The First Rule of South Korea

The first rule of South Korea is “Do not ask why.”. I've been told this by a few westerners here who have been here for a while. This “rule” is not some law imposed by some authoritarian government. Rather, it is a rule that prevents your brain from shooting blood from you skull, although that maybe an exaggeration on someone's part. Basically there is a lot in South Korea that is down right weird to a Westerners view point, and as such, if you try to figure it out you just go crazy and have an aneurysm. I'll try to explain some of these things that I've seen, although I will not provide an explanation since I am attempting to live by the first rule. One of the things that stuck out to me was a street call “Terror street”. This was a perfectly normal street with some restaurants and bars on it, a place you could easily take a family for dinner, and yet they called it “Terror Street”. Another thing I discovered is that South Korea doesn't hold to the Western norm for bathrooms. In America, almost universally, womens restroom has a picture of a stick person in a dress, men's restroom has a picture of a stick man. In Korea (I will from this point use the short hand “Korea” to refer to South Korea. I'm assuming all of you are smart enough to figure out that I am not referring to North Korea), these norms are sometimes used, but often times they are not. For instance, this past weekend I went to a few bars with some friends. One of the bars had stick figures, unclothed, to show the different sexes. And by “stick figures” and “unclothed” I mean exactly that. Womanly parts were on display, and manly parts were on display, in stick figure form. At another establishment the markers where similar, but some how so much worse. Instead of showing the manly and womanly parts, they decided to show how each sex used the facilities, the man standing, and the woman squatting. Yes, not sitting as I always assumed, but squatting.

Apart from the odd pictures you see, Korea also has an odd assortment of English thrown in, although the English is often off. One of my favorite, probably because it was one of the first I saw, is “Pets is people”. For some reason it reminds me of “Soylent Green is people”. The before mentioned “Terror street” is a classic too of course. Another is a gaming arcade that listed “shottig” instead of “shotting”, or a coffee house that said it is “comming” soon. Although perhaps the worst offender is the school that I work at which has as it's motto “Children who speak English”, but has on it's wall in big letters “Childern who speak English”. One has to wonder how hard it is to get English translations, especially in a large city like Ulsan, which has a major university and literally hundreds of English teachers. Just ask one of us before you put up a sign. Even if we don't want to give away our knowledge for free, if we cringe when you say it, it probably means it's wrong.

As for living in Korea in general, it is a learning experience in many ways. I've never lived in such a way that I rely on buses and taxis, and yet I do now. I currently take a bus to and from work every day. I have taken buses before, and yet buses in Ulsan is very different from any bus I took in the states. I hate to generalize to the rest of Korea based on Ulsan although based on what I've learned from my co-workers it's pretty much the same. The buses are not so much bus drivers as drag racers. Bus drivers basically have two positions, peddle to the metal, or full on breaks. I have almost been thrown from my feet while standing due to the quick acceleration or deceleration of the bus drivers. You may think I'm joking about the acceleration or deceleration thing, but on the way home we come upon a speed bump, and almost every night the bus driver will accelerate hard until the last second, at which he slams on the breaks for the speed hump. Taxis are not better, although the driving in Korea is a whole other blog post.

Shopping is quite a bit different than most areas in the states too. First of all Koreans love their convenience stores. Within three blocks of my apartment there are no less than three such stores, and on the way to the bus stop I pass another two, with a couple more near my school. Apart from convenience stores, there aren't nearly as many mega stores than there are in the states. There is a huge grocery store that is about 15 min. taxi drive from my home (think a very large Super Walmart), and there are a few other such huge stores in Ulsan, but most of my shopping is done at small stores or smaller grocery stores. I have two grocery stores near my apartment, but the grocery store is about a third the size of most grocery stores I go to in the states.

As for my living quarters, they are quite nice and I'm getting used to the Korean aspects of it, like there being a step for the entry way and the bathroom, or the heating and the hot water. Unlike in the states the heating style is hot water pipes flowing under the ground it's effective and quiet, and since it is customary to take off your shoes when you enter your home you end up walking around on warm floors. It is wonderful. The one odd thing that takes some getting used to is that this heating system and your hot water is tied together and you have to hit a button to turn your hot water on to take a shower. I've stood in my bathroom for several minutes trying to figure out why I didn't have hot water until I realized I didn't hit the right button. Well, enough trying to describe my apartment, here are some pictures:



This is a picture of my apartment from my entryway



This is my bathroom. No, I don't have a shower curtain or anything like that. The entire bathroom is tile and that is a central drain that the water runs down. It does make it easier to clean since you basically just spray everything down.



My kitchen. It's rather small without a lot of counter space, but it's adequate.





These are some pictures from my balconey. I'm pretty happy with my view, it's a lot better than some people's, who basically just look at another building.

I'll try to take some more places around where I live so that you can get a better idea of my living situation.

I hope you all are doing well, I will attempt to post my next update quicker next time.