" It's quite a heavy discussion based on eight people all with different ages, races, occupations, education, backgrounds, marital status etc... Every single one of them needs a heart or they will die, but there is only one heart available. They have to decide which person is most worthy of the heart. After 40 minutes of pretty heated debate and no sign of a decision my students turned to me and said, "Teacher, we have decided that the only fair way of deciding who gets the heart is to have a game of Kowie, Bowie, Bo." And that's what they did. If only all decisions were that easy!

Another thing that I have noticed is the lack of floor 4 in some buildings. I guess it's rather like the American's superstition of floor 13. In a lot of Korean buildings floor 4 is missed out altogether and it seems impossible to buy things in a set of four. My children have also told me that it is very bad to marry somebody who is either four years older or younger than yourself. This is because the number four 'sa' sounds like the Chinese word for death and Koreans are very superstitious about it. They are also very superstitious about writing people's names in red ink as they believe that the person whose name is written will die. I have actually made this mistake a few times now as we have red board markers at school and the children go loopy.

In fact the Koreans seem to be quite suspicious people. I have been told that I should never buy my boyfriend shoes as this will mean we argue a lot throughout our relationship (though I did buy Lee shoes for Christmas and we seem to be doing fine.) It has also been said that if you sleep with the fan on that it will suck out all the oxygen in the room and you will die! Unlike England, a magpie here is bad luck (particularly if spotted in the mornings) but similarly to old Blighty it is bad luck to put an umberella up in the house. It is also custom to take shoes off before entering any building.

So these are just a few of the noticeable quirks and differences that we have experienced so far. I'm sure there will be many more to come!

And so off we went to 'The Honeymoon Island...'

We got back from Jeju-do this morning after 5 nights there for our summer holidays. The Koreans love Jeju, everybody is always asking us, "Have you been to Jeju yet?" and claiming that it is like a different country to Korea. Even the guidebooks state that Jeju is like the Korean Hawaii and all the young just-married couples head there for a few days of post-wedding romance.

Maybe I am horribly cynical, or maybe I have just been far too spoilt having grown up only an hour away from the beautiful Dorset coast and having spent many holidays walking along the dramatic Cornish coastline or relaxing on the untouched and unspoilt Isles of Scilly. Whatever the reason I have to report that Jeju was slightly disappointing. It's not that it wasn't pretty- it was quite nice. It was just so overdone and over spoilt. Every picturesque view or area of natural beauty was bombarded with cafes, tacky gift shops, terrible 'relaxing' music or crowds and crowds of people. I guess I just thought it was fine but pretty uninspiring. Anyway, the weather could be to blame as it rained a lot of the time which was pretty unfortunate as it made visibility for climbing Mt Hallasan impossible. We did find other things to do though and we had a good day looking around Yeomiji botanical gardens and some of the waterfalls. We also managed some go-carting which was great fun and we did a fair amount of walking too. We stumbled across a secluded Buddhist temple that was nested above a gorgeous pond full of lily pads and dragonflies which was so peaceful. We also found our way to a superb Nepalese restaurant, Baghdad Cafe, that served fantastic curry and had a wonderful atmosphere too so that was a huge bonus.

Unfortunately we returned home to find Lee's bike missing a saddle and my bike missing altogether. The lock had been completely ripped apart and somebody had just taken it. I'm pretty irate at the moment considering it had already been vandalised once and I'm constantly being told by Korean people that this country has such a low crime rate...hmmm...

I admit that I am becoming more and more cynical about Korea though I probably need to see a bit more of the place than I have so far. We have a long weekend in August so we will head to Seoul then. I am enjoying it here though I definitely haven't fallen in love with it like I have done with other countries in Asia or Europe for that matter. There are places in South East Asia that I am desperate to return to and I don't think I will feel that way about Korea when I leave it. Sometimes it can feel like a pretty bland and soulless place that promotes egoism and narcissism and lacks culture and beauty- today I do feel that way about it. I am managing to keep a healthy sense of humour about it all though and the money is piling up for the trip we are embarking on afterwards which is the most important thing and one of the main reasons for this mini-adventure. Have I mentioned this yet? Well, we are hoping to fly from South Korea down to either Indonesia or Malaysia (we want to spend some time in Borneo) and then make our way from Singapore up through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to Hong Kong. We will then spend some time in China heading up to Beijing and then take the train down to Lhasa in Tibet via the silk route trail. After spending some time in Tibet we hope to make our way over to Nepal where we will embark on some trekking at the base of Everest. It's all pretty exciting and I love planning things like this. It's a wonderful feeling sitting down together and having a whole load of ideas about what you want to do and where you want to see and piecing it all together into some sort of itinerary with no limits at all. And I think it's important for us to have a focus as it can be pretty taxing here at times and we do miss people from home a lot too.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings- enjoy some shots from our holidays.

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

The monsoon season is upon us and the five minute cycle to work this morning resulted in Lee and I looking like we had jumped in a swimming pool with all our clothes on. Two hours later and the rain is falling even harder, the streets have become rivers, the parks are paddling pools and the thunder so loud that it creates vibrations. It is quite something, that's for sure. One of our Korean colleagues has said that South Korea's climate is becoming more and more like South East Asia's with very hot days and torrential downpours in the summer. Still, it is very refreshing as the constant humidity of Asian summers can be quite draining for somebody who is used to about two weeks of sunshine a year!

We have now moved into our new apartment which we should be staying in until the end of our contract. It's a fairly large (by Korean standards) three bed apartment on the fourteenth floor so we're pretty high up. We have a balcony and a decent sized kitchen and we have spent quite a lot of time cleaning and decorating the place to make it feel more homely. It's lovely to finally have some furniture and be able to relax on the sofa in the evenings and eat at a table rather than on the bed.

Last weekend was fairly low key. All the Americans were celebrating Independence Day and we were invited to a celebratory barbeque. It was nice to meet some new people but social events here always seemed to be ruined by loud mouthed Americans who mistakenly think that people care about what they have to say. I don't have a problem with Americans, some of them are interesting, culturally aware and very pleasant to be around- though I have to say, in my experience, this particular type of American is a rare sighting.

Next weekend we are hoping to go to Geoje Island which is on the Southern coast of the Gyeongsangnamdo province and is joined to the mainland by two bridges. It is supposed to be very pretty and mountainous with some nice beaches and spectacular rock formations so it should make for a relaxing weekend away. There is also a prisoner of war museum on the island which is supposed to be really interesting though explicitly racist towards the Japanese. There is a blatant hatred towards the Japanese here. I'm not sure if it's the same all over Korea or whether it is more prominent because we are in a fairly rural city and people are quite stuck in their ways. Even my students talk with real animosity towards the Japanese and most of them are no older than twelve or thirteen. It seems pretty clear that the Japanese did a lot of damage to Korea though. Even though Korea has one of the oldest civilisations in the world, there isn't much around to suggest that. When the Japanese ruled here as part of the 'Imperialist expansion of Japan' between 1910-1945 they seemed to have totally obliterated any Korean culture and replaced it with their own.

"Means of cultural suppression by the Japanese included the method of “altering” public monuments, including several well-known temples, palaces, scripts, memorials, and statues. Songs and poems originally dedicated to Korean Emperors were re-written to adore the Japanese Emperor. Carved monuments underwent alterations to the Chinese characters to delete or change part of their meaning. Two of the more notorious events are noted. The Sungnyemun, a virtual symbol of Korea, was altered by the addition of large, Shinto-style golden horns near the roofs (later removed by the South Korean government after independence). Gyeongbokgung, a former Korean palace, was demolished and the Japanese General Government Building built in the exact location. The Korean History Compilation Committee confiscated and burned Korean history booksMany ancient Korean texts that were discovered mentioning Korean military and cultural exploits or Japan's historic inferiority and uncivilized behavior such as Wokou were deleted methodically; in general, the awareness of Korean history among Koreans declined during this period. Japan altered the history to rationalize the occupation of Korea to the international community and the Korean History Compilation Committee appeared to be an extension of that action."

I guess this is why Korea can feel like such a modern country at times- it's history has almost been erased.

We have booked a holiday to Jeju-do which is Korea's holiday island. We are going for 6 days on the 25th July and this is the only vacation that we will have until Christmas. It is a volcanic island and it is supposed to be very tropical and beautiful and is home to the world's longest lava tubes. My students say that it is almost like going to a different country as the beaches are coated with palm trees and pineapples grow everywhere. It is supposed to be one of the only places in Korea where the ajummas (old women) still go diving to collect seafood to sell and eat. They don't use any breathing apparatus as they can hold their breath for up to 2 minutes whilst they search along the seabed for anything vaguely edible. These women go diving in all seasons and most of them are over 60. They are the last generation of their kind though as their daughters have found other more 'normal' jobs in shops and restaurants.

Anyway, that's all for now. Sorry there are no photos but we don't have the Internet at home yet so we can't upload any. We'll sort this out soon though!

Love to all at home x