Britain in Korea

Even though Korea has its own very strong ecomony (from electronic giants like Samsung to evil corporation Lotte which has a finger in every business pie), western influences seem to creep in everywhere. Just like the rest of world, though, these ‘western’ companies and products are nearly exclusively American – but a few curious English-isms have crept in too.

1. Tesco

Technically the supermarkets are called Home Plus here but they are more than just owned by the Tesco group. You can find all sorts of goodies in the original English packaging (with no attempt to even add Korean letters), from Tesco Finest ice-cream to Tesco value baked beans. A taste of home… Unfortunately they haven’t imported decent cheese yet though.

2. Aviva

Yup, insurance adverts featuring a giant pound coin and Korean voiceover.

3. Guinness

Not to be found in a decent pint, but nonetheless easy to buy in a bottle from the corner shop. (‘International’ beer selection only includes Budweiser, Heineken, MGD, Corona and Asahi so this is quite a honour for ole Guinness.)

4. Burberry

No longer just beloved by chavs, Burberry is one of the most shopped brands in Korea. You might not see the infamous caps, but bags and shirts with a discreet checked collar are everywhere. Even some school uniform shirts seem to have the design.

5. Topshop

It doesn’t quite exist yet but there have been adverts on buses and other hints – looking forward to this one!

Tandem Bikes and Couple Wear

Romance certainly isn’t dead in Korea – girls expect to be treated like princesses and have their bags carried for them or be whizzed around on the back of a tandem bike. Yes, that’s right. We’ve seen more tandem bikes in the last few months than in our whole lives. If you try a rental shop here, you’ll probably be asked where your other half is and if you want a nice pink tandem and matching helmets.

This really isn’t the tip of the iceberg, though. The best Korean fashion statement is ‘couple wear’ – which is exactly what it sounds like. Whole shops sell matching outfits for love birds, with the usual sight being a girlfriend and boyfriend in the same T-shirt. I have seen really outrageous head to toe copy cats, though, which includes matching shoes, bags and even hair cuts or colors…

Here it’s a perfectly normal statement of togetherness but something in my Western soul thinks its plain wrong, as well as looking rather ridiculous. It’s kind of the equivalent of marking your territory….

Soju Goggles

We’ve all heard of beer goggles on a night out, but this advert proves that soju (Korea’s favorite tipple) is rather stronger….

Best advert ever? Definitely not advocating responsible drinking…

http://video.nate.com/207369850

Beauty Treatments

As I have probably mentioned before, Koreans are very health conscious. They exercise and eat well as a rule, even into their old age. We met a man who claimed he was 70 by the river one evening (he wanted to practice a little English) and he informed us that every night after dinner he walks 10 miles along the river path…

Koreans also like to relax in the sauna and spend money on beauty treatments and massages to stay young. Luckily its about a tenth of the price of the UK so we can indulge as well. I had my first facial and massage the other weekend and 2 hours only cost around £10.

There is one rather mysterious process, though, and its called ‘cupping’. It’s a bit like acupuncture – hot cups are placed on the skin and they create suction, like a vacuum. Apparently it eases blood flow, tension and stress etc. Some celebs now seem to be keen on this but I think it goes back a way in Korean culture. The funny thing about it is that it leaves these huge bruises and when Paul saw a woman in the swimming pool who had had it done, he thought she had been beaten up… Its not supposed to be painful but after seeing the bruises, I’m not sure I will be trying it all that soon!

Korean Music Part 2 – Trot

All the kids might be listening to K-Pop, but there’s a more traditional form of Korean music that we often catch a glimpse of. It’s called ‘Trot’ and is basically folk music – and is listened to by everyone over 40 in Korea.

There are whole TV channels devoted to it and concerts filled with ajumas waving their arms around nearly everu weekend. Luckily, it all sounds exactly the same. So this song will give you an excellent insight into it:

Election Time

Although we didn’t get around to actually voting in the UK elections, we did keep an (outraged) eye on the results and fighting via the Guardian…

We’ve also experienced elections (for City Mayors) in Korea now, too. And let’s just say the UK has a lot to learn in terms of entertainment value! All the canidates have posters spinning around town on the sides of little trucks, with music blaring. And the songs are – wait for – all made up for them and about their elections promises. Catchy, eh? Maybe if the Lib Dems had made themselves a theme tune they might be in the hot seat right now…

The only thing was, it was pretty noisy for a few weeks! Here’s a snapshot of one ‘debate’ in Seoul…

Football Fever!

The World Cup has hit us here in Korea too and despite everyone’s tendancy to talk about ‘soccer’ (why? why??) instead of football, it’s been fun so far. Despite watching Green mess up, of course. What a 바보.

Fortunately we can be spared the agony this time around of watching England make a mess of things on home ground and the media grumbling about it constantly (although we did have to endure a bar full of smug Americans) – instead the Koreans look about their national team with pride and optimism. Rightly so it seems after the opening games – the energy they played with was fantastic!

The atmosphere on the streets is pretty wild, too. As well as showing nearly all the games in bars and restaurants, they show the Korea clashes on huge screens around the cities. So we were able to go downtown and join in the crowds on the streets, cheering on outside in the lovely weather. Even though it was just a Group match, you’d have thought that Korea has won the title already from the celebrations all night afterwards – honking cars, spontaneous cheering…

The Ajuma Phenomenom

Despite the modern influences in Korea, society remains strictly partriarchal. The men earn the money, spend all night drinking with business partners and come home to check the kids’ school grades. Women are expected to be beautiful, cute – and agreeable.

Women have little real power – even though things are changing a lot in the younger generations – until they are older. As Korean society also has a very strict respect for elders, when women reach the age of around 50 and have a family under their belt, they are given the name ‘ajuma’ out of said respect for age and kids.

But the ajumas are far more than just older, married woman… they’re a very powerful character in Korea! It seems to mean that they can do whatever they like and be as rude as they want to younger people – and certainly to foreigners. It’s also a point in a woman’s life when it becomes okay for them to drink excessively and smoke! Thanks to their empowered status and Korean social hierarchy, its actually more accurate that no-one younger has the right to challenge their behaviour, but a lot of them take advantage of this…

Some of my run-ins have included being shouted at for not speaking Korean when we’re minding our own business (and replying in Korean sure makes them surprised), slapped on the thigh for wearing shorts (and the the shoulder for wearing a tank top), shoved out the way on the subway or shushed for chatting in the sauna, even though they’re doing the same thing.

Be advised, though, that this powerful creature is very easy to spot in a crowd. Just look for:

– the short permed hair

– the oversized sun visor

– the padded jacket and velveteen patterned trousers all year round

– giant, heavy bags or carts seemingly lifted by superhuman powers

– a tendancy to dart for subway seats and hoard things they find on the street (leaves to use as ‘salad’, old cardboard…)

– high speed movement despite short legs

The K-Pop Generation

As I mentioned before, Korean music is a little behind the times! Although things seem to be catching up a little on the electro front, the most popular music is straight out of the 90s. Think pretty-boy boy bands, girls in cheerleading outfits doing a synchronised dance, ballads in front of a wind machine… But this has become so popular that it has its own genre; K-POP, or (surprisingly) Korean Pop.

Here’s a little taste… any of the background melodies sound familiar by the way? They seem to be unashamedly ripping off groups we remember.

From T-Ara – this is constantly being played on the radio around town.

‘G-Dragon’ (not a stage name…?) from the most popular group, Big Bang.

And the cheerleading outfits I promised…

Intermediate Korean…?

For the last couple of months, I’ve been doing a language exchange with a korean girl and it seems to be coming along okay! Grammar is pretty simple as they only have three tenses: past, present, future. The only slightly tricky bit is learning the difference between formal and informal (like French or Spanish, too) but most Koreans would forgive us for using the ‘middle ground’ form as we’re foreigners.

Here’s a little taste of what I can say now….!

안녕! 앨리 이에요.  영국사람  이에요.  영어 선생님 이에요. 저는 대구에서 일해요.

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