Korean Job Discussion Forums

[roll_eks]

so,
japan has the fujiyama,
france has the effeil tower,
russia has wodka,
germans sausages,
swiss banks,
italians the pope,
afghanistan bin laden,
canadians eskimos,
america trusts in god,

but seriously: what about korea??
seoul is so modern a city it doesnt really feel like kyoto or looks like shanghai with chinese signs, korea seems a mixture of chinese (confucionism) and japanese (the school system and the bureaucracy being modeled after the japanese system) elements....
so i wonder: where is the "essence of korea" located in? what is genuinely korean (that is, not found in its neighboring countries)?
i feel that korea is different from everything else, yet there is nothing that is not found elsewhere either.
kimchee? the red pepper was added after japan brought it to korea.
taekkwondo? its a copy of the japanese karate style.
hangul alphabet? suposedly it has been influenced by other oriental writing systems, and its not really so good to transcribe english pronounciation.
anyway, i'm not trying to denigrating or belittling korean culture here, nor do i want to reduce it to a single cliche, but i'd really want to understand what make korea... korea. and the more i'm thinking of it, the more puzzled i am.

we had a dinner with koreans, and they said "korea is better than japan/china". i asked them why korea is such a great country, but the answer consisted in drinking more sohjoo.

[bobbyhanlon]

bin laden ain't from afghanistan.. he just goes there for the sunny beaches and hot chicks.

anyway for me, korea is located in that precise 'kkaaaaaaaaaaaaa' sound made by an ajosshi, as he slams his soju glass down on to the table, somewhere between the dwaenjang-jjigae bowl and the kimchi dish.
you might think that's a criticism, but it's not.. i do it myself, and i love it!!

korea is the eating and drinking experience, samgyeopsal and enough soju to sink a battleship, followed by noraebang, and all the jeong the whole thing entails!!

[KimchiExplosion]

New Tourist motto:

Korea: The made-in-China version of Japan

Hey, at least it's better than HiSeoul

[DrOctagon]

roll_eks: How's the English practice coming along?

[tacitus14]

I thought of posting a reply. But now I'm so dispondent I can only write-

Another internet moron.

[CeleryMan]

Kimchee and Samsung products... our gifts to humanity.

[Gibberish]

[climber159]

[oskinny1]

[crossmr]

[anjinsan]

Korea's "Korean-ness" is there.
It can only be seen if one can get away from seeing
the Orient through our highly Japanified/Sinofied lenses.

Problem is, most Koreans are taught Korean culture through such lenses:
--taekwondo as being part of some long Korean tradition (ha!!!)
--bulgogi as fodder for all Koreans for 5000 years (ha!!!!)
--red kimchi as the cure-all food/medicine of all Koreans for all times
--Korean palace and temple architecture as purely Korean in design/origin
--green tea and some type of ceremony as being popular in Korea throughout the ages
--blah blah blah

[Hightop]

[Ilsanman]

Yama means mountain, but 'san' is used when tacking it onto the end of a mountain's name.

[Hightop]

[Konglishman]

Kimchi existed in Korea before the introduction of the red pepper. The only difference was that was not spicy before.

The idea of creating an alphabet may have been inspired by the script being used by the Mongols, but seriously, the design and logic of Hangul is quite unique. Hangul is the only script that can be both considered an alphabet and a syllabary.

There are other martial arts in Korea besides taekwondo. Several of them actually do have a long history in Korea.