Korean Job Discussion Forums

Yesterday · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:34 am Post subject:

Wow - amazing - I never felt so looked after in the whole 6+ years of my shopping life here in Korea...

went to Homeplus (Jamsil) today - and its so unusual for the Korean guy to bow to me as I eneter AND say in perfect English - "Thank you and welcome to our store sir" ...

that was great...

then when I was shopping around - a few times when I was stopped in an aisle - trying to decide on what product to buy from ALL the many many products from Japan, USA, Australia, Britain (stuff I haven't seen for years because Lotte and Emart don't sell it)...

a homeplus guy would approach me and ask me in perfect English what I was looking for an could he help me etc etc...

I thought I would test his English (he actually had just approached me in the pet-section trying to decide what medicine was needed for my fish tank to help get rid of some of the algae beginning to grow on some of the tank-plants)...

he explained perfectly about all the medicines and even recommended one to me - that seems to be the exact thing I was looking for...

Although I don't usually like being helped so much whilst doing my shopping - it is great to finally have found a supermarket that cares about their customers...

i · Joined: 10 Apr 2008 Location: Seoul

Read a post about Cheonho Homeplus "should be done" by early 2008, another saying in April they were working hard. Went by today, being a newbie, thinking I'd check it out. Big hole in the ground, no one working. Land isn't even ready to build on.

julian_w · Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:25 am Post subject: HomePlus Schooling...

Heh... If you REALLY want to test their English,
ask them about fair trade coffee or chocolate.

A Korean friend and student went to the local Home Plus here,
and we asked seven regular aisle attendants and three managers
if they had any fair trade coffee.
None of them even knew what fair trade was, in Korean.

One of the three managers knew they had Beautiful Store coffee (Beautiful Coffee) which, as far as I can tell, is fair enough (well, the green-labelled one from Nepal. A Nepalese friend phoned and spoke to a farmer and the co-operative manager where they grow and collect the coffee. The one with the orange label from Peru, I don't know). But, the manager didn't know Beautiful Coffee was fair trade.

Home Plus does stock a better range of higher quality chocolate now,
but none of it is fair trade.

Slavery is a big ongoing issue, which has not been resolved effectively by being left to self-regulation by 'big chocolate'
which is perhaps why fair trade is blooming so rapidly in western countries,
and is perhaps also why big chocolate companies are dumping so much into the Korean (and, presumably the Chinese) market.

Japan is right into the fair trade scene, possibly partly cos it tends to be highest quality too (unlike Hershies, etc.)

If you want to practise some Korean on this topic:

fair trade = 공정 무역 (gong jung mu yuck)

You could print the chocolate brand label from here and tell local store owners that Tescos overseas stock this brand of highest quality fair trade chocolate, so it should be able to be made available in Korea too:

http://www.divinechocolate.com/home/default.aspx

'cos actually in Tesco stores overside there are bunches and bunches of fair trade products available, as you can see here:

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/fairtrade_in_tesco.html

(You can see Tesco actually have their own lines of fair trade products.)

You could order coffee and chocolate online from here, or go to the store in Apkujung, then take it in to Home Plus and ask them to stock it:

http://www.fairtradekorea.com/shop/goods/goods_list.php?category=003

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_cocoa

Wiki on fair trade:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade

Or in Korean
(to print and show to Home Plus managers who don't understand the English...)

http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EA%B3%B5%EC%A0%95_%EB%AC%B4%EC%97%AD