Take off your shoes

Since coming to Korea, I’ve learned to take off my shoes often.  I’ve written about this before actually, within a month of being in Korea.

Something I’ve begun to notice is that many office workers will remove their outside shoes and wear some sore of sandals indoors.  This applies to the cubicle workers at the education office, the clerks at my bank, and even the ladies at the cell phone store downstairs.

I’ve noticed several bus driver that don’t want to be left out of “take your shoes off at work” club.  Here’s one:

Driving and Parking: Crosswalks

Crosswalks are almost completely disregarded by drivers in Korea. They don't care if you're in a crosswalk or not, they are going to go forward. I have talked about almost being hit before.

Today, I checked to make sure there was no traffic. When I saw it was clear,I began to cross a crosswalk. Then, a red car turned onto the street and began to cross the crosswalk that I was crossing--in the same place I was walking! So he slams on his brakes and I shout at him. The middle-aged drivers gets the very unique look on his face.

I've seen it before on Koreans, but only on children. Its the look a child gets when they are getting in trouble for something they didn't know was wrong. Its a combination of shame, surprise, and confusion.

I remember very clearly when I made this face. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. My family had gone to a restaurant and father was paying the bill up at the front register. At the register, they had jars of candy like gummy bears, gummy worms, and stuff like that. Thinking it was free like the mints that many restaurants give out for free, I opened the jar and took out some gummy worms.

We were walking out to the car, when my dad noticed I had a handful of the candy worms.

"Where did you get those?" he asked.
"They had them at the counter," I answered.
"You stole them. They weren't free!" he scolded.

He took the candy from my hands and walked back into the restaurant. He then emerged with a bigger handful of candy.

"These gummy worms are mine. I paid for them." he said.
"Can I have one?"
"No, since you stole."

I then had to watch him eat the worms as we walked to the car. That look I had on my face at that moment is the same look those Korean drivers have when they almost run me over. Every time.

Driving in Geoje: The Windy Road

As a whole, Korea is a country of mountains and Geoje is no exception. That means that the roads are going to be curvy. I found this video on YouTube that a guy made by strapping a video camera to the front of his motorcycle and went driving. For those of you on Geoje, I think this is between Jisepo and Jangseungpo, but I may be wrong.

Anyway, about 2 minutes in, the motorcycle gets behind an SUV. Watch the SUV. The driver frequently goes into the other lane of traffic. Several times he's completely in the other lane. The roads are windy, but not that windy. There is absolutely nothing about the speed or curves that necessitate going into the other lanes.

This is a prime example of the "lazy" driving that is often seen in Korea. Watch how the driver barely reacts when he's in the other lane and two other cars are coming.

2:15, the SUV comes into shot, and then about 2:55 he comes close to another car while in the wrong lane.

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Video from "Beemer54" @ youtube

Driving in Korea: a Serious Note

Upon hearing that some friends will let me borrow their car while my family is visiting, I started reading more about driving in Korea. The past posts in my series have been light-hearted. This one is serious.

From the US Dept. of State website:

The Republic of Korea’s roads are well paved, traffic lights are functional, and most drivers comply with basic traffic laws. However, the Republic of Korea has a significantly higher traffic fatality rate than does the United States. Causes of accidents include excessive speed, frequent lane changes, running of red lights, aggressive bus drivers, and weaving motorcyclists. Pedestrians should be aware that motorcycles are sometimes driven on the sidewalks and drivers of all types of vehicles do not always yield to pedestrians in marked crosswalks. It is safer to use pedestrian underpasses and overpasses, where available.

That phrase "significantly higher traffic fatality rate" made me curious. So I looked it up. According to the World Health Organization, Korea's traffic fatality rate is 22.5 per 100,000 people. In the USA, its 14.5 per 100,000.

One stat that really makes me mad is the number of child deaths. Most Koreans don't even have their children in seatbelts, much less car seats. It is not uncommon to see children standing up in the back seat. Koreans have 7.5 child deaths per 100,000 in traffic accidents--the highest rate in the world. The best numbers I've been able to find for the US, put that rate at 3.1 per 100,000.

So, its not just my perception, Korean drivers really are bad drivers.

Fake Brands: Introduction

Taking a short break from my sporadic series on Driving and Parking in Korea, I want to introduce a new topic: fake brands. Now the very idea of a brand is artificial. Its a name, symbol or whatever that is used to bring association to something. There are professionals whose only job is to create and develop "brands."

In America, we have brands that exude a certain image. The Marlboro Man portrayed rugged manliness and the Abercrombie & Fitch brand portrays young, half-naked people. These brands presented a false image, but one that was not too far from the target demographic: Marlboro cigarettes are still smoked mostly by men, and Abercrombie clothes are worn by young, half-naked people.

In Korea, brands are marketed as western, but are entirely oriental. Now, we can maybe be accused of this in America, but I think we are more aware. For example we know that Taco Bell isn't really Mexican and that Olive Garden isn't really Italian. However, some of these Korean brands look real enough to fool even the most discerning consumers. They have ads mostly in English, have white models--even spokespeople, and Western sounding names.

Below is what I would call an "authentic brand." This brand is undeniably Korean. The ad is from a Korean company, the product is uniquely Korean (a fridge with the sole purpose of storing kimchi), and the actors are Korean. (Don't get me started about their slogan though: "Well-being life."

Go, and hope for the best

This is my third blog is a series about driving and parking in Korea.

Here is the philosophy the covers everything in Korean driving: go, and hope for the best. In America, we might say, "be a defense driver" or "be alert."

For example, look at this scene:

The driver of that white car is just backing up. Its hard to see because of the reflection, but I took the picture because the driver wasn't turned around to look out his rear mirror--he was blindly backing up into a street!

Around my apartment are these narrow alley-streets with no road signs. Most of the buildings are right up against the intersection creating countless blind corners. Still, drivers go at full-speed through these intersection. Through my window, I often hear the screech of tires and blaring horns of drivers who nearly hit each other because neither technically has the right of way and neither was looking for other cars. I'm dreading the day when the sound of screeching tires is accompanied by the crunch of metal.

Four lanes become two

Part Two in a series Driving and Parking in Korea:

This post has to do with both driving and parking. Last time, I looked at the problem of double-parking (so bad that people permanently display their mobile number so they can be called to move their car be necessary). Another parking problem is people parking in the middle of a traffic lane. See the below

That white car on the left is parked in that lane of traffic. And that may look like a person in the driver's seat, but here they have these "clever" seat covers that look like people. I have been freaked out more than once walking by a parked car at night, thinking someone is watching me, only to realize is one of these novelty seat covers.

You can easily see that the line of illegally parked cars go on and on. The situation is so common, that people pretty much just drive in the center two lanes. This is the major north-south artery through Gohyeon, and its slowed to two lanes because of the parking situation.

With parking being as scarce as it is, it may be necessary to have parking on the side of the street. But since there's room, they should make it official and make the parking diagonal. They would be able to fit many more cars in the spots than through parallel parking. Might as well right? They don't seem to be using those lanes for actually driving.

Parking in Korea

Part One in a series Driving and Parking in Korea:

This is a perfect example of how endemic bad parking jobs are in Korea: they have their phone number permanently on the car so when (not if) they park someone in, they can be notified. These numbers are printed on pillows, glowing plastic signs that require being plugged in to the cigarette lighter outlet, paper stickers, and carved wooden signs.

This is cute right? "Hi, I double parked. Here's my number. Have a nice day!"