Lasting impressions

Hey, what's up? It's taken quite a lot of time for me to post again. Yes, to tell you the truth, I expected that: this first full week here has been hectic enough, specially being in "course tryout mode", i.e. attending several lectures a day to choose the ones I like the most.

And know what? Now we've got a problem: I like too many of them, and the ones I prefer are the ones my professors back at Barcelona won't accept. I shall take at least one subject related to the European Union, maybe some international relations (I attended 3 lectures, an introductory seminar, an introductory lecture and a seminar for PhD students which, oddly enough, seems to be the more "relaxed" of the three)... but not research methodology or peace studies. However, yesterday I attended both these lectures and they were so interesting, so useful... that I decided to audit them, even if I don't get a grade (and the corresponding credits).

While I go crazy trying to figure out why my Nook refuses to open any of the PDF books/articles I have in there and that I have to read urgently, I will let you know about several "culture shocks" that happened to me in the few days since I arrived. Wow, it's already been more than a week... and I failed to learn any Korean in the meantime: I am now just able to read most of the alphabet, but I still can't say much beside the "hello, thank you, goodbye" stuff. After receiving some bad news about the prospects of learning Korean at University (they just offer that very intensive, 20-hour a week program... and you have to pay almost €1000 for that!), I might go to a private school on Monday and join their monthly 6-hour a week courses. Not cheap either (some €150 a month), but I should at least give it a try!

Anyway, back to the main subject of this post: cultural shocks. To make things more agile, I'll just give you some bullet points, coupled with a couple of pictures. Let's go...

- No thrash containers on the streets whatsoever. Neither are there centralized dust collection systems in appartments. How do they manage? Easy: you put all your stinky rubbish in as many containers as you need (yes, they do recycle), leave it rotting inside your appartment for a few days and then take it out on Saturday evening for it to be picked up. Of course, it saves resources and money, but now I avoid getting too close to the dustbin box in my appartment...

- Fried chicken and beer has become a national passtime among young people. In the very genuine Asian style, there are even streets almost completely devoted to such art, offering you the invaluable image of heaps of pre-fried chicken next to shop windows, waiting for some grease-loving customer to devour them... Although the image can sound and seem disgusting, if you go to the right place (i.e. chicken fried almost on the spot) it's decent enough: I played some ball with my flatmate and his lab colleagues yesterday evening (btw., they want me to play for their lab's team in Korea University's internal basketball league!) and afterwards I asked him if he wanted to eat in such a place... so we went! The chicken was obviously greasy, but far less than Spain's KFC. Meanwhile, the meat seemed decent enough and reasonably tasty, so I'd say the poultry used was not the worst available. The price? Maybe a tad high for Korean standards: we paid KRW 19,000 (about €13) for 8-10 pieces of chicken and two beers, of course coupled with some salad (healthier than the regular french fries you get in Europe or America) and another Korean side dish (banchan).

 

- Love for soju: they are not very tolerant to alcohol (they lack some enzymes other races do have), but Asians drink to death. Koreans are no exception, and their rice wine drink, soju, a nastier and less tasty version of the Japanese sake, is their favourite one. In fact, the main soju producer in South Korea is the world's biggest single alcoholic beverage producer in terms of volume. Of course, with such charming ads, who could resist to soju?

- Death machines for exercising. No extra comments: it's meant to be some kind of old fashioned step machine, but it was really dangerous! I just set one foot dare and it began furiously swinging back an forth. I set the second foot, and things went from bad to worse. I still don't know how I managed to jump out of this evil machine relatively unscratched (I just hit my left knee, which still today bothers me a little bit)!

 - No, it's not the local Nazi council: just a buddhist temple/center. In fact, the swastika was in no way invented by the German nazis, but just reused from its buddhist past. So don't be afraid if you ever come to South Korea or Japan and see lots of swastikas: the skin heads you'll see coming out of such buildings are probably less aggressive than the ones we are used to in Europe!

- Next up: love motels. In a society in which public displays of affection are forbidden, in which traditionality makes it almost unthinkable that you sleep with your partner at his/her parent's from time to time and where even university dorms are stricly male/female separated, the so-called love motels come to the rescue of passionate lovers who want to enjoy some forbidden pleasures. Well, I am not sure I would enjoy it too much, only thinking about the place itself... I can assure you that the building itself was pretty run down, the main entrance was the best part of it. Anyway, to me it's quite fun that you can see it in the middle of the street (even if it's not a main one but more like a back alley), no hiding whatsoever!

 - Although the streets are pretty clean, there are almost no dustbins to be found. Yes, you find some from time to time, but you have to walk for quite some time with junk in your hands before you can "decently" dispose of it. I guess that Spain would be a much, much dirtier place if dustbins weren't as ubiquitous as they are nowadays!

- Finally, the typicial monothematic Asian streets do also exist in Korea. While in China I enjoyed a peaceful walk along Beijing's toilet street, last Tuesday I had the chance to stroll along Seoul's professional kitchenware street. Not the only one I've seen, though: one can just take a bus and enjoy the sights of several "specialised" streets, all around the city! Oh, by the way: Tuesday was a National Holiday, but I'd say that 50% of shops were open (as this photo testifies). Holiday? Not working? What is that? I guess that's one of the reasons why the 21st century will undoubtedly belong to Asia!

And that's it for today. I'll now deal with a short translation I was assigned on Thursday and then go out with a couple of French pals. We plan to visit the National Museum and then the N Tower, from the very top of Namsan park. I'll surely post some pictures! Later!