Category Archives: Korean Culture

Korean Culture

3 Sojus reviewed

Leave a comment

Soju, the distilled drink has been the number 1 drink in South Korea and is also the world’s most popular spirit.

For most people, soju is a cheap, simple alcohol with little taste. The drink is only made in South Korea and can be distilled from bamboo or sweet potato. It is best drunk with food, barbecue and raw fish for example. It’s rare to see Koreans drinking it in more expensive bars and restaurants. Here are the most popular soju brands.

Chamisul – Jinro

1623401181-082739200

Made since 1926, this is the most well-known brands. The taste is little metallic, almost like a solvent. It’s very clean tasting but it has little flavour.

https://www.foodforfoodies.co.uk/

Chum-churum

I really like this one. At first I was sure I was drinking vodka, the taste is very similar although the ABV is only 17.9. I got some citrus here as well and it would be good to try it with a slice of lemon or lime to bring this taste out. Highly recommended.

https://www.japancentre.com/en/products/15464-hitejinro-chamisu

Jo-eun Day

Jo-eun day is a slightly harsher soju that once had a much higher alcohol content that has been successively lowered over time. https://hmart.co.uk/shop/gb/

dating, Japan, Korean Culture, Personal, sex

Asian Crush

Leave a comment

The Asian ‘girlfriend experience’ in two American movies

If we take a look at depictions of Asian women is some famous American films, we can get an idea of how certain ideas and stereotypes have gained a hold in people’s understanding of Asian women. I want to look at two American films that show relationships between a white man and an Asian woman.

Wayne’s World.

Released in 1992, the film is a full length feature about two slacker types who run their own TV show from their basement. The men are typical of the audience the film was presumably aimed at. Whilst Garth has his own dream woman in the form of a blonde fantasy goddess, it’s Cassandra (Tia Carrere) who is the object of Wayne’s affection.  That the actress  playing Cassandra Wong is not Chinese but Hawaiian is beside the point – most of the time Hollywood will choose actresses who look only part Asian rather than look for an Asian-born actress who can speak fluent English.

Cassandra, Wayne’s World

Cassandra is by no means a submissive Asian woman, but it’s interesting to see how her Asian-ness is at times highlighted in the film. For example, she wears a traditional Chinese dress when meeting her father with Wayne. This is a very curious scene since it plays into the fears white men have of dating an Asian woman. Most commonly these relate to feeling inadequate, especially in the eyes of the girl’s family.

When Wayne meets Cassandra’s father, he needs to show him that he is good enough for his daughter.

In another scene, Cassandra orders Wayne a Chinese takeaway. She’s far from an ‘easy’ woman, in fact she’s not terribly interested in Wayne until he shows that he has the ability to be successful. At the same time, Cassandra is seem to be in every way the perfect girlfriend. It doesn’t hurt that Carerre looks gorgeous in the film. She looks good in every scene, whether it’s the red lace dress she wears performing on TV, the bikini she wears in a dream montage, or the leather outfit for the video shoot. These aren’t the clothes that would normally be worn by a rock singer, even a grunge singer would wear much less revealing outfits. In case we had an idea that Asian women are submissive, the film has Cassandra executing a perfect flying kick to a drunk gig-goer who gets in her way.

scene from a fantasy sequence showing Cassandra as the partner of Rob Lowe

The Social Network, 2010

The second example of an Asian woman girlfriend comes from the film that covers the origins of Facebook. Brenda Song plays Christy, a student at Harvard who meets Eduardo Saverin when he is at a speech given by Bill Gates. Although Christy is not the main character in the film, she makes quite an impact. The film has already explicitly mentioned Asian women as being attracted to Jewish guys, “and you don’t need an algorithm to work it out. “They’re not Jewish and they can’t dance,” says Eduardo at a party scene.

If Cassandra is in many ways the ideal Asian girlfriend, Christy is the exact opposite. Firstly, she is shown to be jealous and controlling of Eduardo to the point that she openly accuses him of being unfaithful because he hasn’t changed his relationship status from single on the website he co-created. In another scene, Mark asks Eduardo how his relationship with Christy is. ‘It’s terrible, she’s controlling and incredibly jealous. I’m scared of her.’ In the next scene, Eduardo gives his girlfriend a gift in an attempt to mollify her. Instead, she flies into a rage and then sets the scarf on fire. It’s as if the film is sending out a warning to viewers that they shouldn’t become romantically involved with Asian women, unless it’s to have fast and exciting sex in restaurant wash-rooms.

Brenda Song as the vengeful Christy Lee (The Social Network)

I draw these as examples because I feel that the cinema is a strong cultural indicator of society. It may not have quite the range that it did, but films are still a global force. What I’m really interested is how films shape and help us to make sense of the world. If you wanted to understand what it’s like to date an Asian woman, you could watch Wayne’s World and it would give you a good indication of what to say, the kind of things to do and just as importantly, the things you shouldn’t do.

I particularly like the way Wayne at some point in the film realizes that he may be losing Cassandra to the smarmy TV executive, so he has to work harder to get her back. In this way, the film is as positive in in it’s summation of how it is to date a sexy Asian woman. It’s mostly fantastic of course – the film shows us exactly why Wayne has such a thing for Cassandra and gives the idea that the most unconventional of men can attract their very own Asian beauty to be their girlfriend.

Sadly, there are other ideas people have about Asian women that aren’t nearly as positive. If you ask some men what they think of Asian women, they might say something along the likes of ‘Asian women are easy‘ – meaning I guess that Asian woman are easy to have sex with ( as long as you are a white male to begin with).

Unfortunately, Asian women have been portrayed as little more than sex objects and certainly no more than thinly sketched love interests for the main character. In most action films where the male visits Asia there will be a minor character who might provide some extra exoticism to the film. You can see this in franchise movies such as ‘Tokyo Drift’, or some of the Bond films set in Asian countries such as ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ and ‘You Only Live Twice’.

Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) in You Only Live Twice

You do wonder why Hollywood has been so reticent when showing interracial relationships. Certainly it’s unusual even now to see films where the couple are of different nationalities. Even as international marriages become so common as to be not worth mentioning, the movies are such a long way from catching up that the movie that is closest to the reality of dating an Asian girl is still good old ‘Wayne’s World’ from 1992.

The Asian Crush in two American films

Korean Culture, Personal, Travel

Racist Korea

Leave a comment

In 2017 I started working in Korea. I was full of excitement to visit the country I had learned so much about. But after living in Korea , I started to notice subtle forms of racism. The classic example that I can give is when I went to a restaurants and was refused entry as a solo diner. I never saw this happen to any Koreans. In fact, the only time I ever saw anyone denied entry was when they were foreign.

It got worse at work in the hagwon. Whilst a few of the Koreans made an effort to be friendly, a lot made it clear that they didn’t want anything to do with us. Perhaps the worst thing that happened was when a large bottle of air freshener was left on our desks – implying that even our body odour was offensive. I looked around to see if anyone had left any air-freshener anywhere else , but no. ours was the only desk to have a large bottle placed none-too subtly on our desk.

 Now I know you might be wondering why all this matters? Maybe it’s just a few companies that are like this. And I understand that the majority of Koreans will not be racist.

But here’s the thing. With millions of fans of Korean music, food and culture, Korea is positioning itself as the cultural capital of Asia. For example, the images you see on the Korean tourist board are of beautiful geography, food and costumes which are hard to match up to reality. Less developed Asian countries have bought into the Asian wave that the Korean government worked so assiduously to  build. Yet people from South-western countries are often discriminated against for being darker-skinned and coming from poorer countries. It can’t be right that a country with so much cultural power should be able to be so backwards when it comes to acceptance of other races.

Now another thing that makes it hard is when foreigners come to work in Korea without being able  to speak much Korean, they get taken advantage of, not just that they miss out on a lot of experiences that would be available to them if they knew the language, but there’s this uncomfortable feeling that a lot of Koreans will speak abusively about foreigners who they assume cannot understand them. I know that foreigners could make a greater effort to learn the language – but where’s the motivation? If I knew that a lot of Koreans would refuse to acknowledge me or talk to me in Korean , I would never have gone to the trouble of learning the amount of Korean language that I did.

For a lot of foreigners living in Korea, the level of Korean that they have learned already won’t be enough to make them easily understood to people. You can bet that this makes them an easy target for even more discrimination. You see, Koreans don’t really expect you to be able to speak Korean. Even if you can, they might act like they don’t understand you. Or laugh and simply ignore you, or speak over you without listening to anything you have said. So you can’t blame the foreigners who want to study and learn Korean only to lose motivation and interest. It’s too easy to give up; there aren’t decent resources available and Koreans refuse to speak to you in their language.

Right now, you could be thinking that I should be giving up. And it’s true that Korea is less of an interest to me these days. But its sad when I think that Korea was the first Asian country I visited, my girlfriend was Korean, and I studied Korean for years.

You often hear it said that Korea has the world’s fastest internet speeds. But that hasn’t led to Koreans becoming as developed in social affairs. But if you have ever bought Korean products, listened to K-pop, or even owned Samsung, you might want to take another look at the politics of the country that is behind them.

dating, Korean Culture, Personal

On getting my first taste of Asian fever

3 Comments

I had only been living in New Malden for a few months, the nondescript suburban neighborhood in South-west London between Wimbledon and Kingston. It’s not known by anyone outside of the area, except for one thing. It has the largest Korean community outside of Korea, and for me that was the reason why I ended up spending more than five years there.

I was living right in the middle of Korea-town – and as far I was concerned this was the best place in London to be. There may have been trendy areas outside – that were better connected to the rest of London. But what did I care? I had twenty Korean restaurants to visit – this was the closest I was going to get to Korea without moving there.

To give things some context, only two years before, Psy had smashed internet records by being the most played video on Youtube. Korean movies had already become well-known, and people were getting excited by Korean dramas. The K-pop scene had yet to become the all-conquering global power it is now, but it was getting there. But all this is just the frills, the extras on what was and is my primary reason for becoming interested in Korea.

I really started to notice the women when I moved to Korea town. The first thing I did was try to learn Korean. There’s no better way to meet a girl than attempting to speak her language. At the same time this was happening I got my first law firm job – providing personal injury support for road accident victims.

Maybe it wasn’t the best job – I was far too underpaid for the stress I got trying to meet targets- but there was one thing that made me happy to come to work each day.

Nak-young was a legal secretary who started working a month after I did. Eun Young was married and had a child. Not that that stopped me speaking to her. Nak-young was tall and slim. As far I was concerned she was the most beautiful woman in my life – she had the oval face, pale skin and full lips that are associated with Korean beauty. She was much nicer than most of the k-pop girls as well. She looked great wearing a hoodie or full evening wear. I soon started treating Nak-young as a close friend and the time we spent together was extremely precious to me.

We didn’t stop seeing each other after I left the job – she got to know me even better – as I felt that i could tell her everything about myself. i started to realise that there were two types of women as far as Asian women are concerned. There are those girls you can go out with – who may go on to be your girlfriend. Then there are those who will become your close friend, someone you can confide in, on the understanding that you will remain only friends. Even if I knew that Nak-young was never going to be more than a friend, I will say that I learned so much from my time with her.

When we went out the first time she told me about her job as an air hostess, then meeting her husband, and having a son with learning difficulties. The second time, it was her turn to talk about me – and she spent most of the time helping me find a way I could have sex with my girlfriend.

I won’t say that Nak-young was my Asian first time because she was not the first Asian woman I was intimate with ( I count our encounters as intimate based on the closeness of our thoughts). I think Nak-young was smart enough to see how much our experiences meant to me, though I’m sure they were more significant to me than her.

For the first time in my life, I felt that my life had a clear sense of purpose.. I felt there was a clear connection between the spicy heat of pickled cabbage, the green bottles of soju I drank, and Nak-young’s jet black hair, long legs and dazzling crescent moon eyes. My world was good and I loved everything in it.

Films, Korean Culture

Parasite plot holes and inconsistencies

Leave a comment

Spoiler alert!

When Ki-jeong frames the driver by leaving her underwear under the back seat, she does so without him noticing. If she can do this with such ease, it suggests she could more easlily make money as a stripper or karaoke hostess (which, lets face it, is probably the job a woman in her situation would have).

In a later scene, the Kims are eating in a canteen for what looks like taxi drivers and chauffeurs. If the father already has talent for driving, why isn’t he already earning money doing so? Not to mention the ease with which the Parks dismiss their former driver. If they valued him at all they would have confronted him about what happened..

When the former housekeeper returns, she finds the family behaving extremely innapropriately., getting drunk on expensive whisky and throwing snacks around. Yet she carries on as though this is normal.

Guen-sye, the husband under the cellar. Where to start with this one? The explanation for his hiding there is that there was an underground bunker built by the previous owners of the house. When her husband borrowed money from loan sharks, she sent him down here, obviously caring for him whilst she worked as a housekeeper. If this was before the present owners moved in, it would mean that he has lived there longer than 17 years (!) by which point, wouldn’t the sharks have given up chasing him? Then again, Pieta……https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_(film)


The kid’s birthday party. Something strange about this; there don’t seem to be any kids here. Instead, there’s a woman singing o mio babbino caro, and a huge fire in the middle, not to mention an axe.

The killings. This scene was so badly shot that its actually difficult to see what happens. But lets see: Ki-jeong comes with a cake, which she smashes into Geun-sye, but after he has lunged at her with a knife, fatally stabbing her. This is in full view of the guests, who seem not to notice a deranged man with blood seeping from his forehead carrying a knife. Just before this, her brother is bludgeoned twice with a rock, seems to be out cold (but later makes a miraculous recovery). Someone kills Geun-sye with a barbecue skewer, the boy faints, and Ki-jeong dies. All of this could have been done better, but in a further bit of unlikeliness, the father stabs Mr park with a knife, killing him.

What do the Kims do with their money? Working at the Parks should have brought then some material benefits. strangely, despite all working good jobs, they continue to live in the tiny, semi-derelict flat under the ground.

Right at the end, we see Ki-teok writing a letter to his father (who uses morse-code signalling to send messages to his son). Except there is no way of Ki-teok getting the letter to his father. But wait. Immediately after killing Mr Park, Chung-sook can be seen running to the side of the house, down into the basement. In other words, it can be reached from the outside, which means the son could quite easily post messages directly to the father, give him food, even help him break out.

Whilst Mr and Mrs Park wait for their son to come out of the tepee, they make love on the sofa. As he starts to caress her breasts, she instructs him to move in clockwise direction. It’s clearly done for laughs, but it’s not really obvious why she would gain more pleasure from this.

On my first viewing, I felt that the Parks were parasitic of the Kims. When I watched it again, it was the other way round. I’m not sure the film is such a strong statement of class ( as has been claimed). The film highlights the social divide in South Korea, without really telling us anything interesting about it. Not to mention, the Kims hurt each other, displace hard-working people and are responsible for the murder of an innocent man.

All this means that I still enjoyed watching the film, I’m jsut surprised that the flaws seem to have gone unrecognised. The recent Japanese film Shoplifters looks at a family who struggle in poverty but act in a more human and believable way.

Korean Culture, sex, Travel

The real reason people teach English abroad

Leave a comment

Say what you will about teaching english abroad, it gets all kinds of comments online. Whatever you think about it, it’s been popular as a way for college students to delay their responsibilities some more, or to experience living abroad. But there’s one reason why so many decide to and teach in South Korea, Japan, China and Japan. Specifically, if you’re young and male, you’re going to be getting a lot more attention from women than you would at home.

That’s not what people put down on their supporting documents when they write their applications. Oh no. It’s all about expanding your horizons, giving something back, doing something they love.

Now I think about it, it’s not just for teaching. It goes for men travelling in Asia generally. Just imagine spending your entire life being made to feel worthless, not good enough for any woman you dare to approach. And then finding women who not only find you attractive, but are happy to have relationships with you as well, simply because they enjoy your company. I’ve heard of men who say that after going to Asia they will never date a white girl again.

Equally, I’ve encountered many women in Asia who are largely ignored because they don’t fit into the rigid boxes that society makes for them. Or they don’t have exactly the right physical attributes that men in those country expect women to have.

One day I’ll lose my hair, but it’ll be ok because I’ll look like Jason Statham.

Sometimes I see mismatched couples, usually when she is much more attractive than him. There are a few instances of Asian girls dating white guys that look just like Moby (thank you, Awkwafina). but many Asian women know their worth and are dating very attractive white guys. I don’t need to drive the point home too much. The evidence is all around. Geeky white guys (who stood watching everyone getting off with each other at parties) are going to Asia and marrying banging girls who end up coming back with them. If this were a movie it would be the feel-good hit of the year. But it’s not – it’s real life, and everyone’s winning in this love story.

Korean Culture

English teaching in Korea

Leave a comment

Did you ever think about teaching in South Korea? These days, it’s so popular, I can imagine there is a surplus of teachers and that competition for good positions is dropping.

Back in 2016, I was interviewed by the company EPIK, with a view to teaching in 2017. When I failed to be chosen, I looked at other companies before getting a job with Pagoda. Whilst I was disappointed I couldn’t place with EPIK, who seem to have the best reputation for English teaching, I think I did well to work with Pagoda. The class sizes were really nice, and I got on well with the majority of my students. By that I mean I struck up some really good relationships and got to know them outside the classroom too.

Whilst I did find living in South Korea difficult, none of it was caused by Pagoda. When they decided not to renew my contract, I was disappointed. Looking back, I probably didn’t give it as much effort as I could have. I was lucky to have laid-back students and a light schedule. Many people might look at English teaching as the kind of job anyone can do, it’s the teachers who work the hardest and have the most professional attitude that are kept back every year.

I enjoyed my time in Korea. I probably wouldn’t work again as an English teacher unless I had the freedom to choose my students and a choice of material. There are too many good teachers in South Korea, and it is my understanding that recruiters have a bias towards teachers who are female and under thirty.

My verdict: a good job for those prepared to really put the effort in. In a hagwon you’ll be with professionals who will have a work ethic that will put you to shame. Get used to criticism. Some of it will be harsh and unfair. I was told that the students all loved the outgoing teacher and that I should try to teach like her. It wasn’t the best advice and made me doubt my own abilities. Koreans don’t always speak openly and may act as though everything is fine whilst they criticise you to the hagwon manager. I sometimes regret choosing South Korea over Japan, but that was the choice I made.

Korean Culture

“As pretty as a flower”: My Chuesok experience in Gyeongju

Leave a comment

Gyeongju_entrance
The entrance to Bulguksa Temple

I’m sure most of you will be somewhat familiar with Gyeongju. It gets listed in the itineraries as a place to visit after Seoul and Busan. If you are wondering what Korea was like in the past it’s worth going to Gyeongju to see some beautiful temples and monuments.

Getting there

Gyeoungju is 80 kms from Busan in the southwest of the country. You can take the KTX from Seoul or bus from most big cities. We drove from Busan in less than two hours, which included a stop off at a rest station near Yangsan. I find these places the highlight of a road journey and they seem to be something that tourists find fascinating about Korea. Maybe it’s memories of trips with families but there is something very comforting about these places.

temp_1537783306182.1889551688
eomuk and sodeok from the rest station.

The major venue is Bulguk temple, site of the oldest stone pagoda in South Korea. It’s called Tabo Tab, and is seen on the back of the 10 Won coin. Without knowing what it’s significance is, I can appreciate what a stunning monument the stone pagoda is. It stands out amongst the more brightly-coloured wooden temple buildings which are all to a large degree constructed according to the same basic architectural design.

 

Bulguk temple – as pretty as a flower

We admired the beautiful tiles of the temple roofs and drank water from the stone basin. There was a gift shop where we could see many souvenirs including model owls and bookmarks. If I don’t have much information about the history of the temple, it’s because there wasn’t much information available. On arrival, we were given a ticket (price, 5000 won). On the back it told us: Erected in the 15th year of King BeopHeung Sinra some 15 centuries ago and later rebuilt by Prime Minister Kim Daeseong on a much larger scale.’

Near the temple there is an information booth containing maps of Gyeongju in English. I wish they had given us some more information about the temple at the start. It would have been good to have been able to study its history more thoroughly.

Lunch

There aren’t any restaurants near the temple, only a few stalls by the car park selling overpriced Sikhye. It was better to take a drive into Gyeongju city where there are several traditional Korean restaurants, all with off-road parking. Tobakmi Sikdang is a restaurant serving soondubu, pajeon and deok galbi. Portion sizes were good and the banchan was varied, The soondubu contained abalone which made it more than worth the 10,000 won cost.

King’s tombsDSCN0232

One of the most fascinating parts of Gyeongju are the dome-shaped green hills where the Silla kings were buried in the fifth century. There are at least twenty of these grassy mounds, leading me to wonder just how many kings there were during this period.Answer, I don’t know.  Obviously, information is scarce because little was written down at this time in history. I can’t name a single king from this time and there isn’t as much interest in them, as the Choson Dynasty. But at least there is a small museum where we can see inside one of the tombs, which was excavated in 1972. It shows us how their shields were made and one of the coffins itself is displayed, giving us a better understanding of how the kings were buried and what their tombs contained.

Around Gyeongju

What do you do after wondering through temples and tombs all day? Probably what any South Korean would do which is to drink coffee from Starbucks. The cafe, which has a traditional tile roof were packed – and I do mean packed – with families enjoying the Chuseok holiday. It was there that we found several bakeries selling Hwangnam-Ppang, the local speciality. Now, I’m a bread lover, and I was expecting something amazing from these. If you’re going to name bread after your town it had better be super amazing. These weren’t. The pastry is light, and the filling, which is sweet bean paste, takes up over seventy-percent of the bread, making them extremely sweet. Even more aggravating was having to buy them in units of twenty, forcing us to buy 19 more than we actually wanted.

20180924_181925

The presentation of the pastries was also disappointing. For the price they could have been individually wrapped in traditional paper but were only cellophane wrapped, making them seem very ordinary and generic.

There were children flying dragon-fly shaped kites and some souvenir shops. Another reason to visit Gyeongju is the theme park Gyeongju World which is near the Hilton Hotel. There is a trendy cafe street as well, which has nothing to do with historical Gyeongju but was very busy anyway.

Gyeongju is a fun destination with some unique sites. The locations were spaced-out but accessible. Doing some reading would help prepare you for the historical background of the city and it would be most convenient to have a Korean speaker with you. Of course there will be tourists here, but not as many as the palaces in Seoul. If you are interested in Korean history, try to find out as much information as possible before you go.DSCN0218 bulguksa

Korean Culture, sex

Never talk to girls in bars in South Korea

Leave a comment

I recently made a startling revelation and it may blow your mind a little bit. I’m going to tell you something that you might not accept: If you want to meet and date girls in South Korea, you can pretty much forget about meeting them in bars.

Now this may come as a shock, but talking to girls in bars is not something that comes naturally to a lot of Koreans. In fact, the bars I go to have a lot of regulars. It makes it difficult to speak to people. Girls put up a lot of front that is hard to break down.

The main problem I’ve found is girls drink with their friends. They are never going to be happy about leaving their friend behind to go home with you. The best thing is to approach girls on the street. For one thing, you can talk to girls when they are on their own. Finding something they can help you out with (directions, where is the nearest Starbucks) can be an excellent way to get them to open up.

The other thing is that you are not putting yourself out trying to impress them, or having to buy expensive drinks. Getting their numbers is easily done with minimum fuss. You will want to message them half an hour after they leave you. I advise making the next meeting as close as possible to the first. You don’t want her to lose interest in you. These days there are so many distractions calling for a girl’s attention that a guy has to work even harder to keep her interested. But it can do the trick, provided you can send some sexy photos of yourself, making it clear what your attentions are.

So there you have it. I can’t believe I wasted my time and money chasing after women in bars, when I could have been meeting them in a much easier way on the street.

Korean Culture, Personal, Restaurants, Travel

Ten things I hate about South Korea.

Leave a comment

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!