5 Funny/Ridiculous Things about Korea

Just a few things we've noticed since being here...

1. Musical paths: Pretty much most of the scenic paths around Korea have speakers connected to the lamp posts. So as you’re taking a nice relaxing walk through the woods or around the cliff tops you can listen to the romantic classical tones that your town council has selected for you. It’s so strange at first, but soon it kind of just feels like you’re in a movie scene or something!

2. Slippers to work: It’s not in all schools, but in my school for one there’s an ‘off at the door’ policy. It’s really quite weird dressing yourself up in a shirt and trousers on your first morning, donning some of your nice shoes that took up space and weight in your baggage to ‘give the right impression’, then getting to your school and taking them straight off. Oh, I’ll be teaching in slippers today will I? Right. Slippers and a shirt. Strange. You just damn well better not have holes in your socks. Instant Korean fail.

Actually, on that note… You must have ‘gym shoes’ in Korea - ones that you haven’t worn outside at all. Nice clean shoes for exercising inside, I get that! The stupid thing is that I got my nice clean gym shoes on for playing volleyball at school the other day, and the gym was a separate building, so you HAD to walk outside on a dirty path to get to the gym. Can you wear regular outside shoes in the gym? Oh, oh, no!!!It’s really quite an odd rule that just means I need to bring two pairs of shoes with me school if I want to play. That’s Korea!

3. Konglish: Probably the most hilarious thing about Korea. English is everywhere here on the signs, but you’ve got to remember that its kind of a redundant language for most kids to learn. I mean its one of four languages they’ll learn by the time they leave elementary school! This means that they often get it hilariously wrong. Here are a few of my favorites fromwhat I’ve managed to snap so far….

'Delicious love making just for you!' ....whatever they're selling, this has to be my favourite. I also never noticed 'Hair News since 1985' above it. What does that even mean?!

mmm...pencakes...

and of course, everyone wants a dead-u-bear.

coffee shops are clearly the worst offenders. just a poor effort all round...

4. I’ll just pop this in the bin… oh, maybe not: Weird thing. There are no public bins in Korea. You’ve just picked yourself up a tasty treat from the shop and you’ve got a wrapper in hand, looking for a little one on the corner, but it never comes. I’d say it’s the main difference between urban Japan and urban Korea. Apparently it came from some huge problem that the government had with people going through rubbish bins looking for recyclables (they have incentive schemes at the recycling depots as far as I know). In response the government got sick of people rummaging through and leaving the rubbish everywhere so they just got rid of all public bins. Still, to me it’s the lesser of two evils, because it just means that there’s a light scattering of litter instead of a rummaged through pile in the corner!

5. Being a Rock Star: I heard about this before I came but I had no idea how true it was. I think it’s mainly with the kids and teenagers here, but they just think you are the coolest guy on the planet. You come from far away, speaking this language that all the big, beautiful celebrities speak and knowing about football… Jesus. These guys just lap it up. Every time I leave my apartment I’ll see kids who all tap each other to stop talking and focus their attention on this stranger. Then they just watch in amazement, the girls usually getting pretty hysterical. It’s the same thing on the bus. If I look at them they just lose it totally. I also say ‘Hello' at least 200 times a day. Everyone wants to talk to the foreigner. It’s also pretty useful when going back to a shop or restaurant, because they always remember what the foreigner got last time. I returned an item a week after I bought it and the guy knew straight away what was going on. He remembered everything about when I was last there.

There is one down side to generally being a celebrity in your workplace or neighbourhood though. Peace and alone time. For any westerner coming to Korea, just know that outside of the two big cities, you’ll be being watched, or should I say ‘admired’ ALL THE TIME. So if you do anything stupid, they see it. If you blow your nose, they’re watching you. If you spill food down yourself, there are ten kids over there that saw you lose your dignity. It’s a lot of pressure! I kind of thought after a month it would’ve died down, but it really hasn’t! Some days I do think if I have to say ‘Hello!’ to another kid I’ll lose it. But, hey, I guess its better than being hated or just plain uninteresting to them!