So I'm finally out of South Korea and spending some days in Gold Coast, in Australia. The Australian experience deserves another post, but I'd like to talk about Korea a bit more before that...
When I left, I felt relieved. The last period of my stay hasn't been easy, and I've grown pretty tired of the place. I think that's because a number of things that I noticed and I just lost patience over them.
The main problem that currently South Korean society needs to overcome is its deeply racist and sexist roots. Most issues come from this core idea. Not unlike Russia, the Korean men are celebrated and considered more important than women, and you can see that everywhere. Women are not taken as seriously, are not thought as smart as men, and are though to belong taking care of the house most of the time. At the same time men are pampered and protected from birth, and thanks to its good economy a lot of parents are directly buying apartments and houses for their sons. There's also a strong patriotic undercurrent, with the clear feeling that Koreans are superior, especially to people with darker skin complexion. Added to the situation there's also the fact that Korean culture has a very hierarchical structure based on your age, where being old automatically makes you wiser and with more authority, and others needs to serve you.
All this combines into a poisonous mix where there's a lot of men with a self-inflated ego and sense of worth in middle/upper-management positions, that are actually utterly useless when performing the most basic tasks. These people are rude, sexists, discriminate against foreigners and are a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. If you're familiar with Sense8, Sun's brother would be a perfect example. They're good at misplacing blame and trying to involve others on their own faults, since it's unthinkable that they are the ones that should actually improve, being as they are the culmination of evolution on this planet. Another good example is the train company manager from Train to Busan.
The thing here is that because of the hierarchical nature of society, there's a lot of structures and attitudes that protect this behaviour and these types of people. Other societies, including the occidental one, overprotect their men, but society is more open to discuss and argument and counter comments no matter who says them, while in this society since the one saying it is an older man, he automatically is right and worthy of respect.
In this atmosphere it's not nice to work, or to live for that matter.
I have to say that this also causes that women tend to be 1000 times more competent, since they need to prove themselves time and time again to reach similar positions than men, and it's really noticeable how much better they are at pretty much everything.
Of course not everybody is like this, but enough people fulfil these patterns to be noticeable. In general, you can notice that people more open, that have travelled more, that have learned other languages, are better and don't fit these patterns. However there's a problematic number that still do.
Regarding the patriotism and racism, during the games you could notice one thing: These games were meant for Koreans. That's all good and nice, but these types of event tend to try to include all the world, and a lot of visitors mentioned they felt lost or abandoned when it comes to proper information about transport and timetables, among other things.
In general this situation made things a bit harder and you could notice everybody in this place was being drained because of these issues.
However, I also have to say that I've had really good moments in there of course. It was amazing when you met people more open, and it was really great to interact in these situations. Special mention to places like Malmi, Warehouse, Rush or Bon Voyage, restaurants/bars/clubs where you ended up almost being part of the place, where we could put music, control what happened, organise parties or just ask to cook one last meal for you even when the kitchen was closed. We survived and had fun thanks to such places and the people in there, and I'll miss that part for sure. And I hope my Korean friends forgive my previous comments, but I'd include them in this latter section as the people that made it all better :).
In this period after Japan I should also mention Busan, the second biggest city of South Korea, situated in the cost. I managed to visit it for a few days, and I have to say I really enjoyed the place. It felt more...cohesive, if that's the best way to put it, than Seoul. It felt like a more relaxed place, with beautiful beaches and parks, nice neighbourhoods with plenty of bars and restaurants, and in general a calmer attitude for being still a big city. We stayed next to a going out area purely by accident, but it was a nice addition and it was quite enjoyable overall.
Last but not least, I did manage to go back to Seoul other times, and one thing I discovered there is Hongdae, a neighbourhood close to Hongik University.
Same way that I said in previous posts that Seoul felt just like any other city, this region felt special. Maybe it was just the moment when I visited it, but it's true that this area is more "artsy", more underground/alternative, and I really liked it. I spent only 2 weekends/nights in there in this year and a half that I've been in Korea, but they were almost perfect stays and nights. In both cases all the restaurants, all the bars, all the food and drinks and people and music and atmosphere were pretty much perfect. I even found an extremely nice club (Club FF) with live rock music first and then a nice mixture of songs that allowed for a great environment to spend a night out, while at the same time being a place that is not very crowded and leaves you room enough to enjoy it while not feeling you're alone in there. I really loved Hongdae, and it may be extreme to go back to Seoul for just this area, but I would not mind that at all and would consider it.
I also have to say that after the train from Gangneung to Seoul opened, this city felt much closer. For my goodbye, I took advantage of that and escaped to Hongdae for just one night, one of the two I mentioned. I'm really happy that my Seoul goodbye was in there, almost perfect again, making me feel I was leaving a great place and countering some of the issues this stay inflicted on all of us.
When I left, I felt relieved. The last period of my stay hasn't been easy, and I've grown pretty tired of the place. I think that's because a number of things that I noticed and I just lost patience over them.
The main problem that currently South Korean society needs to overcome is its deeply racist and sexist roots. Most issues come from this core idea. Not unlike Russia, the Korean men are celebrated and considered more important than women, and you can see that everywhere. Women are not taken as seriously, are not thought as smart as men, and are though to belong taking care of the house most of the time. At the same time men are pampered and protected from birth, and thanks to its good economy a lot of parents are directly buying apartments and houses for their sons. There's also a strong patriotic undercurrent, with the clear feeling that Koreans are superior, especially to people with darker skin complexion. Added to the situation there's also the fact that Korean culture has a very hierarchical structure based on your age, where being old automatically makes you wiser and with more authority, and others needs to serve you.
All this combines into a poisonous mix where there's a lot of men with a self-inflated ego and sense of worth in middle/upper-management positions, that are actually utterly useless when performing the most basic tasks. These people are rude, sexists, discriminate against foreigners and are a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. If you're familiar with Sense8, Sun's brother would be a perfect example. They're good at misplacing blame and trying to involve others on their own faults, since it's unthinkable that they are the ones that should actually improve, being as they are the culmination of evolution on this planet. Another good example is the train company manager from Train to Busan.
The thing here is that because of the hierarchical nature of society, there's a lot of structures and attitudes that protect this behaviour and these types of people. Other societies, including the occidental one, overprotect their men, but society is more open to discuss and argument and counter comments no matter who says them, while in this society since the one saying it is an older man, he automatically is right and worthy of respect.
In this atmosphere it's not nice to work, or to live for that matter.
I have to say that this also causes that women tend to be 1000 times more competent, since they need to prove themselves time and time again to reach similar positions than men, and it's really noticeable how much better they are at pretty much everything.
Of course not everybody is like this, but enough people fulfil these patterns to be noticeable. In general, you can notice that people more open, that have travelled more, that have learned other languages, are better and don't fit these patterns. However there's a problematic number that still do.
Regarding the patriotism and racism, during the games you could notice one thing: These games were meant for Koreans. That's all good and nice, but these types of event tend to try to include all the world, and a lot of visitors mentioned they felt lost or abandoned when it comes to proper information about transport and timetables, among other things.
In general this situation made things a bit harder and you could notice everybody in this place was being drained because of these issues.
However, I also have to say that I've had really good moments in there of course. It was amazing when you met people more open, and it was really great to interact in these situations. Special mention to places like Malmi, Warehouse, Rush or Bon Voyage, restaurants/bars/clubs where you ended up almost being part of the place, where we could put music, control what happened, organise parties or just ask to cook one last meal for you even when the kitchen was closed. We survived and had fun thanks to such places and the people in there, and I'll miss that part for sure. And I hope my Korean friends forgive my previous comments, but I'd include them in this latter section as the people that made it all better :).
In this period after Japan I should also mention Busan, the second biggest city of South Korea, situated in the cost. I managed to visit it for a few days, and I have to say I really enjoyed the place. It felt more...cohesive, if that's the best way to put it, than Seoul. It felt like a more relaxed place, with beautiful beaches and parks, nice neighbourhoods with plenty of bars and restaurants, and in general a calmer attitude for being still a big city. We stayed next to a going out area purely by accident, but it was a nice addition and it was quite enjoyable overall.
Last but not least, I did manage to go back to Seoul other times, and one thing I discovered there is Hongdae, a neighbourhood close to Hongik University.
Same way that I said in previous posts that Seoul felt just like any other city, this region felt special. Maybe it was just the moment when I visited it, but it's true that this area is more "artsy", more underground/alternative, and I really liked it. I spent only 2 weekends/nights in there in this year and a half that I've been in Korea, but they were almost perfect stays and nights. In both cases all the restaurants, all the bars, all the food and drinks and people and music and atmosphere were pretty much perfect. I even found an extremely nice club (Club FF) with live rock music first and then a nice mixture of songs that allowed for a great environment to spend a night out, while at the same time being a place that is not very crowded and leaves you room enough to enjoy it while not feeling you're alone in there. I really loved Hongdae, and it may be extreme to go back to Seoul for just this area, but I would not mind that at all and would consider it.
I also have to say that after the train from Gangneung to Seoul opened, this city felt much closer. For my goodbye, I took advantage of that and escaped to Hongdae for just one night, one of the two I mentioned. I'm really happy that my Seoul goodbye was in there, almost perfect again, making me feel I was leaving a great place and countering some of the issues this stay inflicted on all of us.
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