Krazy Korean Kulture
First Impressions ...
You know you're in Asia when the name of the suburb you need to remember is called Gangnam-gu, but nowhere in the pronunciation does the letter 'G' take effect.
You know you're in Asia when the breakfast buffet involves eggs being cooked with chopsticks, with a side of cabbage and seaweed
My first impressions of Seoul are of a massive, modern Asian city nestled amongst some beautiful mountains. Seoul somehow blends tradition with modernity, with the contrast of ancient Buddhist temples visible next to towering skyscrapers, nestled amongst bustling local markets. All in all, an incredibly cosmopolitan city with better than expected coffee and every food you could imagine.
The food...
Let's just say dinner was still moving when it went down. I hate to think what dinner cost, especially when our hosts kept saying things like "Abalone... very expensive..." Also, everything is medicinal in some way... "This fish, good for your heart. This soup, cancels out the effects of alcohol. This fruit, good for your blood. Raspberry wine... good for making you piss and break the urinal"
I'm completely stuffed, which is impressive, although after 9 courses, you'd expect to walk away full... - they left some sushi rolls on the table pointed at me, which was cue for "You have to eat this or the chef will get offended"... I got a round of applause when I finished it, quickly followed by rounds of laughter as I realised that the joke was on me. Nonetheless, training for the last 28+ years with my Jewish grandmother on Friday nights has come in handy once again.
To my knowledge, I haven't eaten dog yet, but am looking forward to it...
To be honest, after a few days in Seoul, my guts are in trouble and that's really saying something. I survived anal bullemia in South America, I survived battery acid burritos in Mexico, I survived the worst bout of food poisoning ever from a Pakistani guy in Cambodia and the second worst bout of food poisoning during the marriage proposal paella incident in Spain, but I may have finally met my match in Seoul.
Dinner last night consisted of Oysters, chili and beer. They segment their restaurants here by animal. Lamb, cow (dinner tonight was cow heart, stomach and intestines), octopus, prawn and oyster.
Dinner the night before consisted of oyster chili salad and a couple of Cass beers (or Ass beers as we like to call them.) Interestingly, their slogan is Cass... the sound of vitality, although I can't understand how a beer has a sound and I've been putting my ear to the bottle for hours now. It sounds like the ocean and I guess the ocean sounds like vitality.)
In summary, there are finger marks on the porcelain and I am Johnny Cash reincarnate.
The work/work balance
Work is interesting. I'm busy pretending, sorry, presenting all day and the Koreans sit there and nod. You know how everywhere else in the world, you can pause and usually someone will fill in the silence? Well, in Korea, that someone is me, because g-d knows if I was waiting for one of the locals to actually talk... um... they wouldn't...
I thought I actually did business today, but then I realised I didn't. Meeting culture here is incredible. It becomes an exercise to see how many individuals you can pile into one room who have no ability or permission to contribute in any way, shape or form to the actual meeting. Chairs line the perimeter of the room and are full of doting, silent note-takers. Meanwhile, a seat at the table means that an opinion is mandatory. Of course, none of the opinions are ever offered in English, meaning that my participation in a meeting is to ask a question, wait 15 minutes as the 12 people around the table debate in Korean and the 20 people sitting against the wall studiously take notes, finally to get back a response:
"No."
Business in Seoul is a 24 hour a day proposition, not including the fact that people sit in the office all hours of the night. Business is actually what happens in the hours that occur after 8pm and before 6:30am. 17 year old bottles of vintage scotch, served by girls of the same vintage, with elegant fruit platters accompanying any deal you want to make.
The culture
I've got to give it to the Koreans - they know what they want. They want what we want. And if what we want changes, then they'll want that instead. To understand how Korea works, you need to understand how Japan works. Post World War II, the Japanese economy grew incredibly due to their ability to copy things - mostly things that were made in America. Korea figured out that copying was the way to go, so they copied the entire Japanese model and learnt how to copy better than anyone could copy.
They may not even like it or know what it is, what it does or what it's meant to do. Scotch, clothes, perfume, whatever - it may taste, look or smell like ass, but if it's a brand and it's the "best", they want it.
The street life
I've now seen everything. Racing Model Billiards on TV, wedged in between 4 golf channels. Out of a total of 20. There's a massage parlour here with the Ferrari logo, one for Bentley and another one that claims to specialise in school girls.
People exercise weirdly here. They walk like my mum (as in, with 2 legs oscillating and generally one in front of the other in fairly quick rotation), but imagine my mum with a designer surgeon's mouthcap and walking backwards and you're starting to get the idea. I saw a guy barefoot crawling through a park for exercise. The hotel I'm staying in has a little park (10 metres by 10 metres) outside and Asian businessmen walk laps for exercise.
The night life
A travel blog to Korea wouldn't be complete without mention of Karaoke - the national pasttime, performed in private rooms with people who take themselves it as seriously as the Indians take the cricket. Which is alarming, especially considering there's no Barnsey here... what am I meant to sing?
The national drink is Soju, which tastes kind of like liquid ass, only not as strong. Soju must be poured by someone else at all times (which means you have no opportunity to regulate / restrict your intake) and
Our client is HEAVILY connected - the kind of guy who wears a dark suit and has a massive posse. When he coughs, 75 people get assassinated, when he has a cold, whole villages get wiped off the map.
He took us to a nightclub tonight where he knew the owner... it was its opening night, so of course, Brand New Heavies were playing for about 200 people. We, of course, were in the VIP balcony section... which of course was not good enough for our hosts, who took us into the lounge VIP section within the VIP section, where we got to rub elbows with the Bland New Heavies
Then they took us to a sports massage bar. Who am I kidding... it was a brothel. We got driven there in the black car and dumped off and were forced into dressing gowns. How the fark are you meant to handle that situation? You KNOW there's cameras recording...
Anyways, so after I f*cked her... hmm... I knew I was going to push the boundary in a travel email one day, and there it is. Is that what it looks like? I was expecting something more...
Ok, I'm sloshed and off to sleep... more again soon...
You know you're in Asia when the name of the suburb you need to remember is called Gangnam-gu, but nowhere in the pronunciation does the letter 'G' take effect.
You know you're in Asia when the breakfast buffet involves eggs being cooked with chopsticks, with a side of cabbage and seaweed
My first impressions of Seoul are of a massive, modern Asian city nestled amongst some beautiful mountains. Seoul somehow blends tradition with modernity, with the contrast of ancient Buddhist temples visible next to towering skyscrapers, nestled amongst bustling local markets. All in all, an incredibly cosmopolitan city with better than expected coffee and every food you could imagine.
The food...
Let's just say dinner was still moving when it went down. I hate to think what dinner cost, especially when our hosts kept saying things like "Abalone... very expensive..." Also, everything is medicinal in some way... "This fish, good for your heart. This soup, cancels out the effects of alcohol. This fruit, good for your blood. Raspberry wine... good for making you piss and break the urinal"
I'm completely stuffed, which is impressive, although after 9 courses, you'd expect to walk away full... - they left some sushi rolls on the table pointed at me, which was cue for "You have to eat this or the chef will get offended"... I got a round of applause when I finished it, quickly followed by rounds of laughter as I realised that the joke was on me. Nonetheless, training for the last 28+ years with my Jewish grandmother on Friday nights has come in handy once again.
To my knowledge, I haven't eaten dog yet, but am looking forward to it...
To be honest, after a few days in Seoul, my guts are in trouble and that's really saying something. I survived anal bullemia in South America, I survived battery acid burritos in Mexico, I survived the worst bout of food poisoning ever from a Pakistani guy in Cambodia and the second worst bout of food poisoning during the marriage proposal paella incident in Spain, but I may have finally met my match in Seoul.
Dinner last night consisted of Oysters, chili and beer. They segment their restaurants here by animal. Lamb, cow (dinner tonight was cow heart, stomach and intestines), octopus, prawn and oyster.
Dinner the night before consisted of oyster chili salad and a couple of Cass beers (or Ass beers as we like to call them.) Interestingly, their slogan is Cass... the sound of vitality, although I can't understand how a beer has a sound and I've been putting my ear to the bottle for hours now. It sounds like the ocean and I guess the ocean sounds like vitality.)
In summary, there are finger marks on the porcelain and I am Johnny Cash reincarnate.
The work/work balance
Work is interesting. I'm busy pretending, sorry, presenting all day and the Koreans sit there and nod. You know how everywhere else in the world, you can pause and usually someone will fill in the silence? Well, in Korea, that someone is me, because g-d knows if I was waiting for one of the locals to actually talk... um... they wouldn't...
I thought I actually did business today, but then I realised I didn't. Meeting culture here is incredible. It becomes an exercise to see how many individuals you can pile into one room who have no ability or permission to contribute in any way, shape or form to the actual meeting. Chairs line the perimeter of the room and are full of doting, silent note-takers. Meanwhile, a seat at the table means that an opinion is mandatory. Of course, none of the opinions are ever offered in English, meaning that my participation in a meeting is to ask a question, wait 15 minutes as the 12 people around the table debate in Korean and the 20 people sitting against the wall studiously take notes, finally to get back a response:
"No."
Business in Seoul is a 24 hour a day proposition, not including the fact that people sit in the office all hours of the night. Business is actually what happens in the hours that occur after 8pm and before 6:30am. 17 year old bottles of vintage scotch, served by girls of the same vintage, with elegant fruit platters accompanying any deal you want to make.
The culture
I've got to give it to the Koreans - they know what they want. They want what we want. And if what we want changes, then they'll want that instead. To understand how Korea works, you need to understand how Japan works. Post World War II, the Japanese economy grew incredibly due to their ability to copy things - mostly things that were made in America. Korea figured out that copying was the way to go, so they copied the entire Japanese model and learnt how to copy better than anyone could copy.
They may not even like it or know what it is, what it does or what it's meant to do. Scotch, clothes, perfume, whatever - it may taste, look or smell like ass, but if it's a brand and it's the "best", they want it.
The street life
I've now seen everything. Racing Model Billiards on TV, wedged in between 4 golf channels. Out of a total of 20. There's a massage parlour here with the Ferrari logo, one for Bentley and another one that claims to specialise in school girls.
People exercise weirdly here. They walk like my mum (as in, with 2 legs oscillating and generally one in front of the other in fairly quick rotation), but imagine my mum with a designer surgeon's mouthcap and walking backwards and you're starting to get the idea. I saw a guy barefoot crawling through a park for exercise. The hotel I'm staying in has a little park (10 metres by 10 metres) outside and Asian businessmen walk laps for exercise.
The night life
A travel blog to Korea wouldn't be complete without mention of Karaoke - the national pasttime, performed in private rooms with people who take themselves it as seriously as the Indians take the cricket. Which is alarming, especially considering there's no Barnsey here... what am I meant to sing?
The national drink is Soju, which tastes kind of like liquid ass, only not as strong. Soju must be poured by someone else at all times (which means you have no opportunity to regulate / restrict your intake) and
Our client is HEAVILY connected - the kind of guy who wears a dark suit and has a massive posse. When he coughs, 75 people get assassinated, when he has a cold, whole villages get wiped off the map.
He took us to a nightclub tonight where he knew the owner... it was its opening night, so of course, Brand New Heavies were playing for about 200 people. We, of course, were in the VIP balcony section... which of course was not good enough for our hosts, who took us into the lounge VIP section within the VIP section, where we got to rub elbows with the Bland New Heavies
Then they took us to a sports massage bar. Who am I kidding... it was a brothel. We got driven there in the black car and dumped off and were forced into dressing gowns. How the fark are you meant to handle that situation? You KNOW there's cameras recording...
Anyways, so after I f*cked her... hmm... I knew I was going to push the boundary in a travel email one day, and there it is. Is that what it looks like? I was expecting something more...
Ok, I'm sloshed and off to sleep... more again soon...
posted by The Groin at 3:18 pm
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