Remembering travels from February: South Korea

Korea is quiet. Much quieter than China. Even densely-packed-over-10-million-people Seoul is quiet. I don't notice at first because I speak loudly with my American friends, but then glares from surrounding elders make me realize the quiet that hangs over everyone else. It's almost required on the buses and subway. Or at least of the English-speaking foreigners. Everyone else already knows the unspoken rule and is quietly texting, playing electronic games, listening to music. Quiet or beeping, everyone here is wired.

An interesting difference between China and Korea is the background music in public places. In China, they play smooth jazz, otherwise known as elevator music, everywhere. And maybe traditional Chinese flute music in the parks, and then Chinese pop or American 90s pop outside of shops. In Korea, they play classical music--distinguished, elegant, secure--in the trees in the parks, in the shops, on the sidewalks outside shops, in the airport, at the train station, even in the bathrooms at rural tourist sights. I remember stepping into one isolated-looking bathroom and being surprised as a full orchestra suddenly welcomed me with Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

It's funny how small Korea is compared to China. And you can still see the difference between the rich, hip people who live in Seoul and the people who live in thatch-roofed, cracking houses in the countryside--but what separates China and Korea is that even the thatch-roofed houses have high-speed internet.
I have to say I am partial to small countries. They seem easier to manage.

South Korea is certainly more modern than the vast majority of China in many ways, and Seoul seems to emulate what China wishes its cities would become--modern, hip, tightly packed, active, but clean, pretty, neat, tidy. But China has very little chance of getting there anytime soon except for the exception of parts of HongKong. Why? Many reasons I'm sure. But it seems that China's biggest hold back seems to be its population (one Seoul is possible, but how could they possibly make 200 Seouls?) and then, of course, there is the difference in government. Korea is small. And so clearly a Democracy. I saw at least one protest each day I stayed in Seoul. and they were huge. With huge numbers of young policemen patiently standing with shields and helmets around the groups. Strange for an American to see that the protesters were older, perhaps middle age or so, and the policemen, because of the required military service, were almost all younger than I by a number of years. An almost perfect reversal of most protests in the U.S.

It was also a funny place because of how safe it was. It was as though everyone (at least professed) to trust everyone else. No real fear of pick-pocketing. even in Seoul. they didn't even check your tickets on the train...or at least they only checked randomly. I heard numerous accounts of people losing things and then having them (wallets included) returned to the police station by some nice civilian. (Unfortunately, I lost my camera in a rural tourist town and although we went to the police station and they treated us super sweetly and diligently wrote down all the details of the camera and where we had been, no nice civilian has come upon it yet.)

The Korean language is really interesting in comparison to Mandarin too. Mandarin has no conjugation for verbs, which, I think, makes it a simpler language to learn. Korean, however, has a ton of different forms for each verb based on how old the person you are addressing is in comparison to you. It makes sense for such a Confucian culture. So was China, historically, but somehow, although Korean used to be written using traditional Chinese characters, the language itself is so crazily different. Where as Mandarin has really firm syllables and tones, Korean has no tones and almost sounds like mumbling to me--many sounds get almost slurred together. It is really pretty though--quiet and soft, where as standard Mandarin sounds more harsh and loud.
But the Korean alphabet, I think, is one of the coolest alphabets ever. Each sound has a certain shape--you can learn how to read Korean in a couple days if you are studious. The alphabet gives a flexibility to the Korean language that Chinese lacks. Many words in Korean are borrowed from English--they just reconstruct them with Korean pronunciation. Chinese people have to use already existing words to create a new word--like electric talk for telephone, or electric brain for computer. (I've heard some theories that this absolute "unchangingness" of the Chinese language is part of the reason creativity is hard to come by in Chinese education. I'm not sure about that though, because as soon as my students are given the opportunity and some practice, they come up with some pretty brilliant stories and skits.)

Seoul is interesting in terms of the foreign population, because they are almost all soldiers or English teachers. (it is usually pretty easy to guess who is who) And you see a lot of foreign men with Korean women (who seem to get disapprovingly ignored by other Koreans), but not the other way around. Will (a foreigner also) and I hardly got stared at at all (an interesting change from the places I'm used to in China). But when I walked around with Alex, a Korean American, I was stared at quite a bit as people tried to figure out what I was and what I was doing hanging out with a Korean who spoke fluent English. When I was by myself, mostly just the foreigners stared at me. And a couple times, when I was wearing glasses, people started speaking to me in Korean first, until I looked absolutely confused, and they looked at my face closer. Gosh, I'll just never fit in in any country except for America now.

Most of the tourists in Korea seemed to be Japanese or Taiwanese, along with some people from Singapore. There were some Chinese in Seoul, but mostly they were going to school or working. I had a couple of times where I accidentally spoke Chinese to someone and she replied back! That was always a shock for me--wait, we are in Korea, that was a mistake! You aren't supposed to understand Chinese--and even more for her--How does this white person in Korea know Chinese?! I even communicated with a couple Koreans who had studied Mandarin or who grew up in China with Chinese--they couldn't speak English very well, and I (like almost all the other foreigners there) couldn't speak any Korean.
Overall, it was really strange being in a country where I couldn't even speak two full sentences of the local language--quite an adjustment from China and the U.S., the past two countries I had been traveling in. It was isolating and liberating at the same time. Isolating, because suddenly it was harder to talk to strangers and understand the lives of local people, and liberating because I realized that even without knowing a word of a language there were ways to communicate and ways to get around on ones own. People again, just like in China, thought I was crazy when they found me navigating the subways, streets, or speed trains on my own, without a word of Korean to help me (even the foreign soldiers and business people who lived in Seoul always seemed to be escorted by a Korean friend). But it is surprisingly possible when you have a few friends to introduce you to the place, give you a few tips, and the absolute fascination with every color, shape, face, and aspect of a new place that comes naturally almost wherever I go.