Random thoughts of Korean-ness

Afterthoughts from my rant above, that I wanted to talk about but it didn’t fit in my stream of consciousness above.

-When I wrote “see next post” about ‘IN LAB,’ that’s cause people outside of lab, aka Korean strangers, are generally pricks in Korea. Get the fuck out of their way, they are far more important than you, especially if you are a foreigner. I saw this often when trying to cross the side walk. If there were enough people waiting to cross, then the cars would GENERALLY stop at the red light. If it was only you, then you might have to play Frogger trying to get across the road when THEIR LIGHT IS RED, while having them honking at you because you are using your right of way. Koreans honk, a lot, in their car, regardless of what is happening around them or if the person they are honking at has a choice. I also saw this when riding the subway in Korea. In Japan, people politely stand to the side and let everyone out before they try to get in. In Korea, people stand right in front of the door and try to push their way in while people are getting out, because, you know, they are so much more important than you and it’s apparently easier this way.

-Korean anniversaries for relationships are every 100 days, instead of the 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, then yearly as I think it is in the USA, or whatever. I dunno. If you’re one of the 4 people I know who read this, you probably have a MUCH better idea than I do about what the intervals are.

-All utensils are steel in Korea. Their chopsticks are thinner and flatter than “normal” chopsticks. The slick metal surface makes it hard to eat noodles, especially ramen. Weak

-Public transportation is the shit; cheap-ish, quick, and reliable.

-Ice cream in Korea is fuckin awesome, also cheap.

-Koreans have a problem with eating rabbits in the same way that we have a problem with eating dogs. Rabbits are usually a large part of their myths/cute shit, thus not readily as eatable.

-Gardens are everywhere in Korea. If there is a little green area available, chances are someone is going to put in a garden, regardless of where it is.

-PC Bangs (pronounced bohng in real life, but bang for humor by us ignorant and crass Americans) are places where you can pay an hourly fee to play computer games on a really high end computer with a ridiculous monitor. It’s cheap and the computers are fast, so me and some other guys (get over it grammer nazi) from the trip would go there to play some games and blow of some steam. We once saw a teenage-looking kid watching hardcore porn while at one of these, and recording it on his cellphone. It was HI-larious. It’d be like watching hardcore porn at an internet café or David Lawerence.

-I feel like in Asia, mostly in business or formal settings, most language is veiled to hide their true intentions, or make them seem not selfish when they are actually being selfish. I find this really really annoying.

-Korean’s think they are the center of the world, much like most Americans, but the difference being American pop culture is usually globally known and Korea is not, but growing. They kept asking me what my favorite Korean athlete in America was or Korean music artist was, and I was like, “No one listens to Korean music outside of Korea except for a select few.” And they couldn’t believe it.

-Korean men are required to go to the army for 2 years and go back once a year for training afterwards. During their stay in the army, they get paid about $80 a month. This is what really was foreign to me. In the USA, we always have a choice. Freedom of choice and speech is what makes America awesome (and often stupid), but they don’t have a choice whether or not to join the army! Fuck that. I think this cripples them and contributes to their lack of personality/free-thinking/general drone-i-ness by accepting orders for 2 years when they have no desire to be there in the first place. North Koreans have to serve 10 years, 5 years for women.

-I like Japan a lot better (yes, I’m bias), but it is a lot more crowded in Japan.

-Asians in general have closed minds. It’s their way/culture or just not acceptable, with no alternative even when presented with evidence contrary.

-In Asia, there is no room to spread out like in the US, so instead they build up and down, leading to high rise apartment building EVERYWHERE and underground malls at every subway station or major shopping area. We would often call the underground areas in Korea “The Hive” where the Koreans prosper underground.

-I still have no idea how the Koreans in my lab meet other people or date, yet they all have girlfriends. They are in lab 6 days a week from 9AM to 10PM, and 9AM to 4PM on Saturday. Apparently it’s “hard,” but I don’t know if most girls I know who would be able to handle that.

Ranting on Korea

Been done for ten days in Korea, but been vacationing in Japan during. Here’s some wrap up thoughts on the experience, and it’s me ranting (so don’t expect much flow, just puking thoughts onto the page. It’s how I write, stream of consciousness, get over it.) in Incheon Airport in Seoul because it stirred up some memories.

Let me preface this post with the fact that it was an awesome experience and the people IN LAB (see next post) were incredibly nice. Having known what I know now, I would still choose do to this experience given the choice at the beginning of the year. However, if I had to do the experience now, again, for 2 additional months, I would have to politely refuse staying longer in Korea.

See, this experience has taught me that I seriously don’t belong in Asian culture. Sure, I got privileges of being an ignorant guest, but towards the end of it, I was expected to follow custom, such as bowing to professors, even if they weren’t mine, shit like that. And I like the IDEA of society first, individual later. I try to put other’s needs before mine in ‘Merica, but when an entire society does it, it suppresses the individualism that I so cherish in American culture. I feel like Korea, and maybe East Asia in general, are a society rather than a collection of individuals like it is in ‘Merica. You are more than likely to find the same values, thoughts, and reactions from individual Korean to another Korean. Why? Because the culture is so homogenous and if you stick out, you are hammered to conform to everyone else. One of the members of the IRES remarked once: “I remember someone once told me that if everyone was the same, life would be pretty boring.” I experienced it to some degree in Korea. The men and women were like carbon copies of each other. The ones whose names I remembered and became friends with had more personality than others and showed it regularly, until occasions called for their silent obedience to the elders. Like two sides of a coin; one a vibrant person who jokes and jostles, the next moment a lackey getting the professors shoes after the soccer game.

Age rules all here. Without fail, I would first be asked my name and then my age, so I could be properly placed into their age hierarchy. At this rule supersedes everything. If your senior is a lazy asshole who does no work, and takes credit for yours, you still have to pay respect just because he is older than you. This is what really sucked about Korean culture. Fuck that. You earn respect through your own personal actions, not by some happenstance that both parties had no control over.

And everyone was fine with this!!! It was normal!!! I wanted to ask them, “Aren’t you frustrated?!? Don’t you want to speak your mind, tell your seniors sometimes to shove it and that you can make your own decisions?!?” But I didn’t since I didn’t want to be disrespectful to their culture. I’m a filthy American, what the hell do I know about society order and following social bullshit?

Korean/Asian women born here seem to lack a whole lot of personality. Most were giggling masses of hands over mouths since they are way too shy to talk, or seemingly mindless girls who could only make small talk. And their interactions with boys/men were so….childish. Like they were stuck in highschool or grade school! I couldn’t believe that some of the women in lab were older than I was based on how they acted! I dunno what happens, but I can only venture a guess; both Korean and Japanese highschools are brutal academically, described to me like bioengineering at the Junior level with the amount of work. Every Asian student goes through highschool, studying all the time with what seems to be little interactions with others, specially the opposite sex. All the kids I see running around are so full of energy and fun and PERSONALITY! What the hell happened between these kids and the adults? Most students I talked to were only interested in going through school as quick as possible, getting their masters degree, getting a job and getting married. All of them. Nothing else seemed possible. No travel, no revelation in science, no real interest in the research they were doing. Just a means to an end.

The society seemed to be stuck in a loop of being just like everyone else, and I couldn’t stand another week of it.

But what do I know? I’m just a filthy foreigner.