Korean Job Discussion Forums

[The evil penguin]

...or art imitating life?

'Art' in this case being cartoons... and life being.... well..... the average korean kid (kid used subjectively to include boys up to the age of military conscription, and girls up to the onset of hair curlyosis and adjumification).

What the hell am i talking about?? I'll give an example. I was in Emart today, pushing my trolley filled with sliced cheese, canned tuna and ramyeon. Wearing a t-shirt thereby allowing my co-shoppers the pleasure of witnessing glorious waygook arm fur.

Korean family walk past and youngest son sees my arms. Not content with a loud surprised gasp of "OHHH!!!! waegook saram!!", the kid in question does such a shocked eyes wide, chin open down to his navel double-take that he'd put jim carrey out of a job in the next mask movie. Of course his younger sister has to copy, her cry of astonishment so loud that other passing shoppers turn around to see the fuss.

Secretary at work has similar animation... her chats to hubby/boyfriend/whoeever on her phone are so interspersed with gasps and groans and 'oddoeke's!" that each conservation has more drama than the entire series of Days of our Lives.

Back to the kids amazement at witnessing the great hairy scary foreigner... Hairy scary foreigners create attention pretty much anywhere in asia. Not so much in Japan. In china however.. yeah the apparation of a real live laowei can stop traffice. I've had locals in the smaller cities and western areas so transfixed by the sight of me that only a taser and/or well-placed blow to the head with a dried fenghuang duck could break their stupified stare.

Something about the over-exaggerated actions endemic to korea however that has me thinking... and i blame tv. The idiot babysitter in the corner... kids exposed to the constant bombardment of tv cartoons and comedy shows without the regular presence of a guiding father figure. Or have i got it around the wrong way? Korean kids have always been this way, and were the models on which the daffy duck and roadrunner cartoons were based?

[beercanman]

haha I like your writing style, it is amusing.

I found the general Korean reaction different to the Chinese one for some reason, and it is hard to explain. I was bothered often enough in Korea, but have been less bothered here for some reason. Let me point out that there are similarities. A city of 3 million in Asia can still be a hick town, ie utterly homogeneous and seemingly clueless about the rest of the planet. Still, I found Koreans have a special way to react that can grate the nerves of a waygookin. They comment more too. Not just kids, gotta let them slide anyway. Here I'm not getting it so much, though at first I was pretty freaked out. Here I get it of course, every laowai does in less famous parts of China, but I can tune it out much more easily here for some reason. I just go around in my own little world here and feel mostly unaffected. In much of Korea that was harder for me to do.

[madoka]

[The evil penguin]

[crescent]

If a Korean had the same arm hair, there wouldn't have been a fuss.

Case in point:
I took a new female teacher grocery shopping the other day who happens to be very well endowed up top. Not only were people and staff gawking, pointing, and giggling at her, but we passed this grossly overweight Korean woman who was fatter than a sumo and more endowed than this teacher.

You think anyone batted an eye?
Not once.

Then we went for a walk and passed by an outdoor galbi restaurant. A 20something Korean guy and his girlfriend were eating alone. Without his girl's knowledge, he motioned to his chest and while looking at me with a big grin on his face, gave me 2 thumbs up.

Yay Korea! How about growing up?

[kabrams]

[redaxe]