Travel, 50+, South Korea

Once upon a time I was told how the East Asian pop culture is created (in times of modern mass media). First, Japan does something. This gets imitated by South Korea, who give it their own spin. Then, Taiwan imitates this, adding their own flavor. Finally, mainland China will imitate that, forming an "acceptable" version of it, thus bringing the evolution of East Asian pop culture to its conclusion. Some think this is a fabulous description, some take it as a decent joke and some will get flustered and go kick stones. No matter what you think of it, you should know that South Korea is told to have been making a conscious gargantuan effort since the 1990s. A conscious effort to, culturally, take over the world. And now... Now we are plagued by Korean Twiggy girly girl bands and even girlier boy bands (and Psy). By Korean television and movies of darkness and creepy romance. So popular that they have been at Oscars and are being imitated by Hollywood, who come to successfully ruin each one (as they always do to near 100% of foreign products). Westerners watch mukbang and girls all over the world ruin their skin with 6-step K-beauty routines to find out that's why they need the routine... But wait! There's more!

One might argue that South Korea suffers from a New Country Syndrome (as I call it) with a sprinkle of what people call Small Country Syndrome. The skin is thin out of insecurity, but the national pride balloons in about 3.8 seconds for a few good words. The cultural push is intense and requires for you stupid foreigners to recognize the Korean superiority. No, not the other Korean, this one! Wait, I mean there is only one Korea and an impostor. The push, justification, validation and, above all, the obvious superiority, go as far as recognized high ranking universities having professors claim things like Confucious/Master Kong and golf, among many other things, being aaacckkksshhuuuaally Korean. Death by fan, if you don't believe everything!

Talking about death, the Koreans nearly killed me. More specifically, Jeju Air nearly killed me. This might well be the most dreadful experience of any of my travels. The signs were all there, almost like in the Final Destination franchise, but not really. The staff struggled to allow me on the flight as my name was not completely spelled there. The lady fixing the issue did, in fact, not fix the issue, while claiming to have done so. The digital ticket failed again and she had refused to print a paper one, which another lady then did. Now, it was "normal" beyond that at first. Liftoff, fly and wait for the landing. But then, out of nowhere, it was almost like the plane hit a wall mid-flight. The whole thing started to fall like a stone. For a few second, we just fell and then, somehow, the pilots regained control over the plane. It all happened so unexpectedly that no one was voluminously frightened. Only anime eyes and quiet gasps of wtf expression. When it was over, the plane had a lot of nervous laughter and a good old quote of the "If it's Boeing, I ain't going." (and it was Boeing). The staff acted like nothing had happened and no one explained or apologized to a thing. Only a few weeks later, a plane full of people died, crushed into blood squirting raisins on yet another quality Jeju Air flight. (Two survived, investigation ongoing.) Now, I don't mind going whenever that happens. Death has never frightened me. However, I would have been raging furious having to do it by making close acquaintance with the bottom of the sea.

So, anyway, Jeju is a bit of a big deal tourism-wise. For a while, the flight route Seoul-Jeju was the busiest route out there, in the whole world. Might still be. Jeju is absolutely packed and might well be nearly completely purchased by the Chinese. It's basically like a big fat Chinese tourist center with a bus, built on a crater of a volcano with a few local shamans for entertainment. That's my experience there, anyway.

Korea otherwise is very much a coin flip of extremes. You can end up with the extremely beautiful things or the brutally ugly ones. No, no, I'm not (only) talking about the looks, although I do have to comment on the issue. Seoul has pretty much at least one vanity surgeon per street, everywhere. Even other bigger cities have more of these than you would think and each one gets a lot of action. Most Korean looks (the outsiders know/see) are ... fake. And they take the whole facial and body re-modification thing like choosing what to eat for dinner today (kimchi, it's always kimchi and perhaps some kind of a -bap or a -guk on the side). I overheard a very Korean conversation between a mother and a daughter, which I'm going to share with you. The daughter was crying because she had been bullied. The other children had called her ugly. The mother consoled the little girl thus: "It's okay. It doesn't matter that you're ugly. Your daddy will pay for your surgery when you are old enough." And, just like that, the girl had those rapid-machine-gun-breathing-after-crying things and a few sniffles and the drama had ended.

The cities are all clean (as cities go), functional, hyper high tech and then you go to countryside and think you have accidentally crossed the border north. You might love the looks, shows and heart throbbing product of the K-pop, shows and so on, it's like a fluffy utopian fantasy... But you really don't want to know what happens behind the curtain. It's brutal and ugly. If you ever wondered why so many young and successful Korean cultural figures commit acts of suicide... It's what happens behind that curtain.

You can see the softest, smiley-est, cutest woman you have ever met in your life. Or you can come across the older auntie who will readily use violence, verbally and physically and no, it does not matter, if you are a foreigner. There's no courtesy from the dreaded auntie (although, this is not only a Korean thing as you will meat similar ones in Japan where, yes, they have a word for this specific subtype of a human being). You can meet the most sophisticated and cultured gentleman you have met and then you can meet the one who is openly racist against everyone and to your face.

I met one of these extreme racist types as I was bunking in the traditional hanok in Jeonju. I mean, I met more. A lot more. But this one is more memorable. The guy begun all polite albeit a tad cocky. He held a presentation of the place he was a proud, so very proud, owner of. He shared a little bit of history, showed around and then naturally moved on to taking a dump on the youth who do not want to take over his business and upkeep traditional architecture any more (which probably has nothing to do with their life being dictated towards money, which requires working, doing work related drinking on occasion and transferring between work and home for something like 20 hours a day and then boasting how you slept only three hours because of your dedication to the company). Then he asked where I was from and instantly after hearing started casually unloading all racist material he had on me and my place of origin. Which was shockingly plenty for a Korean. Slurring his Euro-centric n-words with a smile, too. Looking for a reaction, blasting as hard as he could. After that was all done and dealt with, he begun to do overall East Asian racism and, if you have heard it's bad between Korea, China and Japan, you have heard nothing yet. He was like a Korean version of a neo-nazi with his racism steroids on steroids. The impromptu smear slasher ended with the guy's reasoning why Koreans are the select holy people on Earth, why they are, always have been and always will be superior to everyone else. He ended with "But I'm willing to rent you this place, because I like the money."

Obviously I "had to" listen to all that. After all, hierarchy is very important in Korea. This guy was an older man, so obviously above me, and Korean, hence superior. Lucky for all I'm a mellow dude who speaks to all kinds. The sermon of Korea was not even the worst thing I've heard, but it was wild and brutal. And yes, I did stay there for the night.

Hierarchy and superiority is very important to the Koreans, overall. Man trumps woman (obviously), old trumps young (no question), chaebol trumps indies and smaller companies (indubitably) and to get there, you have to fly as high as the SKY as the other places are just ... you know, kinda garbage. If you didn't get in the SKY, your life has already peaked and you are deemed to install hidden cameras in hotel rooms and public toilets, utilized by women, forevermore. (Which, by the way, is a legit problem there, and I recall the crime even having a very specific term for it.)

All that said, I had a pretty good time in Korea except for the Jeju incident. Seoul proved to be the center of the kind of Korea they want to sell to foreign public (as long as you don't speak Korean, anyway). Incheon seemed to be a little bit like Blackpool is in the UK. Sadly most places were closed at the time of visit, but, on the bright side, I got to roam around at peace and the few traditional food establishments made a special effort since the place was otherwise empty. Jeju was a tourist hell, as expected, except it was almost like one big Chinatown. Otherwise, I had no expectations. To my surprise, I enjoyed a "never heard" city of Gwangju the most. Especially the night times out and about. The other places were fine, too. Also, it turns out the Korean government sends blasting loud (think Apple alarm and then boost it 5* louder) alarms in case of a disaster in your area. Good for surprise mudpie production, too.

The Judgment:
Koreans are a bunch of kimchi addicts that make you a kimchi addict. Some love it on the spot, some hate it instantly. But once you leave, you kind of have to have it again. (Oh the cravings!) Just gotta get your fix to "confirm" it was like you thought it was. Them Koreans are also heavy drinkers and in case that's your cup of tea, you will find out they really know how to party. At one point in time, while vodka was the most consumed type of alcohol (excluding beer and wine) in the world, soju was second. At the time, soju was drank nearly exclusively by Korea and the Korean diaspora. Probably still is. Essentially a case of Korea vs the whole rest of the world. That should tell you something.

Were you to wish for that "as seen on TV" experience, you probably want to just stay in the capital. You will get most of the fluffy fantasy world right there and you will have a good time. You will, also, be able to shop very factually till you drop. Just enter a 24-hours a day forever shopping center and forget you had a budget and a life outside the building complex. The little ones of the family might enjoy Lotte World and, I suppose, why not the bigger ones as well. If you feel more adventurous, you might try DMZ, the nature and country side. Just an example. Linguistically speaking, you are going to want to learn some Korean before you go. They're not really speakers of foreign languages. In many situations, the advice is in Korean only (eg as I took buses between Incheon and Seoul, it was Korean only from signs and people). You should survive the capital monolingual-ly in English, however.

Recommended for: Korea fanatics, shoppers, friends of extremes, vanity surgery hobbyists, party animals, Moonie loonies, big city enthusiasts and adventurous people.

Would I go again? Yes. Unfinished business.