Korean Culture 101

There are many ways Koreans are just like Americans and many ways that they are different.  Today I will focus on some of the differences.  These are behaviors or beliefs that I have not seen before, either in the USA or in other countries I've visited.  Learning these differences has helped us more easily adapt to this new culture.

1. Korean Age
In Korea, they define their age differently.  In order to know how old you are in Korean Age, you look at the year you were born, subtract that from the current year, and then add one.  So, if you were born in 1979, you'd take 2018-1979+1=40.  There are two things to notice about this equation.  The first is that it doesn't matter if you've had your birthday already this year or not.  Everyone born in 1979 is 40 in Korean Age.  The second thing to notice is the plus one.  Here, they start counting at conception, not birth.  Another interesting point on this, is that everyone turns a year older on the same day.  New Year's Day is everyone's birthday.  They celebrate their actual birthday, but they don't count themselves a year older until New Year's Day when everyone gets a year older simultaneously.  What makes this challenging, as an expat, is that we are used to calculating our age differently.  So here, we give two ages: Korean Age and International Age, whenever anyone asks.
INTERESTING ASIDE: in the Korean language, the word for friend, 친구,(pronounced 'cheen-goo') can only be used to address someone born the same year as you.

2. Socializing with Friends at Cafes
In the majority of cases, all socializing is done outside the home in Korea.  Adults will meet for coffee at one of the umpteen million coffee shops.  Coffee shops are open very late here and adults drink coffee all day long.  When kids want to play together, they meet at a Kids Cafe.  All Kids Cafes serve coffee to the parents, but also have juice boxes for the kids.  Kids Cafes come in a variety of themes.  There are Cookie Cafes, where kids can roll out dough to make and decorate cookies.

There are Slime Cafes where you start with your basic clear slime and then you add scents, colored dye, glitter, and little baubles into it.  There are Lego Cafes, where you pick a Lego kit from their selection wall and build it right there in the cafe.  When you're done, you just give it back to them so they can take it apart again.  There are Pet Cafes where you can bring your pet and let it off its leash.  These are usually either specifically for cats or for dogs, not both.  

There are Zoo Cafes.  You do not bring your own pets to these.  The animals are already there.  You pay small entrance fee that gives you access to all the enclosures, a drink, and some vegetables to feed the rabbits.

There are Baby/Toddler Cafes with all the role playing type toys, like pretend kitchens, little baby toys, and these little pools (pictured below).  They put the baby's head through the inner tubes lined up along the back.  The kid just floats in the water.

There are PC Cafes where teenagers or adults go to play PC video games. In the pic below, you can see the rows of computer monitors.  I have never done this but apparently it's very inexpensive, like $1/hr.  Teenagers go here to hang out with their buddies.

There are VR Cafes where you can have your pick of virtual reality games. 

3. Day Camping
Anytime the weather is gorgeous, people drag their tents outside and pitch them in one of the many wooded parks nearby.  They will bring a picnic, a Frisbee, their dog, maybe a hammock and a book, and they will stay all day.  At sunset, they pack it all up in their red wagons and take it all home.

4. Honesty and Respect for Other People's Belongings
The picture below is one example of this.  This mall has a grocery store in it, as well as some restaurants.  My friend and I went shopping first and then got hungry.  The yellow tape on the floor denotes where you can leave your cart, full of paid groceries, while you go into the restaurant to eat.  No one will touch it.

Another example is that you can leave your bicycle unlocked all day long, and it will still be there hours later when you return for it.  My kids test this theory daily.

And lastly, 2 weeks ago, we wanted to go hiking and then have a BBQ at a friend's house.  We brought a full cooler bag of beer and food to the park where we wanted to go hiking.  We left it under a tree, on a picnic mat, with a birthday gift in a bag.  We hiked for 3 hours and then returned to where we had left everything.  It was completely untouched.  There were thousands of people in the park that day.  No one touched it.

5.  Parking etiquette
People double-park here all the time.  They will block in other cars that are also illegally parked.  These facts by themselves are not unique to Koreans.  What is interesting is that they will do 2 additional things.  First, they leave their cell phone number on the dashboard.  If the person they are blocking comes out, they will call the cell phone number of the person blocking them, not the police.  The second thing the person will do is to leave their car in neutral.  This way, if they don't answer their cell phone, you can just push their car out of the way, so you can get your car free.

These are all parked cars.

6. Daytime napping
Park benches here do not have armrests in the middle, preventing people from lying down on them.  On a nice day, folks will come outside on their lunch break and take naps on the benches.

7. Free and abundant restrooms throughout the city
The buildings here are multi-story with many businesses and restaurants on every floor.  Instead of each restaurant or business having their own restroom, there is one restroom on each floor.  I have only once run across one that was locked.  The restrooms are clean, and usually have soap and toilet paper.  I do carry tissues and wet wipes with me just in case.  But, you don't have to make a purchase to use the restroom.  You don't even have to have any other reason for being in that building other than you need to use the restroom.  There are clean restrooms in every park and subway station too.  Just take note if there is a picture on the door.  Not all toilets are the same (see examples below).  One subway station even had separate powder rooms (from the restrooms) for the women and men to fix themselves in front of the mirror.  The point is that in Korea going to the restroom is considered a basic human right.  They are free and available to anyone who needs them.

blue bar of soap between the sinks

separate powder rooms from the actual restrooms

8. Lending libraries in every park.  

These little phone booths filled with books are in every park.  The sign says you can take a book and read it while you're in the park, just please return it before you leave.  I have seen kids sitting on the benches near these little libraries, flipping through the books, while their parents work out on the outdoor exercise equipment.

9. Gloves and Face Masks
Koreans are very protective of their skin.  The clerks at the grocery stores wear gloves with rubberized finger tips.  I've seen women put on plastic food-grade gloves to eat hamburgers at a restaurant, so as not to get messy.  I see people wearing face masks all the time.  I think it is for a variety of reasons.  It might be a bad air day.  They might have a cold.  They might have a zit.  You'll never know.

10.  Smoking Prevention is serious.
Instead of a Surgeon Generals warning on the cigarette boxes, they have pictures of people with serious issues resulting from years of smoking.  It's enough to scare anyone away from even touching the box.  Outdoors there are special areas where you can smoke.  Like a glass cage to keep the smoke from reaching others.

DMZ tour

I know some people would never dare go near the DMZ, and others would never dream of moving to South Korea just out of fear, but not this family.  We are just a little bit crazy and more than a lot curious about the DMZ and all that goes with it.  Now, despite Eric's wishes to go to the Joint Security Area (JSA) in Panmunjom, where you can actually see the North Korean soldiers and the South Korean soldiers standing face-to-face on the line, we had to do the non-JSA tour because our kids are too young.  They would all have had to be over 10 years old to go to the JSA. 

But the non-JSA tour has its own thrills.  To begin, let's talk about geography.  From where we left in Seoul it was an hour bus ride (only 64km) to our first stop: Imjingak Unification Park.  This bus ride went northwest along the Han river and then turns north where the Imjin river flows into the Han river.  Where the two rivers meet, you can see North Korea right across the river.  In the graphic below, the DMZ is the dark gray line.  It splits the Imjin river right above the confluence, and then goes west following the Han river.  The highlighted path was our bus route.

Well before we reached the confluence, there was barbed wire and guard posts along the rivers edge.  Our guide told us that it was because the North Koreans used to try to sneak into South Korea using the river, so the military set up the defenses.  

Guard post at rivers edge

We were able to see a small collection of buildings on the North Korean side; a small village, our guide said.

view of North Korean village across the Imjin river

Our first stop was Imjingak Unification Park.  This park holds the Freedom Bridge, where POWs were released and crossed back into South Korea after the signing of the Armistice agreement in 1953. 

Bridge of Freedom

Since many families were separated during the war, this place is where some come to remember and pray for unification.  The picture below is a Mangbaedan Memorial altar where many come to pray on New Year's Day and Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok) in the hopes their families will one day be reunited.  We were there the day after Chuseok.

Many people buy these peace ribbons to tie on the chain link fence to show their hope for a united future.  

In 1983, there was a TV show, "Search for the Dispersed Families", whose aim was to reunite families that were separated within the South Korean side.  It ran live for 138 days straight and reunited 10,189 families.  

This section of the Imjin river used to have 2 railroad bridges crossing it, but they were destroyed during the war.  This train remnant shows where shrapnel tore through it when the bridges were bombed.

Imjin River

newly reconstructed railroad bridge, made for the day the land is reunited

The next stop on the bus tour was the 3rd infiltration tunnel.  This stop was fascinating.  We learned that a North Korean geologist had helped plan the construction of 20 tunnels so that North Korea could invade South Korea from many fronts simultaneously.  The geologist then defected, before they were all finished, to come to South Korea to warn them.  Only 4 tunnels have been discovered, the last of which was found in 1990.  The 3rd tunnel was not complete when the South Korean military found it.  They were able to drill down from above using the information from the geologist, and after many attempts, drilled into the ceiling of it, 240ft (73m) below ground.  The tunnel had been created using dynamite and is about a mile long (1635m).  It crosses the military demarcation line and onto the South Korean side of the DMZ by just over 1400 feet (435m).  

To access the 3rd infiltration tunnel, we drove right up to the edge of the DMZ where the military had dug a steep ramp down to intercept the tunnel that was dug.  No pictures were allowed to be taken once we were inside the tunnel, but we got some pics of the area above ground.  There was a little museum with some war artifacts, map displays, and they showed a video.

The green light shows the entrance to the 3rd infiltration tunnel.  The lights are the northern and southern edges of the DMZ.

This close up shows the Freedom Bridge in the lower left crossing the river.  You can see the 3rd tunnel (stop 2), the Dora Observatory (stop 3) and Dorasan Station (stop 4, with green light)

Close up of the JSA area in Panmunjom.  We did not go there.

This is a very helpful diagram to show what it looks like underground.  We walked down the ramp and then up to the 3rd blockade wall.  

This explains how they found the precise location of the tunnel.

This is a replica of what it looks like when you reach the 3rd blockade wall.  Through the small cutout in the door, you can see through to the 2nd blockade wall.

  

To enter the tunnel, we had to put on hard hats.  The 358m long ramp down is very steep and physically challenging not only to go down but also to come up again.  There is one hand rail along the side to help.  Once down in the actual infiltration tunnel, it got much narrower.  It was only 2m wide and 2m high.  This is not high enough to stand upright, especially with the hard hats making us taller.  The walls were wet, like a cave, and you could see the scars from the dynamite blasts.  In some places there were pipe scaffolds that we had to bend over even lower to get through. We walked 265m through the infiltration tunnel up to the 3rd blockade wall, only 170m from the military demarcation line.   

The third stop on the bus tour was the Dora Observatory.  It is situated on top of Mount Dora, giving us a great vantage point to see across into North Korea.  I marked the 4 stops of our tour on the map below.

1=Imjingak Unification Park, 2=3rd tunnel, 3=Dora Observatory, 4=Dorasan station

From here we can see the two villages that exist inside the DMZ borders.  One on the North Korean side and one on the South Korean side.  Our tour guide was keen to point out that the North Korean Propaganda Village (Kijong-dong) is not real.  It waves the North Korean flag, but our tour guide said that no one lives there.  The North Koreans built it early after the truce, to try to convince the South Koreans that they were doing well.  But since technology has improved, they can now see clearly that the buildings are empty and the lights are on timers.  The South Korean village Daeseong-dong has 200 permanent residents who farm the area.  Both villages have extra tall flag poles that can be seen from the Observatory.  We were told that loud speakers from the Propaganda village used to blare propaganda messages towards the South up to 20 hours a day.  And the South returned the propaganda from their side, blaring messages towards the North.  Each side has been trying to convince the other side that they are more propserous and life is better on their respective sides.  Since last April, they have stopped, due to the increase in peace talks.  

The much larger city and built up area you can see in the valley between the mountains is the Kaesong Industrial Region. It used to be run by the South Koreans, employing North Korean workers to work for South Korean companies.  It was mutually beneficial, but was dependent on good relations between the North and the South.  It has a history of being open (2004- April 2013), then closed (April-Aug 2013), then open (Aug 2013-Feb 2016), then closed.  It hasn't been in use since 2016.  

Dora Observatory

Checkpoint between North and South Korea, where Olympians passed through.  Only road connecting the two.

Our last stop was Dorasan Station.  This is the last stop on the South Korean railroad before the DMZ.  Our tour guide was so hopeful that one day North and South Korea will be reunited, because then the rail line can be reactivated and a person could travel from Seoul to Paris by train in 3 weeks.  Until then though, South Korea is virtually an island, cut off from the mainland of Asia because of the DMZ.

Unification Platform

On the Unification Platform was a section of the Berlin Wall. I've found myself comparing the DMZ to the Berlin Wall quite a lot.  I remember when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.  I hope that one day the DMZ will come down too.  It seems to me, from all that we learned on this tour, that Korea is hopeful too.

Section of the Berlin Wall

Our time at the DMZ came to an end.  We had to cross back over the Unification bridge, around the blockades, through the military checkpoint lined with soldiers, and back along the river lined with barbed wire.

Imjin River

blockades on Unification bridge over Imjin River