Here are some random things that I’ve been thinking for a while but have been motivated to post due to reading this.  Fantastic post btw.  Really, you should read it to understand where I am coming from in this post, for the beginning anyway, then as per usual, I sort of went on a comparison tangent and liked it!

1.  I think that newbies complain a lot in Seoul (haven’t lived elsewhere in Korea) because when they get here and physically see most parts of, in my opinion, they look very similar to other developed/high tech nations around the world.  The problems stem from not being able to adjust to the different people – at times, its like all the farm kids came to the city for the day and you feel the need to remind them to not spit, stare, yell etc.

  Now, if you fly into a city like Kaohsiung in Taiwan, for example, now there is a real shit hole.  It too, in the span of about 50 years was quickly built up and it’s economy became quite strong given its past.  But the difference being that, it stayed a shit hole.  Some, albeit slowly, change has occurred, but still, everytime I flew into KHH my first thought was “damn, just bulldoze and start over people”.

2.  Korea has been changing very quickly in the last 50 years and the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other.  You’ve got war survivors raising children by spoiling them so that they don’t have to endure the hardships they did, but then at the same time, are expecting them to understand the concepts of hard work and the value of money.  Challenging, when they live at home, are given allowances, and are accustomed to having servants (and I mean men and women in their 20’s).   

  On the flip side you have the ‘fact holders’.  Those that spit out rhetoric from the ‘handbook’ and are at a loss of what to say for themselves — very little independent thought capabilities are possible, due to only being able to see skin color and hearing internal bells of ‘they’re not one of us’ ringing.  They are the ones that don’t want to have a discussion of ideas because “You can’t understand, you aren’t Korean.”

  I think that the latter group are the ones that are feeling panicked.  With more of the citizens living internationally, learning other languages and cultural notions, they are becoming hard pressed to use that textbook knowledge and apply it to the current and future situations the country/nation/people are/will face.

  You have the same group of people in any country.  Those that know that they are out of date and scramble to still be listened to.

3.  In Seoul there are so many more chances to interact with people of varied experiences and reasons, for being in the country.  In KHH we guessed that the number of expats was perhaps 3000 in a city of 3 million.  Of that, there were maybe 400 that weren’t teachers.  So you were forced to listen to endless repetitive conversations about ’school’.  The last thing I want to hear/talk about after work is your students and how you tried to impart the grammatical joy of prepositions with them by having them place their pencil in various locations around the classroom (you think I kid??).

4.  The opportunity to live ‘the good life’ in Taiwan is much greater than in Korea (again, I’m only in Seoul,  not sure about other places).  In KHH we lived in kick ass, huge apartment complexes with pools, fountains, garbage pickup, underground parking… pretty luxuriant lifestyle given we were teaching at bushibans (hogwans/private after school programs) and therefore not really making that much money.

5.  Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the Chinese food in Taiwan – far too greasy and many unidentifiable items in it.  Now, I will also fully admit that I hadn’t had the opportunity to try that many different types of food and so was hesitant to dive into many of them.  I have now elevated my own status to that of ‘foodie in training/minimal cook’ only because Taiwan taught me to real appreciate a good meal.  On some occasions, due to the repetitive nature of teaching children, the best part of my day was what I would eat.

  In Korea, it’s all about soup, rice and kimchi.  I used to despise soup (2 weeks of only soup after getting my wisdom teeth extracted caused a real hate on for it) but again, slowly, have started to see the joy in it.  One thing that I haven’t found here is Thai hot pot; similar to shabu shabu but you can choose the type of broth that you want.

  As for foreign restaurants I’ve found that Koreans take too much control (similar to NA) and insist on it being fusion, where as I would like to try the authentic and then throw in aspects of the host country that I enjoy.  That is one area that KHH kicked ass; foreign restaurants were, as far as I could tell, quite authentic and very tasty.   

  I like Korean food, I really do, but being a foodie I like to modify and change it.  I find that they put too much of their sauces on things – you can’t even taste the vegetables – and so some dishes that should taste fantastic all end up tasting the same.

6.  Shopping in the land of morning calm blows.  Fabric, materials, designs are all similar, it’s almost as though someone picks one pattern, modifies it to 20 similar but slightly different ones, and then mass produces it for the whole country.  You’ll see so many women with *almost* the same shirt or dress on.  Trying to buy something original, unique or personality suiting is impossible.  If it isn’t mass produced and the ‘in’ thing you’ll never find it.  They take a fad, saturate the market and then attempt to maximize profits through slight alterations and then move onto the next big thing.  Not just clothing but other consumer goods as well.  When you see the cost of items, coupled with the lack of individuality and the shortage of natural fibers, it makes for very depressing shopping indeed.

  Taiwan wasn’t that fabulous for shopping but at least there were some affordable brands, (minus things like “hang Ten” which earned Taiwan the tag “Taiwan, the land where name brands come to die”) as well as smaller independent lines that had quality materials, reasonable price tags, individuality and more importantly sizes for women with breasts, hips, bums and all the other stuff that makes up the fabled, and overly desired “S-line” (silly rabbit girls, S-line is for women that eat and have healthy bodies not those who starve themselves).  

  I would honestly like to know where the *fat* girls shop, because really, it ain’t in department stores, Dongdaemun, Myeong-dong, or any of the other trendy areas….

  What do you think?