Life in Korea

Volume 2

... And life goes on. Here are some more sights, sounds, and experiences from the other side of the globe:

Wacky English

Remember when the Karate Kid and Ninja movies were all the rage and everyone was wearing shirts, hats, and especially headbands with Chinese or Japanese symbols on them, but had no idea what they meant? The oriental writing just looked so ``cool''? Well, it's the same way here, but with English. As a result, we see the strangest things written in various places, especially on stationery. (Koreans seem to love to buy huge amounts of stationery supplies, judging by the half dozen successful stationery stores in Hamyang). Here are some examples, ranging from simple typos to incomprehensible philosophical statements.

MY FRIEND
You and I have to love long long. It is I get to road to you deared face.
I like to stay in touch with my lived ones.
Boy went to the toilet walk with hurried steps ``Mammy, waste paper!!''
He picked a lock. Just moment - ``BOO'', ``DEAR ME!'' (Who knows him?)
An earnest man come to me still mine. Some where silent nod I am closing the door you stare at me with alone eyes calmly.
When you problem, Remember I'll always beside you
We are friend forever We play together all the time

More traffic follies (Actually witnessed by us):

a man riding his big old Schwinn bicycle in the pouring rain holding a huge umbrella in his left hand
2 teenagers riding a moped in the rain; the driver steering with one hand while holding an umbrella in the other, the passenger not holding on at all because he was carrying a pizza off to one side with both hands
late in the evening, a car stops in the middle of an intersection. A big guy gets out of the back, drags a much smaller man out of the driver's seat, and proceeds to yell at him loudly while throwing him repeatedly against a brick wall. Then they both get back in their seats and drive away.

More food

at a restaurant we had sora - a large edible sea snail (bland and chewy) for which our apartment building is named (Sora Aparta)
KFC copies abound: Donkey Fried Chicken, Mickey (Mouse) Fried Chicken, Pelican Fried Chicken, Bunny Fried Chicken
boiled bugs for sale in the open market on special days; they smell quite awful but we are told they taste good
``hamburger'' from Pizza Pam/Burger Plaza around the corner: beef(?) patty, ketchup, mustard, pickle, coleslaw (!), scrambled egg (!!), slice of apple (!!!)
I drank a can of Pocari Sweat, some sort of sports drink (I don't know what a pocari is, nor do I want to).
A man sells fresh crab from the back of a pickup truck parked on the sidewalk in the main intersection some nights. Other nights there is a man selling a huge array of plush animals spread along the sidewalk lit up with portable floodlights
Korean food delivered by restaurants is brought to you in a large metal box by a man on a moped. The food is in non-disposable plastic dishes with metal cutlery, all of which you place outside on your doorstep after the meal and the man comes back later and takes them away. (We say that we are putting out our dirty dishes for the Dish Fairy to clean).
we went out for eel (okay but they fed us too much) and sushi (raw sliced fish with almost no flavour of its own served with sauces which we did not find tasty).

Holidays

Christmas is a very minor holiday here; only one day off (the 25th) and no awareness of such things as Xmas Eve or Boxing Day, both of which were teaching days for us. The stationery stores do get into the act, however, selling all kinds of wacky Xmas cards. Our Xmas vacation took place the week after, because the 1st and 2nd were already holidays (that's right, two of our ``vacation'' days fell on national holidays). During our vacation we went to Pusan (the nearest metropolis) to buy English novels and eat non-Korean food. It took us two days, but we actually managed to find 2 stores selling English novels and one restaurant with Italian food. We also took a tour of ``Russian Town'', a neighbourhood where many Russian sailors shop for consumer goods to sell back home. Many of the stores have bilingual signs (Korean and Russian) and we were mistaken for Russians by a real Russky because of my Russian-style fur hat (he addressed us in Russian but apologized in English when he realized we weren't comrades).

The big holiday here was Sollal (lunar new year), which fell on the first week of February. We had no plans and most stores were closed so we went to Pusan to visit Mr. Lee's relatives. They spent Saturday morning worshipping their late ancestors in an elaborate ceremony. They spread out a great variety of fancy foods on a big table and then said prayers offering the food to each generation of ancestors while doing huge bows. They also bowed to their oldest living ancestors, and we bowed as well since ``they are older than our parents and our family isn't here for us to bow to''. The kids were rewarded with cash for bowing but we didn't get any. They served the same holiday foods for every meal and snack for three days, so although we thought they were good at first, by Sunday we were quite sick of them. We went sightseeing around Pusan from the back of a van for several hours, with one short stop to get out and look over the ocean and one long stop to eat lunch (and get drunk) in the back of the van.

Fuzzy
mathNEWS Foreign Correspondent, Asia Office