I'm compiling a list of some of the most common misconceptions about Korea. Enjoy!
1) Korean's are poor. Basically everyone knows about asian mail order brides, and most know that they come from places like SE asia but most especially Korea. I'm pretty sure the chick married to the nerd in glasses in Dodgeball was a South Korean, based on both appearance and attitude.
X Wrong. Korea is the 11th largest economy on the planet (or was before the market crash in the 90's and in 2008). In a nation of just about 50 million that means people are doing fairly well overall. The nation has a very decent healthcare, retirement, and transportation system and while Koreans aren't swimming in wealth like say...luxembourgers, they're doin pretty damn good. Avg monthly salary is about 2.4 million won. I make 2 million, which will be bumped up when I finish my TEFL in 3 weeks and will also get bumped up additionally if/when I resign next year. And with 2 million alone I'm making enough to live happily and adventurously AND bank half, and I could easily bank more.
2) Height: Koreans are asians. Asians are short. It's pure math.
X: goddamn I wish this were true but asians avg out at about the height as american's nowadays. There is a LOT of emphasis on being tall if you're a guy, and skinny if you're a girl. It's not a world of giants but I am still on the relatively short side of life. oh well.
3) Tourist Sites: Korea is in Asia, asia has a ridiculously long history and there are tons of monolithic monuments to the past every where that are perfect for travelers to take a quick snapshot of to impress their weigugin friends.
X 2 different reasons for this being wrong. Most predominantly Korea never had that many monuments. for the majority of the last millenia it has been ruled by confucian/neo-confucian doctrine which emphasizes conservatism and reduction of wants and needs. Basically Korean royalty never invested in mega-public structures like the buddhas in the mountains in afghanistan or the great wall of china. That aside, there are beautiful natural wonders...but most of them are in the North which is sort of off limits at the moment (at least to americans). The second reason there isn't even a lot of temples and palaces is that other nations kept coming in and burning them down (fuck you japan, fuck you mongolia). Korea has a long history of being assaulted by the fuckin japs who would basically come in and burn everything and try and make everyone look and act (and speak) japanese. the last time was only 60 years ago. Koreans dont like the japanese.
3. They wear those weird clothes right? According to nerds who spend a month or less traveling in asia people still where traditional clothes (and these nerds think it makes sense for them to buy them as well).
X well honestly it's a yes and no but mostly no. People do still wear them for ceremonies and sometimes for holidays but the majority of the people, especially the young crowd, make me feel quite...dirty hippy. It's basically like Madison Ave...everywhere, god I don't even like to go out on Saturdays.
4. Aren't they socialist? I mean...China is.
X Korea is about the most hyper free market capitalist nation on the planet. They do have things like big gov spending programs and gov healthcare but in terms of the economy it's enough to make a libertarian splooge (sorry).
5. Traditional beliefs, don't they believe in weird earth gods and whatnot?
X Sort of, almost exclusively they follow a cult of ancestor worship. There are small gods in their cultural mythology but nobody really believes in them and they were mostly imports of China. But goddamn if they don't believe their ancestors are watching them and need to be venerated. Severe punishment and death await those who fail to placate the ghosts of the past. Seriously, it's almost funny except they take it really seriously. There are still a large number of shamanist priests whose soul job it is to take care of spirits. I mean like hundreds of thousands.
6. Don't they have weird customs like bowing and honoring the old?
Why yes they do in fact. And when your in the presence of someone older or of higher rank then you you will feel this. They will bow and they will brown nose to stay in good favor with their bosses. This is largely a holdover of confucianism and as soon as the old or powerful disappear so does the custom. Amongst themselves there really is no difference other than that, in a almost wolf like way, the group comes first and the individual second.
The main difference really is simply that they all look asian, they speak fucking korean (fuck you korean language) and of course they eat hella spicy (but delicious) food, which always comes with soup. The old people are bizarre but even the 30 year olds think they're bizarre. In 20 years Seoul will be indistguishable from NYC, it practically is now except for all the old people and their wily old people ways. ...and street stalls, but that's fun.
I thought about all this while I was wandering around trying to find a fan for a friend and buying black market DVD's. I spent 20,000 and then found the exact same goddamn fan 1 block away for 10. it's a difference of about 5 dollars but it pisses me off that I keep doing this. When shopping in Korea take some time to go store to store comparing prices. they will try and rip you off insanely if you aren't careful.
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