As usual, it's been a healthy long while since I've written so there is far to much to recall the details of what has happened in the last few months. They have been busy; far too busy to ever feel even close to caught up. Life included a good deal of indoor climbing, my first ever ice-climbing adventure and a 'rec' volleyball tourney that turned out to include all of Seoul's best v-ballers and even this Russian team that seemed they hadn't done anything EXCEPT play volleyball for the past decade or two – our ragtag squadron didn't fare too well in that one, but we had a riot as always!
Anyways, instead of trying to recall details of stories too far removed from even my own brain, I should formally wrap up my time in Korea with a pro's/con's list of my view of Korean culture and my experience teaching here for the year. Let's start with the cons and then finish on the positive side:
Things I'll NOT miss about living in Korea. (Not for the sake of bitching; rather explaining cultural differences that some people may find interesting). :)
No clothes driers – I have only been able to hang dry my clothes all year. It takes a day and a half eats up any and all space you may have had in an already miniscule apartment.
Pushy people – One cultural observation that seems immediately apparent in Korea is the need to literally shove people out of each other's way – a firm hand in the middle of your back has become normal. If they didn't do this, no one would get anywhere so I understand it, but am ready to move on from that one for sure.
Oblivious pedestrians – This one drove me crazy. People rarely pay attention to where they are going and almost never give the right of way. Groups in front of you will span the entire sidewalk, swerve randomly, stop unpredictably, make you slam on the brakes as they slowly roam out in front of your bike, and on it goes. You have to develop an extreme patience or you'll go totally bonkers. I usually chose the second option. :)
Sickness – Blame the pollution, yellow dust, DRY air, or unfamiliar food and bacterias native here, but many of my friends have not felt fully healthy for months (or longer).
Brutal street crossings – Stop lights in Korea for some reason like to take sometimes over 3 or 4 minutes to let the pedestrians cross. Even where there's not a car in sight, most Koreans will stand obediently on the corner and wait for the little green man – making you feel like a guilty disobedient foreigner if you break the rule. It always confused me in a country where cars can run red-lights freely, but the people are not allowed to jay-walk.
Side note. The lights are also a detrimental stride-breaker for a runner!
Lack of public bathrooms, drinking fountains, etc. - Most shops will have a bathroom for their customers, but almost always without toilet paper, hot water or even soap. As you can imagine, this usually means, 'When you gotta go; you gotta go ELSEWHERE.' The lack of hygiene can be not only annoying, but often frightening as well. “The guy cooking my food used this same bathroom??”
Water heaters – Very few (if any) buildings have central air or heating. Mostly floor-board heating and individual heating units are used to keep places warm. This system doubles to provide shower water since there are no reservoirs. You get used to having to switch on the hot water and mess with it for maybe 10 minutes every shower but I'm really looking forward to not having to do that anymore!
Intense pressure on the children – Parents in Korea have VERY high expectations for their children. In short, most of them think that their son or daughter is and should continue to be INFALABLE. Getting 94 out of a 100 on an exam might get a young child in scolded and punished. Further, they often attend 3 or 4 schools starting as early as 3 years old!! (School, English, Chinese, piano, violin, taekwando, etc) This places extreme pressure on the students and leaves them little time to play and ever actually be kids. It's often said that parents' retirement funds here are raising their children to be millionaires.
This work-ethic and intense drive has contributed greatly to the development of the country, but tragically is also a big factor in Korea having the highest suicide rate among youth in the world!
Garbage!! - The system of garbage disposal here is to purchase these little green bags which are the only ones to be used for disposing of non-recyclable items. You pay about 50 or 60 cents a bag but really you're paying for the service rather than the bag itself. Seems like a great system because then people only pay for what they throw away, right? You might think so, but this is not the case at all. The real result is that people used to just dump their trash at businesses or any public container which in turn resulted in businesses and the government to stop offering containers! Now the whole country has no convenient place to put their garbage and so throws it anywhere they want. In Daejeon at least, there are disgusting garbage piles all over the city!
Another contributing factor to the garbage problem is that companies are allowed to (and do every single day in reams) just randomly throw their fliers all over the streets as advertisement!! This one pissed me off all the time!!!
K-Pop!!!! - Ah, the horrific music scene of Korea. Inspired by America's garbage pop music industry, Korea has thousands of femme looking doods, or trampish little girls parading around every billboard, television, poster, you name it! Completely talentless, cookie-cutter puppets of their producers; I cannot express how happy I am to cut ties with that scene!!
Wow! What an angry rant that must have seemed like. But the truth is, the positives hugely overpower the negatives.
Interest in our life-style – It'll be tricky to explain this one without sounding too vain here... but, foreigners are generally found to be of interest to the people; sometimes being offered favors that others wouldn't get. For a prime example, Muc and a couple of our other buddies were driving around a new city and asking someone where to find a hotel. Instead the family offered them a place to eat and stay at their own house with their family! Within 10 minutes, they had the family's kids dumped in their lap for photo shoot. It's kind of fun!
Free climbing wall – Daejeon is the only city in the world that I'm aware of who decided that a climbing wall was a necessary enough part of life to include it into the tax budget! There free for use anytime! Loved it!! Maybe St Paul will catch on??
Service – Korea is famous for world-class customer service without being bothersome to the guests. There's no dopey guy in suspenders and a funny hat checking in on you and trying to sell you more crap while you only want to eat your food. When you need something, you push a little button on your table and they come running. I've become a little bit jaded on American style service I'm afraid.
Not needing a car – I haven't driven a car since last June but have never had to worry about getting where I needed to go. Between the subways, trains, buses, taxis and my bicycle; it has been AWESOME to not have a car. Imagine never trying to find over-crowded downtown parking, filling up a gas tank or paying an insurance bill!
Global friends – You guys have been awesome!! I've been learning not only about Korean culture this year, but Australian, Irish, South African and more as well. I have good friends from all over the world and will hope to host and be hosted by them for many decades to come! (You would be further on the list if I didn't feel too lazy to re-number everything here just now, guys.) :)
Loose liquor laws – Buy it, carry it, drink it where and when you want. Don't act like a jackass and you're allowed to make your own decisions; isn't that the way it should be?? Real freedom!
No price gouging – Not only do they not charge you 7 dollars a beer at the baseball game (for example) you can bring your own in with you! You won't pay $12 for a sandwich just because you're at the airport and they have a captive audience – the people of Korea just wouldn't stand for it!
The most rewarding job off all time – I think I've said enough about this one over the last blog entries, but life has been good here! I LOVED my job and the satisfaction that came from helping these little tykes grow up! What a wonderful experience and a nice feeling to seem over-paid for the first time ever! :)
Almost NO CRIME or frivolous law-suits!! - It changes how people are able to interact and what you're able to do when people are not constantly worried about getting sued for their whole livelihood ever minute. Here, you take your own chances and your own responsibility for what happens as a result – truly great!
My kids! - And of course; my little Korean nieces and nephews!! I would have adopted 10 kids while I was here if they had let me! I will never forget them and hope that we stay in touch! I have often wondered over the year, “Who has learned more? Them or me??”
Thank you Korea! Quite possibly the best year of my life! Maybe we'll see you again!! :)
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