Riley's Beard Experiment

The "grad student/living in the woods" look

Last month, we had a discussion with some of our foreigner and Korean friends about why Koreans do not grow beards.  This came up because our Korean-American friend grew a massive beard and gets strange looks from other people.  People say Koreans don't have beards because they can't grow them, but we know this isn't true because every Korean drama set in the ancient times, as well as the famous Koreans on their money, all have beards.  The Koreans dressed up in historical clothes "guarding" the palace in Seoul even put on fake facial hair to look the part!

See, Koreans used to have nice beards! (and cool hats)

So why is it Koreans today rarely have beards?  We have heard two reasons:

1) Communists wear beards.  This was from an older Korean that said during the war, any North Korean left in South Korea had to live in the mountains to hide.  As everybody knows, living in the mountains causes you to grow a beard.  Thus, anyone with a beard was assumed to have come from the mountains and be a communist.

2) Girls think beards are dirty.  This may have come from the above reason originally, but the bottom line is Korean girls think guys with beards are dirty.

In light of this discovery, Riley decided to grow a beard to see people's reactions.  It so happened we attended a dinner where many of our friends we hadn't seen in a while gathered and saw Riley's beard for the first time.  The Koreans said "wow" and most at least said they liked it (some were being polite I think, but a couple of them watch too much American tv).  The foreigners didn't seem to notice much, except for one group.  All of our Chinese friends told him to shave.  One of our friend's first reaction was "have you not left the house all week?" 
In short, the experiment was a success!  We also discovered that Riley cannot pull off an Asian beard.  Alas, the beard and long hair had to come off due to a presentation this week, so Riley is back to normal.