Tell me about......... South Korea

[owl10]

Hi everyone,

As you may have seen Ive alluded to in another thread Im off to 'nice korea' for the best part of 11 weeks. Im leaving next monday and back just before xmas.

Im going to the far south, a place called Sacheon which is just south of Jinju.

Never been to the 'far east' before so no idea what to expect. I dont speak the lingo but will be working with Korean staff who speak fluent English, as well as some other western (French...) staff also.

I may have access to a car, or be very tempted to hire a bike.

So, I know a few of you have been traveling, or even lived (or still do) in this part of the world so any tips on anything from business and personal etiquette to what to see and do on my days off would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!
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Yet I still end up reading crap like that"

[The Artist]

https://seoulbeats.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/psy-gangnam-style.jpg

[Rogerborg]

Kimchi is a form of gastric torture. Pringles may be your only hope.

Politics ranges all the way from "Fuck Japan completely" to "Fuck Japan utterly".

Work culture is ostentatiously hard, not smart. Death is preferable to being out-competed. Particularly by the Japanese.

Socialising means drinking yourself to death with a minor sideline in playing yourself to death (clicky, not wanky).

I'd rather eat a jumbo sized bag of dicks than spend more than a week or so in Korea again. Tastes better than kimchi.
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[Polarbear]

It's a grey country. Grey hi rise buildings in grey streets with people wearing grey.

I found it one of the most depressing countries I have visited or worked in.

Perfectly safe just .......grey
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[Zen Dog]

Wow. The places I went to in Asia were NOT like that!

Zen Dog
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My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[Ariel Badger]

Kimchi rocks and Korean chicks are uber fit.
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[Polarbear]

I have to say I much prefer Japanese chicks
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[Paddy Blake]

All I know about south Korea is that some years ago my son went out with a lovely girl from there for a good while.
She is still very ambitious.

If you meet a girl from Asia do not add her to friend on facebook where all your friends will hit on her.

[Kradmelder]

[mistergixer]

As BCF's resident #1 Koreaphile, I should perhaps step in here and add my two penneth worth:

It has been a while since I visted Korea (1999, stayed for several months), and no doubt things will have changed (the Romanisation standard certainly has) but.....

Food:
Korean food is typically quite spicy - garlic, ginger and chilli are standard ingredients in pretty much every dish. Most meals are accompanied by 3 key things: rice, soup, kimchi (fermented cabbage). Top dishes to try would have to be:
1) bibimbap (dolsot style is best - a heated earthenware bowl filled with rice, meat and mixed vegetables, topped with a runny fried egg. Add hot pepper paste to taste, then mix it all up in the bowl and eat with a spoon. The hot bowl finishes off the egg. Fucking lovely.)
2) Bulgogi - or 'fire beef', marinated beef, usually cooked at the table, wrap it up in a large lettuce leaf and eat.
3) Kalbetang - spicy pork ribs.
4) Chigae - hot pots. Halfway between a soup and a stew, usually containing meat or seafood, tofu and kimchi. Typically quite spicy, very warming and delicious.
5) Kimbap - Korean take on sushi maki-type rolls.

If you're adventurous, try live octopus and (of course) dog. Western food is now very prevalent so you do have a 'safety net' if you don't like 'foreign' food, but personally I never touched it, you can go to Maccie D's at home.....

People and culture:
Koreans are typically polite and couteous. A lot of their culture stems from Confucian ideals, so manners are important.
However, once you get to know them, they are very warm and friendly.
There is a strange distinction between people you know, and people you don't know - if you haven't been formally introduced, you really don't exist. So, don't be surprised if people push in front of you in queues, and DO expect people to bump into you in the street and not apologise. They will not be surprised if you bump into them and say nothing. Took me a while to get my head around this facet of Korean life.

'Going Dutch' is not common, either you pay or your friends pay, you don't normally do rounds of drinks or split restaurant bills.
They do love a drink - Korean beer is nice, Makolli (fermented rice) is lovely, Soju (gin) is foul.
You will probably find them to be quite physical, a night out with Koreans will involve a lot of playful punching, slapping and pinching. Expect to come home with bruises.
Pour your companions drinks for them, drink after they have drunk, wait for the eldest person at a table to start eating before you touch your own food, attend to their needs before your own - they will respect you (and probably love you) if you follow their basic rules.
You may well find yourself in hostess bar - the women are not whores, they are there to pour your drinks, feed you snacks, laugh at your jokes etc. You do not (normally) get to fuck them.

Places - I've never been to Sacheon, so can't really comment on it, and didn't spend very much time down in that part of SK (I did go to nearby Yeosu, but that was only as a jumping off point to get the boat over to Jeju). There are a number of pretty crappy industrial cities (Pusan, for example, is pretty dire, and when I went it was mostly populated by drunk Russian sailors, desperate for a punch-up - I did oblige them a few times), but there is also some fantastic scenery to be found (in particular Soraksan), and Seoul is an absolutely bonkers city where the very old and the ultra-modern sit side-by-side.
Generally, Korea is a pretty mountainous area, and the flatter parts are usually devoted to rice production.Being a peninsula, there's plenty of coastline, but 'beach culture' isn't very prevalent there (when I was there, most beaches were covered with barbed wire and machine gun nests to counter NK's habit of dropping off commandos by mini-sub).
If you're partial to a temple or two, you'll find plenty there - Pulguksa probably being the most famous.
One thing you will notice is that pretty much every historic site/building has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times (mostly during the numerous periods of Japanese colonialism, but also during the Korean war).

Anyway, end of my essay. If there's anything else you want to know, drop me a PM or pop them down in this thread and I'll do my best to answer them.



Pulguksa:
https://visitasiaguide.com/visit-korea/pics-korea/pulguksa.jpg

Bit of a banquet:
https://janetnewenham.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/korean_food.jpg

Soraksan NP:
https://seoulhikingroup.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/p6030052.jpg

Jeju-do:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Waterfall_on_Jeju_Island,_Korea.jpg

Hallasan (tallest mountain in SK):
https://www.jejuweekly.com/news/photo/200911/408_598_222.jpg


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Space Monkey #7
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[Kradmelder]

fark me, I hope they have maids to do all those dishes. And so little meat. Unless that brown pile in the middle is stewed dog You would go home starving



That fish staring back at you, pass......

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[ProXimaCore]

I've met a ton of Koreans around Europe while travelling. I've had a 50/50 rate at them being either really nice or total assholes. Same as everywhere else I guess.

I did get along with a bunch of Koreans when I lived in Austria. Infact I even learned to read and write the language. It's probably easier than our written language. My vocabulary isn't much though. It's more that I can read and pronounce something I see but have no idea what it means.

Korean food is the best damn food I ever ate. To me, there is nothing better tasting than all the stuff that mistergixer mentioned. Although he missed out my favourite, Galbi. It's quite similar to Bulgogi. Watch that movie Old Boy if you want to see that live octopus being eaten.

Culturally, age is quite an important thing to pay attention to. Respect your elders is quite an important thing. Even with others around the same age as each other. I was older than all my Korean friends so I didn't have to do anything special. mistergixer pretty much covered it.
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[Joncrete Cungle]

https://acidcow.com/girls/21766-sexy-south-korean-edition-60-pics.html

[mistergixer]

[The Artist]

These folks managed ok

https://images.zap2it.com/images/tv-EP00002710/cast-of-mash-5.jpg

[TheDonUK]

If you can do the gangnam style dance and are good at MMORPGS you will be right in there
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[Rogerborg]

[mistergixer]

an child?



Doesn't look like they are 'stabbed in' to me. They also don't look like standard Korean issue chopsticks, which typically are a) metal, b) flat, and c) fiendishly difficult to use as a consequence.

I'd hazard a guess that the (googled) image is not from a restaurant in Korea, but merely from a Korean restaurant. I visited a Korean restaurant in Stockholm, and was shocked when I got given the usual crappy wood 'sticks you get from (for example) an Oriental restaurant over here. I felt like asking them 'WTF are you doing? I want to struggle with my food'.


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Space Monkey #7
Don Eladio is dead. His capos are dead. You have no one left to fight for. Fill your pockets and leave in peace. Or fight me and die!
Mistergixer's videos on YouTube

[Lord Percy]

My girlfriend is South Korean.

I think the country is amazing, but then again I think I quite like Asian culture in general. I guess it depends on your outlook and your expectations.

The food is different - sometimes disgusting, sometimes amazing. Meat is more highly valued over there because historically they had none apart from dog and goat. They just had veg and rice and basic stuff, which is why a lot of their staple dishes are just mixed amounts of veg with spices and vinegar and other things to take the boringness away. And their method of food preservation was with some form of garlic, hence kimchi, the famed iconic food of korea. There are different ways to make it, so it sometimes tastes okay and sometimes tastes horrible. Obviously the place is modernised now so meat is largely available, but still vegetarian rice or noodle dishes are the amazingly cheap option. Kimbap is a favourite of mine. To make a comparison, I know a lot of Asians really hate European food because it's so plain. So Korean food might look a little different but it has a lot more flavour if you ask me. Consider that the UK seems to love Chinese, Indian, Thai food etc. Well, Korea is from the same part of the world.

The people are super polite and friendly, and they have a really strong social standing whereby everyone is traditionally considered first by their age. Basically if you're older than someone, then you are 'above' them. It can be annoying when old people do things and nobody stops them (for example I saw an old lady chuck some litter on the floor in the metro in such a blindly disrespectful way, but my girlfriend said we just had to accept it). If somebody is older than you, you absolutely must respect them, unless there's something blatantly wrong that needs sorting out. If your boss wants you to go out on a staff do.... you must. However they might respect you, or be understanding, because you're a foreigner.

I guess you'll start to pick up the language as you go along. The main thing is that they have a polite language and in informal language. It's all the same apart from the polite language has a little bit extra added onto the end of sentences. It's the same as we might say 'sir' or 'madame', but is done in a few more words and is still very mandatory. Again, the division is by age, so if someone is older than you, you must use the polite language, until they become a very very good friend. Also if you don't know somebody, it's nice to use the polite version of sentences, regardless of age. For example if you buy something from a shop and the person at the counter is a teenage student or something, you should still use polite wording. You'll learn as you go though, I'm sure.

I don't know about the more remote or 'faraway' places (in comparison to Seoul), but the Western influence in Korea is mostly American, so expect a lot of that. Do your best to change their American-English accents to a British one. My girlfriend now sounds a lot more British than she used to. Haha.

Koreans have a distinct fashion which is an almost adorable mish-mash of Americanism with their own added hint of doing anything to not look Japanese. In a nutshell, it's baseball caps, sports jackets, thick glasses and New Balance training shoes. A lot of them look quite hipster, too. A Korean friend of mine told me how to recognise a Korean, Japanese or Chinese person just by the fashion. It's surprisingly easy, hah.

The place has a huge coffee-shop culture. They're everywhere, and all individual. There are the obvious chain stores, but a lot of people don't like them. There's one that's on par with Starbucks and their nickname for it means 'cockroach', because it's appearing everywhere.

They have an amazing (scary) work ethic and highly value the idea of a person pushing themselves in terms of dreams, goals, aspirations, education, etc. Lots are studying towards something, regardless of their age. They're a small country fighting a tight but strong corner in the world, so they're of the opinion that their life after school is one of fierce competition to the top. It's done them pretty well so far. Hence Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Hyosung, and a few others I can't remember, all in 50 years or less (since the war). I do wonder how much they've been propped up by the US though.

Just because the language looks like a bunch of symbols, don't think of it as completely alien. They used to speak Chinese but their king 500 years ago decided to simplify it and make it their own. It's now considered one of the most logical languages in the world. So give it a go

Hmmmm what else.....

Get used to saying 'nehhhh' or 'yehhhh' and slightly bowing your head.

I dunno. I find Korea quite lovely. I'm going again in December. It's great in my opinion. Maybe because I don't understand everything yet so the more cynical side of me isn't able to come out and pick it apart.

As the other people in the pro-Korea brigade have said, you can also give me a shout if you have any questions.

I also agree that stabbing the food is traditionally a no no in Korea. Leaving your chopsticks stabbed into your food is representative of the incense sticks they use at a funeral. It signals death in some way.

Oh and the majority of foreigners there are French, American and some Irish, because they have some kind of university partnership scheme.

The worst thing is the American squaddies in Seoul.

Lots of French.

Also lots of Koreans.

[mistergixer]

The term for a 'westerner' is 'Meeguk saram', which means literally 'American person'.
Expect to be pointed at and to hear the term 'Meeguk'.

I found it quite insulting, so used to have a bit of fun with them - I would go up to them and explain politely in Korean that I wasn't American, I was English (Yong-guggi).

Their shocked expressions kept me amused for hours.



Learn to bow, learn a few language basics (yes/no/please/thank you/excuse me etc) and you won't go far wrong. They will make exceptions for you because you are just a Meeguk and don't know any better.


____________________
Space Monkey #7
Don Eladio is dead. His capos are dead. You have no one left to fight for. Fill your pockets and leave in peace. Or fight me and die!
Mistergixer's videos on YouTube

[Rogerborg]

[owl10]

Thanks guys, thats a great help.

Would either of you mind writing the basic please / thank you etc in a phonetically appropriate way for me?

My language skills are pretty terrible, although ive been able to pick up a few words of French, and 1 or 2 words of German (literally)whilst working there so hoping can do the same, Seems to be appreciated in any rate.

Do you have any good sites / links to clips where you can hear the pronunciation properly?

Im expecting hard work and long hours (compared to my 35 hr week here.... (not that ive actually managed that few hours recently...) But with a few options of where to travel I wanted a challenge and the chance to push myself, both with work and culturally - in the right place by the sounds of it!


Cheers.
____________________
DanceLikeAMonkey says: "An infinte amount of web pages available
Yet I still end up reading crap like that"

[Lord Percy]

[Lord Percy]

https://www.talktomeinkorean.com/

Absolutely brilliant and totally free website.

Go to the 'Lessons' tab at the top left, go to Level 1, and begin!

It's all audio lessons, ranging from 5 to 20 minutes, and they all come with small PDFs of 2 or 3 very well presented pages for you to take notes from.

You can download it all for free too.

I used this for only a couple of months, not particularly committed, and now I still consider myself pretty shit at Korean but a lot of Korean friends have been hugely impressed with what I can say.

The toughest bit to get around is learning to read the letters, but once that's done, it's just a case of building your vocabulary - same as any other language in the world!

Key phrases -

Hello - an-nyong-ha-seh-yo

Goodbye - an-nyong-h'-g'ye-seh-yo

Thank you - gam-sah-ham-ni-da

Excuse me (to get attention) - joh-gi-yo

Excuse me (to push past) - jam-shi-man-yo

Please give me - joo-seh-yo (eg. "cola joo-seh-yo")


My advice - DO NOT LEARN these phonetic romanised versions. They're horrible and mind boggling because they're Asian words written in Romanised form, so they look unnatural and highly difficult. In reality they're basic and the language has quite a logical formulation, using simple conjunctions, stems and other connective things that make simple sense. The same as how, for example, we add 'ing' to the end of a lot of verbs to create action. They have a way of doing it too.

So basically, learn to read and speak basic Korean using their own alphabetic system, and the everyday niceties will be much easier to learn. Writing everything Asian words down in English is silly.

Although you'll notice a lot of English words integrated into Korean. They call it Konglish. Haha.

Eg.
컴퓨터 - Kom-pyoo-tuh
카메라 - Ka-meh-rah
Ham-boh-goh
yoh-k'-shyu-tee

Can you figure them out?

Also, informally, in text messaging and the likes, Koreans don't say lol for funny things, they say 'kkkkkk', which is representative of a kind of playful snickering. So if they write a message to you in English and it finished with 'kk', it doesn't mean 'okay', it means 'haha'.

[mistergixer]