Korea Photos and Takeaways

My impressions from one week in Seoul, South Korea are probably only worth a few cents (or should I say won? ;), but here are some takeaways:

• Strong gender roles, pay inequality, despite most women now being college educated. Even fewer women in STEM than in the US.

• High job pressure, very competitive, the population is highly educated. Very long working hours, similar to Japan.

• Unification with North Korea is a big question; opinions differ as to whether this is desirable or even possible.

• There seems to be a big desire for international diversity among younger people (though perhaps being international myself creates selection bias?). Taiwan seems to be a place not so far away that is favored for this.

• Instagram/visual appearance big in Korea

• I've heard a surprising amount of US rap music in Korea!

Kimchi. Alex C-W's fave ;)

Korean BBQ! I had a hard time with Korean food in general, but Korean BBQ was always a winner!

Korean baseball game! Maybe even more spirited than in Tokyo! It was really interesting to me that a majority of the fans seemed to be young women!

Traditional Korean clothing. I arrived during Chuseok, Korea's mid-autumn harvest holiday. It's the biggest traditional holiday of the year and many people were wearing traditional Korean clothes.

Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul, South Korea. Served as the royal seat of the Joseon dynasty, from roughly 1400-1600. Then abandoned for two centuries before being restored in the 19th century. Then under Japanese occupation (first half of the 20th century) it was destroyed again but has been undergoing restoration since the 1990s and is now a major tourist attraction in Seoul.

View over Seoul with the Han River that cuts through the middle of the city.

I don't remember the name of this famous Korean general (circa 1600 I think) who defeated many enemies, most notably the Japanese when his men were largely outnumbered.

Seoul has some beautiful temples.

Noryangjin seafood market. This place really felt foreign to me!

Noryangjin seafood market.

Noryangjin seafood market. Octopus :(((

Noryangjin seafood market. They keep the seafood alive and then kill it in front of you. Then you can take it upstairs to one of the restaurants where they cook it.

Jimjilbang!!!!!! Jimjilbangs are cheap spas where you can spend the night. They've got a 

Homeless people in Asian countries tend to express a lot of shame for their condition. I've seen many more bowed heads and silence from the homeless than in the US.

When taking pictures, making hearts with hands are a big thing! Also, I swear I heard them say "kimchi!" instead of "cheese!"

Advertisement for plastic surgery. Apparently plastic surgery is quite common in Korea.

Korean Francophilia on full display!

More Korean Francophilia!

K-Couples!

It doesn't take long in Korea before you start noticing them. They're everywhere. Whether it's chopstick-feeding each other kimchi at restaurants, going on cute "glamping" outings on the weekend, or nuzzling each other on the subway, couples are a thing in Korea. Considering that heterosexual couples are the status quo in most of the modern world, it's pretty impressive that Korean couples (or "K-couples", as I shall henceforth refer to them) are capable of making coupledome even more of a thing! Maybe it's that Koreans are so attractive (it's true) that they can't stay single, no matter how hard they try? Or perhaps it's that feminism hasn't really happened here, leading women to pretend they're weak to attract male attention? Whatever the cause may be, K-couples make other countrys' couples seem... single?

A Korean couple picknicking. Korea is very into couple-culture.

"A Twosome Place": To Koreans, a cafe. Especially with a partner. Like I said, Koreans are into couples. I didn't see any "Threesome Places"... That would go against Korean couple culture!

Koreans are pretty obsessed with pictures. This is one of many retail shops where you can get your pictures taken in a studio with stuffed animals and your... partner (cuz, y'know: couples).

Stuffed animals background right. Exemplary K-couple foreground left.

Another exemplary K-couple. Notice how the woman is leaning on the man for support even though she has two legs of her own.

K-couple man protecting K-couple woman in the wild.

Swingin' in Seoul!

Turns out Seoul, South Korea has become one of (if not THE) best places in the world for swing dance!!! Every night of the week in a different venue there is a PACKED dance room full of incredibly talented Korean Lindy Hoppers! I was BLOWN away by how many amazing swing dancers there were!! I had heard rumors about the Korean swing dance scene while in Japan, but I wasn't sure. I no longer have any doubt. Experiencing Seoul's swing scene firsthand was unquestionably one of the top highlights of my trip! The quantity was impressive--every swing place I went to was packed. But even more impressive was the quality of the dancers. I had to stop dancing so that I could focus on ogling at the rhythm, creativity and flair 

of the Korean dancers. It was deeply inspiring. I gotta get (a lot) better and then come back!!!

The DMZ and North Korea

I took a trip (popular with tourists) to the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ), which is an awfully ironic name for a place with so many military personnel. In fact, I saw a group of US and Canadian armed forces here in addition to the South Korean military. The DMZ was created after North Korea invaded South Korea shortly after their post WWII establishment in the mid-20th century to ensure separation between the countries. The US dropped a crap-ton of landmines in the DMZ (which is only 4 km/2.5 miles thick) so that people wouldn't try to cross. Sadly, a lot of animals have lost limbs/lives to this.

Probably the most important historical takeaway from my experience in the DMZ (and maybe I should have known this from high school history classes), is that the division between North and South Korea was originally artificial! It had absolutely nothing to do with Koreans or their culture! Rather, since Korea had been occupied by Japan prior to the war, the victorious Soviet Union and US decided to "split up" their winnings; the USSR occupied everything north of 38 degrees latitude and the US everything south... Why couldn't the countries have just let the Koreans be?! In the 70+ years since, North and South Korea have evolved to become completely different culturally, but people still have relatives on the other side and they all speak the same language! It's interesting to me that some of today's greatest threats to peace seem to stem from the "afterlife" of WWII.

North Korea in the background, me in the foreground :)

People peepin' at North Korea

I got to walk down into a tunnel that North Koreans dug trying to sneak attack South Korea in the 1970s.

A factory town in North Korea that was used by a South Korean company from ~2006-2016 before they stopped cooperating. Now no one lives there.

Abandoned factory town in the foreground left. Kaesong, the country's third largest city, is off in the distance to the right of the GPS-jamming tower seen in the distant middle-left of the picture.