March 17th, 2022
So, as I sit here listening to the sound of my AC unit dripping a significant amount of water onto the towels that have been placed behind the TV, I have decided to finally follow up with the things that I dislike about Korea....
First, a sense of urgency is lacking in most services or daily things. I reported my AC leaking water a week ago and the maintenance came, looked, and said they're busy and will send someone when they can. At the time, it was just leaking a little and slowly damaging the wall paper. Now, the wallpaper is bubbling and has dripped water into the TV. Not to mention that the electrical outlets are directly below the AC where are of the water is dripping. I wish that this only pertained to this instance but ask me about appointments and having my Korean boss drive me to them another day.
That leads me to my second point of frustration - placement of electrical outlets. In so many cases there may be one outlet in an entire room - usually close to where the AC unit plugs in, now that I think about it. So a person has to run multiple extension chords or constantly switch appliances. Grounding is an atrocity here. I'm surprised more buildings don't catch fire from electrical/safety hazards.
And to tie in the third, WALLPAPER! This is the most obnoxious thing. Every place is covered in wallpaper. You can't put anything up without damaging it and with the high humidity or bad window seals, you're bound to end up with water damage somewhere on a wall somewhere in your time here. The buildings are usually made of concrete so painting is not a thing - they just put wallpaper up. Which also means that buildings have to be torn down often as concrete doesn't age well over time and stress. So add crappy construction to the list.
This also ties in the humidity and the black mold that can be found literally everywhere. When you notify a landlord they act as if it's your fault. But the spores are often on the surface of whatever material is under the wallpaper or it is lingering in the AC or the bathrooms. I have a love/hate relationship with Korean wet bathrooms. Not to mention as a person with asthma, being able to breathe here in high humidity is already a challenge. When the humidity is high, the temperatures are miserable. If it's hot it's like sitting over a pot of boiling water. And when it's cold, the slightest breeze tears through your bones and body like daggers of ice. So, that's fun!
The wet bathrooms - you literally have a single drain in the middle of the whole bathroom. There is a shower head attached to a hose that may or may not attach to a wall. While this can be very nice when cleaning the bathroom, after just showering, your floor is wet and you'll have to wear shower slippers for any further purpose. Let's not forget the amount of hair that has now clogged the drain in your bathroom making your potty time an adventure at sea. Also, the bathrooms have a surprisingly large amount of water erosive metals that are exposed to water (door hinges, door handles, towel rack, etc). This also includes the handy dandy toilet paper holder. It has a metal flap so in theory the TP doesn't get wet from the shower head. However, in reality, the whole bathroom accumulates condensation on the tile walls that drips against the toilet paper that is now resting against said wall. Some new places may have a small glass wall that is between the sink/shower and the toilet but my experience is that it is rare. So, one must be careful not to get the toilet paper roll wet. I have placed a makeshift shower curtain in my bathroom (which is not something commonly found in Korean bathrooms).
So you have a soggy wet roll of TP... now what? "Throw it away", you say. Well, thrash here is on a whole different level. Public trash cans are like finding a needle in a hay stack. Usually you may find them at subway/train stations once you are down by the tracks. But rare AF to find them casually on a street, in a park, or in public places. It is the consumer's responsibility to purchase specially marked trash bags for your district in order to dispose of trash. You do not pay a monthly trash service, you just buy the bags as needed (which is financially nice). However, now you have to recycle everything! Sounds easy, right? Not really. You never really realize how much stuff is "recyclable" until you are forced to separate it. I have more recyclable materials than general trash in a month. And now you have to clean said trash for recycling - equating to more dishes/cleaning/time. And the FOOD trash... the worst. There are no garbage disposals in most Korean houses so all food waste must be separated into a separate bag or specific container to go to the animal feed. My freezer is often more full of food waste than it is edible food. This at least saves it from rotting in my fridge before I have a chance to take it to the disposal area. Worst part is, I have a very weak sensitive, stomach so I gag very easily. So much fun!
On the subject of food, fresh vegetables and fruits are quite pricey compared to what I was used to in the states. The options seem so limited in comparison also. But, everything sold to you at the stores is usually in sizes for a family and rarely can you buy one item. They love bulk and 1+1 sales. Cucumbers - 2 or 3; Tomatoes - sometimes 4 or a small plastic box. For a single person with odd working hours, this can lead to more food waste than desired. It's a for sure that I probably throw a lot of money away here. Not going to lie, on occasion, I have hidden some food waste inside something in a regular trash bag just to dispose of it without the hassle.
Still a trash topic but the amount of packaging waste here is insurmountable. Fast food places will provide you with a plastic bag for your drink, a small paper bag for your fries, another bag for your main course, food put into another paper bag and all placed inside another larger plastic bag. Total overkill. While my drinks have always been delivered virtually spill proof, it is a lot of clean up and extra work when you are too lazy to cook. All of the fruits and vegetables come in some form of plastic, sometimes packaged individually then put into a larger packaging method. Sometimes, I feel like I am being suffocated in all of the excess packaging from seemingly simple items that would probably not have had such elaborate wrapping back home.
The smell of sewage and rotting food.... this is something that will sneak up on you out of the blue. You may be walking down the street and suddenly you are smacked with a stench that almost knocks the wind out of you. This is sometimes from the sewers and drains or sometimes from the piles of trash bags stacked up on the side of the road or curb awaiting trash pick up. This happens sometimes in your own house when the pipes have a little backup and suddenly your bathroom or kitchen smells very foul. I'm always surprised at the lack of sanitation here in a country that is so advanced in some areas.
On the topic of sanitation, basic hand washing is virtually non-existent. Before covid, you'd be lucky to even have found toilet paper or soap in a public bathroom and the fact that this never bothers most people is disturbing. Toilet paper is coveted inside individual stores or facilities for you to take sparingly and in many facilities, it is asked that you do not flush toilet paper but instead place it into a small trash inside the stall. Hence, often leaving stalls to smell all too much like a literal urinal. And to boot, there is rarely soap in a public bathroom. In some rare cases you may be blessed to find liquid or foam soap. But for the most part, when you can find soap, it is a bar of the cheapest soap on a metal stick that everyone has to pretty much give a hand job to in order to get any lathering to occur (the mental images - ew). Only to be met with the iciest cold water to wash your hands in. I think in three years I have found warm water in a bathroom less than 5 times. If you have neuropathy pain, you'll really love this feature. Dry your hands? LOL - nope! I think with covid more places have placed paper towels or plugged in the hand dryers. But you'll get more dirty looks for using them as there was some talk about how they just blow the virus around more. You can often tell the people who DO actually wash their hands as you will see the wet marks on their pants from wiping the excess water off onto their pants or the shaking of wet hands as they exit the lavatory.
On the subject of public bathrooms - One: sometimes there may just be a hole in the floor in a stall. I understand that this was common here and is still in many Asian countries. However, at my older, more broken down age, squatting to pee with my drawers around my knees is just not a skill that I have mastered. And, Two: if you do drizzle on yourself, better believe you won't find TP to wipe yourself off. I have thought way too many times about how many women have damp chones after having tinkled. Yes, I'm probably spoiled, but not wiping after any of the numbers does not sit well with my sensitive parts.
Public spitting is such an issue here. You could be walking down the street and suddenly have to dodge a loogie coming your way. Due to mask mandates with covid and the stigma of being labeled a covid germ spreader, it does occur a little less unless you are around an area where a lot of older men hang out. Nowadays though, people will pull their masks down to spit without a care. I have decided that this is the main reason that they take their shoes off at the door to enter a home. Trust me, the floors still get dirty even if you don't wear your shoes, but just probably saliva-free.
Public peeing is also an issue. Since drinking in public is allowed, people will sit outside of a convenience store to drink. Where there is no restroom, men often just open their flaps wherever. I was privy to witness a man peeing into the fake foliage inside the newly decorated subway station in Seomyeon. That week alone I saw three separate men urinating in widely public areas. Note - it is mostly drunks that do it but I have also witnessed a mother letting her daughter urinate on the side of the main highway as cars passed because there was not a bathroom close enough. I can say that I have not witnessed this as often but don't be surprised if it is something that you encounter while in Korea.
One of the things that has really been pulling my chain these days is the concept of lines. While some places people seem to adhere to lines extremely well (in many subway stations), other places it's like the Hunger Games (like city buses). I had my right foot on the bottom step of the bus as an older women jumped and pushed in front of me, as if it was perfectly ok. No one says a damn thing about it either. Even a young foreigner that often takes the same bus as me will cut in front of an entire group of people to get on the bus and secure a seat. The difference with me, if I see an older person standing and I have a seat, I will most likely offer them my seat (unless they pushed their way onto the bus rudely). Similar things happen at stores. There is some sense of entitlement and even if you were actually standing there already, it is not surprising to have someone approach the counter as if you were invisible or were just a decorative statue. This has been one of my biggest gripes lately.
So, I am here to teach English, right - just as so many other foreigners now and years before me. If there are so many people here teaching English and it's taught as a required course in public schools, why is there so little English available? I understand neighborhood places but at immigration where a large majority of English speaking, working foreigners go to, the English is very limited. English teachers have been coming here for at least 10-15 years to help Koreans get ahead in the global work force. The thing is not that they CAN'T speak English though, but that they just don't really want to. I was at immigration last year not understanding what was being said and the clerk did not want to use an app translator but instead just kept repeating herself in Korean. I finally said I was just going to call someone who spoke both languages and suddenly she could speak to me in English - well enough for me to understand. I almost blew a gasket. I truly understand not speaking the same language and I have tried to learn enough to get by (relate very well to US immigrants now knowing very little English). But the thing that never seems to fail is that when you don't understand, a lot of people just repeat their Korean words more loudly and annoyed as if suddenly one becomes fluent in Korean by adding volume. In English speaking countries, we tend to speak slowly or use shorter words/phrases - a concept unknown here.
On the level of languages, many websites that require/have foreigner traffic (tax, insurances, banks) are almost always in only Korean and will not even translate with the handy dandy feature of automatic Google site translation. Luckily, I can at least read the language so I can navigate a little better than some but this is a very tedious inconvenience. Many of these sites that don't allow for auto translation will also not allow screenshots on a phone for "security" reasons. If you have the patience and time, learn the language I suppose. My gripe is that it is literally the only place that speaks Korean in the world and I will more likely encounter a Korean with English skills as it is a mandatory public school course than I will someone with only Korean abilities. Just makes me aware that I should work a lot harder to learn Spanish or Arabic. But it is quite funny when I say one word in Korean and everyone is amazed at how good I can speak Korean (but not actually understand me when I am asking for something in Korean).
On the above note, foreigners are not really allowed to teach English grammar. I have seen a bleed-over or heard in some cases where the school expects it but we shouldn't be. Apparently, Korea has written their own English grammar rules and categories on how to efficiently teach our language. Students will stop and correct themselves when they say "thuh apple" to say "thee apple". I know this can be natural In English but it does not really change the context - yet it is focused on more than the simple and necessary Period. Current Korean writing has periods but the language is also set up to almost instantly know when the thought is completed as there is either a verb or an honorific suffix added at the end. This is not present in English. I try to reiterate until I am blue in the face (out of breath) about how important these are in writing English. It still amazes me that these kids can take English for 8 or more years and still leave out periods. This gripe is less about Korea I guess than it is about the way they accept the teaching of English.
The always "injured and offended Korean" has been another complaint. After seeing the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the news lately, it does seem more apparent that it may be more prominent in many countries worldwide though. Meaning, Korea is always upset with Japan, China, or any country that makes Korea as a whole feel like less. Example, Japan occupied Korea around the Korean war and they will hate and throw shade on Japan still. The Tokyo Olympics on the Korean news was controversy after controversy. This would be like everyone just saying Germany did something bad 70+ years ago and anytime someone says Germany, the group has to say "We hate Germany. Germany sucks." Bad things happened but many seem to really hold onto the past. Tell a Korean that Dokdo is a Japanese island just to spark a crazy tyrannical reaction. Not going to lie, sometimes I do it just for entertainment. Yet, ironically, there are less bad feelings about North Korea and the stress and difficulty that they brought to the southern part of the peninsula in the past. With this in mind, I do try to remind myself that we have all been taught (brainwashed even) to have undying love for our own country and to stand up anytime someone says different. A lot of Americans are very much the same, sadly.
The couple mentality is another level here. Christmas is a couple's holiday. Kids will even wallow over being solo for various holidays. Valentine's Day is for the girls to give gifts to the boys. Therefore, a day was given to the girls to receive gifts from boys, White Day (3/14). There is also Pepero Day which is cracker-like sticks with some form of chocolate or candy coating. The sticks look like the number 11 so that is the sign of couples or something. I may be a little off on my description but I really have had little to no care to dive further into it. I just know that occasionally I will get a plethora of these snacks that I rarely eat. Couples wear matching outfits in public. Many of us have a game when we see these matching couples, we punch the other person - similar to punch buggy in the US.
On the subject of sweets, too many things here are sweet. Potato chips are sweet, garlic bread is disgustingly sweet, things that should not be sweet just are for some unknown reason. Yet traditional Korean food is often spicy, bitter, or pungent. This is likely a new addition to Korean life but I will not buy Korean chips no matter how desperate I am.
The dynamic of most typical relationships here is definitely not something that is to my taste. It is a very patriarchal society still and women are pretty much expected to get married, have kids, and not work or attend school while raising kids - it doesn't matter how high their scores were in school. As a result, a lot of women are choosing not to date or get married these days because they want to live a life of their choosing. Of many of the Korean women that I know, many are very unhappy in their relationships and just accept that their husband drinks a lot of alcohol, stays out late hours, and probably has a girlfriend on the side. This always amazes me. But, as long as the bills are paid I guess they see it as a trade off. I am often told by older women that they envy me for not being married. Yet, younger women constantly ask why I don't want to be married. I guess, when I think about it, the overall idea is similar among women in the US, too. Hmmmm....
One of my other big issues with this place is sadly something that occurs everywhere around the world on some level. Foreigners are the root of all evil. Ok, but seriously, when covid started, if it wasn't churches getting the blame it was all the foreigners. People don't want to rent to foreigners, rarely want to be friends with foreigners, rarely want to even acknowledge foreigners unless it fuels some bad agenda. But, as an American, I have heard all of this from my fellow countrymen. I have been on the other side of race having moved around some due to a military parent but seeing and experiencing it on a legal level (even though waaayyyy downplayed compared to most Western locations) has been more of an eye opener. Even more strange to see that white skinned people are usually still treated better than those with more pigment, including their own race.
Air quality is probably my last complaint. A lot burning of fossil fuels, huge amounts of people here and in neighboring countries, can create some pretty cruddy air. I always thought it was just overcast. Reminds me of San Diego when I was younger - or even LA 20 years ago. Amazing that LA's air is usually 2-3 times better than here.
So other than some of the basic sanitary and cleanliness issues, a lot of my issues sadly are complaints that I actually have about my own country. People keep asking if I'm ready to come home. I see all of the great things that this place offers, but sometimes, it can be difficult to get past the less frequent gripes that we have. I think most of it is just that I can talk back without fear of being sued or deported at home. For the things that are difficult, I have found it generally easier to cope with than all of the bad stuff back home (I can always play the ignorant foreigner here).
However, while there are things I will not miss, I know that there are a lot more that I will miss. Sadly, the things that are difficult just get exhausting to deal with which are more a result of my own culture and lack of local language. I still would not want to live here forever, though. So, I'm about 45% happy to be going home soon. Just not looking forward to the "same 'ol sh*t, different postal code" stuff.
Anyway, here's to hoping my new waterfall doesn't destroy my house.
