When you live somewhere long enough even the strangey things can start to seem commonplace. There are many things that are uniquely Korean that I never post about because they happen everyday, but today I thought I'd share some interesting things about Korea that I've never seen anywhere else.
Fan Death- Many Koreans believe that if you leave a fan on overnight in your bedroom then you run a good chance of not waking up at all the next morning. It's an urban legend that is widely regarded as fact. In a heroic act of saving face many authentic-sounding justifications have been used to explain why 700 people a year die from this problem (from Wikipedia):
* That an electric fan creates a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed and sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside.
* That an electric fan chops up all the oxygen particles in the air leaving none to breathe.
* The fan uses up the oxygen in the room and creates fatal levels of carbon dioxide.
* That if the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing.
* That fans contribute to hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature. As the metabolism slows down at night, one becomes more sensitive to temperature, and thus supposedly more prone to hypothermia. If the fan is left on all night in a sealed and enclosed room, believers in fan death suppose that it will lower the temperature of the room to the point that it can cause hypothermia.
* That fans contribute to prolonged asphyxiation due to environmental oxygen displacement or carbon dioxide intoxication.
* That fans directly on the body deprives "skin-breathing," leading to suffocation.
And the scariest fact of all:
Fan death is frequently cited when police detectives are unable to determine cause of death.We often sleep with a fan on in the bedroom year-round to help drown out white noise, but maybe we're just lucky to have survived. Another result of this belief is something that is also uniquely Korean: to have the heat pumping in the winter but to leave a window open in the same room. After all, you wouldn't want to create a heat vortex.
Double Eyelids- I've been told that about 50% of Koreans are born with single eyelids and 50% are born with double eyelids. Maybe your parents will have double eyelids but you won't- it's really the luck of the draw. Everyone wants a double eyelid... it's considered to be very beautiful. Well, plastic surgery is very popular in Korea (there are even clinics in the COEX shopping mall, and I once saw one above a bakery near Sinsa Station) and the most popular surgery to have is the double eyelid surgery. A Korean friend once told me that she thought about having the surgery for a long time and decided against it, but all of her friends had done it. If you don't want to go under the knife you can buy double eyelid tape at any convenience store or pharmacy. If I used it do you think I'd have a triple eyelid? Would that just be the most handsome thing the country had ever seen?
Small Face- We hadn't been in Korea for very long before perfect strangers started to tell Melodie that she had a small face. At first she was offended because she thought they were calling her a pea brain. A lot of Koreans will be brutally honest and say things about your appearance to your face that the rest of the world gossips about behind people's backs instead. "Oh, you look so tired" or "nose isa very very big," on a day when you feel fine can really change how you feel about yourself at that moment! Anyway, having a small face in Korea is a huge compliment. This is probably because, in general, Koreans have pretty big heads. I mentioned earlier that plastic surgery is pretty popular here and another surgery you can have is to crush all the bones in your face so that it becomes smaller. Or you could just have your cheeks and jaw shaved down to thin out your face. I've never been told that I have a small face (probably because I have a melon head) so maybe I should look into this.
Fake sleeping on public transportation- Koreans work long hours so I really understand the need to steal a couple minutes of rest whenever you have the chance, but it's funny how asleep a Korean can look one minute and how awake they can seem the next. I can't tell you how many times I've sat next to someone on the bus or train and they're slumped over and their head is bobbing around all over the place. Their heads will wind up an inch from your shoulder, or sometimes, your lap. Then -
ding- their stop is announced, they perk up, adjust their tie and sprint to the door to be the first one out of the car. Amazing.
Yogiyo Buttons- "Yogiyo" means "come here" in Korean, and a lot of restaurants in the country have these buttons on every table that you press to summon your waiter or waitress if you need something during your meal. Anyone who's ever sat in a busy restaurant trying to get their waiters' attention for a re-fill of pop can understand what a great invention this is. In Korea, restaurant service is amazing anyway... if we finish one of our side dishes it's usually refilled quite quickly... but the yogiyo button takes it to another level. It's never been easier to get a refill of fresh kimchi.
Korean Showers- Korean showers are attached to the sink and drain onto your bathroom floor. Koreans think this is cleaner than the western style bathroom but to me it just means my whole bathroom is wet for most of the morning and instead of just having mildew in my tub I have it
everywhere. Not a plus.
Old School Brooms- Cleaning ajummas in Korea use these old archaic brooms out of the 19th century for their sweeping needs. Normal, modern brooms are available everywhere but these are the preferred model.
Uniquely Korean Phrases- A lot of Koreans speak basic English because they have to study it in school, plus we live in the hyper-educated Gangnam area so the English level here is more advanced than in other places in Korea. Still, there are some phrases that you hear over and over when Koreans speak with foreigners in English. The first two are "You must understand..." and "It's the Korean way", which are usually used when some bad news is about to be given. "Awww, shh!" seems to be the Korean version of "Awww, shit" and "_____ is come" is a common mistake. For example, if one of my students wants to tell me that Max has just arrived at the school, they will say "Max is come". This problem comes because the students are directly translating the Korean word order into English. If you want to saw "it's snowing" in Korean you say "눈이와요"(I think that's the right spelling) which translates to "snow is come".
Konglish- It's pretty easy to get by in Korea without knowing any Korean, but once you can read the language life here is a breeze. An amazing number of things written on signs and menus here are written in Korean letters, but when you sound out the word you realize you're actually reading an English word! Wow, Koreans sure do love English. Some restaurant menus are entirely written in Konglish. At Smoothie King all of the smoothies on the menu are written like "stuh-raw-bare-lee buh-leez-zuh suh-moo-dee" AKA "strawberry breeze smoothie". This seems odd to me because Koreans have their own words for "strawberry" and "breeze"... they shouldn't need to write them out in some mutated form of English. When Melodie asked her co-workers if older Koreans (who would never have studied English in their youth) would understand the menu at Smoothie King they said "no". Writing a menu that is impossible for non-English speaking Koreans to understand seems like an odd marketing strategy to me, but whatever- it makes my life here easier!
Other fun Konglish words: cheechuh ubben suhpahgetti- cheese oven spaghetti
beedeo tape- videotape
handuh pone- cellphone
bussuh- bus
copy- coffee
kae mae lah- camera
eentah net- internet
ehm pee suhlee- mp3
ohlanjee joo suh- orange juice
this list could really go on forever, but you get the idea :)
Tofu Donuts at Dunkin Donuts- for well-being with delicious taste. Tried one today and it was pretty good. You'd never know it was tofu.
Carrying stuff on your head in public- because that's got to be the easiest way to walk around with a tray of food.
