Korean men sure are different.
In america, men are generally bound by a pretty strict attitude of machismo. Some of them, like myself, simply ignore it, but for most, you’ve got to be a beer swilling, football watching, swearing, drunken, fighting asshole if you’re going to be considered a “real” man, and a real american (no arguments on the second part, really.)
In Korea, they didn’t get the memo. At first, I noticed them acting different, hugging, holding hands, complimenting eachothers clothes/looks, and just chalked it up to slight cultural differences. Then I kept going out, and seeing it more and more. One of my schools PE teachers was a gold medal winner in the Sydney Olympics for Judo. He is about 195cm at his shoulders, 6′6, and his arms are about as thick as my waist. He took a picture of me with his cell phone, for which I actually smiled, which I don’t do. I only smiled because just before it took the picture, his phone called out, in an adorable voice, “Smile!” It was really out of character for a guy so badass, he was exempted from mandatory military service.
I was in Seoul just yesterday, headed to the world TaeKwonDo headquarters. A group of tough looking bikers passed me in the street, wearing hoodies with little panda bear ears sticking up at the top. The girls wear this all the time, and it never struck me as anything but cute, because hey, girls are cute, but it was weird seeing it on full grown men.
To be blunt, they way most korean men seem to look and dress, most westerners would immediately label gay. Mostly because its how gay men act and dress in america. In korea though, they are just emulating the very popular male celebrities. The girls want them and the men want to be them, so it gets weird sometimes. I come across as extremely manly as a result of all this, when back in the US, I was considered somewhat less, especially considering my music and movie preferences (although this was usually peppered with a few more negative groups and lots of martial arts).
I’m just curious as to what caused western men to have to eschew anything cute or “girly”, and why asian men have no problem looking and acting like their women. Although, from what I’ve seen and heard here, the western style man is more preferred by most girls. Works for me, in any case.
Drama
Koreans love drama. It pervades everything, even comedies are filled with drama. In drama, Korean drama, at least, everyone loses. They don’t just lose love or whatever their situation is, they typically lose at life in general. Korean movies, music videos, books, whatever, all ends in tragedy. At the gym, pretty much any woman on the treadmill is watching the same drama, I’m not sure of the name. Its basically a soup opera, down to the crappy camera quality, constant close-ups, and end scene zooms. It makes me wonder, although I can’t understand it, the characters are always around eachother, but from the looks on their faces, are always baiting, attacking, and otherwise emotionally abusing eachother. Why would you hang out with people like that? No one in this show ever smiles, unless its some kind of evil grin.
Of course, its exactly the same as an American soup opera. I recently saw a movie about a baseball player here. From what little I understood, he played since he was a kid, and his mother never attended his games, of course, leading to serious issues. In the movie, he’s at a big final game, and it’s all down to him. Make the hit and win, miss and lose the game. We’ve seen a million movies like it. Of course, after literally 20 minutes of dramatic build-up, slow motion, and over the top music in the rain, he misses. Still, nothing we haven’t seen in american sports films.
Turns out, his mother came to this game, and while that’s sort of a victory, the one game she attends, he fails. I think some more traumatic stuff happened too, but I still understand barely any Korean, and this movie was in a different dialect than the one I’m learning anyway, so I was doubly confused most of the time.
Here’s a video example, though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koZPdoTut_w
This is pretty normal for Korean art, really.
Bathroom tricks
Korean men do not have the sense of urinal etiquette that American men have.
Ladies, this means that you never take the urinal next to someone, you must always try and take the one furthest away as you possibly can. Also, no talking. I’m trying to have a moment here.
Korean men love to talk while using the bathroom, it’s more awkward than the constant touching, hugging, and massages (Korean men act remarkably like women, sometimes, and not just some of them, even the big bulky construction workers comment on eachothers handsomeness and wear cute little bunny ear hats).
I suffer from what as known as a shy bladder. I can’t go while there is anyone else in the bathroom with me, at all. It sucks, I usually have to wait for it to clear out entirely, or I just can’t do it. This needed to change here, as Koreans are constantly in the bathroom, probably as a result of drinking 30 cups of coffee a day, as well as all the spicy cabbage they eat. I remembered, then, a trick I heard a long time ago to cure shy bladder, and by God, it worked, and now I will pass it on to you men similarly afflicted.
The trick, is to imagine yourself as Captain Kirk, just letting it fly off the edge of the Enterprise.
No idea why, but its funny and it works.
Hagrid
Most of you reading this know me. I like to keep my hair in a state of general disarray, so it tends to draw attention, especially here in Korea. Students have likened my appearance to Beethoven, Ben Franklin (they know more about American history than any American student does, sadly), and the one that really sticks, Hagrid, from Harry Potter.
In fact, it stuck at my school, and it caught on and stuck at the english camp. Not many of my students call me Hunter at all, anymore. At first, they all just called me Sangsamnim, which is just teacher, but I really don’t like formal titles or names. Mr. Herr wasn’t going to fly either, especially because their “r’s” tend to come out as “l’s”. Then they started calling me Hagrid, which most of my co-teachers fought against at first, feeling it was disrespectful, but now just let it slide.
I told the students if they were disrespecting me with it, there isn’t much I can do to stop them, but that I’d be pretty disappointed with Korean youth if that were the case (appeal to their nationalism, it really really works here in lieu of real discipline), and many of them took great pains to explain to me, in English no less, that they didn’t mean any disrespect, and would stop if I still wanted them to. I kinda like it as a nickname, and since they are doing it in good spirits, I don’t mind at all, and now I’m Hagrid. 
More food.
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Any food it looks like I’ll love, I usually don’t, and anything that looks terrible, is usually quite delicious. It really never fails. This time though, was something common in America too.
I was shopping when I ran into one of the teachers from the boy’s middle school, right next to mine. We passed by the mixed nuts when I saw it, almonds and anchovies. I immediately register my disgust, and he looks at me like I’m crazy.
“You don’t like anchovies?”
“No”
“Have you tried them?”
“…No.”
It surprised me, I’ve grown up hearing about how bad they were from friends and TV and movies, but I never really tried to eat the little salted fish. I’ve always come down on friends who balk at food they’ve never tried just because it isn’t deep fried and covered in an inch of salt, but here I am, decrying anchovies. So I picked up a can.
I got home and opened it, and a strong fishy nut smell hit me. I really wasn’t sure about this, but if you learn one thing in asia, its that a lot of food doesn’t taste the way it smells (Takoyaki smells awful, but is absolutely delicious, for example. Fried baby octopus for those of you not in the know.) Nuts and anchovies were absolutely made for eachother. I ate the entire can in one sitting, it was so addictively great. The only hurdle is one you get over quick living here, the food still has eyes. Its really not a big deal, and they’re high in calcium, because you eat the skeleton (which is so tiny and brittle, you would never know it was bone). I’ve actually taken to buying dried anchovies (you can find them in any asian food store in the states) by the bag and eating them like popcorn, they really are that good.
English Camp
In most of Asia, English is a really big deal. I mean a big deal in the way that mountain climbing or training for the olympics is viewed in the west, its a life goal and a hobby for people here. Very commonly, when I walk down the street or enter stores, people of all ages try to practice English on me. Lots of times I walk by little kids, some of whom are very shy and will wait until I walk a long way away, shout “Hello”, and run off like I have a gun (and of course, because I’m from Texas, I most certainly do).
At the start of the Winter break, I taught at an English camp. The camp was held at a tourism high school (a boarding school where students learn to run hotels, casinos, boats, bars, etc.). These kinds of high schools are common here, I’ve even seen a bodyguard high school. It was strange at first, but then I realized that these kids graduate high school with the equivalent of a bachelors degree in actual skill and knowledge in something. And if they decide not to pursue that, they just go to college. Its sad the idea of a useful education from high school was so alien to me.
We (teachers and students) stayed in the dorms the whole week (it was break, and most of the students had gone home). There were 7 or 8 foreign teachers, including myself, 3 from South Africa (very nice people). We each taught a subject and rotated classes all week. I taught Science. I hung space filling models of various elements from the ceiling and pictures of Einstein and Newton and the like. My class was about motion, specifically, the Egg Drop. Korean kids are really really good at the Egg Drop. These were elementary to middle school kids, and few of them lost their eggs, even from the 5 storie drop with no parachute allowed. My class actually ended up being pretty popular, and we had a TV news crew in there for enough time to get in the way of everything.
We ended up going to a weird little petting zoo midway through the week, with a few pigs, chickens, and for some reason, an ostrich, which managed to bite about 6 kids because they have no common sense at all (the kids, not the ostrich, although I doubt it was much smarter). No one sued.
F*ck the Police
Been awhile since I last updated, I’m busy and lazy, but I have a few posts ready to go.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lifting weights at the gym. It’s a thoroughly awkward experience. Combined with my general lack of knowledge on proper form and what all the equipment actually is or does, with being the only white guy in the shower (korean guys are not shy about staring, or asking questions 0_o), its yet another unique experience I never thought I’d have.
Yesterday, I was running on the “walking machine” (koreans don’t run on treadmills, just walk), when one of the trainers at the gym (really nice guy, decent english) comes up to me, and says, with a friendly smile, as if he was commenting on the weather, “Fuck the police”. I just kind of stared at him; I’ve been in Korea for 5 months now, so this wasn’t nearly as surprising at it would have been 5 months ago. Truth be told, I’m used to 12 year old girls quoting offensive phrases to me with big grins.
Not surprised, I was still at a loss on how you properly respond to a phrase like that. I guess the look on my face told him I wasn’t understand, so he said it again. I narrow my eyes in concentration, and ask what I think was a fair question. “What?” He points at the radio, blaring terrible rap (after this song, “Close to you” by olivia newton john came on, the music mix at gyms is completely random and spread across three languages), and says it again. I’m still not getting it, pointing at the speaker just confused me more. Then he says its the name of the song. I hadn’t heard that particular piece before, but it was gangsta rap, so it all snapped together for me there.
I asked him if he knew what that meant, and of course, he didn’t. I merely asked him that should he ever find himself in America, not to use that particular phrase.
