Yesterday morning I was greeted at 9:45 by a Korean shouting and banging on my balcony window. I live on the fifth floor.
Before I could ask him how exactly he got up on my balcony, he opened my door and threw my sheets, which were hanging on the clothesline, into the middle of the floor. This, by the way, was another boxers Monday morning.
A few minutes later he started washing my windows. At least that solved the mystery of what he was doing on my balcony. He was on one of those cranes that takes him in a little box to each window. It did not solve the mystery, however, of why he was so rude, or why the maintenance people here have no concept of privacy. This apartment is my f–king castle guys! Don’t storm the castle! At least this time it was a man.
Last night we went out to eat at a ‘galbi’ restaurant for a friend’s 30th 23rd birthday. Galbi I believe just means that they cook it in front of you on a round pot. This particular place specializes in black pig pork belly, something Jeju is well-known for, but I had yet to try it. What happens is the pork is cooked in the middle and you have all your sauces and accessories, and when the pork is done, you put everything in a big leaf and then shove it in your mouth. It’s a lot of fun. The pork belly was extremely fatty but tasted delicious, probably due to the fact that I was lopping on sauce like nobody’s business and drinking Soju like everybody’s business.
I must have had more to drink then I wanted because later on in the night I impulsively ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. I also realized that there are basically three guy foreigners who regularly socialize in basically all of Seogwipo. This is truly the land of women.
Not the least of which is because I’m learning that the ‘ideal’ Korean man looks like a pretty girl. This girl was staring at this tiny cutout picture in my class and I grabbed it from her and was like ‘who is this lady?’
Her answer: “that is the sexiest man in Korea.”
And I replied: “No. This is a pretty girl.”
And this went on for about ten minutes until she finally allowed to keep the picture as a gift.
I really need to find and put this picture up on this blog. The boy is wearing a rainbow tye-dye sweater and on his sleeves he has these ruffles like he’s about to play a maracca. He’s sitting on this leopard skin blanket and pillow, and he has this expression on his face like ‘somebody give me a hug’ or ‘I need a puppy.’ I would not even say he looks ‘gay’, he just looks really feminine and passive.
Not that the Korean women get a free pass either. There’s this weird school-girl fetish thing going on, which was most apparent during the half-time show at the soccer game the other day, when a bunch of cheerleaders came out in quasi-school girl outfits and were doing this really risque dance. It seemed inappropriate, but then again, 30-year old women can pretend to be school girls when the ‘ideal Korean man’ is about as threatening as a poodle.
Here are some pictures of manly men for your entertainment:
Culture Time 