Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

Never tell a Korean you have a cold. Because everyone has their own "cure", each gets progressively weirder. Mostly it involves boiling things you might not normally want to bring to a full boil together, like cabbage and apples or green tea and garlic.

Heard any weird cold "cures" from your friendly neighborhood Korean?

This one came via an ESL teacher friend I was talking with about hokey Korean cold treatments:

Shortly after I got here I gave one of my kids the reaminder of my supplies of antiseptic cream and got more sent over because he had this graze on his arm that was very nearly gangrenous. His teacher had washed the cut in muddy water and slapped a bandage over it, telling him not to remove it for a couple of weeks. His arm had started going numb, and he couldn't write, so I told him to show me. When he took the bandage of, the graze was all smelly and ulcerated and oozing pus. Charming.

[casey's moon]

Nope, but after living here for 4 years, here's my own cure (yeah, I know -- exactly what you didn't ask for ) Minced ginger, minced garlic, honey (optional) and red pepper powder. And yep, you guessed it -- boil it. If you have chicken, it's even better -- but then I'd definitely leave out the honey.

Don't knock it till you've tried it!

[peppermint]

Hot toddys are the way to go. Take a mug and add whisky (a little more than what you'd think), add boiling water and a little honey or sugar and drink it quickly. Pretty much guaranteed to make you feel better- at least for a little while.

[Son Deureo!]

[paperbag princess]

korean common "medical" knowledge is total shite. have you ever seen the way that they deal with nose bleeds? i'm sure that stuffing the kids' noses with little pieces of cotton is a great way to stop the bleeding. until they pull it out.

i was rollerblading with my friend and this guy on a bike hit her, anyway, he flew off his bike and once he stopped lying on the ground (i've never seen a grown man behave like such a baby), he got up and started moving his wrist around, poking at it. he refused to ice it! we even bought him ice. it was so weird.

[wylde]

[ajstew]

The only real experience I've had with strange notions of medicine in Korea has to do with the pinching off of the blood flow to your thumb and then pricking it with a pin. The blood coming out was supposed to have been toxic and my body, which was sore from exercising, was supposed to feel better. I didn't do it by the way, but I did listen to her explanation.

My advice though... if you have a cold, don't tell a Korean because they'll try to get you to go to a hospital. Koreans, from my experience, make trips for every little ailment they have, whereas I think many foreigners give colds and the flu time to pass through their bodies before going to a doctor.

[mindmetoo]

[I_Am_Wrong]

yeah, if it's nothing major and doesn't persist more than three or four days....why bother going to a doctor? Just a waste of time. take you vitamin c, drink lots of fluids, eat your chicken noodle soup and get on with it.

I was very impressed, when on a field trip to Gyeung Buk the other day, the teacher pulled a full first-aid kit out of his back pack when a grade 4 student tripped and cut her arm and leg. Not all Koreans are fools.

[ajstew]

One final comment about the quantity of pills in Korea. On two occasions over the past 2 and a half years, I've had food poisoning in Korea (once from a filet of fish at McDonald's... undercooked I think... and another time from shelled peanuts). After about a week of classes I was tired and ready to go see the doctor... since the weekend was approaching. On both occasions I received enough pills for 2 days... meaning I was taking 5 pills, three times each day. By the time the pills were gone, so was my food poisoning. I was pretty impressed. My guess is the doctor gave me enough pills to knock out any and every variety of possible illnesses I could have had, and he guessed right with one of them.

[dogbert]

I've been told to drink persimmon vinegar and FWIW it usually does the trick for me.

[Css]

I forgot to take a hat with me when I went out on Chusok and as a result ended up with quite bad sunburn on my head..Came home and my landlady saw it, immediately ran to the fridge and grabbed some potato....I was ordered to sit down while she sliced the potato and then covered my scalp in the slices...Then covered it with a wet towel...I had to sit there for an hour with that on.

Then later at night, she put more potato in a blender and covered my head in this horribly potato goo.I had to sit with that for another hour....

Interestingly enough, it worked...The redness went down faster than usual and the skin didnt peel..

Although some aloe lotion or something probably would have been less embarrassing.

[agraham]

[peppergirl]

[dogbert]