Ten things I hate about South Korea.

In no particular order:

Bars and restaurants

One of the worst things is going to restaurants and bars on your own. Koreans have a hatred of doing things on their own. Don’t expect to be welcomed by other Koreans when you go to restaurants as a foreigner, they will completely avoid any interaction with you. Although I enjoy eating Korean food, the pressure of sitting in a restaurant being glowered at is too much sometimes. The bottom line: Korea can be very lonely place for a single person.

Korean language

Aaahh, the Korean language. When I was England I was serious about studying Korean. I took lessons, went on language exchanges and used apps to improve my Korean. THe worst thing is when you have a conversation in Korean and people ignore you, or laugh, or answer you in English. I have learned very little Korean here and I am convinced my Korean is going backwards.

Dating

Wow, is dating hard work here. Its not that dating is unpleasant, it’s mroe the attitude Korean women have towards dating foreigners. For example, a common excuse is “I can’t speak English so I won’t date anyone who isn’t Korean.” It’s hard to approach someone and simply ask them out, at least, in my experience.

Traditional culture

I visited the Korean palace in Seoul. Apart from a nice garden and a pond, there was little else to see. As for traditional culture, Korean’s traditional music, pansoori consists of a drum being banged loudly for half an hour whilst a woman makes a noise like she is being slowly impaled. Apart from concerts and Koreans wearing Hanbok, I see very little signs of traditional culture here. At least in Japan you can easily see kimonos and visit traditional restaurants.

K-pop

When people talk about Korean Wave, Hallyu, it’s K-pop that often comes up. Now, I like K-pop. I think some of it has been good fun. What I don’t like is that for most people K-pop is the only music they will hear in Korea. There are some great rock and Indie bands but due to the large record companies that produce and distribute music its very difficult to hear anything but the Melon 100.

Work

Korea has the most miserable work culture in the world. But at least Koreans can talk to each other and share food at work. As a foreigner, I feel excluded from most work activities. For some reason, it doesn’t occur to my colleagues to ask me any questions about my life or pay any interest in what I am doing, or invite me to lunch. Although many Koreans teach English, they would much rather talk to their colleagues in Korean than speak English to me.

Old people

Encountering old people is one of the hardest aspects of life here. For example, there are seats marked for use for the elderly, one of the many areas where old people have privileges over everyone else. It’s quite common for older Koreans to take up every seat in a carriage while young people who have been working all day must stand.  Korea has a real problem with age. There are places where you won’t see anyone under thirty. At other times, you can visit an outside market and it will be mostly be seniors. It’s hard to reconcile the behaviours of older Koreans with younger people. It’s a problem that is going to get worse as Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world.

Clothes and fashion

I try not to buy many clothes here. It’s hard to find clothes of very good quality. Unfortunately Koreans have a mania for new things. It’s not socially acceptable to wear old clothes here. everything has to be brand new and up-to-the minute. I can’t deny that Koreans are well-dressed, stylish people, but the desire to follow the latest fashions seems exhausting.

TV

This is certainly the least serious problem because there’s always the option of simply turning the TV off. There are typically three types of popular shows here:

1: Lifestyle and travel shows. A group of foreign tourists visit Korea and try kimchi, wear hanbok, etc. I can’t watch without cringing, but there are at least five programmes I can see which follow this theme.

2. Wacky and zany variety programs, the most popular is Running Man. They sometimes feature famous Americans such as Tom Cruise and Steven Youn.

In the last category are dramas. The good ones are ‘The Good Wife”, “The Return” and “Mr Sunshine.” There are also Korean soap operas which usually revolve around family relationships. A very common trope is a mother-in-law who criticises her daughter for not being a good wife, or making bad food or something. These are the least interesting programs on TV. There are several news programs which seem to be exclusively focused on domestic news. Which brings me to…….

Attitude to foreigners 

As many have pointed out, Koreans have a strange attitude. On the one hand, I think they want foreigners to know about Korean culture. I see that they have a lot of information about Korean attractions on line. On the other hand, a foreigner could easily come to the conclusion that Koreans don’t want to have any interaction with foreigners unless it involves money. Come on Koreans, you can do better!

Jangyu Cafe Street, Gimhae

Finding the perfect coffee in Jangyu Cafe Street

Besides being home to Busan’s International airport , Gimhae has many other things to recommend it as a place to visit. There is the excellent Gaya museum and the tomb of King Suro. For shoppers, there is a large Shinsegae department store and next to the Lotte Water Park there is a massive outlet store.

Last week I visited Jangyu Caffe Street. Busan has its own well known café street in the Jeonpo area of Soemyeon, but I was interested in somewhere off the beaten track. After a stuffy bus ride through the countryside, I was sure I was heading in the wrong direction, but eventually I saw the twisting tubes of the water park and realized I wasn’t far from my destination.

The area is known alternatively as Jangyu Café Street on Instagram hashtags. Most of the cafes were located in a street by Yulha canal in a long stretch of shops. I counted more than 15 cafés, which were impressive looking and the street is free (mostly) of the identical franchises such as Caffe Bene and Tom N Toms. There were so many that I wanted to try but I chose Labelles Heidi because it seemed to have the nicest atmosphere of all the places I passed.

Inside, the design was modern and light. There was a decent selection of cakes and yoghurt. But it was coffee I was there for. They offer a selection of roasts with guidance on the roasting, blend and flavour profile. Bitter, tart, sour, earthy are some of the words used to describe coffee. I could tell it was a great cup with out knowing too much about which coffee they used. It was spacious enough to find plenty of free seats, and much quieter than the more hectic cafes in Jeonpo. There were several ladies yakking away in the comfortable chairs downstairs whilst on the mezzanine the ever present young Korean girls were furiously tapping away on their phones.

A few doors down is Café Stein. I went there to try some very good Gelato, and chilled out for a while reading the Korean books on the shelves. Finally I tried one more coffee in Café 1001. The mood was a little cold so I ordered my coffee to go. But with so many high quality places I am sure to be going back soon.