Unique Things In Korea

Korea is a very unique place.  Some of that uniqueness grates on my very American beliefs but some of them are hilarious.

Honestly, I need to capture most of these on film because they are not to believed until seen.

My Top Five Unique Things in Korea
1. All men and some of the women seem to be "issued" these white gloves that they wear whenever they may have to get their hands dirty.  Saw a man the other day who was having to look under the hood of his car in the rain.  He was standing in the rain (it was pouring too) and he stopped to take time to put his gloves on before lifting the hood.

2. Men will pee anywhere at anytime of the day.  You may be driving down the street or highway even and there will be a man with his junk out relieving himself on the side of the road.

3. The elderly work hard here.  I have been told, and I have never confirmed its validity, that as part of the country's retirement program you have to continue to work.  This means that the elderly do service type jobs around their community.  So, this translates to old ladies in large groups weeding parks and the side of the road by hand.  Or old men picking up garbage every morning.  You will also see the construction crews for the road, etc, is made up mostly of old men.

4. When people get tired they squat to rest.  Just pop a squat wherever you may be.  We have this old lady in our neighborhood who will walk down to the corner produce stand and she gets tired about halfway there and will just squat holding on to her big walking stick.  Sometimes she will be in the middle of the road and if you come down the road in your car she gives you a look like, "either wait or go around me cuz I am not getting up."  The other fascinating thing about the squatting is taxi drivers will pull over on the side of the road, pop a squat and have a cigarette.  Not sure why they don't just smoke in their cars but they don't.

5. They are very superstitious people.  There is the whole red pen thing (they believe that if their name is written in red ink then they will die) but they also believe something about if a fan blows on you in your sleep then you will die because it steal your breath.  There is an extension of that with sitting in cars with the engine off.  They also believe that Magpies who sing for you are telling you that you will have a visitor.  There are more but I can't remember them.

Well, it is Monday here.  I am getting ready for Spirit Week at school and am super excited.  Pictures soon.