Funny Things About Korea

This will just be me listing of a few of the things that make Korea such a wonderfully unusual experience. For those who're in Korea with me who may follow this blog, you're probably familiar with a few of these yourself.

1. Many household appliances sing/make music when you use them (my rice cooker has a Korean lady singing a song when it finishes, my washing machine plays Mozart when it's done what it does, and my electronic keypad for my front door lock plays a brief tune when you get the password correct)       
2. Koreans are very wary of the age of everything, especially food. They won't eat food if the expiry date is a few days away, and will be very concerned for your health if you insist that it's completely fine. What this means for you is that there's lots of good food deals if you're on your toes. I go to the grocery store and won't look at any other produce until I've checked out their clearance section first. Back home if it's clearance produce then it's minutes away from fermenting in its own juices, but here they'll put stuff on huge discount that isn't even close. I bought potatoes at a 60% discount today. Potatoes! Not getting soft, not sprouting, just perfectly good potatoes, and as we all should know, in the right conditions potatoes will last for longer than you'll need them to. If they do end up sprouting, well then you now have more potato than you started with, don't you? I also got two pounds of grapes for less than 2 dollars yesterday 
3. You realize just how little you actually NEED language. It's not until you can't speak any that you realize how little is required in day to day life to get by. A few phrases like 'How much?', 'Thank you', and 'I don't speak Korean very well', will get you through most things. When the internet company sent a guy to set me up, all I needed was a concerned look on my face, a shrug here and there, and in no time at all I had internet
4. Koreans are outrageously generous and it's really hard to assert yourself when it comes time to settle the bill. I've bought one lunch so far, out of about a dozen that I've been treated to. I was only successful that one time because it was just me and one other co-worker who didn't really outrank me. In every other situation the older person or whoever is in the highest position of authority (almost always the older person anyway) pays, and I've noticed that they aren't thanked for it by anyone but me, which I think they find awkward, but I find too awkward not to do. A lot of Korean cultural etiquette seems to take place in what isn't said, or isn't done, and it can be a strange thing to be trying to figure that out on your own
5. If you say almost anything to a taxi driver in English with a Korean accent, it'll generally work somehow
6. Korean coffee is pretty much like drinking hot chocolate back home. The taste it very similar. Koreans don't drink actual coffee, but rather packets of instant coffee made up of about 50% sugar and cream powder to 50% coffee. If you ask for an Americano at an actual coffee shop, you can get it with no cream and less sugar, but not no sugar. Never no sugar
7. Almost everything is portioned for Dixie cup sizes. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, any and all individually packaged drink mixes are intended for like 4oz. of liquid production. Also Koreans aren't fat. So there's probably a correlation there. You win this time, Korea
8. You round down here. If you owe 21 or 22 dollars, they'll ask you for 20 quite often. It's not just a fluke, it's happened to me in many places in many scenarios. I've actually owed 27 dollars, they asked me for 25, which I gave to them, and then gave me back change for some reason. This has happened a total of two times now, and they insisted it wasn't a mistake
9. Clothing shops don't let you try things on. You're supposed to know your size, see stuff you like, and assume it's all going to go swimmingly from there
10. You'll often hear that the older generations of Koreans are the most racially discriminating, and against white people I can hardly say I blame them. We've done some shit. However, I've found that old women (Ajumma's as they're known here, pictured below) will give you some of the kindest smiles and even wave at you back if you wave to them. They'll also love you to death if you give them your seat on the bus/subway, because that seems to be a cultural expectation that for some reason is dying out here, and they seem extra surprised that a foreigner would make the gesture

Ajumma's sporting their always-present enormous visors, for if not they, then who?