Today I was reminded that the subway is sometimes a rather alarming place.
Generally I like Seoul Metro- it's clean, reliable and cheap. You can get pretty much from anywhere in the Seoul Metropolitan area to anywhere else; all of Seoul seems to have an underground level with shopping and rushing trains. The map is a bit overwhelming, nine different lines spiderweb out into the suburbs while the downtown of Seoul is a veritable warren of crisscrossing subway lines, making the map resemble a rat's nest more than anything else. Sometimes the rides can be uncomfortable, particularly on the late night trains out of the city when people have to be physically shoved into the cars and no one needs handrails because the train is so fully packed that the bodies of your fellow riders hold you up.
Yesterday's ride started out fine. I was off to visit Kylara's family down in Seouther Seoul, which is quite a trek, so I hopped on the train bright and early with a packed brunch in my bag. There I was, leaning against a rail and munching my peanut butter and jelly when a somewhat elderly man approached me. In Korea, these are known as Ajoshis. He asked me something in Korean and I apologized and explained that I didn't know Korean that well. Ignoring my words and perhaps latching onto the fact that I had replied in Korean, he began to question me- still in Korean. For a few minutes I was able to work out a few of his questions enough to be able to answer to his satisfaction, but then he pointed at his watch and said something I couldn't even begin to understand. I apologized again and he repeated it, a bit louder. I shook my head, curiously said the word for wristwatch (shikhae), shrugged my shoulders and turned away, uncertain whether or not this man was crazy.
I tried to ignore him, a hard task as he was about two feet away and staring irritably at me. Munching my sandwich, I pretended to be enjoying the view of train track junkyards and distant apartments buildings. Maybe he would just go away... No such luck. He watched me for a few seconds before starting in on me in Korean again, saying goodness knows what. At this point, the other riders were beginning to notice the commotion. The Ajoshi repeated his stupid watch question again- what was he asking?- maybe how long I had been in his country? why I wasn't wearing a watch? if i wanted to buy his watch? I shook my head, now feeling a little annoyed myself and distinctly feigning interest in the advertisements posted on the walls of the subway.
My neighbor came to my rescue... or so we thought. She said sorry to me in English and then patiently explained something to the Ajoshi. Probably everything I'd already told him- that I didn't speak Korean and couldn't answer his question. This only served to further enrage said Ajoshi. He began yelling at my hapless neighbor, who replied politely with a smile on her face. They take respect your elders very seriously here and I was tempted start yelling at him in English to leave the poor girl alone, since she was just taking it. He started pointing and screeching, now drawing the attention of the entire car of riders, who stared at the three of us with mingled amusement, alarm and pity. I tried to make myself invisible, and when that failed, I simply shrugged and grinned awkwardly at the staring onlookers.
The Ajoshi stormed away and I breathed a sigh of relief. Some of the other riders were giggling at this point, and I giggled a bit myself. It was ridiculous, and I was sure it was quite a show for everyone who could understand Korean. A foreigner girl staring blankly at an old man who was raging at her in a language she couldn't understand but everyone else could, while another random Korean girl politely told the man to shove it.
My relief came far too early. The Ajoshi was back, pointing at one of us and then the other, yelling in our faces in a manner that suggested we had taken this particular subway ride simply to plot against him. He reached down and picked up my bag (it was at my feet), which I nervously wrested from his grasp. The seemed to be the tipping point. A younger Korean guy came to our rescue by pushing the Ajoshi away and cornering him. Our rescuer and his friend threated the offending Ajoshi in low tones until the old man apologized to my neighbor. He did not apologize to me- rather, he continued to glare until we reached the next stop, where he disembarked and threw a dirty look over his shoulder. Seconds later, a security guard arrived (rather belated, in my humble opinion) and followed him off of the subway.
Ah well. These things happen. I just wish I knew what he was so mad about. I'll never know.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Sushi vs. Kimchee, A Comparison of Neighbor Countries
A few weeks ago, Pippi and I visited Japan while I was on my one week summer vacation. It was a blast. We went to the southernmost island, called Kyushu, and traveled all over the northern half. Our route: from Fukuoka to Nagasaki to Kumumoto and then onto a tiny onsen town called Yufuin. Every kind of Japanese food we could think of we ate, and for entertainment we visited museums, tall ships, castles and volcanoes (to name a few). We traveled by train, bus, ferry, trolley, bike and foot and got by on four Japanese words: Konichiwa (hello), Arigato Gozimas (thank you very much), Ohio Gozimas (good day to you) and Hai (yes). It was a most excellent adventure, but rather than boring you all with the excruciating details (for instance- our 2 hour walk to a hotel when we got off the bus at the wrong stop), I will save that for stories I tell at home and will instead regale you with amusing comparisons of Korea (at least the Seoul area I am used to) and Japan (Kyushu specific- I cannot comment on Tokyo).
Warning to the reader- this post is rated PG-13 due to some more mature topics. If you might be offended by these, please skip Love Motels.
Number One: Food
Well duh, you might be thinking. Korean people eat barbeque and kimchee, Japanese people eat sushi and tempura (among other things). But what I found fascinating as I wandered around Japan and sampled everything I could think of is that there is almost no spicy food in Japan. While in Korea I can only find food that is spicy and or sweet, the vast majority of Japanese food strongly tastes of sesame seed oil, ginger or soy sauce. A Korean ramyeon will make my eyes tear up and my nose run, but its Japanese cousin, the better known ramen, hasn’t even a hint of spice, unless you count the optional ginger sprinkled on top. Wasabi has a bite, yes, but it can’t even begin to compete in spiciness with the ubiquitous red pepper of Japan’s western neighbor.
Number Two: Expense
I’ve heard it before and I will repeat it for anyone who will listen. Japan is EXPENSIVE. Korea isn’t particularly cheap or anything but there are places to stay for 10 dollars a night and plenty of nice meals for under 5 dollars. Not so with Japan. And the yen is doing disgustingly well, particularly compared to the won. Japanese trips will bite you in the pocketbook.
Number Three: Love Motels
An interesting phenomenon exists in Korea. Children are expected to live with their parents until they are married and living alone is very frowned upon. This poses a problem for young Korean couples who feel a little frisky in the dating stage, particularly ones that are in their 20s. Rather than hiding in bushes like their teenage counterparts in the US (Korea, with its incredibly dense population, does have a dearth of sneaking away spots, so it would be hard for them to find any bushes anyway), a highly successful business of providing rooms has sprung up on practically every city street in Korea. The love motel is as common in Korea as Starbucks is in America, you cannot get very far without seeing a bright neon sign announcing the motel and garage entrances with the top half obscured by cords (to keep people from being able to see the drivers of the cars that go into the motels). They are frequented by amorous young couples, Korean men with their prostitutes, traveling foreigners and cheating couples. Love motels range from classy to creepy and are a wonderfully cheap option for a pair of travelers with no toothbrushes (for some reason every love motel provides a toothbrush to each of its guests). Even if you do have a toothbrush, love motels are highly convenient. My school put me up in one for my first four nights in Korea.
In Japan, I was curious to see if the love motel had found a similar niche in the landscape and society. I did find love motels, but it was quite a different experience. Japanese love motels are incredibly sketchy. They involve separate entrances and exits and rather than a front desk, they instead have a display of the available rooms, each with a picture that shows the theme of the room. If it’s lit up, it’s available. If not, well… don’t go in. I don’t expect they provide toothbrushes either. Pippi and I definitely decided that love motels in Japan were not friendly places for the low budget traveler, so I never will know exactly how they worked, but I don’t regret skipping the love motel and staying at a business hotel instead.
Number Four: Smell
No offense Korea, but you smell. You do. Face it. Rotting bags of kimchee on the street outside of restaurants lend a distinct odor to Korea that in the summer is simply too overwhelming to be ignored. And even though most Koreans don’t have terrible b.o. and thus deodorant is a scarce commodity, when you’re crammed onto the subway up to your eyeballs in people, the few that do need deodorant become painfully obvious.
Japan, on the other hand, seems to have a countrywide case of hygienic OCD. There is no smell, which is quite a relief, but in return you get a bidet unit on every private and nearly every public toilet, as well as silly little river sound makers to mask the noises of your toilet usage. For a few days after I returned from Japan, the bathroom sounded exceptionally quiet and I almost missed the gurgling brook accompaniment.
Number Five: English speaking ability
In Korea I have been somewhat spoiled. English is taught at public school now; most Koreans know a bit of English and can understand some of my most basic requests. Their accents are atrocious and they rarely can comprehend mine, which often leads to me being forced to speak Konglish (adding an uh or ee noise on the end of any word that ends with a hard consonant), but at least nearly everyone can say hello, English teacher, and where are you from (the vast majority of my conversations with random Koreans include those three phrases).
In Japan, very few people speak English. The average person on the street will not recognize anything more than Hello, and one is quickly reduced to elaborate and inaccurate sign language with hotel staff, waiters and bus drivers. Pippi and I went into one restaurant in Yufuin where the menu had no pictures, and since neither of us could read kanji and the waiter could speak absolutely no English, we were left looking quizzically around while the waiter shuffled his feet awkwardly in the kitchen. We were saved from starvation when our only fellow diner received her meal of tempura, which we pointed at frantically and held up two fingers, begging in English and repeating the word "tempura" like a mantra.
Fortunately, most major train stations have incredibly helpful information staff who assure you they can only speak a little English and then answer your complicated questions with clear accents and an excellent grasp of grammar. There appears to be no in between. So definitely learn the word for bathroom if you plan on going to Japan some time soon.
Obviously there was more- from differing fashion and hairstyles to completely different geography (the mini mountains of Korea are much different than the sharp volcanic peaks on the Japanese islands). There were different looking temples and castles, and all the Hyundais and Kias of Korea got traded for Hondas and Toyotas in Japan (that drove on the wrong side of the road). There were similarities too- the convenience stores had the same names and foods, many of the same brands existed in both countries and everyone had an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty (including Pippi). It was fun, and fascinating. And now I have two more stamps in my passport to show that I am quite the world traveler indeed.
Warning to the reader- this post is rated PG-13 due to some more mature topics. If you might be offended by these, please skip Love Motels.
Number One: Food
Well duh, you might be thinking. Korean people eat barbeque and kimchee, Japanese people eat sushi and tempura (among other things). But what I found fascinating as I wandered around Japan and sampled everything I could think of is that there is almost no spicy food in Japan. While in Korea I can only find food that is spicy and or sweet, the vast majority of Japanese food strongly tastes of sesame seed oil, ginger or soy sauce. A Korean ramyeon will make my eyes tear up and my nose run, but its Japanese cousin, the better known ramen, hasn’t even a hint of spice, unless you count the optional ginger sprinkled on top. Wasabi has a bite, yes, but it can’t even begin to compete in spiciness with the ubiquitous red pepper of Japan’s western neighbor.
Number Two: Expense
I’ve heard it before and I will repeat it for anyone who will listen. Japan is EXPENSIVE. Korea isn’t particularly cheap or anything but there are places to stay for 10 dollars a night and plenty of nice meals for under 5 dollars. Not so with Japan. And the yen is doing disgustingly well, particularly compared to the won. Japanese trips will bite you in the pocketbook.
Number Three: Love Motels
An interesting phenomenon exists in Korea. Children are expected to live with their parents until they are married and living alone is very frowned upon. This poses a problem for young Korean couples who feel a little frisky in the dating stage, particularly ones that are in their 20s. Rather than hiding in bushes like their teenage counterparts in the US (Korea, with its incredibly dense population, does have a dearth of sneaking away spots, so it would be hard for them to find any bushes anyway), a highly successful business of providing rooms has sprung up on practically every city street in Korea. The love motel is as common in Korea as Starbucks is in America, you cannot get very far without seeing a bright neon sign announcing the motel and garage entrances with the top half obscured by cords (to keep people from being able to see the drivers of the cars that go into the motels). They are frequented by amorous young couples, Korean men with their prostitutes, traveling foreigners and cheating couples. Love motels range from classy to creepy and are a wonderfully cheap option for a pair of travelers with no toothbrushes (for some reason every love motel provides a toothbrush to each of its guests). Even if you do have a toothbrush, love motels are highly convenient. My school put me up in one for my first four nights in Korea.
In Japan, I was curious to see if the love motel had found a similar niche in the landscape and society. I did find love motels, but it was quite a different experience. Japanese love motels are incredibly sketchy. They involve separate entrances and exits and rather than a front desk, they instead have a display of the available rooms, each with a picture that shows the theme of the room. If it’s lit up, it’s available. If not, well… don’t go in. I don’t expect they provide toothbrushes either. Pippi and I definitely decided that love motels in Japan were not friendly places for the low budget traveler, so I never will know exactly how they worked, but I don’t regret skipping the love motel and staying at a business hotel instead.
Number Four: Smell
No offense Korea, but you smell. You do. Face it. Rotting bags of kimchee on the street outside of restaurants lend a distinct odor to Korea that in the summer is simply too overwhelming to be ignored. And even though most Koreans don’t have terrible b.o. and thus deodorant is a scarce commodity, when you’re crammed onto the subway up to your eyeballs in people, the few that do need deodorant become painfully obvious.
Japan, on the other hand, seems to have a countrywide case of hygienic OCD. There is no smell, which is quite a relief, but in return you get a bidet unit on every private and nearly every public toilet, as well as silly little river sound makers to mask the noises of your toilet usage. For a few days after I returned from Japan, the bathroom sounded exceptionally quiet and I almost missed the gurgling brook accompaniment.
Number Five: English speaking ability
In Korea I have been somewhat spoiled. English is taught at public school now; most Koreans know a bit of English and can understand some of my most basic requests. Their accents are atrocious and they rarely can comprehend mine, which often leads to me being forced to speak Konglish (adding an uh or ee noise on the end of any word that ends with a hard consonant), but at least nearly everyone can say hello, English teacher, and where are you from (the vast majority of my conversations with random Koreans include those three phrases).
In Japan, very few people speak English. The average person on the street will not recognize anything more than Hello, and one is quickly reduced to elaborate and inaccurate sign language with hotel staff, waiters and bus drivers. Pippi and I went into one restaurant in Yufuin where the menu had no pictures, and since neither of us could read kanji and the waiter could speak absolutely no English, we were left looking quizzically around while the waiter shuffled his feet awkwardly in the kitchen. We were saved from starvation when our only fellow diner received her meal of tempura, which we pointed at frantically and held up two fingers, begging in English and repeating the word "tempura" like a mantra.
Fortunately, most major train stations have incredibly helpful information staff who assure you they can only speak a little English and then answer your complicated questions with clear accents and an excellent grasp of grammar. There appears to be no in between. So definitely learn the word for bathroom if you plan on going to Japan some time soon.
Obviously there was more- from differing fashion and hairstyles to completely different geography (the mini mountains of Korea are much different than the sharp volcanic peaks on the Japanese islands). There were different looking temples and castles, and all the Hyundais and Kias of Korea got traded for Hondas and Toyotas in Japan (that drove on the wrong side of the road). There were similarities too- the convenience stores had the same names and foods, many of the same brands existed in both countries and everyone had an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty (including Pippi). It was fun, and fascinating. And now I have two more stamps in my passport to show that I am quite the world traveler indeed.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Announcements!
Announcements, announcements, announcements! A horrible way to die, a horrible way to die, a horrible death to be talked to death, a horrible way to die!
Sorry, couldn't help it, too many years of girl scout camp have bred an inability to hear the word announcements without spontaneously bursting into song.
Hi everyone! Sorry I've been away for so long. Sarah (furthermore known as Pippi) was visiting and I was entertaining and being entertained. Also, I was in Japan for a week. So, I've been busy. I have not forgotten about the blog, I promise!
However, I am not going to put out A Day in the Life- Part 2 just yet. It takes me awhile to write these posts, it's late tonight, and I have two very important pieces of information to disseminate.
Number 1:
Fan Death is real. I know for a fact. I slept with my fan on, next to my bed, in a closed room for four nights and the fan died.
...
Ba dum ba!
Number 2: (the more important piece of news)
I am leaving Korea at the end of August. This probably doesn't come as a surprise to most of you, but I thought I'd make an official announcement on the blog. I am off to go sailing through Southeast Asia. I will be on a 40 foot yawl (type of sailboat) as part of a crew of 4. It will be completely awesome. We will be stopping in many different ports and visiting a bunch of countries.
So yes. You've all got about 3 more weeks of funny Korean tidbits and then it's off to Australia with me!
Sorry, couldn't help it, too many years of girl scout camp have bred an inability to hear the word announcements without spontaneously bursting into song.
Hi everyone! Sorry I've been away for so long. Sarah (furthermore known as Pippi) was visiting and I was entertaining and being entertained. Also, I was in Japan for a week. So, I've been busy. I have not forgotten about the blog, I promise!
However, I am not going to put out A Day in the Life- Part 2 just yet. It takes me awhile to write these posts, it's late tonight, and I have two very important pieces of information to disseminate.
Number 1:
Fan Death is real. I know for a fact. I slept with my fan on, next to my bed, in a closed room for four nights and the fan died.
...
Ba dum ba!
Number 2: (the more important piece of news)
I am leaving Korea at the end of August. This probably doesn't come as a surprise to most of you, but I thought I'd make an official announcement on the blog. I am off to go sailing through Southeast Asia. I will be on a 40 foot yawl (type of sailboat) as part of a crew of 4. It will be completely awesome. We will be stopping in many different ports and visiting a bunch of countries.
So yes. You've all got about 3 more weeks of funny Korean tidbits and then it's off to Australia with me!
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