Category: In Korea (Page 23 of 25)

Halloween in Korea?

2012/11/01 / Nic / 17 Comments

I’m doing an extra post today! Wow!

Mara asks:

I just wanted to know what Koreans do (if anything) for Halloween.

I’ve seen this question quite a few times on Twitter and Youtube so I’m assuming there are quite a few people who want to know the answer to this.

Basically Koreans don’t really do anything for Halloween. I’m sorry I don’t have a comic for this one because there isn’t much I can draw, besides from my husband laying in his underwear on the floor saying “We don’t care” to my question about Halloween.

Now of course in places like Itaewon in Korea where there are many foreigners there are probably Halloween parties but it’s just not celebrated the way it is in North America. Actually it’s not celebrated as much in Australia either. In recent years there have been more parties and nightclubs catering to it, but trick or treating is not something that everyone does here.

There are possibly some elements of Halloween Koreans would find offensive, and I don’t mean the whole scary thing, I mean people being almost naked but calling it a costume.

At my husband’s work last night there was a Halloween party for a magazine. My husband was shocked at what constituted a costume. For example: only duct tape over the nipples. I’m just speculating here, but in Korea where a lot of women barely show their shoulders there might be moral outrage at Korea adopting those elements of Halloween.

JMK who is living in Korea right now adds:

In Korea right now Halloween seems to be mostly for foreigners and kids. Many, many English hagwons/private academies (kindergartens and after-school programs) hold Halloween parties. The first one I worked at had one only for the kindergarten kids, but my current one also had parties for the elementary kids.

However, did you celebrate Halloween? Did you have a costume? What was the best costume you saw?

Ghost Stories

2012/10/22 / Nic / 17 Comments

CYah asks:

any ghost stories/experiences? Korean style? lol cause Koreans do make good horror movies..

My husband has some from his childhood and his home town (which is in a very rural area). This is just one in particular happened to his neighbour when she was working in a rice field one evening.

Apparently she saw something strange and scary so she threw a rock at it. The rock then was thrown back at her by the “thing” so of course she ran away!

Stories of supernatural beings are so woven into Korean culture that I find myself believing a lot more than I would in Australia. Here, I can easily dismiss ghost stories but when I hear these stories in Korea and walk around where my husband grew up, they feel more real.

My husband has a story from when he was 12. He and his friend saw a woman in white with long hair walk into an abandoned house. They were scared but after a few minutes they went into the house because they were curious- the woman had disappeared but instead there was a huge snake! They were terrified and ran away. Who knows what really happened… but seeing a woman in what looked like burial clothes go into an old abandoned house and then see a snake in her place was scary!

I try to avoid watching Korean horror movies because they are so scary!

Towels

2012/10/19 / Nic / 34 Comments

Before I first went to Korea I never imagined being handed a tiny towel to dry myself with for after a shower. I thought towel sizes were probably standard everywhere. I do enjoy huge fluffy bath towels – the ones that are so big that they are called bath blankets – but an average size towel will do me just fine.

This is just my own experience so I’m not saying everyone in Korea does this, because I really don’t know, but from my experiences staying with my husband’s family and with Korean friends, towels tend to be significantly smaller. When we’ve stayed in motels in Korea as well, I’ve found they give us 1 almost normal size towel and then just those small ones.

After I’ve had a shower I like the towel to do all the work so I can just stand there until I’m decently dry. With a tiny towel you have to do all the work! So that was different…

Have you experienced the same thing when staying with a Korean family? Also why are so many that same design, just varying colours? ( those ones with the line pattern).

Because he grew up with such small towels, is this why my husband prances around naked without a towel after a shower?

Are towels small in Korea because Koreans like to make that sheep head thing with towels? (Just kidding!)

Showed my husband this just before uploading and he was like “Ahhhhh no!” He is concerned about cartoon almost nudity.

Tea Ceremony

2012/09/19 / Nic / 4 Comments

This was last year while in Korea.

I’ve mentioned before that I have trouble sitting on the floor (and squatting) as I’m just not used to it. BUT this woman complimented me on my sitting! We had told her that I was marrying a Korean man and that I really liked Korean culture. I tried really hard during the tea ceremony and sat in the traditional way she showed us. Everything was going well and she said I sat well and I was moving elegantly. I was so happy.

…But then my legs and feet started to hurt. I didn’t dare shift because then she would realise I was a fraud! We were sitting there for a while and the pain got worse and worse but I wanted to prove myself. By the time we left my legs hurt so much that I couldn’t walk properly for a few minutes. haha…

PJ Pants

2012/08/13 / Nic / 7 Comments

Hehe…They were supposed to be full length and on most Korean girls they probably are. As a western woman I’m not very very tall, my height is only very slightly above what would be considered average. When I go to Korea though, everyone comments on how tall I am. While a lot of Korean women are shorter than me, many seem to be about my height so I don’t see a huge difference. I suspect that I just look taller to them.

What is one of the biggest differences between my body shape and the average Korean woman? Leg length. Koreans tend to have longer torsos which means in comparison their legs are a bit shorter. As I’m a completely Caucasian woman my legs are longer. My legs are longer than my husband’s as well, even though he is taller than me!

So even though my husband asked in the Korean shop if these PJ pants were definitely adult size… when I tried them on they were about 10 cm too short for me.

I’ll still wear them though! They are nice and fluffy, it’s just that my ankles are cold…

Frog

2012/07/20 / Nic / 8 Comments

Last year we stayed with my husband’s parents for a month. They live in a very rural area of South Korea and their house is surrounded by rice fields. At night we could hear the frogs singing loudly but one night I was surprised to find one in our room. I have no idea how it got inside the house, especially as our room was upstairs.

It’s true I have zoo keeper training, but I don’t work in the industry at the moment. However, I knew what I was talking about, though my husband had ideas of his own…

I let him catch the frog for his male pride (I’m always the one to catch things like spiders) but he then refused to listen to me and tore apart the room for 20 minutes trying to find this frog. Of course it was just hiding while he heaved things around. I don’t know what his parents thought we were doing… it was late at night and there was a lot of banging and crashing.

Eventually after we did exactly what I said to do we saw the frog, grabbed him, and then he went back outside again.

Who knows the word for ‘frog’ in Korean?

Shoes

2012/06/30 / Nic / 15 Comments

So in Korea, Japan… and probably most of Asia… NO SHOES INSIDE! Even though many Australian families may choose to not wear shoes inside it’s not a cultural norm here. It’s completely acceptable to wear shoes inside here. Because of this when I’m in Korea or Japan I have such a hard time. I’m so slow! Korean and Japanese people can take their shoes off so fast and and slip them back on in 1 second. I’m always left behind fumbling with my shoes. It’s actually something that stresses me out a bit because I know I end up looking like an idiot. Sometimes when trying to get shoes back on quickly while standing up and I’ve fallen over…

I know part of the problem is that many of my shoes are difficult to get on and off- because they were bought in Australia- whereas Koreans are usually wearing shoes that are easier to remove. And simply because I’m not used to doing it. I wasn’t born in a country where this is normal.

Hopefully I’ll get used to the constant taking off shoes. When we find an apartment in Sydney it’s probably going to be set up in a more Korean style so shoes will have to come off. At the moment I’m at the parent’s house in my hometown while my husband is job and apartment hunting in Sydney.

Also, just trying out another style of drawing which is why this comic looks different to others.