As we only have twenty-one more days left to go, and have cleaned
the bottom of the sink for the thousandth time, I want to write a blog about
some of my pet peeves about being here.
In no particular order:
-Cleaning the sink. Now, we clean the sink every day after
doing the dishes and empty out the two-inch deep food trap, just like normal
people. But what isn’t normal, is the three-inch deep dirty water reservoir
underneath the food trap. I have no idea what the purpose of this thing is,
maybe it is a way of trying to break down grease or something. There is a pipe
that sticks up out of it which is corroded in pink slime and nothing will get
at that, this slime loves to creep up into the water reservoir while I’m at
work and stink the place up. WHY?
-These bathrooms. Korean bathrooms are wrapped in plastic
and tile, the idea is that they can be hosed down instead of scrubbed. This
means that there is a drain placed somewhere outside of the shower. Smart idea,
even if the one hose (the shower head) isn’t long enough to reach the entire
bathroom. It means, that the shower drain isn’t banked well and most of your
shower water goes all over the bathroom floor. Also, it means that when you use
a public bathroom after cleaning, you have to wade through inches deep water
and hover on a dripping wet toilet, which isn’t too clean… yuck!
-Korean makeup (Won’t even go into the animal product
testing). It is becoming widely touted
as the best makeup. Maybe they send the good stuff abroad, but this stuff you
get here is just a step up from the stuff we used as kids. It doesn’t last too
long and smears easily. This means that my co-workers come to work with an
obvious foundation line, and are constantly reapplying the darn stuff. My
students are continually applying tint, a watery dye that gets all over their
hands and teeth—making them look like old ladies. We won’t even go into how terrible the nail
polish is, at least the “nail remover” works.
-Appliances. I’ve mentioned this before, but it is worth
mentioning again. They are so noisy! The dishwasher lets out this high-pitched
whistle for an hour of its two hour cycle (we’ve stopped using it), and acts
like an ancient machine, having to prewash the dishes before putting them into
the dishwasher. The washer isn’t much better. Also the fridge has this awesome “The door is
open,” high-pitched wail, but it only comes on as I’m cleaning the fridge, not
when the door has accidently been left ajar.
-Packaging. Korea makes it mandatory to recycle. I’ll not
complain about that. But why do they allow manufacturers to make packaging that
is non-recyclable? I have to pay a lot of money for these tiny garbage bags, I
don’t want to have it filled with non-necessary packaging. Non-recyclable
plastic bags house anything bought in pairs, many takeout containers are
non-recyclable (luckily there are still restaurants that will bring you actual
dishes to return).
-My paycheck. Ok, so it isn’t much different than the US in
this case, but still irritating. Health care has gone up, and I get quite a
chunk of my pay taken out each month, yet I still have to pay nearly $100 for a
checkup and medicine. I’m always dubious about these checkups—wait for an hour
in the waiting room, and spend less than five minutes with the doctor who
sticks strange things into your body and shoves you out of the room without a
so much as a how do you do.
-Childrearing. Even though Koreans are so easily
embarrassed, they have this no discipline policy with their children. Sure, at
home they’ll beat them senseless (if our upstairs neighbor is any indication or
the bruises on some of my students), but in public the children are nightmares.
It goes beyond the “give me” temper tantrums –these kids deliberately pull
items off the shelf, run around your tables, knocking food over, and run out in
front of cars. I’ve seen a kid swing a racket at another kid and smack him in
the face—the mother didn’t even bat an eye.
Public parenting policy is just to ignore the kid. Or better yet, if you
are playing badminton, just bring the annoying four year old into the gym, put
him on a treadmill and leave him unattended. Somehow the kid actually survived
and didn’t break anything.
-Supermarkets. Most of them are Mom and Pop stores and carry
the exact, same thing. However, you never know how much anything is. There are
no prices anywhere and prices change drastically every time you buy it. One
day, juice will be one dollar, next the same juice will be five. Also, every
supermarket overcharges on produce, so expensive and most of it is covered in
mold!
-Feminine products. What is with selling a package of four
tampons for $12!?! I feel like this is early 2000s Russia. Luckily, I can go to
Costco and get good old American brands for less. Located in the baking isle of
the markets, you can choose from seventy thousand different kinds and scents
(except for unscented) types of sanitary napkins. There will always been a
salesperson to help you through the traumatic ordeal that is choosing the pads.
I’d rather have someone help me through the horror of no one being able to wrap
a used pad and dispose of it properly.
-Selfies. I know they are incredibly popular everywhere, but
please tell me they aren’t to the extent of Korea! My students must take a
selfie every five minutes (that is not an exaggeration). It is like
Whack-a-Mole trying to get these kids to keep their phones in their bags for a
lesson.
Please don’t feel sorry for me, this is just so you can be
in Korea with me.
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