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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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brier
Joined: 14 Dec 2009
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 Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Julius wrote: |
I only have to wear a hood as I enter the lift and the ladies inside shriek and jump backwards.
So yeah...to say Koreans are skittish would be an understatement. |
Skittish! You can say that again. My three year was walking about not really watch where he was going and almost walked into well dressed young woman. She jumped, got angry and gave the little one a grimacing 'YAH' until she saw the foreign prepertator was a kid. She got the hard stare. Skittish, prissy & caprice is how I would describe the younger generation. I like the older folk, tough, hard working, and not easily bothered. |
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brier
Joined: 14 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Julius wrote: |
I only have to wear a hood as I enter the lift and the ladies inside shriek and jump backwards.
So yeah...to say Koreans are skittish would be an understatement. |
Skittish! You can say that again. My three year was walking about not really watch where he was going and almost walked into well dressed young woman. She jumped, got angry and gave the little one a grimacing 'YAH' until she saw the foreign prepertator was a kid. She got the hard stare. Skittish, prissy & caprice is how I would describe the younger generation. I like the older folk, tough, hard working, and not easily bothered. |
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Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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| alongway wrote: |
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Cheating is as common here as anywhere else, maybe even more so if the barber poles, business clubs, and booking clubs are any indication.
The locals can't claim any moral high ground on this. Those secretive love motels and hookup nightclubs weren't built for the foreign crowd that's for sure. |
The barber poles are pretty rare these days, and I've never heard anyone try to indicate that book clubs primarily exist for people looking to cheat. Not to mention the sex trade is frequently used by people who are single, not just people who want something on the side.
While the motels have been built to be secretive, they're used by a wide variety of people. Including many young couples who don't live on their own. That's why you often see them clustered near universities, or would you suggest people mainly only cheat when they're within 500m of an institute of higher education?
I'm not saying they don't cheat, just what you've brought up as evidence isn't incredibly compelling. |
Barber poles are rare? Uh, ok.
I'm not going to argue that one or split hairs on the other points.
But, you know there are whole districts on the outskirts of Seoul too, filled with clubs and motels that cater to older or married people looking to "mingle" right? Every time I mention it to a Korean the response is always "How did you know?" We're not supposed to know. But if you have enough Korean friends you learn stuff eventually.
The point was the locals are far from being angels either, yet foreigners get stereotyped as the cheaters. Pot calling kettle black. People are people.
You hear it perpetuated time and time again. I know it's a c*ckblock move or maybe they truly believe it but at the same time the bad stereotype is mostly perpetuated by fear and insecurity of outsiders.
Dated a girl here for two years and her friends said they were relieved because I was "one of the good ones".
Yet none of them actually knew any foreigners except for one of them who had travelled abroad. And she spent her time going to bars and clubs hooking up with "many" guys while she had a boyfriend back in Korea. Yet she had the nerve to tell my girlfriend to watch out for foreign guys because they are cheating playboys.
We're bad by default but they usually don't apply the same standards to themselves. If they do anything, it's often either a secret or it never really happened. Pretty convenient.
Maybe you haven't done much drinking around or with the locals. I'm not going to sling a bunch of anecdotes out on a public forum, so I guess we'll just have to differ on this point. Koreans are normal people with normal desires and behavior just like everyone else. I don't buy this moral high ground some of them try to lay on others.
Last edited by Mix1 on Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:45 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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brier
Joined: 14 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Julius wrote: |
I only have to wear a hood as I enter the lift and the ladies inside shriek and jump backwards.
So yeah...to say Koreans are skittish would be an understatement. |
Skittish! You can say that again. My three year was walking about not really watch where he was going and almost walked into well dressed young woman. She jumped, got angry and gave the little one a grimacing 'YAH' until she saw the foreign prepertator was a kid. She got the hard stare. Skittish, prissy & caprice is how I would describe the younger generation. I like the older folk, tough, hard working, and not easily bothered. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| alongway wrote: |
| The barber poles are pretty rare these days, and I've never heard anyone try to indicate that book clubs primarily exist for people looking to cheat. Not to mention the sex trade is frequently used by people who are single, not just people who want something on the side. |
Maybe barber poles are a bit rare in the more upscale areas of Seoul, but they're definitely a dime a dozen in Anyang, which is on the upscale end of Seoul's suburbs. The plaza by Pyeonchon Station is pretty much entirely sex businesses from the third floor up. |
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The Floating World
Joined: 01 Oct 2011
Location: Here
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| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| alongway wrote: |
| The barber poles are pretty rare these days, and I've never heard anyone try to indicate that book clubs primarily exist for people looking to cheat. Not to mention the sex trade is frequently used by people who are single, not just people who want something on the side. |
Maybe barber poles are a bit rare in the more upscale areas of Seoul, but they're definitely a dime a dozen in Anyang, which is on the upscale end of Seoul's suburbs. The plaza by Pyeonchon Station is pretty much entirely sex businesses from the third floor up. |
Rare in upmarket areas? Ha ha ha ha ha.
Most of the streets in dontown gangnam, appgu, seoullung are packed wit brothels and hooker cards litter the streets daily!
Only newbs would think that.... Man those areas have THE most brothels per square inch, not less!!!! |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| The Floating World wrote: |
| northway wrote: |
| alongway wrote: |
| The barber poles are pretty rare these days, and I've never heard anyone try to indicate that book clubs primarily exist for people looking to cheat. Not to mention the sex trade is frequently used by people who are single, not just people who want something on the side. |
Maybe barber poles are a bit rare in the more upscale areas of Seoul, but they're definitely a dime a dozen in Anyang, which is on the upscale end of Seoul's suburbs. The plaza by Pyeonchon Station is pretty much entirely sex businesses from the third floor up. |
Rare in upmarket areas? Ha ha ha ha ha.
Most of the streets in dontown gangnam, appgu, seoullung are packed wit brothels and hooker cards litter the streets daily!
Only newbs would think that.... Man those areas have THE most brothels per square inch, not less!!!! |
Plenty of brothels, but less barber poles. |
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ajosshi
Joined: 17 Jan 2011
Location: ajosshi.com
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alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
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| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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They are not just near universities. They are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Near offices. In rich districts. In poor ones. Adjacent to government facilities. Along the highway.
If you honestly think that love motels are mainly clustered around universities, I question how much experience you have in Korea. |
I didn't say they are only near universities.
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| That's why you often see them clustered near universities |
I know its unusual for someone on dave's not to speak in stark and damning black and whites, but where I'm living the two largest groups of motels are within spitting distance of two universities. The third is near a major traffic area where several subway lines go and several major roads.
Yes, there are motels outside of those 3 large clusters, but only here and there, you might go to a corner and find 3, but that's it in that area, while the 3 large clusters have dozens in them.
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Rare in upmarket areas? Ha ha ha ha ha.
Most of the streets in dontown gangnam, appgu, seoullung are packed wit brothels and hooker cards litter the streets daily!
Only newbs would think that.... Man those areas have THE most brothels per square inch, not less!!!! |
Brothel != barber pole
Two different things. Barber poles are old fashioned. They're not anywhere as common as they used to be, and young guys prefer different kinds of places. They're on the way out.
My point was that the existence of a sex trade is not proof of a certain level of infidelity. I also specifically said that I wasn't saying that infidelity doesn't exist. |
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NYC_Gal 2.0
Joined: 10 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 2:12 am Post subject: |
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| Again, I live nowhere near a university, but there are dozens of them within a 5 minute walk from my apartment. |
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alongway
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
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| Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 2:30 am Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal 2.0 wrote: |
| Again, I live nowhere near a university, but there are dozens of them within a 5 minute walk from my apartment. |
again "often" != "always" |
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NYC_Gal 2.0
Joined: 10 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:14 am Post subject: |
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One also often sees them where there aren't universities. One often sees them everywhere. That's like saying that there's often a lot of rain in one exact spot in the rainforest.
<<wags brows>> |
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jaj
Joined: 01 Oct 2011
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| Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:11 am Post subject: |
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Every time one of my students describes a vacation to me, it involves moving through major cities of other countries in tour groups of other Koreans, mostly eating at Korean restaurants and aside from taking pictures of landmarks, avoiding the natives at all costs.
I know that tourists are like this in general but they have a sense of themselves as being a people who must remain apart from others, that is extreme.
Another issue always seeming to come up is safety. My students have an acute fear of being robbed or attacked once they leave Korea. No culturally diverse modern city that I can think of can meet their standards of "safety," however.
How long will it take for this place to get over itself and just join the world? |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| alongway wrote: |
| Barber poles are old fashioned. They're not anywhere as common as they used to be, and young guys prefer different kinds of places. They're on the way out. |
While it's true the younger guys prefer different kinds of places, when the younger guys reach middle age, they begin going to the room salons, and then after that, it's on to the barbershops. It's an age progression thing, sort of like how the ladies go from long hair to shorter hair and eventually to the ajumma perm. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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| jaj wrote: |
My students have an acute fear of being robbed or attacked once they leave Korea. No culturally diverse modern city that I can think of can meet their standards of "safety," however.
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Well outside of a Singapore or a Tokyo, that's kinda true. I've never been to Stockholm or Oslo, so they might qualify as well. Dubai maybe.
But yeah, you can't just wander around random parts of LA or NY or Paris or London or Rio and expect things to be peachy keen the way you can with Seoul.
You do realize when you have kids you can't be so adventuresome, right? |
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