Socially Acceptable

Here in Korea, we noticed people doing some things that in america would either warrant funny looks, or would start a fight.  However, here in Korea they are normal. 

The first happens at meals.  Imagine college age boys eating food.  Here, it is totally normal for them to reach over and take each other's food.  Even just spoonfuls of soup.  EVERYONE does this.  It doesn't matter if you just met someone, if you go out to eat with them, they can take your food without asking.  This probably comes from the traditional meal mostly being eaten from common plates family style, and you grab bites with chopsticks.

The second thing is personal contact.  This luckily only happens between friends.  It is more normal for two friends (girl-girl, guy-guy) to hold hands than a couple to hold hands.  Yesterday we were biking down our street and two middle-aged guys were walking down the street holding hands.  In Korea is does not mean you are gay, it just means you are good friends. So, when our good asian (Chinese people do this too) friends reach out to us, we have to remember that it doesn't mean what it means in america.

The third thing is about the guys dress code.  We were walking down the road this week and notice a really tall, buff Korea in front of us.  He was wearing army boots and still had the army hair cut.  This wasn't strange, the odd part was that he was carrying a purse.  Guys here have purses.  Granted they are usually brown or black, but besides that they look exactly like the purses my mom has worn in the past.  A couple more things about what guys wear here.  Skinny jeans are in!  Asian guys usually have skinny legs anyway, but they all wear skinny jeans!  I've seen not skinny ones in the store, but I don't think they wear them much.  We have also been surprised at the men's tie's here.  They have normal colored ones, but they also have a large selection or brightly colored ties covered in sparkles and glitter.  And they are worn!

So, the last thing I will mention, is that guys aren't they only ones that wear strange things in Korea.  Apparently, typical winter-ware for girls is a heavy coat, high heels, and really short short or skirts.  Then, the only thing on their legs are tights.  They don't wear this in the summer, only winter.  Sometimes the tights are fairly thick, I think some are even like the ones worn by figure skaters, but they can't be a warm as a pair of pants! 

So, if you ever come to Korea, don't start too hard at the man-purses because people here would not understand what was strange.