This post is dedicated to the things I am learning from Koreans who I am making friends with.
Regular Customers get pork fat. I have several meals a week at a Korean restaurant near my apartment. Tonight, my dish, a kimchi stew, had in it nice thick chunks of pork fat in addition to the usual beef and tofu. I win.
Halle Berry is hot everywhere. A Korean guy said to me "I would sell my father's house if Halle Berry wanted me to." This also suggests something about Korean men and their fathers' houses.
Koreans are not good at pool. Despite their professional looking grips on the cue and confident strides around the table, it seems that the locals are incapable of beating me, a terrible pool player. I win again.
Holding hands is ok, as long as you're buying drinks. There is a bar I've been to a few times where the bartender, a pleasant girl, holds my hand while I drink. I tried to say something smooth when I was leaving and she pretended she didn't understand me anymore.
T-Shirts do not have to make any goddamn sense. Refer to previous posts. Or consider this recent gem: A white t-shirt that read "Madonna Kylie Bjork Beyonce Fergie" Now, I suppose that yes, these women all perform music in the pop/rock idiom but Jesus, grouping Bjork with these others is like listing Stephanie Moyer, JK Rowling, Beverly Cleary, and Cormac McCarthy. Remember the Sesame Street bit? "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not quite the same..."
Korean women do not like Korean men. Ok, given how many Korean couples I see walking around, this is maybe not entirely true, but it was stated exactly like this to me by a couple of Korean dudes. Later, another guy said to me "Well, not exactly, it's just that Korean women like Korean guys for marrying. Only."
You don't have to have to understand the film (or have read the book) No Country for Old Men to think it is awesome. Refer to the picture above, taken inside a "clubby bar" called Slang.
This wisdom comes from your cross-culture sociologist, me. I win.
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