You what the thing about Korea is... it's the "little differences"

Just like the line John Travolta (Vincent Vega) uses in Pulp Fiction when he's talking to Samuel L. Jackson about his experiences in Amsterdam, France, etc. "You what the thing about Europe is? it's the 'lil differences'" Samuel Jackson says, "What do you mean?" Like you can drink beer, a glass of beer in a movie theater in Paris, they put mayonnaise on their French Fries in Amsterdam and in McDonald's, they don't call a Quarter Pounder with cheese a "Quarter Pounder with cheese" in Paris b/c they use the Metric system, and they wouldn't know what the heck a "1/4 lb er" is. They call it a "Royale with Cheese." Well, it's the same thing here in Korea.....It's the lil differences...
For example: no one really uses designated places to park their cars in Korea, they kinda just park along side the road somewhere where "they think" (huh is that an oxymoron, Korean's thinking??) is out of the way. My friend Lisa from the US has this "think opposite theory" that's been working well for her over the past 8 months. It goes like this...just imagine what "you" (Westerner) would think is logical and do the EXACT OPPOSITE of that thinking!!! For example, we were in a hotel room in Busan, (the same EXACT room that Kim, Dan & I stayed in a few weeks earlier) and Lisa was trying to turn the lamp on near the bed. I told her, "Yeah, I tried to figure how to work that thing last time, but I had no luck." But Lisa using her "EXACT opposite" theory figured it out. There was no switch up top, around where the light bulb & lamp shade where, so she looked in the total opposite direction and found the light switch on the floor near the power outlet. I was impressed that she found it and figured it out using her theory.
Getting back to the car parking I was mentioning earlier, what mostly all Koreans do is have their cell phone number's printed or written in some form on the dashboard of their car. Most of them have it quilted on a little pillow (pin cushion). I have a picture of this pillow I need to post on my flickr site soon. Another things Koreans do when they park is not put their car in Park or use their parking brake. The first week we were here, we saw a car slowly pull out into the middle of the street and just stay there. We then noticed that there was NO ONE in the car!!!! It had accidentally rolled back into the street b/c the owner did not put the brake on or put the car in Park.

When Koreans drive, they use their hazard "sorry" lights often when they are inadvertently pulling out into traffic trying not to cut anyone off. The way it works is that if someone puts these lights on, they are "immune" to offending or pissing anyone off my cutting them off. They also beep their horn gently to alert people in front of them that they are coming up behind them. Not in a rude, obnoxious, arrogant way, but in a rather polite, courteous way. I find there is a fine line btw. being impatient (obnoxious, road rage) and a polite, gentle reminder that there is someone coming up behind you. And that's another thing, there doesn't seem to be ANY rushed, impatient, annoyed people anywhere in the entire country. There is no such thing as Road Rage...is simply DOES NOT EXIST out here!!! They are all just going about there business rather calmly, peacefully, joyously without any rush, or need to "get" anywhere hurriedly.

Another thing I've really enjoyed observing is seeing how these little children signal cars to alert them when they want to cross the street. I've seen young (8-10yr) children raise their hand over their head clenched in a fist, then they wait for the cars to stop & they safely cross. They do this right on the main road that runs through the middle of town. I needed to cross the street this past Wednesday to get to the Multicultural Meeting, and the traffic was heavy, so instead of being patient and waiting for a lull, I took a page out of the Korean children's book my raising my fist overhead, waited for cars to stop & I crossed. This amused Lisa to no end!!! She was cracking up witnessing me do this.

More on these differences next time. - Darren your Far East connection