Dawn's Blog

I am by no means an expert on cultural issues, nor the study of them. But I have learned a lot about Korean culture since I've been here, and I think I've found an underlying attitude behind some of their customs.

Koreans are very health-conscious. A lot of their food is really healthy, they like to buy organic food, and they really promote exercise. I can't say for sure that most of them actually do exercise, but they have lots of parks with exercise machines in them. I do see quite a few older people walking and using the machines in the morning.

Koreans are not safety-conscious. At least with their driving. Running red lights is totally acceptable, as long as you slow down first. Changing lanes erratically is ok too. Wearing seatbelts is definitely not cool here. I think one of my favorite things is their U-turn lanes. Maybe we have these in the US and I just never seen any, I don't know. Its kinda like a turn lane, only the arrow painted on the ground does a 180 instead of a 90 degree turn.

So what can we learn from these findings? Basically, I think Koreans would rather die in a quick blaze than die slowly from sickness and disease. And I can't really argue with that.