New Norm V

Sometimes living in a different country you forget that some of the very odd and different things around you are in fact...odd and different, they instead become a 'new norm' of sorts. So here are a few things that when I first came to Korea seemed odd but now are overlooked.


.being treated differently because we are foreigners. Now, this isn't always a bad thing and I really can't complain about ever being treated badly because we're foreigners. And every once in awhile, we'll get a special treat only available to us. Like at a local Italian restaurant, we get free drinks on certain nights with the purchase of a meal. How this is allowed and the restaurant doesn't get in trouble for being discriminatory...I have no idea but you won't hear me complain about it. Pass the wine please. 

.there are...ahem...different snack options at the local convenience stores. I don't know about you but when I'm hungry and we stop for food, I'll choose the chips over the dried variety of squid any day.

.being called beautiful and handsome by random strangers while walking down the street. I've never been complimented so much by complete strangers. Not that I'm complaining, it's actually quite nice. And I think the US could take notes on being so complimentary to people you just meet. There's nothing wrong in complimenting someone you don't know on the way they're dressed, the way their hair is done or something of the sort. But it kind of shocks you when you walk down the street and a group of middle school girls walks by and tells you and your husband you're good looking. Or you meet a students wife for the first time and the first thing she tells you is that you're beautiful. 

.Tour buses. Tours are so popular in Korea! The roads are always full of tour buses going to every place in Korea imaginable. You can often find them parked on the side of the road, in parking lots, or in this case, under a bridge with all the passengers sitting outside of it eating lunch.

.Things being blurred out on television. That's right guys. If there's a knife...it's blurred out. If there's a cigarette...it's blurred out. If there's a gruesome wound on someone...you got it. It's blurred out. I'm not sure what their thought process on this was, if they thought that we wouldn't be able to figure it out or it it would be less violent to only see the blood dripping from the knife but not the knife itself. But I will say this, it adds a sometimes needed comic relief in the middle of an intense scene in a scary movie.

Have you ever stepped back and realized some of the very 'bizarre' things about the culture you live in? 

For more installments of this series, check these out:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV