Korean Job Discussion Forums

[treeplanter]

This issue was raised while talking with a friend of mine. You see tons of Korean women smoking in cafe's and bars, but rarely out on the street. I remember reading a posting here about it being illegal..but is it true? It sounds too barbaric and sexist, but then again, this is Korea!!

[Bubbliee]

Treeplanter,

Here's a little story about one of my Korean students here in Canada. He had only been here for maybe a month and he always acted kinda strange whenever he saw a girl smoking outside. I wanted to ask him about it, but figured I'd wait and see if I could figure it out for myself. Well one day he just came out and told me. He asked me "Why are there so many prostitutes in Canada?" Well as you can imagine I was a bi8t taken aback, I mean there are prostitues all over the world, not just in Canada and I didn't think that we had any more then any other countries. So I asked him why he said that and he told me that in Korea women that smoke outside are prostitutes. In Canada most people smoke outside because of some pretty tough anti smoking laws, especially in BC. It is almost virtually impossible to spend anytime outside and not see anybody smoking. So in answer to your question, well from what I have heard anyway is that the girls would not want to be caught dead smoking outside as people might think they are prostitutes.

[kimcheeking]

I never heard the prostitute thing, but basically it is considered rude for a woman to smoke outside. It is also considered rude for a man to smoke infront of a senior man without asking permission first.

[Chonbuk]

On Sunday I was waiting for the bus to take me back to the mountain summer camp. I have always been a closet smoker in Korea. I don't smoke in bathrooms which is where most women dip off to, but I do hide to alleys, behind buildings, trees whatever to curb my fix. Anyways on Sunday I was sitting ajumma style and smoking in an alley. One ajumma sees me, I tell her what I'm doing no problem, a younger ajumma walks by and ignores me, okay busy alley I think to myself, but still on the main street I'm people watching and nobody is really noticing me, I love that feeling. Anyways this guy does notice me and comes up and starts blabbing to me, but I'm not paying attention to him and ask him to go away. He doesn't I get what he is saying and he is trying to offer me money for my services- whatever buddy, I loudly yell at him, give him the finger and get myself out of the alley. He keeps after me, but I make a move towards the bus driver and his buddy whom I was trying to be polite and not smoke in front of in the first place. I tell the bus driver about the bad guy, and he gets up, the guy sees me with 2 largish men and ignores me, keeps walking and is gone. At this point I still have the end of my cig with me, I'm an environmentally aware smoker, and the bus driver's friend takes it from me to dispose of it- Busted for smoking, and hassled by a moron.
And this was my only hour in Daejeon all week-end.

Nice.

best to quit.

cheers,

Chonbuk

[eamo]

You would think it was illegal but of course it's not.

It's the equivalent of a woman walking down a city-street in America swigging from a bottle of vodka. It just doesn't say much for the character of the woman. (not my view)

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Cthulhu]

[ajuma]

If you think about it historically, there is a logical reason for Korean's thinking that women who smoke are prostitutes. During the Korean war, which women were the one's with access to cigarettes? Yep, the one's who hung with the soldiers.

[chi-chi]

mods you may delete

[ajuma]

Sure, but you have to remember that Korea only became really "modern" in the past 15 or 20 years (the Seoul Olympics really started it off). Grandparents were alive during the war...parents of Uni students were born then. Think about how long people believe the earth was flat! Ah, the days before mass media and the internet!

[little mixed girl]

....

[The Bobster]

From what my friends tell me it USED to be illegal for women to smoke on the street, but it isn't now. Older Koreans will yell at a woman on the street, though, even today, if she has a cig in her hand. Also, likely a little more often the case outside of Seoul in the smaller cities.

[em]

When I first arrived at my new job, I was left alone for the first couple of days and smoked on the street - with no problem. Then one of my male coworkers told me simply that it was "unusual" and that's why some people might stare, but not to let that influence my behaviour.

I decided not to smoke at school but just to do it at home, because who can enjoy a cigarette when you feel self-conscious about it. It's more stressful than going without. The benefit is that I'm down to six or so cigarettes/day from over a pack/day! Yay backward Korean customs!

[Ghostinthemachine]

One of my students told me that shortly after he started going out with his girlfriend he persuaded her to stop smoking as he didn't think it proper for women to smoke. I asked him does he smoke himself and he said yes.

[andrew]

*****