Korean Diary - Say something nice for a change

Guilt is nagging me to write something nice for a change. After nine months I should be able to come up with at least a short article on all the things great and good about Seoul and Korea. And manage to do it with nasty digressions, sarcastic wandering and tangential anecdotes. Let's see.

Toilets.  
It has to be said, this is certainly where Seoul excels. 
Those who make the decisions about such matters, those in charge of defecation disposal, in most cities of the world, should hang their heads in shame over the state of their bogs. London, in particular, should be singled out.  Places like Mumbai or Kinshasa, you think might be rated in the bottom 10 or 20 out of the top 1000 list of public facilities?  In that scale, London should still be ranked below ground, a negative number in a league table, an embarrassed footnote. Seoul would set the bar in the top 3 behind Zurich and Geneva (the Swiss would have to come out on top in such a list, no?)

How did Seoul achieve such great things with toilets?  Just three small steps to make the grade. The first step - put them everywhere. No matter where you go in Seoul it is possible to find a toilet. Every underground station has a pair. And not on the inside either, i.e. after you've paid your fare. Most office buildings and residential flats keep a ground floor WC's available for the passing public.  Every coffee shop, every restaurant, every bar and every civic facility has toilets available.  Second step to success - clean them (which includes replenished bog rolls). Third step - make them free. Not all that difficult really, no rocket science involved.   

So why can't London have decent public toilets? The hygienic state of the few that are there would scare anyone into a state of constipation. And nothing is more frustrating that searching about for a 20p coin you haven't got to feed a miserly turnstile while desperately squirming with crossed legs to avoid an embarrassing episode. Seoul spends more on signs telling you where the ubiquitous toilets are located - "Toilet-161m ->", "Toilet-143m ->", and so on - than London does on the entire white bowl network. So why has Seoul ended up with a top ranking in toilets to London's miserable failure?

The first reason is the obvious one - Britain doesn't really 'do' infrastructure, not on the Conservative agenda. We wait for it to fall down before we fix it. But I think there is a bigger, and more nefarious reason for Seoul's supremacy: the coffee conspiracy.  You may read in some places that coffee is not actually a diuretic. This is misinformation and conspiracy to conceal the leaky truth. From my own personal research and that of the Formosa Institute of Investigative and Interpreted Statistics, coffee makes you pee. And since the Seoul metropolitan catchment has 1.6 coffee shops for every Seoul resident (another fact from the FIIIS), pipework to handle the resulting flow is mandatory. Without it coffee consumption remains at more less normal levels, e.g. London. After intensive investigation I have discovered the international coffee cartel have recognised this limitation to their product sales and have descended on Seoul as a testbed for their scheme to go worldwide, named 'Potent Intensity Seoul-Shops for Coffee'. When knowledge of this conspiracy does go viral, please remember that you read it here first.

Buses.  
These can be intimidating in any city at any time. Mastery of a city's bus system can be worn like a badge of courage and intellectual prowess. In this, Seoul is no exception. iPhone apps, however, have come to its rescue which have meant open access for all, foreigners without Hangul skills included, not just the long term residents and cognoscenti.  

Fools who drive cars in Seoul are just simply out of touch or don't drink coffee. Taking a bus means whizzing past long queues of immobile traffic, mostly composed of empty taxis (43% of Seoul traffic is empty taxis prowling for a fare, data taken from a study done by FIIIS) and paying an absolute pittance for the pleasure. The city is busy with creating dedicated bus lanes, more crop up every day, to allow buses clear passage. 

Route planning is still a bit of a challenge for a foreigner. Not all the place names use roman characters. And there are so many interconnecting spaghetti-like routes. Without an iPhone it wouldn't really work at all, even with the app in front of you, it isn't easy to say 'I am here, and I want to go there - How do I do that?' Instead it is a bit of trial and error, inputting multiple route numbers and see where they go.

Unfortunately, it has a dark side... The Bus Driver.  These men (yes, only men) are recruited from the rejects of suicide bomber training camps. They simply know no fear. They are probably given a mega-dose of methamphetamines before beginning their work shift. On top of that, the City of Seoul Transportation equips them with a 15 meter monster with a powerful turbo engine and no working clutch. Imagine your feeling as the bus pulls up to the stop where you are waiting, the squeal of brakes on hot iron, the door opens amid a cloud of steam and mist, and it is MIchael Schumaker at the wheel. But in this incarnation, he has luminescent beady eyes, fangs, wild swept-back hair and a look of crazed desperation to get through the next set of lights while they are still red. Welcome aboard.

Personal Safety. 
Unless you are a protester facing a line of riot police or North Korean sympathiser, Seoul seems to be an overwhelmingly safe place to be.  Safety is relative, I realise - it is mostly a feeling rather than solely a statistic provided by an organisation like FIIIS. I've been to a lot of places, ranging from New Orleans to Johannesburg, Marseilles to Naples, Bangkok to Beijing, and always managed to convince myself that I'm safe. Foolish? Certainly, but it seems to work. Seoul is in a league of its own (erm... together with most Japanese cities).  

Recently I was working in a semi-crowded cafe, and a young lady came in, dumped her laptop and expensive handbag, containing everything she owned, on an empty table near me and then went off to one of the city's 12 million public toilets for 8 minutes (women... why do they take so long, what ARE they doing??).  In just about any city in Europe or North America, both items, most likely, would not be waiting for her on her return. This circumstances of this anecdote are not at all unusual - you see this type of thing all the time.

I've read in more than a few blogs of how young foreign women feel so safe here, for example, returning home alone late at night.  To some extent, especially for foreigners, this may be true. In a quick Internet pass, government statistics suggest a very low rate of attacks on women and rape.  However, digging deeper, there is heaps of evidence that low rates of rape are simply due to low rates of reporting (as happens in many cultures that have a deep seated, misogynistic attitude to women).  A rapist here is highly unlikely to be brought to trial, in the few cases that do, he is likely to be found not guilty, in the even fewer cases of conviction, the rapist will get a very light sentence. Add that to the fact (a real fact this time) that most rapists are known to their victims, and how likely do you think it is that government statistics are true and accurate? Even the small amount of reading I've done on this points to some troubling situations - I'll return to this topic some time soon.

Jazz music.  
Very curiously, just about all forms of jazz are popular here. And not just hobbyist popular but actually popular. This is the nation responsible for unleashing K-pop on the world so I can't say I completely understand this dichotomy. 

Some months back I went to a Pat Metheny concert. It took place in sort of a national theatre (i.e. completely over-sized in a sort of Totalitarian government, Realism kind of way) but shockingly, every seat was filled - about 4,000 people. And even the cheap seats aren't cheap. The FIIIS did a survey on the concert and noted that well over 65% of the audience was single females. In Europe or North America this is just unheard of.  Jazz is overwhelmingly a male occupation. So much so that for any single woman over the age of 30, all she has to do to catch an interesting, sensitive and probably well-off guy, is start attending jazz gigs. Being knowledgable would help the ensnarement a little, so being able to say, with apparent conviction and sincerity, '... of course my favourite is Miles Davis, especially when he was with Coltrane' is all she would need for a successful pull.

Mountains. 
Not too many cities can claim a mountain in their midst. And not just one but many. Although you shouldn't think Himalayan majesty, Seoul has some serious mountains. 

In the middle of the summer heat and humidity, as an August evening descended, a friend rang me, she and her sister, who owns a car, and her sister's young child were going to 'make mountain visit' (her lack of English and my lack of Korean hasn't been a big problem so far) and did I want to come along?  I was down at the street waiting quicker than I could say Kamsamneda. In a 15 minute drive through traffic and then a couple of km around winding roads and hairpin curves, we're suddenly out of the heat and gazing at the twinkling city lights just past twilight. Koreans seem to have a Buddhist monastery or temple at the top of every mountain in the country and this was no exception. My friend pointed out the landmarks in the city below us and we watched the traffic flowing red and white. It was peaceful, it was beautiful, the air was clean and cool - Seoul has its good points I decided.

Korean Diary - Shirt Shopping

I noticed that I was running a little low on shirts that didn't have either bolognese sauce stains on the front or frayed collars.  So off I went on a shopping trip. The department stores here are very efficient. None of this business of walking up to a shelf selecting the thing you want with a clear description of the size, material on the front of the package. Oh no.  Here there are Shopping Assistants.

A successful tactic is to creep along the edge of a department store section where you think it might be possible to get what you want, so that you can safely check it out without too much human interaction. Peer too much, any neck craning and you're done for - you'll be pounced on by the Shopping Assistant. Who can't speak a word of English but fully believes that you're just being shy about your Korean as she chatters away about something clearly not important enough to be communicated in a useful way.

With this chatter going on in my ear and random shirt styles being thrust in front of me, I tried to focus on making her understand the essentials of my needs.  Shirt must have a breast pocket. A man would be an fool not to take advantage of his natural ability to have a pocket just covering the heart. A good place for leaky pens, metro passes and if anyone ever wanted to shoot you, in a fatal kind of way, while travelling, the bullet would first have to go through your passport. All this was very easily communicated to the Shop Assistant using the example pocket on my current shirt, although I'm not sure she understood the bullet thing. 

Next, colour. White or blue.  These were business shirts.  I reserve other colours for non-business in order to help me to recognise when it is a weekend or a holiday. Material, cotton. Strangely this took a long time to communicate. Must have been my mime impression of a cotton gin. Lastly size.  (Here Korea has excelled itself in being truly unique. There is a numbering system that is neither inches or centimetres and I think, not actually related to any known mathematical classification system. Small starts at 90 and large ends at 110. Brilliant - I wonder when the rest of the world will catch up.)

But I didn't need to communicate my size - Shop Assistant was all over me with a measuring tape doing shoulders, waist, length from top of neck to belt line (both front and back), length of arm (she actually raised her eyebrows when she got that, she must have thought I was part Simian). I started getting worried that she had misunderstood and was making me a shirt from scratch. But after sizing me up from all angles and a few moments with a calculator, she pronounced '105'.  (By the way, the shirts still come in the same 4 sizes - S, M, L, XL: 105 is an 'L'.  The actual shirt size with that name is always different and as usual varies from country to country and brand to brand.)

Unfortunately, they didn't have the 105 with a breast pocket.  I say 'unfortunate' because by this time I had also reached my 'shopping saturation' threshold. Like a diver at 18 meters with his air gauge locked at red zero needing to surface, once shopping saturation is reached I rather like being on the outside of the shop with it receding in the distance.  So, principles abandonned, I took the 105's, paid the piper, and headed home. 

First thing I did was put them in the wash, due to the allergy to the bug killer they spray the material with. Next day - dried, pressed.  I try them on. And of course they don't fit.  Next time I'll remember 110.

Korean Anthropology - The Korean Art of Flirting

Since I appointed myself an amateur anthropologist, I've been unremitting in my dedication to unbiased and scientific observation. Apart from all the times when I wasn't. 

And so I've been hesitating on how to write about flirting. Anthropologically speaking, how would it be possible to report on this without being somehow involved, i.e. the flirt-ee. In my experience, there are only two possible interpretations of a flirting phenomenon, that of the flirt-er and the other is the flirt-ee (1).  All third party observations of flirting are invariably invalid. 

As evidence, I recall an incident, a couple of years back, where I was at a formal dinner, some awards do for industry, where I was a guest and my then girlfriend at the time was, purely by coincidence, one of the organisers. The seating plan had me situated between, on one side, an octogenarian who had been an accountant for the firm that had recommended a new generation of high tech ball bearings for the conveyor used in the assembly of tractor gearboxes, and on the other side, a quite stunning young woman who was the CEO of a new internet startup in the music business. 

I swear I would have spoken more to the elder gent but he kept losing his train of thought every time he tried to explain why a double ledger system created something something, something which I can't remember now. And he kept putting his hand on my knee. That may have been for balance as he seemed to be swaying a lot. My attention slowly drifted over to the young businesswoman who, being at the end of the table, had no one else with whom to converse - yes!, I felt sorry for her and should be polite.  Entirely innocent, even though my dinner companion was wearing a very low cut evening dress, I am certain my eyes never once strayed from the horizontal - certain, because what she was saying about growing startups was so fascinating. 

At the time, I was unaware that telescopic CCTV cameras had been installed in the false eyeballs of several girlfriends of my girlfriend who were also attending this dinner and that my every move was being fastidiously observed from all angles. Unfortunately for me, when I engage in a conversation, would seem as though (I wasn't consciously mindful of this) I also smile occasionally, and my face and hands make 'engaging' gestures which, to a team of untrained gossiping zealots, might appear like flirting. The dinner was wonderful and the conversation scintillating. The after-dinner confrontation was not pleasant,  facing the pre-judged stare of my accuser girlfriend. I declared my innocence, which was true since as a point of principle, I knew the consequences of a single toe in the icy water of Lake Flirt. It didn't matter - words falling like snowflakes on a burning desert.

'It', of course, ended soon after.  Thankfully in retrospect.  The point being, third party observers at an alleged flirt session never really know what's going on. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Subjectivity is everything.

The other reason I've been putting off writing this, is how to assure the reader that I'm reporting anthropological fact and not just being vain. You'll see what I mean. 

Back to Korea...

The first incident happened not long after I arrived in Seoul. I had moved into my tiny flat but wasn't yet set up to cook. So I went out to search for my evening meal and ended up at some kind of chain / fast food pizza place near Ewha. Not really what I wanted but I was in a hurry.  Throughout the meal, service was excellent but so was my book. Pizza is a good choice of food if what you actually want to do is read a book - filling your stomach being incidental. After a while, I got the bill and wandered over to the cash station to pay.  To give you the full picture, being a chain / fast food place, most of the staff were teenagers, between 16 and 20.  As I started to pay, the Korean girl at the cash asked me how I liked my meal and the service, in perfect English with either a Texas or mid-west accent. A bit surprised, I gave some non-binding answers, and then mentioned how good her English was. There was a bit more to and fro around that topic, then she said, '... the reason why I wanted to talk to you was that my friend who was serving you, thinks you're really handsome but she can't speak English very well.'  Then she pointed over to her friend, who gave a big smile and a little wave with the sort of rabbit ear, V-sign fingers that teenage girls reserve for posed photo's. 

(Did I mention there is a age gap? Let's just say the last time I was interested in a 16 year old girl was when I was 17, but it didn't last as music, psychedelic drugs, Vietnam and Watergate was all that could fit into my non-multi-tasking head. )

I was cool, I tried to hide my surprise as the first thing that occurred was that it was some kind of hidden camera show.  So I waved back (without the rabbit ears) and mumbled that, well I thought she was very pretty, as I walked backwards to the door. Dignity preserved but very puzzled.

The second incident happened twice. Not with the same people of course (apart from me).  But nearly identical circumstances in different places. I had just finished some business meetings, in a city outside Seoul and had been dropped at the train station. It was a lovely, warm spring afternoon and I stood, sunglasses and suit, in the middle of the station plaza, gazing up at a schedule board trying to figure out where to go and how to get there. At that point, a gaggle of school girls (I knew this from the uniforms), started catcalling at me from across the sqaure. I nodded and waved and expected them to keep going. But they didn't, they came over. A group of about 5, they seemed to be about 17 or 18 years old. The best explanation I can offer is that they were trying to practise their English. And, of course, there is bravery in numbers, especially when out having a lark - I get that. Before I could leave, one of girls, the tall, pretty one naturally, stands directly in front of me, hands on hips, chin in the air, full eye contact and says, 'I like you, where are you from?' 

I think it's the suit.  Plus the Ray-Bans were hiding the scars from the time I went headfirst through the windscreen of a Fiat Panda. Very flattering though. (In case anyone is wondering, after a few incomprehensible attempts to be funny, of course I (embarrassingly) walked on. Despite the stereotype, actually most men aren't interested in teenage girls.)

The second incident was pretty much the same, the only difference standing out in my memory was that the girl doing the talking had poorer English but a shorter skirt.

So once these girls get out of school, then what happens?  I've mentioned in an earlier blog, the legions (literally) of young women in their twenties and thirties, who've foregone the benefits of a career in Korean engineering and science to have a go in retail.  (Turn off brain, get that plastic surgery done, bright smile, show a bit of leg ). This time, I'm off to buy some wine in one of the main department stores. It isn't possible in Seoul to wander around on your own, looking at the bins, trying to remember a label you've actually drank before. (And if you did remember the label, what did it taste like? Impossible and hopeless task buying wine - best to decide on whether the label has the right amount of and right type of decoration.)  I've now grown accustomed to the girls who immediately latch themselves onto you as soon as you enter the shop, their recommendations seem even more random than the neurones in my brain pretending to be my memory.

But there is one special girl. She is late twenties, so at least legal. On the first time, after following me around the store on my arm, with lots of coy giggles, hair flicks and arm touches, she introduced herself by handing me her business card. Which is fine and very nice. But then she took it back and wrote her personal mobile number on it. In case I needed a sudden wine consultation I guess.  Next, she asked me for my card, 'ah sorry, haven't got one with me. Saturday you see. Don't keep business cards in my jeans.'  And what exactly does it mean when a really attractive girl turns her head slightly to the side and looks at you from the corner of her eye with a smile?

'Yes, please - next time'.  Of course I thought she would forget.  Next time in the shop, even before I reach the first bin, she has jumped me. She bats the other trailing girls away with a backward swish of her hand, she thinks I don't notice but I've got decent peripheral vision. And she reminds me I haven't yet given her my card and telephone number. I start to ask her isn't it customary to at least find out if I have a wife or girlfriend or if I'm gay, or if I'm a serial killer? but I think that's got to be too difficult to get across in Kor-glish. Bound to be a few misunderstandings and google translate will just make a hash of it. So instead a big smile and hand over the card.  My reluctance isn't because of her pretty face or long legs, nor feeling threatened by a bit of Sadie Hawkins style forth-righteousness, nor because she seems a really nice person. The reason is that she is just bored out of her mind. She is going crazy from sheer, unrelenting, day after day, 7 days per week, 10 hours per day, retail boredom. I can't help her with that. And that's what would hurt her most later.  Plus she's a bit young, I didn't forget that.

That's of course assuming that she has been indeed flirting !  It is just possible that I've completely misread her, and all the other situations. Not flirting at all, just being friendly. Maybe?  I may never know.  Sometimes a woman has to resort to violent behaviour in order to get a man to notice what they thought were overt signs and signals. I might write about those some day... women can come up with amusing ways to hit a fella over the head.

(1)  Of course, during a non-anthropological flirt session, these two roles normally will flip back and forth between the two parties. However, in the interest of good scientific practise, during a flirt session involving an anthropologist, amateur or otherwise, the flirt-ee should try to avoid becoming the flirt-er. 

Korean Anthropology - Curiosities, Part 1

My fondness for Korea comes from a well whose depths I haven't yet plumbed.  If it were bland and had no contradictions, no maddening habits, no little hypocrisies, I'd be itching to leave for my next adventure (which I am anyway, but I should stop contradicting myself).

For my slowly developing anthropology studies, I offer a few short but endearing snippets. 

Observations and Curiosities in Korea - Part 1

I recently visited an office of a government owned organisation. As I was whisked through the halls and large, featureless open plan areas, I noticed, hanging from the ceiling, small signs that indicated the functional group that sat at that location.  Oddly, the signs were written in both Korean (Hangul characters) and English.  This was odd but helpful as I struggle with my basic Hangul comprehension.  Why write the department names in English? No member of the public ever comes here, and even if there were, Korea is usually abysmal about having useful signs in English or even just using Roman characters.  But it made me happy, as now I could know that 'Finance' sat clustered around this clump of otherwise featureless desks, and 'Personnel' was a mere ten grey steps inward from that, and 'Customer Complaints' were appropriately barricaded in the corner. But that's not the curious bit. 

I then came across the 'Absurdity Reporting Department'.  I stopped to make sure my advancing dyslexia coupled with deteriorating eyesight wasn't acting up. It wasn't.  

I had previously written about feeling sorry for some of the women who work in these Korean mega-companies. Many have completely useless jobs (e.g. official greeters), or are employed in such numbers that they simply overwhelm the task at hand into submission (e.g. the wine section of the supermarkets will typically have up to a dozen staff who will follow you around the shelves, where you pick up one girl for every bottle of wine you buy and who coo and chirp incessantly in your ear (see later article on Outrageous Flirting) if you so much as touch a bottle ).  They are hired simply so that government economic statistics show near full employment for women. But there are very few women engineers or any other job where their brains will be utilised.

But what about these girls in the Absurdity Reporting? I can't imagine this is a dreary non-job. What are the job requirements when hiring?  (" I've read a lot of Kafka and Camus, I'm a big Monty Python fan, and Edward Lear is my favourite poet." )  Are there any dress code issues to match the job? (" Purple chicken costumes must be worn every second Tuesday"). 

I wonder what kind of volume they deal with.... thousands per year?  thousands per month?  Can they get medical assistance for perplexity overload?  What do they say to their husbands / boyfriends when asked how their day went?  (" I got 3 reports today of green aliens directing traffic at the bottom of a swimming pool.")

I wonder if I should report to the Absurdity Reporting Department that I saw an Absurdity Reporting Department?

Korean Anthropology - Public Safety videos on the Seoul Metro

Choosing not to own a car*, either when I’m in London or in Seoul, means I’m a frequent train and bus user to get just about anywhere, except when I have to travel somewhere with K, who I don’t think has ever been on public transport in his life. Each of the nine subway lines (adopting the American style name as they do here in Seoul) has its own character and style.  Some of the lines have public safety video’s they frequently show travellers.  These are no ordinary public safety videos – they have provided me with yet another highly scientific, Korean anthropological study opportunity.

How to use an Escalator and a Gas Mask

I live quite close to the Number 2 - Green Line - subway. Or underground. Or metro.  (It gets very confusing when speaking with foreigners to not have a single, standard, ubiquitous word to describe a train that runs underground in a tunnel and stops frequently for commuter passengers.) The Seoul Metro is really quite impressive. Easily one of the best things about the city. Plus the fact that they have public toilets in every station.  Free toilets mind you - none of this absolutely desperate for a pee at Kings Cross station only to find out that you haven't got 20p in your pocket to pay for the hideously dirty facilities. And the travel is cheap - you can cross the city for about 900 to 1000 Won, about 50p.  Seoul Metro clearly cares about the 4 million passengers per day it lugs around, they say they care but more than that they make sure they’re safe every second of the journey.

Nowhere more safe than on line 2 where most of the trains have video monitors mounted throughout the train. And when not showing you in 4 languages where you are and where you are about to be, public safety videos are shown (no sound – you have to figure out what to do in their constructed emergencies entirely from the visuals). For the benefit of all those people who will never have the privilege of travelling on the Seoul Metro line number 2, I will now give you a written full description of each of these videos. Please, no need write to thank me – it is my duty as an amateur anthropologist.

I’ll begin with my favourite – what to do when your Metro is the target of a missile attack.  (Not an everyday occurrence but better to be prepared.) With high realism in the special effects (they should win an award for this), the opening shot shows a typical subway entrance just before aforementioned missile arrives and obliterates the whole thing in a massive ball of fire leaving an empty street (a clean, no-jump cut in there with some of the best Art films from the 50’s). Inside the station, there are body parts and ketchup everywhere, people twitching on the ground and the concrete floor seems to be on fire for no obvious reason.  Apparently it is not a good idea to board the train in circumstances such as these and so we are informed with a big red ‘X’.  At this point, our hero emerges (he will re-appear in later videos).  He looks a little geeky, about 17, but clearly knows his way around a missile attack.  He takes charge, calling for help on ‘something’ (I think he is talking to his hand) and starts giving orders and helping the evacuation. Oddly, a number of people suddenly appear waving light batons of the type used to direct aircraft to the apron, about 6 of them directing 2 people who are carrying a stretcher full of body parts. Then the big no-no, don’t rush for the lift (we all know that one of course). But look – there’s our hero, not so brave anymore, trying to push people out of the way so he can get in first, and it gets the big red ‘X’.   Now I realise that seeing a video of a missile attack on a subway may not give everyone a warm comfortable feeling that all is right with the world, but not everyone knew that if you do get blown up, then all the bits of you will get stretchered out safely.

Video 2: Escalators. Being a modern and trendy city, escalators are everywhere in the Seoul Subway system and so it is important to know how to use them.  I previously thought that I knew everything there was to know about boarding, travelling and de-boarding an escalator but what a shock I got when I watched the Seoul Metro Public Safety on Escalators video. Apparently standing too far back on the step is no good.  Standing too far forward is possibly worse. And, in a miracle of bodily coordination you have to put both feet in this favoured middle position AND grab the handrail at the same time. Whew! (No wonder it seems to take so long for most citizens of this country to get on the frikken escalator.)  I’m sure this video is helping to slowly but surely spread the news throughout the populace of how to use this amazing device. One of the under-estimated dangers is walking on the escalator.  There is a quick cut to a man in a hurry.  Not only in a hurry but he looks evil as well. He is positively bounding down the Seoul Metro escalator, possibly approaching walking speed, when we see !! a group of Proper Users !! with their feet firmly planted on the stair and their hands on the rail. Good people.  The evil one descends, his pace quickening as he starts to dodge in, then out among the hapless travellers. Then, in an almost seamless cut that you almost don’t notice if you put your fingers in your eyes, the special effects team insert store mannequins to replace the people. They go in all directions like bowling pins, ending up in pieces at the bottom of the ride.  The lesson is, don’t walk on the escalator, because if you do, other users will turn into mannequins.

[ An aside that I have to mention… Every time I see this video I am reminded of when I was a child of 7 or 8 and went with my father to meet my grandmother who had just arrived to visit from one of the more rural regions of Canada. In the airport, my gran (then about 70 but not looking a day over 90 and fairly rotund) encountered her first escalator. She stood in front of it for a long time (30 seconds) before she thought the better of it and took the stairs. All the while with smart-ass me loudly trying to show her how easy it was by running up and down it. ]

The next video shows a confrontation, again, between good and evil. Good, in the form of our geeky hero making another impressive show of improvised organisational skills, and Evil, making an appearance as a mad bomber. Or bottle roller. He’s one of the two, I’m not sure which. However, we are certain he is evil because he has shifty eyes. I don’t recall seeing such shifty eyes on a film villain since Boris Karloff in ‘The Sea Bat’ (1930) but just to make it really clear to you, on the closeup of the shifting eyes, you can see this villain has heavy eyebrow perspiration as well.  How evil is that?  Well, not quite enough. Sitting on the train, he suddenly pulls what looks to be a lit Molotov cocktail out of his coat. But here his technique suffers a bit. I’m pretty sure the point of a Molotov is that you throw it and break the bottle. Could be wrong. He rolls the bottle. Different.  Nevertheless, the effect is devastating. There is suddenly smoke everywhere and people pouring off the train.  Of course, they won’t find the exits without our hero who also distributes gas masks.

Every subway station has a blue cabinet with glass doors where emergency gas masks are stored. Each cabinet has about 25 or 30 gas masks, just a guess, but in that region. One cabinet on each side of the tracks. A bit of maths now, but stick with me. Remember when I said 4 million travellers per day at the beginning? Well, a  train has about 10 cars, each at peak hour holding about 100 people on average. Round numbers are easier. That makes about 1,000 people all going for the 25 gas masks, or 40 people per mask.  I think in the midst of a bomb attack that would be exciting to watch.  But instead, on the video, we see an orderly queue of about 10 people calmly waiting for their gas mask to be handed to them. But then, they all rush for the lift again! NO, that’s wrong. Didn’t you learn anything from the missile attack??

[Another aside.  This actually did happen to me on the Piccadilly line recently. Heading home late one night and someone let off a small tear gas canister. I only caught the trail of it, but that was enough. It really hurt. One guy was in really bad shape. However, in good London tradition, even though the emergency cord was pulled, after 10 minutes or so of everyone milling about, people changed carriage and the train carried on. ]

Last example, on the off-chance that maybe my readers find verbal descriptions of public safety video’s a tad non-exciting. The scene opens with a father and daughter, aged about 4, walking along a near-deserted path in a beautiful springtime park. They walk along happily, hand in hand, idyllic, bucolic bliss, until they meet – An On-comer.  Yes, another man, with a moustache, coming towards them.  Approaching, approaching… and then grinding halt as they almost smash into each other. (Yes, we’re still in the park on the path).  They jostle back and forth for a few minutes, faces getting red, tempers close to boiling point, unable to figure out how to get past one another, when the little girl suggests with a gesture, why not move over to the other side of the path? The day is saved! They can walk on! Oh happy day!  I’m not exaggerating (much). This is a video where apparently people need instruction on how not to bump into each other.

Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have given humankind remarkable spatial skills originating in the necessity to survive by hunting on the broad savannah.  Try it sometime – we have an amazing ability to predict the trajectory of other objects. If you’re driving a car, at speed, and you can see another car approaching the same intersection as you, you instantly know whether or not you are on a collision course. Minute changes in your speed or direction or the other car (your prey) are processed in real-time and always you know whether or not you will hit or miss.  Not so here. People seem to walk directly at you all the time. Nobody here seems to have this skill. I’ve asked several foreigners about this and everyone instantly agrees – Koreans have somehow missed out on the hundred thousand year hunting lesson on the savannah.

The remarkable conclusion I reach about my lovely videos …. Where is the cynicism in Korean society?  Why am I the only person on the train watching these videos and smiling?

And two links apropos my topic today…

http://www.cnngo.com/seoul/life/female-only-zone-resurrects-seoul-metros-after-19-years-834708

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWcDTEaATxI

*  ok, there's a '95 Porsche in a garage in London that I’ve been trying to fix up but it has been in storage for nearly 2 years and I'm going sell it as soon as I get back.

Korean Anthropology - Women

Conventional wisdom in Anthropology would dictate that the subject of a discourse should be focussed in scope, single-mindedly sticking to the purpose at hand. Never having let lack of qualifications or traditional ideas like ability and experience to interfere with what I wanted to do, I’ve decided the next topic in my anthropological studies of Korea should be…

 

Women

Yes, all 25 million of them. Together.  Not too broad a topic I think (didn't intend the pun).

In one of the first business meetings I had shortly after I arrived here earlier this year, when I went out for lunch with the client, he asked me what I thought about Korean women, aren't they beautiful? Having worked in a number of foreign countries over the years for extended stays, I was familiar with this type of leading question, some kind of male fraternity thing where a business contact sees that you are on your own in his country and feels compelled to introduce you to a working girls agency.  Not really my thing, so best thing to do is backpedal quickly, change the topic. 'Um well, yes they're very nice. I think. Very tall, they seem to have abnormally long legs', I mumbled.  Or something like that, maybe the part about the legs I only said inside my head.  But this time, the reason he asked wasn't at all to introduce me to Seoul's seedier side - he was only looking for an opportunity for his pet rant - facial feature artificial reconstruction. 

He launched into it, " It is all fake! None of it real. All these pretty girls have been to the clinic. "   I can only suppose that he had a teenage daughter who was pestering him to pay for her desired surgery. The rant went on for quite a while, he was quite upset at the number of teenage and twentysomethings who chose to put their faces under the knife.   Reliable statistics are not readily available as all of this happens behind closed doors of private clinics. One source at Leeds University, suggested it might be as high as 30% for selected groups of the population (by comparison, 1% of the population in the UK have done plastic surgery). It is rising in popularity among men but the main voluntary victims are teenage girls and young women.  The advertising is ferocious. The underground stations, billboards, magazines will feature pictures of a fairly gruesome looking, photo-shopped 'Before', looking like the poor girl got her head caught in a vertical press and the glamourous and glossy 'After' shot. The pressure must be enormous. According to my business contact, it is the most sought-after high school graduation gift for young girls. Unlike the West, breast implants (a truly bizarre thing to do to oneself) are not overly popular, the operation of choice is the 'double eyelid' removal. Which I don't understand - I've not seen anyone walking around with a double eyelid, where is it anyway? On the forehead?

But it works. Korea is filled with huge numbers of young women who look exactly the same as images of women in glossy fashion magazines and the ubiquitous advertising.  According to statistics (please refer to www.FormosaStatisticalEvidence.com, a great site where I get all the documented evidence I need, currently under construction) the Republic of South Korea has the highest proportion of women who look like a glamourised advertising image. I hold myself back from using words like 'pretty' or 'attractive' as these are subjective terms and I'm supposed to be attempting to be an anthropologist. But I have to say, as a male, it isn't really interesting. (Advice to my male readers - from past experience, I'd say if you've got a chance to date a woman who aspires to look like a model in a magazine, most likely you are better off to date the original, i.e the magazine.  I don't mean that to sound cruel,   but any relationship where one party is self-absorbed on image and style, may not have much of a chance.)

So what about the other 70% of the female population of Korea?  Are they filling the corridors of industry?  Has the feminist revolution inspired them to break the shackles of male oppression and lead Korean society to a Brave New World?  Well, they've got the coffee shop waitressing covered, cinema attendants, supermarkets are all ok. As part of my work, I've been around to factories and manufacturing facilities, offices both big and small, engineering labs, research labs - and yes, women are there, but they make the tea, greet visitors and stand in as decoration.  They've got bucket loads of them in Admin - teams dedicated to adding up the numbers from 1 to 5 and then others handle the numbers from 6 to 10. Yes, I know - Europe and the UK are not all that much better.   

What happened to women with engineering degrees?  In high school, GCSE's and A-Levels, women excel in math and sciences, year after year surpassing boys (who are sadly addled with so much testosterone during those years they are lucky to be able to pull up their zips let alone pass a physics exam). But then, where do they go? Somewhere between being the top students at science and math A-Levels, they simply disappear - they never make it into the engineering schools. Which means they never make it into manufacturing and design. And if they're not in manufacturing and design, what's left is hairdressing. (Yes a rather biased view against the Arts, Politics, Business and Finance sectors but I'll invite anyone to try to prove the relative value.) 

Before I left for Korea, I was working on a large manufacturing project that took me around several countries in Europe for the better part of 2 years. During the last year I had a student on an internship assigned to me. A young woman (let's call her D, not her real initial) who is reading for her degree in Process Manufacturing. We spent several months travelling around France and Germany together and became good friends (only friends! ).  I wondered to her many times during late night dinners, where do all the women engineers disappear to. She didn't have a good answer. But she admitted that it was relatively easy.  There was no open difficulty, there was no misogynist  machinery stacked against her and, mostly, she was judged on her ability. (Which was considerable, she is really bright and capable).  But almost alone. In her class there are but a handful of female engineers. In western Europe we have no excuse for this. The feminist revolution started more than a hundred years ago and exploded in the 60's and 70's, but then has gone no further.

Another anecdote - back in the 80's I had just graduated with my completely useless music degree but managed to get a job with one of the top high tech American companies that was getting started in Europe.  I ended up (again) travelling all over Europe in factories, offices and so on. Never met a single woman engineer.  After a couple of years, I was asked to go back to the company R&D headquarters in one of the deep south states in the US for a period to work on a product.  I was shocked - well over 40% of the engineering workforce were women.  For heaven's sake, one came out of the NASA astronaut program. Granted, the majority of this was software engineering. But even so.  This was nearly 25 years ago.   In this respect, North America is decades ahead of Europe and Asia.

So where are the Korean women engineers. I haven't seen one yet.  There is a woman, maybe mid 20's, at one of the facilities where I go, who works as a sort of receptionist. There is a large hall at the office entrance, where they have conference rooms and some exhibits. Most of the time it is empty. Occasionally I have to pass through to get somewhere else.  She sits at a desk by herself, nothing but a ledger book and a pen in front of her. Every time I walk through, she stands and bows.  I nod back. I've not seen her do anything else. What a job, huh?

Yet another anecdote. (I realise this is unscientific anthropology, nothing but stories).  There is one Japanese company that I work with.  By pure coincidence, the engineer assigned to my project is a woman. The only one in the company research centre who isn't in administration. She's very good as it happens. But quite shy and withdrawn, uncertain about her English as she is about her abilities. I had dinner last week with the outgoing, retiring chairman of the company - a man with some integrity. He told me about the resistance he had had from within the company over the years about her. Openly hostile, backstabbing, nasty, misogynistic male colleagues. It took her many years to just to get promoted to a basic level well below her qualifications. I think Korea is not vastly different from Japan.  Unless something dramatic happens, there is another 5 or 6 decades of the sole role for women being bowing glamour mannequins.  So yes, rather harsh language but this topic is something that can get me angry.  A waste of human beings, and entirely self-inflicted.

Rather than another anecdote, I'll finish on a proper anthropological fact.  I've already mentioned in an earlier post how few Korean women smoke - less than 5%.  I was told by a Korean woman friend, that not very long ago, as recently as in the 90's, if a woman was seen smoking in public, she would get slapped (presumably by another woman). Now I found this to be a particularly charming story when I first heard it, as I immediately assumed this was some kind of self-appointed anti-smoking police.  I like the idea of smokers getting a good slap. But, on reflection, I suppose not - the slap police are more likely to be interested in repression. 

But, curiously, this small percentage is increasing ! Everywhere else in the world, both male and female, the percentage of the population who smokes is dropping. Except for Korean women.   I take this as conclusive proof that men have no monopoly on stupidity - it is equally distributed among both genders.

Korean Anthropology - Field Notes 3

While sitting on this flight, killing time, I was trying to decide which of the many reports that I’ve started on Korean Anthropology would get finished before landing, when the sound of a middle aged male, two rows behind me, trying to extract the mucus stuck at the bottom of his smoke ravaged lungs, helped me to focus – as well as causing my business class lunch to lurch back up to the entrance of my digestive system - on a delicate topic that I thought I should bring to your attention...

The Korean Art of Throat Clearing

This charming (more on the charm of this in a moment) pastime of just about every male over the age of 15 can be, and is, practised just about anywhere - on the street, in public washrooms, on a flight, in a restaurant, in a lift, in a taxi and probably in the bedroom (I've not studied this, just conjecture).  Just about any place you can think of. And, just when you are least expecting it – there it is – that deep, gurgling, thick, gooey, half cough, half grunt of a good fistful of creamy, nicotine-stained phlegm moving from the upper lung / mid oesophagus region to the middle of the tongue.  The true practitioners of this can reach 85dBm (measured with my iPhone App) so even the near hard of hearing will know that someone’s moment of display has come.

I choose my words carefully there, I think ‘display’ is correct but to be honest I’m new to this anthropology thing and throat clearing is surely not a typical area of study.  I mean this in the same way that in certain species of birds, e.g. the pheasant, the male will put on a display to attract the female. Since this is done entirely by males and it is done all the time, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Korean Art of Throat Clearing is actually a cheeky little flirt rather than mere spit preparation.  However, it also happens to evoke in the innocent listener the body’s gag response.

There are many different types but I think after much enforced study, I’ve managed to isolate a few prototype categories. First, there is the Upper Cavity Rattler, this seems to be the province of the younger males. It is often preceded by a deep inhale from the nostrils which suggests that there is not enough of the thick phlegm in the throat and a bit of gathering is in order.  Observe carefully and you can see the quick movements of the throat and neck as the fluid moves deftly from the back nasal passage, down the throat and then back up to the mouth, i.e. the payload delivery area. Not quite as loud as the other categories, but you can still hear all that liquid swishing around.

The second category seems to be universally practised by all ages, it is the Deep Throat* .  The advantage of this technique is its speed – it is sort of the ‘quick draw’ of the genre. It can be produced, in full swell, with seemingly hardly any preparation.  A solid and sometimes lengthy gurgle is produced giving the listener a strong impression of the viscosity of what is welling up from the throat to the mouth. A classic to accompany your dessert from the man behind you in the posh restaurant.

The final and last category, I would say, is clearly the reserve of the professionals – a Full Chested Hork.  Younger men can’t produce this, I think, simply due to the decades of dedicated smoking necessary to get the phlegm to such a solid consistency and in sufficient quantity to make one think that perhaps it is not a spit preparation at all but really the creature from the black lagoon crawling to the surface. A broad chest is and full extended belly are necessary to allow full resonance to every gurgle and bubble. Following my theory that this advanced throat clearing is actually male display, a Full Chested Hork is clearly the Alpha male marking his territory. How can any woman resist?

Another thought on the male display idea: there is a subtle metaphor happening here, i.e. referring to the male’s sexual prowess.  The idea is that the throat clearing has two stages, the spit preparation (the noisy stage discussed above) in which the fluids are gathered and then followed by the actual spit or ‘ejaculation’.  Now seeing that most of the places where an innocent bystander can witness this throat clearing is indoors public places, the actual spit never happens. Again by observing throat movements, it can be seen that it gets swallowed. Sometimes this can be several moments later (watch for cheek movement to spot those that keep it in the mouth for awhile)before the male will reluctantly ‘stand down’.  So continuing the metaphor, I would call this act of preparation but no production as ‘horkus interruptus’.

It is puzzling though. Since it is so widespread, it is clear that the female must enjoy and even admire this activity. Otherwise why would men continue to do it? I’ve seen some evidence of women swooning in the presence of, say, two large men who indulge in a Full Chested Hork in a small lift, but I can't be sure that it is their charm the woman was overwhelmed by. Is it just me  being a wimp that I so often feel like gagging?  The female is never seen to indulge in this obviously fun pastime – it is worth noting that smoking among women in Korea is almost non-existent, a mere 5% of the female population (more on this later) – maybe they simply can’t compete with Korean men to get the phlegm to the necessary thick and chunky consistency.  

* the observant reader will have noticed my shoddy attempt at getting more page hits by naming the second category after an apparently still popular 1970's film.

Korean Anthropology - Backdrop of Bizarre nation

While the point of this blog is to observe the country and occasionally make a few notes and comments, I also note a couple of articles that speak for themselves. I think these make a useful backdrop to field notes I'm making - helps to put it in perspective.

Union Leader makes a dramatic statement.
In order to emphasise his commitment to the cause of worker rights, a Hyundai Motor union leader finished a speech with the exclamation mark provided by an axe - with which he cut off his finger.  Full marks for dedication but maybe 'nul points' for a calm and reasonable approach to negotiation.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/08/117_92980.html

South Korea has highest Suicide rate in the world.
No comment on this, just very sad and hard to understand.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/04/17/VI2010041703497.html?sid=ST2010041703106

Diary - Field Trip - 1

Shanghai

A diary note - these may be few and far between, but a special occasion came up that pushed me to publish the first...
I'm in Shanghai for a couple of days. That's exciting. Last time I was here was '98.  A vast construction site at the time. I was staying at the very very tall tower hotel that was surrounded by waste land.  I think for a few months it was the tallest building in the world. I can see it off in the distance now.
I ended up with a fantastic room! I'm in sort of a posh hotel anyway but as I was checking in late (due to airplane lolling about on the runway in Seoul for an hour), I noticed the young lady at the desk was about to give me a smoking room. No nooo, I said. Anything but. So after a little while of searching around, several phone calls, a hushed conversation, an arched eyebrow - they found a room for me. The Presidential Suite.  I guess the president was a no-show tonight so lucky me!

I decided to celebrate by trying to find a nice place for a quick drink. Only a sports bar with some Australian oil rig workers on the 4th floor. So instead I opted for room service - I've had the "Chocolate Symphony" and a glass of red wine.

Do you know that they don't allow google here in China?  I remember that I read the Party were having problems with Google because of the censorship they feel is necessary to keep in place as a 'job protection scheme'. Anyway it meant that for ages I couldn't get online to read blogs and make comments. But a bit of adding a proxy here, hack into a VPN there and presto!, I'm connected.
The knock on the door from the Word police will come later I'm sure.

Korean Anthropology - Field Notes 2

In a number of these personal discoveries that I'm writing on Korean culture, I'm going to self-proclaim expertise.  In several, although I will point out my mystification, I'll still offer some dithering opinions. But there will be some, like today, which I'll have to admit, I don't get it at all. Completely bizarre, outside my comprehension, alien lifeforms...

Hair Touching

Remember I mentioned the 'I Need To Look Good' generation?  This story is what defines them, this is the piss on the trees that marks out the periphery of their sub-cultural territory. I suppose, generally, it is 18 to 30 year olds - I'm sure that it drops off rapidly after late 20's but I really don't understand when it starts. It seems to be equally practised by both men and women.

I'll explain with the story of my first encounter.  Not long after my arrival in February, I found out that in Korea all English language films are left in the original with Korean subtitles added. Very decent of them, I thought. (I didn't find out until much later that each film has a run of about 3 months and they only bring in about 20 films per year. Jane Eyre was on from March until July! The rest are Korean.)  I love cinema - the prospect of being here for 12 to 18 months and only watching DVD's on a computer screen had depressed me. I was so elated that, the very next weekend, I tried to bluster my way through the stunningly complex booking and ticket purchase process which was made all the more difficult by not having a credit card. I can't recall the film I went to see but the cinema (like all of them) was fantastic.  (I still don't understand why people buy home cinema systems, what a waste of money if what they're after is a great cinema experience. If, dear reader, you don't know it, try 'Screen on the Green' in Islington. Something like 'Super-8' (playing at time of writing) would be perfect to see. Go with someone you like to hold hands with.  Then tell me you want to buy a home cinema.  (I think this is called a digression - I'll get back to the story.) )

Before the film, I decided that it would be best to be prepared for a long film, so I went for a quick visit to the loo.  On the way, past the wash basins section, I noticed a young man standing in front of the mirror. Hmm... I thought, interesting pastime. (George Michael, is that you?) And went on about my business. Now normally, I'm not a big hand washing kind of guy. (All OCD types: look away now!  Rejoin at the next paragraph.) I figure it makes more sense to wash your hands before visiting the urinal, not after. I mean, it shouldn't be necessary to get so involved with the operation to require a thorough scrub afterwards.  But as I started to walk back, the guy was still standing there!  Curiosity prevailed, and, feeling the need to see in detail what he was doing, I broke my usual cleaning habits.

I set the pace for a long, slow and careful hand wash.  He was about 22. Fairly tall, with a floppy, but cultivated hairstyle. Standing with about 2cm of separation from his nose to the mirror. Hardly moving. Then one hand came up and very lightly touched some strand and the breath of his finger brushed along it. The hair didn't move. Continuous fixed stare at the mirror, no other movement in the room except for me working the soap plunger and my jaw dropping. The right hand comes up and moves to the hair hanging over the place where a sideburn would be, had he the necessary follicles to grow one. An almost imperceptible twist of his head to his left. Very slowly, his fingers run along the slightly curling lock. Encouraging but not forcing it in its already chosen direction. After an eternity (my eyes now locked into the sides of my sockets), the next movement was with both hands - touching the area just above the temples, the slightest of pressures, just asking the air between the strands to make itself thinner. No stroke this time, just the gentle coaxing of the tips of his fingers.

By this time my hands had started considering growing a vegetable garden. I couldn't possibly wash any longer.  I left him there, still repeating these gestures, although he did go through a head twist or two as he surveyed some new angle on the art work resting above his ears. Of course, I just put this down to a very strange and possibly disturbed young man. But not for long - this behaviour repeated itself over the weeks and months. On the subway, a young man or woman will stand with their nose nearly touching the glass doors, eyes glued to the reflection, earphones attached to iPod, and hands gently and continuously grazing their hair.  Never moving it, mind you. I have yet to see the hair move.  That I would understand - if there was something wrong with the coif, great, then move it around until you get it right.  Also in the lift in my building, nearly every morning there is a twenty-something woman with her back to me, pressed against the wall, staring at the mirror and touching her hair. I'm completely invisible as is anyone else who enters the lift.

I can give it a name (vanity) but I certainly can't explain how a whole generation caught it in such a massive dose. K-pop? Possibly. All of the touchers certainly could be a member of any one of the billions of ubiquitous and saccharine K-pop groups.  Maybe it's amazement. A very small number of years before, these would have been gawky, pimpled, middle class kids.  Now they look at their reflections and see a potential star. (See the later article on Artificial Feature Construction).  So why haven't previous generations in other places behaved the same? 

Korean Anthropology - Field Notes 1

Some days it seems I’m here to work. Other days I’m convinced that I’m actually here on a anthropological field trip. Studying Koreans.  Although on the surface most appear to fit the type of middle class, middle age, middle of the road, there is a strange side to the country.  Centuries of isolation, conquest, war, and sandwiched between two powerful neighbours and a nearly homogeneous society have taken their toll. It’s no accident that the weirdest country in the world is North Korean, i.e. populated by Koreans.

So from my anthropology field notes….

 

The use of Toothbrushes

The people of most western industrialised nations have an unspoken rule that the use of toothbrushes, like most other orifice cleansing activities, should take place in the privacy of one’s bathroom.  Occasionally catching a glimpse of someone other than one’s partner or child, toothbrush inserted, mouth foaming, dripping down the chin, does no lasting damage to either voyeur or voyee. However, the rarity of those revealing moments probably accounts for Western indifference on the subject.

 

The people of Korea have bravely removed this false taboo.  When I first arrived, I would notice the odd person standing in an office foyer, nonchalantly taking care of lunchtime debris. With no obvious sense of embarrassment, a junior employee would not bother to interrupt a cleaning job in progress to answer a question from a co-worker or manager.  I thought this to be simply coincidental encounters with a few eccentrics. The longer I have been here, the more places I notice that many ordinary Koreans indulge in their practise of public dental hygiene.

 

I am uncertain about the origins and reason for this practise.  I just haven’t been brave enough yet to bring this up as a topic with my Korean friends and I don’t yet see an entry for this activity in Wikipedia. My suspicion is that it is related to the astronomical quantities of garlic consumed on an hourly basis in this country. I have done some informal testing of the garlic content of Korea using the unrestrained inhaling test on early Monday morning journeys on the metro – seemed at the time like a consumption level that the French can only dream of.  Other evidence: in the supermarket, it is simply not possible to buy a parsimonious single clove – the minimum buying quantity is a kilo sack. These are stacked shoulder high. The food that keeps on working.

 

The demographics of the practice of brushing one’s teeth in public seem to be uneven. It doesn’t seem to be an issue with the very elderly, possibly because there is less teeth involved.  The peak is definitely in the 18 to 30 age group (a.k.a the ‘I need to look good’ generation, see later article on 'hair touching').  The middle aged group sample size is too small to be conclusive that the practise either fades with age or that it is a recent phenomenon. There is certainly a prevalence of males doing this, enough to indicate it as a possibly macho practice, but it is more likely due to the prevalence of males in the workplace (see later article on the polarisation of gender politics).  Still, there are enough women who publicly brush, for example in the lifts in the building where I live, to indicate only  a slight gender bias.  It is not unusual to see a well dressed, otherwise-attractive and fashionable woman – i.e. make-up, high heels, short dress, various other expensive branded things hanging off – with a toothbrush in her mouth and an elegant but detectable trail of left corner drool wending its way down her chin.

Seoul

June 10, 2011

Early this year, some pivotal cog and lever in the cosmos clicked into a new position and with a small push from me I ended up in Seoul. Its a national holiday today so I'm in the WestPark café, downstairs from my flat, trying to catch up with things. (An odd expression that... it suggests 'things' move at a velocity just out of my reach. I could make a nice little animation about that if only I had any graphic skills.). One of those things is to finish up the snippets of stories I started writing whilst on planes and trains.

Yes - I relocated to Seoul in February! An exciting move, and I haven't regretted it yet. I get a lot of strange reactions from people I meet and people I've told, I guess it seems an odd thing to do to at a certain age, to pack a suitcase, buy a one way ticket and move to another country where no English is spoken and don't know anyone. But first appearances aren't quite what they seem as this wan't entirely a whim. The company providing the business reason (of which I'm a part owner) is going onto the market soon and although the business has been really successful in the USA, Canada, Germany, UK, France, etc, it has been just pants in Asia. Mainly because we haven't had anybody posted here. So, I volunteered - the idea is to win some significant contract by the end of the year. So far it hasn't been going so well. But I'm not quite ready to fire myself just yet, I'm a generous guy, I've been continuously giving myself a second chance.

The travel is OK, in the past few weeks I've been to Osaka, Beijing and Singapore. Although I'm not so keen on airports and travel itself, I try to get around and enjoy at least a bit of the area within a kilometre of the hotel. Beijing I'm less adventurous in - looking for restaurants is a chore in that I've been really put off by the fake milk, fake eggs, fake meat scandals that have hit China. Also the MSG problem. (more later on that). When I'm in Beijing, usually the woman in charge of our sales for Asia will be there as well - J is based in south-east Asia, she's a good friend that I've worked with for many years. Being Chinese, she is able to find good places where there is some assurance that the food is real and no MSG added.

I’ll start from a slightly earlier point, back to March and April ... after I got here, the first thing I had to do was to find a flat. Koreans, I’m sure this isn't generally known, seem to have created a devilishly complex system of letting and renting accommodation - just hopelessly overcomplicated. They must do it for the entertainment value rather than logic or financial good sense – they must reel about on the floor with laughter every time they see a foreigner scratch his head with a ‘... and they do what??’ look on his face. To learn about it is like being explained the rules of cricket for the first time – it sounds like they’re making it up.

Seoul is completely dominated by high rise – both commercial as well as residential, all mixed up in the same areas. The canyons between the high rises are filled with 8 lanes of asphalt reserved for the 8.7million cars that come into Seoul everyday. On one of the previous trips when I was here, I remembered a district that seemed a little different. A bit like where I live in London: Holloway. (ok, except for the fact that there is one and only one nationality here – Korean). A bit run-down. A couple of universities in the area. A number of shops that don’t have the usual standard brands.

Choosing the flat led to a number of stand-offs with the one single work colleague I have here. (I am (and was) being helped by the single local person here in the company – let's call him K. I may end up in a Korean prison because of him, he seems to have a devious suicide plan, that is, he is forcing me to consider ways to murder him. It has gotten better recently but he keeps trying to assume a Father role. I never got on well with my Dad when I was a teenager and, I swear it is true, one day K suggested that I should wear a different jacket because it was cold outside. Thanks dad. )

At the time, K wanted me to move out to the suburbs (about 30 km south of the city) near to where he lives. Or at least live in the proper, expatriate district. Of course not having the slightest clue as to what I was doing, I childishly stuck to my intentions.

So, after several difficult conversations with K.... I now live in the Seoul equivalent of Greenwich Village in NY (ok.. that’s a bit of an exaggeration). I found a flat (in a highrise), rather small (about 1.2 catswings across), but with a reasonably non-extortionate rent, a really nice café or two close by, in the Ewha district. This is a university area close to the centre. It’s one of those places where, after someone asks you ‘so where are you living?’, ‘Near Ewha’, ‘ Ohhh..mm.’ (with an arched eyebrow). Everyone seems to have an opinion about it. I was in a business meeting not too long ago and when I answered 'Ewha' to the enquiry about where I lived, everyone started laughing. Koreans are very conservative - people past the age of 35 simply don't live anywhere except the suburbs. I also see this in the evenings if I go out to the cinema - I am the only person I can see above the age of 32.

Starting from scratch as I am, I've decided to go light on possessions, beginning with furniture, and went for 2 months with only a chair, a table and a bed. And the toaster. And the essential Jar of Peanut Butter. Part of the lack of furniture is part due to early stage, part due to intention. I now have a second chair and a worktable. And I brought my guitar from London. Minimalism – the less you own, the less you have to take care of.

I did have to buy some stuff like a blanket, plates and glasses and it has been entertaining... nobody speaks English, at all. There are only 43 english speaking people in the entire republic and I know 6 of them. The ladies in the department stores (there are literally thousands of them who descend on you like a flock of hungry pigeons) seemed to have taken a liking to me as possibly the only male they had seen on a desert island for years. Korean men clearly *never* shop for duvet covers or pillows. But they speak no English. So I drew pictures, did pantomime, attempted to describe precise engineering constants with waving hand gestures. Besides trying to describe abstract concepts like ‘cotton’ and ‘no pink hearts on the duvet cover’ , I have also negotiated price. Outrageously expensive in these brand oriented cultures. But I still ended up with a duvet made from polyester and some kind of tiny little flower things growing in random fashion on the cover. It seems I can’t completely banish the curse of decoration.

Seoul... the most remarkable aspect of the city is the enormous number of café’s. Koreans account for 93% of the world’s coffee consumption (I read that on the internet). But many are no ordinary café. Starbucks simply does not compete here. Very original designs - dangly oil lantern chandeliers, paintings from local artists on the walls, ‘hand-drip’ coffee that takes 15 minutes to make a single cup, comfy sofa / table places where you can work for hours on the free internet while listening to Brazilian folk music. There is an artist who has a very long blog just about the thousands of unique cafés. I quickly worked out that these would be my office. On days that I'm not travelling, or visiting a car factory or a Chinese Army training base, I have a lot of email to catch up on. All I need for that is an electricity supply and an internet connection for my laptop. My current favourite is ‘The Ethiopian Café’. Their choice of music is excellent and varied (a massive CD collection of Jazz and classical), the whole front of the café opens up (patio door style, so really nice breezy air now that warm weather is truly here), there is an ever-changing photo-art exhibition, comfy chairs, and they have a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle in the middle of the room. The last item means that the café gets frequently used as a backdrop for fashion photographers and their models (Yes… its true, I do enjoy the occasional glance at them while working ). I’ve been there during 3 different photo sessions so far. And the coffee is great. I've lived in Holland in the past, but I never encountered 'Dutch-drip' coffee? Apparently it takes 3 days to make. Very expensive.

I’m having a bit of trouble with the food in Asia. For a variety of reasons. First reason is the over-zealousness by which Koreans (primarily K, giving me yet another reason to think strangulation) advocate their cuisine. It’s ok but 90% of it is all the same – cabbage with a red pepper sauce. As I am rather childish by nature, the more that K says the food is great, the less I like it. The second reason is MSG. In China, even more so that Korea, this is a real problem. It seems that Koreans and Chinese don’t really eat food at all – what they actually consume is MSG, the food is just a convenient carrier for it. My problem with it is that it gives me a migraine if consumed in sufficient quantities. I've had about 4 attacks so far (depending on how you count migraines - if you can't pronounce your name and you wish your heart would stop, its a migraine).

I’ve got a very close Korean friend that I met on a flight to Hong Kong about 8 years ago. She is a teacher, teaching English. We kept in contact by email over the years as well spending some time together when she toured Paris and London some years back. She got married a few years ago and has a beautiful and ever so clever daughter. She has been wonderful helping me to translate some Korean (instructions on operating a hot water heater!) and understand rental agreements and has convinced me so far not to kill K. From when I knew her before, besides being in possession of a heart of gold and a kind smile, she seemed to be possessed of endless optimism and joy. She changed ... and it is so sad to see – her husband is an alcoholic and abusive. Although currently he is restricted from access to her, it seems like it is not enough. Her head is telling her to run and find a new life, her religion (she is devout Christian) tells her to seek reconciliation and go back to him. I am at a loss, I don’t know how to help her. We've talked a lot, and I've tried not to interfere in her life but now I think maybe my presence is only making things worse for her. (One of the downsides of Korean culture is its fascination with alcohol. There are some very heavy drinkers here. In certain districts, it is not unusual to see ordinary business men completely sloshed, stumbling around on the streets at 8pm. There’s quite a bit less of that in the area that I’m living but I wandered up to a bar / restaurant some weeks back to get some dinner. There were two separate tables of gangs of office workers throwing back shot after shot. All men, all very aggressive. The waitress serving them was a young girl, only about 16 or 17. There is a seediness that is part of the life and culture here - much the same as anywhere in the world I suppose.)

I have to mention my convenience store downstairs. It's a 'GS25!' (I think the exclamation mark is mandatory). It's about the same as any other 24 hour convenience store except for the piped in music. Like all modern shops, it is on constantly. But their selection is fantastic - I've heard John Coltrane live recordings, Puccini opera's, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday. I try to make a point of shopping really slowly there just to hear what they'll play next. The cashiers are the usual spotty teenagers one sees in a convenience store, I don't think they choose the music. Do you know 'The Meters'? Over the years I've really grown to love the music of Parliament, p-funk, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker. But I'd never heard of 'The Meters' ('Funkify Your Life'). That is, until my convenience store had a day dedicated to their music. I was buying some drain cleaner and toilet paper, when I started listening a little closer, and I thought, 'mmm, that's funky for 8am!' And found out who was playing by using an iPhone app called 'Shazaam'. A very educational little establishment.

Music can keep you sane I've discovered.