The audio track in Korea is nonstop. In my apartment, I wake up to a neighbor's alarm clock that sounds like someone improvising a solo on an army bugle. That is, if I wasn't woken up earlier by college students coming home drunk at 5 in the morning. Senior citizens go hiking in the mountains with miniature speakers blasting favorite hits from their high school days. Downtown, every store that has recently opened or is having a sale (which is most of them) blasts pop music 6 feet away from the next store blasting different pop music. In the evening, trucks go around my neighborhood with loudspeakers. One of them sells produce; I can tell because I hear the word "banana" at intervals. The other ones are a mystery to me, but surely convey meaning to those in the know.
I was inspired to write this post when, getting ready for bed at a quarter to eleven, I heard faintly through my window the electronic strains of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Other blogs and favorite artists
"The climate of the Korean Peninsula gives rise to rich and diverse flora...The south is home to ginko trees and a variety of camellias, heather, azaleas, and aralias."
--Seoul National University website
--Seoul National University website
What this blog is and is not
Every day, I deal with culture shock in everything from stares on the street to signs I can't read to judgments of my behavior and character. Each day I do my best to understand the culture of my new home and to conform to it cheerfully. This blog is my safe space, a place where I can write about my feelings and reactions honestly. It is a tool to keep myself sane as much as it is a means of keeping in touch with those I love.
This blog is not an objective account of Korean culture. It is not a collection of my judgments of Korea or Koreans, nor is it a place for others to pass judgment on my subjective experiences. If you choose to comment, please bear this in mind.
This blog is not an objective account of Korean culture. It is not a collection of my judgments of Korea or Koreans, nor is it a place for others to pass judgment on my subjective experiences. If you choose to comment, please bear this in mind.
6 comments:
Omigoodness! That is so curious! Especially hiking with speakers. I wonder why it bothers me so much, perhaps I need to be weaned off a tragic addiction to silence.
Power outages must be memorable events with the sudden onset of suffocating heavy-velvet silence.
...except for battery-operated devices... so much for power outages.
LOL. The holidays get earlier and earlier every year don't they?
How common is the humble Ipod?
Interesting. It was similar in Mexico; each store blasting it's own music, plus the gas and water trucks broadcasting "gas, gas, gas" or "aqua, agua, agua". The gas truck was SOOO loud. But I love going to different stores for things instead of one big costco/winco/fred meyers, you know. When we were kids, we lived in Ontario, Canada. There my dad used to take us to an open-air market, where you could get fresh bread and chickens (killed on the spot for you :-). America lacks some neat stuff, don't you think, although more and more places are going back to open-air markets (like Portland's farmer's markets). Jen
The anonymous post is mine, by the way. I clipped anonymous by accident. Love the picture of you in front of the glass window, by the way. Jennifer
@Jen: Hey, thanks! I love that picture, too. It captures my feeling of "am I really here or not?" among a host of other feelings; "when you look at me, who do you really see?" "How does this culture reflect me?
How do I reflect this culture?" etc.
and yes, open air markets are intrinsically neat-o. It's like the things we are buying are part of the live, real world, not packaged on TV.
Post a Comment