My Korean Husband

Intercultural Life

Tag: korea countryside

Changing for the Countryside

2014/11/17 / / 18 Comments

Change for the Countryside (800x800)

Our life is a bit strange now because we can go to Seoul for a weekend and hang out with very cool people and have some amazing experiences and then we come back to the countryside and literally back to a rural village full of old people.

While it’s not like we dress up a lot in Seoul, something as simple as a spiky earring can be worn in Seoul but Mr Gwon is not comfortable wearing it around his friends out in the countryside. Especially friends he grew up with. Right away they make comments on it and tell him it’s stupid. People wear completely different clothes out here and can be more judgmental if it doesn’t fit in with what they think is good. Being a huge city, Seoul is a place where people can really experiment with fashion, but it’s pretty different in other areas of Korea.

The funniest aspect of this is that Mr Gwon’s countryside friends will try to dictate to him what is fashionable at the moment. One friend told him that his haircut is out of fashion now and that is was fashionable 2 years ago. Never mind that many people, including celebrities, have this type of haircut right now or that it’s about what suits the face more than what is considered cool, these friends seem to want to force everyone else to dress like them.

Have you had experiences like this? Have you moved away and when you’ve come back to your hometown people want to criticise what you are wearing and how you look?

Vlog 11 – Cabin Fever

2013/05/28 / / 8 Comments

We still have some videos from Korea! Some are longer ones that need more editing but we also have silly short ones like this:

Does anyone else get the cabin fever song in their head from Muppet Treasure Island when they say ‘cabin fever’?

 

Korea Vlog 3 – Strawberries

2013/04/28 / / 24 Comments

Here are the greenhouses and the strawberries! Farms in Korea are very different to farms in Australia. Australian farms are usually very big and even hobby farms are bigger than the size of farms in this rural area. It is basically as many greenhouses as possible crammed onto quite a small piece of land.

Another difference in agriculture in Korea is that even though we are in a mountainous area, all the farming area is flat. People have farmed in Korea for thousands of years so over time these areas between mountains have become flatter. It’s really different to Australia where there has only been farms for about 200 years. Australian farm land can be a lot more rugged.

When I was showing what Mr Gwon is wearing I was going to say he is wearing “thongs” and then stopped because I realied some American viewers may misunderstand…. haha.

Korea Vlog 2

2013/04/26 / / 10 Comments

Yesterday we went to Jinju. We were actually there for most of the day but just filmed bits and pieces. In order to go to Jinju we walk to the next town and catch a bus. It takes about 20 minutes on the bus. Jinju is a city but it’s quite different from Seoul or Busan.

I have seen some foreigners around but really not as many as in Seoul. I’ve only occasionally seen some teachers around other times I’ve been here. So far this time I’ve only seen one foreigner working in a restaurant and she was Cambodian.

In the video it looks like I’m really tall but I’m not. Most of the people around were older people who are usually quite short. Younger generations are taller.

I had an embarrassing moment when we went to the hair salon (which is called something like ‘Hue’ in Korean which is why we were saying it’s his hair salon) and we just spoke in Korean. I thought I was doing pretty well answering in Korean and the owner sat me down with a cup of tea and some magazines while I waited. Hugh’s haircut was finished and he got up and started walking out with the hairdresser so I thought he was going to go pay so I jumped up and got our bags and followed him. Actually they were just going out into another room to wash his hair and the owner said loudly to me in Korean to not go there and to sit down. Then all the hairdressers were laughing at me and the owner makes me go sit down again and laughed at me. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you can understand and speak in Korean and how hard you try because you’ll still make mistakes. In hair salons I go to I Australia, hair is usually washed first, which is why I didn’t expect him to be getting his hair washed and taken out to another room. It was just temporary embarrassment though. Can’t take it too personally when people are laughing at the dumb foreigner!

Hope you enjoyed the video. We might go film the strawberries in the greenhouses now.

 

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