- Kids These Days – One thing I noticed, that I haven’t seen in Asia really, or America over the last year for that matter, is the amount of young people in the service industry. Right before I left for South Korea I went to the Apple store in Roseville to pick up some accessories for my recently-purchased Macbook Pro. What struck me was the number of 40+ year-old people working there. I doubt any of them could accurately explain the difference between DVI, Mini-DVI and VGA. I guess when the economy tanks, American kids don’t get jobs. Not in Korea. From restaurants to 7-Elevens, people who don’t look much older than 17 are working behind the counter. The 7-Elevens are what surprised me, as I would just expect them to get robbed all the time. Well, at least in the States. Maybe the economic implosion didn’t hit Korea as hard.
- The Starcraft Network – OK, I get it, East Asian TV is weird. There’s a channel on Korean cable that is just a feed of someone playing Starcraft, a 10-year-old strategy game for the PC. The twist on this is that there are commentators for this, just like it’s a sport! When the commercials come around on every network, sound effects from video games like Super Mario bleep and bloop all over the damn place. When it comes to reality TV there was even a professionally-shot documentary TV show of a family trying to figure out to find their hamster that go loose in their house. When it comes to the celebrity variety shows, every prat fall has no less than four angles replayed of the event.
- “Act As If Nothing Has Happened” – Those were the words on the marquee crawling across the front the Incheon Ministry of Education building when we met our co-teachers. It made a few fellow EPIK teachers nervous, for sure. For me, it marked the beginning of an awesome hunt for the most poorly-translated English signs around the country. Around where I live, they aren’t hard to find, like the “Good Morning Hair Salon,” “Is Was Boutique” and a political campaign sign telling Koreans to “Let’s Together.” I’m excited to teach English so I can hopefully help with some changes.
- Lotte = Buy N Large – If people think Wal-Mart is bad, they haven’t been to Korea. Lotte is a chain of stores that run a department store aptly called “Lotte Mart.” However, they also run Lotte Supermarket, Lotteria (their fast food joint), Lotte Cinema (movie theaters), Lotte Baking, and even Lotte World, a theme park. Where’s WALL-E when you need him?
- Model Citizens – Julie (a South African who I met at orientation that lives near me) and I went to Seoul the other day. It was a fantastic experience. We found the GI-laden neighborhood of Itaewon with its English bookstores, Mexican restaurants and and tailors. Once we ventured into the real part of the city, we found ourselves at the Insadong River Walk near the financial district. There, we appeared to be the only Westerners amongst what seemed to be a domestic tourist hub, which meant every Korean carrying a DSLR (most of them do) wanted to take pictures of us white(-ish) just doing whatever. It was kind of weird. I can say with full honesty that I’m not model material, but every few feet we walked, we invariably had to pose for the camera with a long telephoto lens pointed at us. I’ll probably end up in one of those pictures you see pre-placed in a new photo frame.
- BONUS – My toothpaste is green tea flavored.
