Civilization in Matching Underwear
Dave says:
I must say, this is quite the civilized country. I don’t mean that in a demeaning way, a suggestion that perhaps the Koreans are still bashing people over the head with large tree branches, I mean it in a ‘civilized compared to the Asia we’ve come to know and love so far’ way. There’s none of that frontier town feeling that Vietnam or Cambodia exhibit or any of the well oiled tourist veneer that blights Thailand or the underlying oppression that is obvious in Malaysia. No, South Korea is a wealthy, balanced, um - dare I say ‘nice’ place to be. It’s almost that perfect balance between Asia and the West. A crossroads of the known and the unknown, and to boot, we appear to be the only westerners here.
Seoul is big. Really big and it sprawls like a giant sprawly thing across the valley. Above the valley are mountains (else it wouldn’t be a valley but a plain) and those mountains look just like the hills in Hollywood where they filmed M*A*S*H. I’ve watched every episode of that damn show and always felt the set looked liked the back-lot of a film studio. Now I know that it looked like Korea or, perhaps all of Korea looks like the back-lot of Warner Bros, Burbank. There are plenty of westerners in Seoul. Tourists and English teachers. They all came out the woodwork when we happened upon a rather nice lantern festival. The guidebooks warn that outside Seoul nobody speaks any English. This is true. It’s enough to keep the tourists in Seoul which is their loss and our gain. Unlike the other Asian countries I mentioned earlier, having no English around when you’re in the boonies can be tricky but here, in this modern country, everyone understands that we all have the same basic needs and communication seems to be quite easy. Of course, we need our guidebook like a sinner needs his bible and the train people all know their English days of the week and times of the day but restaurants, shops, hotels and other services have all been performed in a language I call ‘point-a-lot’.
Sarah will be posting an upcoming entry that details the wonderful warmth of the Koreans so to counter or compliment that, here’s some of their oddities. They LOVE the outdoors. And why not, the outdoors in Korea is truly beautiful. However, they do seem to insist that any pursuit outdoors requires a tremendous amount of technical clothing and equipment. This was first brought to my attention on the subway in the middle of downtown Seoul. A simple amble around the city park brought out the locals in their North Face technical hiking pants, full Merrel hiking boots, Mont-Bell gore-tex jackets, Leki walking poles etc etc. These are the Versace, Gucci and Channel brands of outdoor gear. No cheap Chinese knock-offs, these are the real deal. Oh, and it’s all brand new too, I’m not talking about the Pacific Northwest shabby-tech look. Every great adventure we have we see Koreans dressed as if they’re having an equally great adventure except they didn’t take hours of trains and local buses to get here. They pulled up in their Hyundai Sonatas, walked from the car park to the temple and back again dressed ready for both a freak snowstorm and an instant monsoon.
And on to gadgets. They love ‘em. Around the necks of these very technically dressed people are the latest, greatest and largest digital cameras I have ever seen. Not one either, usually two and a tripod and they photograph absolutely everything. I realize this used to be a Japanese stereotype but the Koreans hate all things Japanese (something to do with an invasion and 35 years of oppressive rule) so have probably reclaimed this stereotype for themselves and are likely stating they invented it in the first place. The lockers in the train station read your fingerprint to open their doors and every car has at least a sat-nav and usually a TV capable flat screen mounted just above the speedometer. In Korea, road safety appears to be at the forefront of every driver’s mind.
Hair. There must be some law in Korea that all women over the age of forty are required to have exactly the same hair-do. It’s a fairly tight perm in fairly short hair and they all, without exception, have it. All the girls have beautiful long silky Asian hair but at some point at age 39 and three quarters it must fall out and be replaced by the perm. To test Darwinian theory once and for all, Sarah and I spent a good part of the day trying to spot an evolution in action; could we see any half perms. Not perms that needed re-perming but hair that was just about to become permed whether the owner wanted it or not. After many hours we spotted several ’sporty cuts’. Post 35 but pre 40 the women must get bored with long hair and cut it shorter, say just over the collar. This must be the biological clue, the catalyst for the perm because next thing, wham, their hair is curly.
Love is in the air (not hair) in Korea. Young Koreans love each other so much they insist on wearing matching t-shirts. They walk hand in hand down the street wearing ‘Snoopy says I heart you’ type pink T’s. As you know, I’m not much of a man but I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing such a declaration. However, I have spotted the best way for Sarah and I to show our bond for each other. Many of the lingerie shops sport matching underwear. Right there in the window on manikins that are holding hands. It’s not cool matching black undies though. These are flowery pink and yellow affairs, which look rather nice on the western breasted manikin but offer further assault on the dignity of the western packaged male.
The Koreans are Krazy. They are also extremely forgiving of us. Always ready to smile when the communication breaks down and always happy to see us in their towns. And, as you will read in Sarah’s forthcoming post, they are generous to a fault.