Korea, as it is

The Koreans have been very hospitable. They took us out to fancy Korean restaurants for meals and so I’ve tasted quite a few good Korean dishes.

Perhaps the most memorable conversation with a Korean on this trip,

Korean: “Do you eat ‘doug’?”

Me: “No! Dog?!” (OMG, I know Koreans eat Dogs, but don’t you think it’s too much to offer visitors?)

Korean: (shocked look) “I mean, D-U-C-K, ‘doug’.”

Me: “Oh, you mean ‘Duck’. Yes, I eat duck.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mocking their English. This Korean coworker’s English is quite good. I just found it a very amusing misunderstanding of language and culture.

In fact, the Koreans I’ve met are actively learning English. The middle-aged man I sat on the train was writing in an English workbook, doing an exercise of translating simple Korean sentences into English. On the subway, I stood beside a young man who was mumbling “restroom” to himself. I later noticed he seemed to be busy memorising vocabulary from a slip of paper he was holding in his hand. Koreans, I heard, spend years overseas just to learn English because English is increasingly essential for finding a good job.

I’ve been fortunate as this is a business trip and I work with professionals in a well-managed company. If I came to Korea alone, particularly the Cheonan area, which is largely rural with many farms and industries, I’ll be stucked with nowhere to go, nowhere to find good Korean food and no one to ask because I don’t know Korean. 

Korea, as it is, doesn’t look like anything in the Korean dramas. At least not the place I’m staying in and the places I passed by on my travels.

In big city Seoul, you’d see a lot of fashionable young people around. But the majority of people do not look like they walk straight out of a Korean drama. They are mostly uncouth and simple small town folks.

Jeju Island is an expensive vacation place reserved for honeymoons. People don’t spend all their free time walking around on scenic beaches. Developed places seem pretty much confined to big cities like Seoul. For the majority of the places I’ve seen, agriculture and industries dominate. The roads are dirty, there is little urban planning and there are small plots of land with crops along the main roads in the city.

Next week, I’ll see the scenic side of Korea and experience staying in a pretentiously luxurious hotel on Jeju Island.