#volume 2 vw couple fight moment

[raepliica]

my part of @altades 's vashwood dance collab!!

[maxkoreablog]

Experiences

This post will probably be very unorganized and maybe a bit hard to read, but it's more focused on keeping some thoughts and memories then people reading it. 

All of the following themes are too short for a whole Post (I think so, at least) but I still want to include them in this blog.

Military

A few days ago I met the first boy in my age, who wanted to be a soldier when growing up. Before I had never met somebody with the dream job of being a soldier, or at least nobody told me about it, if they wanted to be a soldier.

In Korea between the ages of twenty and thirty as a man, you have to work somewhere around two years in the military, but women can also go to the military. The military is very present in the streets. Not with guns or something else threatening, or at least I've never felt threatened by any of the soldiers I’ve seen and met, but you always see young men in uniform walking around on their day off.

To come back to the boy I met… I asked him why he wanted to work as a soldier and he told me that if you want to have a safe salary and a safe job you should work for the military. In Korea the Job market is very competitive, as far as I've noticed, because grades and education are so highly valued, there are a lot of very skilled people ending up in positions where they don't live up to their potential. Not at all. I that regard I can understand him quite well, but I didn’t get the chance to ask him about his views about a soldiers potential duty to kill people. The language barrier was unfortunately too high, but maybe I’ll meet him again when I speak Korean better.

German culture

I've noticed that if you are in a different country you not only learn about the country but also a lot about the country you are from.

Here are a few things I've learned about Germany so far, while being in Korea:

1. The handshake you have with someone carries a lot of information about the respect, the interest and the opinion of each other.

I've been to a dinner with my guest mother and some of her former colleagues (my guest mother works in a charity organization, I don't know if on a volunteering basis, or if she gets paid.). But on that dinner, had to give a lot of handshakes and bows and when I wanted to shake the hand of one guy, instead of giving me his hand, he did the handshake with his pinky. I instantly noticed, how disrespected I felt, even though before I had never thought that a handshake would show respect. Over the evening I noticed in myself, that I really felt like I didn't like the guy, even though I have never really spoken to him. In the middle of the dinner, I thought to myself that it probably wasn't his intention to disrespect me, but I still noticed that even after that I couldn’t look over it and still disliked him. Another thing I noticed that is transported in a handshake is whether the person you are about to greet is interested in you or not. I think whoever stretches out his hand at first is the one, more interested in greeting and getting to know the other person.

2. Germans don't really have national pride, but more (if at all) an appreciation for the institutions around them. We don't hang Germany flags in our classrooms. Here in Korea above every blackboard, there is a small, framed Korean flag. We don't hang Germany flags in the public. In Korea, you have Korean flags on the side of the highways. Not only a bit but every ten meters another one. Sometimes after our Korean classes Maja, Ainhoa and I go to an old market in Guri. In the ceiling of the building is a huge Korean flag, and on the pillars holding the roof, on each one is another smaller flag.

3. Germany is unbelievably ordered. I think I mentioned that in a different post already, but Korea seems to me like a prototype, that is constantly being worked on to have more features or newer technology. The buildings seem between 50 and 2 Years old, same thing with the advertising-signs on them. The stores themselves are one old and crappy store beneath a new and totally tidy store. It's really hard to describe. And the same goes for the people. On one hand you have people that seem completely “unmodern” and on the other hand, you have students in their twenties running around with their new iPhone X. It's really a lot of contrast.

Traffic

The traffic rules are a lot looser than in Germany. And they are also very different, for example, you can regularly just do a 180 degrees turn. For the delivery services, they don't apply at all, I feel like. They just drive over the sidewalk, red traffic lights and nobody seems to care. It's so different than the first few times I drove with my guest mother I was pretty worried, especially because a lot of the Koreans just use their smartphones while going 40 km/h. They seem to still have control of the situation, but sometimes its a bit worrying. There are also a lot more speed bumps and other stuff to make the drivers drive slower. Also, the drivers use the (i don't know the proper name) red triangle light, that makes all lights at the same time blink. They use that light so often. The cars driving on the road are also completely different to Germany. There I feel like Audi, VW, and other German brands are just normal. Here you have basically only Hyundai and KIA. And some other brands, that I've never seen in Germany.

The usage of English

English gets used pretty extensively and I feel like its seen as a sign of “Westernness”. And if they use English it's in often very weird context and oftentimes it doesn't make sense or is just ridiculous.

Some examples:

1. When you walk into a Lotteria, which is a Korean burger store, you see their advertisement which says: “scientifically the best burger you will ever eat.” But not only that is a bit weird, over the kitchen they don't have something like “kitchen”, no, they have a huge sign saying “Burger Labrotary”.

2. On a lot of t-shirts, there is stuff printed that doesn't make any sense at all. There are literally shirts, pullovers, and bags full of random words.

3. I once visited a noodle restaurant with my guest parents and on one wall there was some sort of collage with random words making up a teapot. It was a bit weird but some of them had a connection to noodles or something like that, but there were also totally unrelated words.

Very reserved in public

Yesterday I went to Seoul with Maja and Ainhoa, because we had to attend a small meeting with some other Rotary-exchange students. It was a meeting concerning a Busan-trip we’ll have next month. Anyways, on our way back we drove with the subway. The subway we were in was like most subways. You have two opposing benches and in the middle, there is room for people to walk through.

On the opposite side there was one old man standing at the exit, the on the Bench there were two middle-aged women who were looking at one smartphone and quietly talking to each other. Besides them, a man in a suit, also between forty-five and sixty and then on the far left a couple in their twenties. On our bench, there were on the far left two women, who I didn't really pay any attention to in the whole situation. Then in pretty much the middle, there was one seat between me and the women on my left, I was sitting, to my left Ainhoa, then Maja and finally on the far right a man, about thirty years old.

At one point the man on the right of our bench started ranting and insulting the people sitting in front of us. I didn't really understand what he was saying. I only understood that he was saying something about their smartphones, I'm guessing that he wanted them to put them away and pay attention to him. It was a very strange experience. He started screaming and raging and literally, nobody reacted. Not even in the slightest. They were dodging eye contact and nobody talked to him. The women kept on looking at their smartphone and talked at exactly the same paste and noise level as before. The Couple ignored him as well, only the businessman seemed a bit tense, but he didn't engage into any. The man started to rage so much that Maja switched seats and sat down beside me, but that was pretty much the only reaction he got. Until the young man on the left, who was with his girlfriend said, that he should be quiet, he would be very noisy. Then the man jumped up with his fist ready to punch and apparently threatened the man. He stayed very calm and later Maja and Ainhoa told me that he was saying something along the ways of “I dear you”, or “Try it”. After he had said that the raging man switched seats and got out of the train at the next station. But before he left the train I saw him, I'm guessing apologizing to a man near the exit.

It was a very strange situation. First of all, it was the first time I felt threatened in Korea so far and the first time I felt like I was in danger. But it was also an interesting experience because you could see how everyone realized, that the man was about to fight someone, but everyone stayed extremely focused on whatever they were doing that the moment. The old man near the exit just stared along the train, the two women kept looking at their phone, the businessman listened to music and stared at his feet, the couple kept whispering to each other. It was a very strange atmosphere because it was so tense and everyone tried to not show, that they were feeling that as well.

I didn't focus on how everyone reacted when the man was jumping up, because I was so focused on him, and whether or not they would start to fight, but when I switched my focus again, nobody had really changed.

This situation showed me once more, how much volume and body language really can communicate. And that to make somebody feel fear of something like that you don't need to have the right sentence, it's enough if you just show that you are ready to just punch the shit out of your opponent.

But probably more interesting than that was how clear it became in that particular situation, how focused most Koreans are to not disturb, not be noticeable and not engage in confrontation. Of course, there are always exceptions and I think that guy was one of those, but nobody tried to interrupt him or something like that until it was nearly too late. And it also showed to me that “minding your own business” is held very high in Korea.

All in all, I’d say, that I'm glad I was in that subways. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have gotten such a clear presentation of those parts of the Korean culture.