Road Show Notes

Growing up, my Dad and I were ham radio operators.  We were friends (and still are) with a bunch of ham radio operators in western NC.  We all used to go to the Waffle House and eat.  I always had waffles, and everyone else had other yummy things there.  In Korea, the waffles are a bit better, so I want to recommend to all of my ham radio buddies (any anyone else) that the next time they go to Waffle House, they need to have their waffles the Korean Way (Or maybe the American-Korean way or the Korean-American way).  Get ready...  The way Korean eat waffles is with ice cream on top.  I know it sounds strange, and I was kind of weirded out at first, but its really yummy.  So ask the waitress for a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of the waffle.  It's worth all of the strange looks you will get from your American friends.  I promise.   Think about it: waffles are covered with sugar (syrup) and fat (butter) anyway.  That's basically what ice cream is.  They're both dessert foods, so there is no reason why it shouldn't work.

Our Names in Korea

Here in Korea, we meet lots of people.  The most important part of meeting people, is telling them your name.  This gets interesting when some of the letters in your name don't exist in the alphabet of the other people.  The Korean language has fewer consonants and more vowels than English does.  "F" does not exist, they use "p."  Along with this, "p" and "b" are basically the same letter, so is "d" and "t."  "G" and "k" are the same, and the best one is "r" and "l."  This makes Riley's introductions hilarious.  Plus, even after we know people a while, they can't remember that its "Riley" and not "Liley" or "Rirey" because to Koreans it sounds exactly the same.  My name is much easier to tell people.  First, I don't even bother with the "r"s, so I'm Ma-ga-et to most people, but best of all, there is a famous cookie brand here called Margaret cookie!  Its even spelled correctly on the box! 
As for our last name... we only use it for paperwork.  Korean names are almost always on 3 syllables.  The last name is one, and the first name is 2.  The last name comes first in order as well.  Our professor's (boss's) name is Im Man-sung in Korea, but in the US its Man-sung Yim.  When I write out my whole name for people, they get amazed at the length.  The paperwork here is sized for Korean names, so we get to write really really small.

Quick Note

Yesterday I saw the mailman on his way to delivering mail.  He was driving a motorcycle.  The mail was in a big box behind him.  I wonder if this was done in the US if more people would want to be mailmen.

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.