Just One Expat's Opinion: The Yays and Nays of South Korea

As my calendar flipped to October, I am yet again torn between two emotions. On one hand, I'm surprised to be in October already, wondering where the time has gone. On the other hand, it feels like ten lifetimes ago that I spent a sleepless night crossing the international date line, on my way to Incheon International Airport.

I am very much looking forward to this month. I have planned and booked several adventures, two of which are pushing me far beyond my comfort zone. You'll hear about those later (sorry for the teaser), for now I will fill you in on my past weekend and some interesting tidbits about South Korea.

The weekend began with a burrito and ended with some BBQ. Not Korean BBQ, real American, Southern, very-much-needed, BBQ. The burrito, from Kim's Burritos in Chungdae, was delicious. I had a guacamole-shaped hole in my heart that I didn't even realize was there. The satisfaction was grand.

Yum

Kim's Burritos

The next day we headed off to Daejon on a field trip from our YMCA Korean class. The first item on the list was pear picking. Our bus dropped us off and we began the trek to the pear farm. What we thought was a quick walk turned out to be a steady incline straight up a rocky, wooded path. Having not been prepared for this, we stepped carefully over rocks, some of us in sandals, some of us in dresses. I was wearing a dress and cowboy boots. This was, for some reason, my second time unexpectedly hiking in my cowboy boots. Maybe I should just stop wearing them.

Banana Spider - huge and scary.

Delicious picnic lunch included in our field trip.

Pear juice in a pouch - yum!

Anyway, we had a lovely time picking pears before we ventured off to a music festival where we tasted a variety of wines and "learned" how to play traditional Korean string instruments. We also had a chance to try on traditional Korean ceremonial attire. A woman threw one around me and then realized there was no chance it would tie across my "chest" area. She literally gasped, pulled it off me and squished it on my friend Lizzie. When it didn't fit perfectly across her "chest" area either, the woman took it upon herself to go to second base with Lizzie, adjusting her boobage, squishing and squeezing them into place. It was an interesting and violating experience for poor Lizzie, I'm sure.

Before the "readjusting" experience occured

After the readjusting, she looked lovely.

The wines were interesting; the sweet wines were far too sweet for me and the dry wines, too bitter. But we had fun sampling and being photographed by mass amounts of photographers. I'd like to say it made me uncomfortable, but instead I enjoyed turning and posing for them like a gracious debutante with my wine glass, and encouraging/making Natalie to do the same.

This guy was loving his role in the parade.

We took photos of the Koreans, the Koreans
took photos of us.

Paparazzi photographing us waygooks (foreigners).
There was actually several more a of them a few seconds
before I took this. I realized while posting this that the guy
in the vest is familiar. Look above...total stalker.

Wine tasting!

I was impressed with the string instruments. It took some serious skill to master the precision needed for the pressure on the string and the placement of the bow. I attempted to play one but I failed miserably. By the end I was able to imitate the cat sound I was instructed to make. But that was after making several dying cat sounds that offended the ears of my onlooking friends.

Seriously cool and hard instrument.

Made a friend on the bus.

Sunday, Natalie, Jenni, and I ventured off to Seoul for some required items. I needed a few more appropriate things to wear to work, sans "glamour" (glamour is the word Koreans use to refer to cleavage). As well as some important spices that I could find in Itaewon, the foreign city I've mentioned before. We shopped in the underground shopping center of the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul (where I got my 5,000 won, or $5 dress, the first time I was in Seoul) before gathering our foreign food items in Itaewon.

We also made our first rookie mistake as new foreigners. We neglected to buy our return ticket the second we arrived at the bus station. So when we went to purchase it at 6:00 pm we were told we couldn't get a bus home until 9:00 pm (after a terrifying moment of language confusion where they told us all buses were sold out...omg omg omg). Lesson learned. We brushed our shoulders off and went back downstairs for more shopping to sooth our bruised egos.

The best part about that day for me, was the BBQ. Since, the passing of Rosh Hashanah, I had a serious craving for my mother's brisket. Southern BBQ brisket is not the same (obvi), but the brisket combined with the traditional, southern style, side dishes gave me a nostalgic feeling of home. Florida home, not Philly home. Say what you want about my next statement, but like it or not, food is an important part of family and your identification of home.

Now I can make my mom's chili and shakshukah!

Yummy American BBQ

Now onto a segment I like to call:

"The Yays and Nays of South Korea"

For those of you back home, here is a list of a few things I can definitely get used and a few things I cannot get used to about life in SoKo.

Cannot get used to:
1. No drinks at lunch and cup size.

An example of the average cup size.

~So Koreans don't seem to drink all that much. At lunch you won't find anyone with a cup of water near them. There is a spot for grabbing a quick drink of water or tea in a thimble size cup after you have eaten. But no one drinks during the meal. This is especially difficult for me to get used to, more so when the meal is spicy. And this is Korea soooo everything is spicy.
No one ever seems to drop from dehydration here so I guess it's some kind of evolutionary thing. Personally, I keep a bottle of water at my desk because I have dehydrated in my life before and I don't intend on doing that again.

The tea/water station in the lunch room for
AFTER your meal.

The thimble cups are quite common here. The average cup size reminds me of one of those paper cups we used to rinse our mouths out with after brushing our teeth as a kid. Seriously...no exaggeration. A biggest cup of coffee I've ever seen here is about the size of a standard small at home. That just doesn't work for me. I'm used to consuming my tower of coffee from Wawa. Below is a picture of the paper coffee cup I just used, next to my teeny coffee mug, compared to an average size bottle of water. I honestly feel as if I'm taking a shot of coffee. I must invest in a coffee thermos soon.

2. Not saying "bless you" after sneezes.
~It's not that I have some kind of moral problem with this, I just literally cannot get used to it. At first I didn't even think about it, I told a student "bless you" after he sneezed and he looked at me as if I had just scolded him for the interruption. My accidental "bless yous" have caused confusion since day one, and I still have to stop myself every time I hear a sneeze. It's bizarre how ingrained that is. You should see the pleasure us foreigners get when we get a chance to "bless" each other after a sneeze. We shout "bless you!!!" with a wide-eyed grin and sometimes even a little giggle.

3. No paper towels, anywhere...ever.

Unplugged hand dryer.

~I thought it was strange when the woman who showed me around the first day snatched the roll of paper towels out of my hand at the grocery store and told me I didn't need them. Now I seem to understand that it's extremely uncommon to see any paper towels in any public bathroom. Often times there are automatic hand dryers, but even more often those hand dryers are unplugged and unused. People are accustomed to quickly shaking their hands in the air (almost always splattering me) before moving on with their day. I miss paper towels. I miss drying my hands.

4. The woes of tp.

TP roll next to the door of the
bathroom.

Empty TP roll in the stall

~This part is two-fold. For one, you have to collect your tp before entering into the stall. Skipping over the fact that mastering the estimation of your tp needs seems to be a long acquired skill, my biggest fear is forgetting to grab some sheets all together. (In fact, after I took a picture of the tp roll for you lovely folks, I jumped in the stall for a quick potty break and realized I had forgotten to bring any with me. Thankfully, it wasn't too late, but that was a closer call than I'd like.) Still, from my trip to Amsterdam years ago, I know that this is not uncommon in most parts of the world. So if I plan on doing any more traveling, I better become accustomed to this. I've also come to learn that tp is not always in every public bathroom. I currently have a tissue pack in every purse/bag I own. It makes me feel like a well-prepared local.
Secondly, you will find, more often than not, a small trash can next to the toilette. This is for your tp. You are not supposed to flush your tp here. I have, so far, been staging my own personal protest against this.

5. Plastic surgery on minors.
~I knew plastic surgery was big here. What I didn't prepare myself for was seeing one of my 6th grade students with an eye patch from a recent surgery. I assumed she had an injury, but later that day, while walking through town, I noticed several young girls with eye patches. Was there a sudden outbreak of eye injuries? Were the three stooges in town, poking eyes out left and right? No, it was just before a long holiday, some girls were getting one eye done so that on the holiday they could get the other eye done and be back to school with their brand new, Western-style, eyes. I know this is not my culture, and I have no right to judge, it just makes me uncomfortable and a little sad to be perfectly honest.

6. Spitting.
~Guys, girls, old men, old ladies...spit spit spit. With a big 'ol hawking sound to go with it. It's gross, but very common. VERY common. I don't think I'll ever get used to that sound. No big explanation here, just...ew.

Can get used to:
1. My favorite - no tipping!
~It feels terrible at first, like you're being a cheap jack ass. But I have to admit, this is one I certainly can (and have) gotten used to. Now the only problem is coming home to America and dropping my standard 20% on a food bill. It's going to hurt big time.
On the flip side, I saw my friend Natalie tip the taxi driver anyway because he had to deal with our very loud American antics on the way home from a night out one evening and she felt he deserved it. The look of joy on his face was pretty awesome. The next week, I had a cab take me to school one day after I had managed to get on the wrong bus and find myself on the opposite end of town (only time that's every happened to me, I swear). He was patient with me while I choked out "left, right, there and here, here, here!!!" in my best version of Korean. So I let him keep the change, which wasn't much. The grin that spread from ear to ear on that man's face made me feel like I had just given him a kidney. It's nice to get that feeling from something so small, I may just have to do that again.

2. Being bowed to by my students.
~I kinda like it, makes me feel all important and whatnot. And they honestly do it out of pure respect, not obligation. It's nice. And in return, I kind of like bowing to my fellow teachers, especially my principal and vice principal. I thought it would be hard to get used to but it feels lovely being so respectful.

3. Kids clean the school.
~There is a certain part of their day, usually just before lunch, that the kids come around with brooms and dust pans, etc and clean up the stairwells, hallways and classrooms. They take out trash, and wipe down counters. There was one day, last week, where they took a whole period to scrub down the entire school. I like it, not because I'm some sort of dictator. But because I think it gives them a sense of ownership. And it seems to prevent them from the general destruction of their school. Why throw paper on the ground or scribble on a desk when you're going to be the one cleaning it?

4. No salt, no grease.
~I swear I spent most of my meals during orientation trying to pry salt out of a obviously rarely used salt shaker. Nothing had enough flavor for me. It was really hard to deal with at first because I admittedly had a bit of an unrequited love for salt at home. Now, I appreciate it, my tastes have changed and I'm consuming less sodium. I've also noticed that nothing is really all that greasy here. I found myself prepared to have shiny fingers after a bag of chips but there was no shine. No grease. Even the fast food here is less greasy and salty. If you aren't prepared for it, and you're a big fast food eater, you might even think it has zero flavor. I love that I am unintentionally eating healthier here.

5. Communal teeth brushing.

Teeth washing sink

Regular hand washing sink

~After lunch the teachers go off to the bathroom and brush their teeth together. The office staff goes to their office and brushes their teeth together. The kids go to the bathroom and brush their teeth together. At first I thought it was a little extreme, but now I like the idea of being socially held accountable for good oral hygiene.

6. No shoes inside.

Cinderella?

Shoe cabinet at school.

~There isn't much to this one, I like being in my socks as much as possible. I like the comfy slippers I get to wear. I like that it's not a big deal if I don't wear fancy dress shoes because they're just going spend their day in a cabinet. I worked for seven years in heels for 60 hours a week during my event planning days. Then three years in socks during my daycare/nanny days. I prefer the latter.

Some more fun things...