As I've posted before (
here and
here), there is a excellent website called
ROKetship, where a cartoonist named Luke Martin draws up a single pane comic about living and teaching in South Korea. He does some great work, and I figure I'll post some with some explanations of these hilarious observations:
It is not uncommon to see the elderly (the poor elderly) gathering up cardboard or wood from dumpsters or picking through the trash. I see this every morning on my way to work. The materials are recycled and traded in for cash - similar to how some states have bottle and can redemption programs back in the States. It's sad that a lot of the elderly have no pensions or retirement accounts, as they grew up in a time where the country was destroyed and have little more than an elementary school education. They work very hard and scrimp and save - I give these men and women a lot of respect.
Korean are relatively conservative in nature coming from a Confucian background, and more recently embracing a very strong Christian background. It is considered uncouth for a woman to show cleavage. There is even a term that means a woman looks like a "milking cow" if she shows too much chest. Western women, tend to show more however, and Koreans may view it as being inappropriate. Korean women do show a lot of leg though, and it is considered very sexy to show off their long legs - however, in my opinion some show off too much, that in the US it would be considered looking "slutty" or inappropriate. I love this panel for pointing it out! (note: The Korean girl is saying "ya-ha-da" which means "too sexy" or "loud!"
Many students learn English simply by memorizing phrases. Many of my students ramble off simply what they know even if it makes no sense. I've had some adults do it to me as well, and I try not to laugh as they say "Hi-where-are-you-from-nice-to-meet-you-I-am-happy-to-meet-you-are-you-from-America-I-am-from-Korea-have-a-nice-day."
One of the things that annoys me the most is the rules of walking on the streets. It seems there is no respect for the standard system of walking the same directions as in which you drive. Old ladies (adjumma's) are particularly bad when it comes to this because they are usually "pushy" by Western standards, and get to where they want to go by any means necessary! I can't explain how many times I've been cut off by some old woman strolling along, only to stop right in front of me as I almost slam into her because she's not paying any attention to others around her.
Customer service is a high priority for Korean businesses. In this highly competitive country with franchises on every corner, building customer relations is key if you want to keep your customers happy and returning. One bad experience will trickle down the grapevine and make your company look bad. I love the customer service to a certain degree. On one hand, the salespeople can be very pushy to make the sale - and even lie to you or exaggerate their products. Other times, it is great to get a nicely packaged or gift wrapped item with extra small bonus gifts thrown in - usually free of charge. When it gets ridiculous is when you go to the big department stores and you have 3 people welcoming you to the store, 2 people directing traffic in dancing style, and one lady taking a parking ticket out of the automatic ticket machine for you. That's too much. In the cartoon, the Westerner is only buying something small but getting a huge gift basket from Skin Food as a thank you for shopping there)
My co-teachers usually do not say or do much in my classes anymore, as I've gotten my classroom rules pretty much down with my students and they understand my consequences. Yet, there are times when I am having a rough class and all my tiny co-teachers need to do is yell a few words and maybe threaten to hit someone and the students go silent and apologize to me.
Now that is power!
