Korea is quite different sometimes

Hey there!

It’s been quite a while since my last blog post. Might be because there were finals hunting me down till recently haha. Now I’m totally free for the next two months and I’m up for some cool stuff including a trip to Jeju-Island and a Ski-trip. I planned on doing this post about differences quite a while ago and finally  found the time to write again!

Recently we passed the 24th of December and Christmas in Korea somehow reminded me of all the cultural differences I came across here. Christmas is mainly couple dominated in Korea, not so much family-orientated like in Germany. That’s one of the reasons why my Christmas was a bit lonely since almost all my friends I encountered here left for their home country already. While you can find decorations almost everywhere in my hometown, here in Korea you will only find them in special places like shopping malls or big public spaces. It didn’t really feel like it was Christmas at all while walking through the streets. The only thing that reminded me of winter was the constant -10 °C sinking into my bones. At least we had a bit of snow in December which sadly hardly stayed until now.

The funny thing is my next difference came to me because of my winter jacket. I use to wear the same vibrantly orange colored winter jacket every winter, which is why I also brought it to Korea. Little did I know that this country prefers black, white and grey. You hardly see any colors especially on clothes in winter. I figured out that this is mainly because of the long to be part of a community and individualism isn’t as highly valued as in Germany. I guess this really shows in the way people around here dress.

The next thing came to me when I went ice-skating with one of my friends in Seoul just a view days ago. We had to rent ice-skates and I don’t know why but Koreans seem to be masters in queuing. I’ve seen so many creative ways of lining up since I’ve been here haha. Sometimes they are Z-shaped and even if you don’t think that there is a queue in front of a food stand it will most probably be behind it, you just have to find it. I feel like in Germany there would just be a huge bulk of people in front of the stand but here you’ll always find a neat line.

One thing I will totally miss when I leave is the food culture in Korea. Food in restaurants is so much cheaper than in Germany and you always get free water with ice and side dishes you can refill yourself. Definitely a concept Germany is missing out on. 
Eating alone in restaurants or in the cafeteria btw seems very common here. There’s surely gonna be at least three people or more eating alone in the cafeteria every time which I think would seem like a big deal in Germany.

Probably the most obvious to the eye is the couple culture though. I’ve never seen so many couples in public places like in Korea. Even though they all seem very affectionate on the outside I’ve heard a lot about the obsession and controlling behavior in relationships. Having to know where the other person is almost 24/7 and getting jealous over smallest incidents seems normal here but is quite a new concept for many foreigners including me. I’ve heard many stories already so it appears that’s a thing here.

As I’m writing this in a café there is another thing that jumps to my mind. Since Korea is a pretty safe country because of all the CCTVs in every street and shop people tend to leave their bags unattended in public places quite often. Which is actually no problem. I did it a lot of times too until now and never got robbed. That definitely wouldn’t be possible in Germany. You leave your Laptop alone in public? You better start praying fror real.

I think I’ll leave it at this for now and send you off in your well deserved winter break!

See you ^.^

Luisa