Monday, October 14, 2002

My Life In Korea

Anyong! I'm being slowly assimilated into Korean culture. Most people I meet (mostly local Beijingers) think I am Korean because I apparently look Korean. I don't get it. A few Koreans think so but most do not. It's very interesting. I asked my Korean classmate and she told me "you look 30% Korean and 70% Japanese." I went with my friend to buy a train ticket and ths man behind the counter pointed at me and said "you're Korean" I gasped in pure surprise and exclaimed "Wow! How did you guess? You are so smart!" He was v. proud of himself to say the least. Korean food is v. delicious and I'm learning important Korean words (hungry, eat, drink, beer, and of course and salient bad words) Who would have thunk I would experience Korea in China of all places!

Social Issues

Yup, I'm learning about social issues. But mostly about Korea. Korea is currently the economic mecca in Asian right now after the Asian business downspiral following 1997. Before, more Japanese could afford to come to learn Chinese in China, but now its the Koreans. Korea is now starting to open up the country to Japan. They restricted culture and products for a long time after the second world war because of war atrocities and now the impact is being felt all over. Korean and other cultures are starting to enter China as well. Korean movies is a huge market over here in Asia.

In addition to popular culture, Korea aspires to have the image of being a strong country and stresses that Koreans look beautiful as well. Thus, the infamous plastic surgery influx right after senior high school or university. Parents are known to give their children loads of cash to do the operation for widening eyes, creasing eyelids and transforming noses. My classmate told me that she knew this girl who did the operation and it looked great. She went with her principal and her 18 classmates to do the surgery and got a discounted group rate! With a more beautiful appearance, employers are most likely to hire workers. For women, especially, appearance comes before ability.

Technology

Phones, everybody has cell phones and they text message each other all the time. SMS. As for movies, there are no video tapes or beta. They're all obsolete because of the new and improved DVDs and VCDs. All pirated, I should add. They cost under $2 Canadian each. Illegal to sell but not to posess. The DVD players are souped up to be able to play all sorts of DVDS and VCD (regularly, Asian players, play Asian discs), but not these pirated ones. The discs have this tape that vendors can remove so they can also be played on any machine.

More Bargaining Antics

Guess what? I found out that you can bargain with tourist companies. We went on the Inner Mongolia tour with a whole bunch of people eating the same food and staying at the same places (a yurt one night, a 3 star hotel, the other). But people were paying different prices for it! It was ridiculous. I didn't even know I could do that. My classmate went to the same trip a month ago and she bargained, the overall price, the horse riding experience, etc. Even when the drivers asked them to pay money for gas, she bargained the gas money from $50 kuai down to $20!!! I felt v. ripped off. I'll know next time though. Only in China!

I heard that you can't bargain that much in other parts on Asia, Thailand you can a little and a little in Korea but bargaining to the extreme that you can buy a pair of shoes for 40 yuan from the starting price of 230 is ridiculous! Of course the vendors try to take advantage of you when they learn that you're a foreigner but once you start learning the ropes and knowing approximately how much things costs, you can go far, sista, oh so far.