1. General rudeness: People not moving to one side when on the sidewalk and they see you/ bumping into me all the time.
2. Gawking children: I cried this week in church and tried to get away to a bathroom. Kids kept knocking on the door and then when they realized I was a foreigner they called in more children. When I left to get away from them they followed and kept looking at me from around the corner.
3. Students not taking their jackets off when they are hot: I do not care if their jacket is the symbol of their status; if you are hot you take off your out layers, you DO NOT ask for the air conditioner to be turned on or open the window to the freezing outdoors letting out all the expensive heat out.
4. Korean Myths: Fan death is a particular favorite of mine, but I am more closely bothered by the belief that if they don't open up the windows in the winter they will get sick from the 'dirty' inside air. Now I understand the inside air is not the best, but neither is the polluted outside air and when given the choice I prefer not to freeze. And they wonder why everyone stays sick all winter.
5. Sales people: In America, as well as many other countries, we have this thing called 'personal space'. Well the Korean belief is that you need help all the time. So whenever you enter a small store you have a window of about a minute before an employ invades your space to speak Korean you don't know and hold up items showing you different aspects. Stephen often does a voice over as they show us an item,"This is a purple bag, as you can see there are pockets, the zipper unzips and this is the shoulder strap which is useful to carry the bag." I wish someone would tell them the best way to sell me something is not to come near me.
6. Drivers: Taxi drivers, bus drivers, scooter drivers, and the occasional regular idiot. There are no stop signs or traffic cops and therefore everyone is agresseive. Buses want to kill you, taxis honk at you whenever you are walking and drive in multiple lanes at a time, and scooters do all kinds of scary weaving in and out of traffic. And they all run red lights. I consider buses the most terrifying when I am crossing a street.
7. Buses: Aside from the fact that Buses try to kill me when I am walking, I also hate using them because I never know the name of the stop I am going to. Therefore I depend on maps (which are normally around) to figure out what bus goes where. Unfortunately around 4 times I have gotten on the wrong bus. VERY frustrating to say the least.
8. Crazy people on the subway: Why is it every time I get on the subway there is someone mumbling/yelling/selling things/handing out papers of something to recite? This week it was a man who seemed drunk yelling at everyone. I felt very uncomfortable and I believe the rest of the car felt the same from the looks on their faces.
9. Not having time for dinner: I have two days a week now where I have 5 classes in a row. 3-8 and only have around 7 minutes between each one. That isn't even enough time to eat ramen... I also hate eating ramen for dinner.
10. Students in classes they shouldn't be in: Hagwons (the private after school academies) don't say no. So when a student's mother asks for them to be in a class at 5 but they are 3 levels below the lowest level class at 5, they put them in the lowest level anyway. I was just at the point where all my classes were relatively at the right level....I should have known it was too good to last, my kids are all over the place now.
I think I could write a 'Ten things I hate about bad Korean students' but that might be too mean.
I hope you enjoyed my Korea venting. And no worries, soon I will do an uplifting "10 things I love about Korea."
