Rules Rule
Ever since I was a young lad, I have been pathologically anti-authority. I always question the establishment and think I am smarter than the people in charge. I think many Americans are the same way. We are brought up aware of the pitfalls of mindlessly following our leaders without using our own brains (see: Hilter, Adolph, "1984," by George Orwell, the Enron Corporation, the Iraq War, any song by Green Day, etc.)
Koreans do not think the same way. They love rules. The phrase "thinking out of the box" does not exist in this country. There aren't very many risks taken in this country. Every neighborhood looks the same. Every building looks the same. The insides of buildings look the same. I find it quite astonishing the minimal amount of diversity I encounter in a city of this size. In actuality, it is baffling.
People in this country need the rules tell them how to behave. There are little cultural guidelines on how to behave in almost every situation. I feel like everything in this country is all just pomp and circumstance. People don't always say what they feel - they generally say what they feel is the right thing to say.
As I walk the streets of Seoul, I am constantly surrounded by rule-followers.
The other day, as I was walking to work, I was crossing a crosswalk. This is a crosswalk I cross virtually every day. The little green man on the sign was beckoning me to cross the street, but as soon as I began to cross, a red man appeared on the sign as my green friend disapeared, warning me that the time to cross was over. I know this intersection well enough to know that there is about a 20-second buffer from the time when the crosswalk turns red to the time when the actual light turns red. I had plenty of time to cross the street without any real danger of being hit by a car, so I went ahead and began to cross anyway.
A girl was running across the street towards me as the light changed (people always run through crosswalks and up to crosswalks. God forbid getting caught in the street while the light is red. This is not 'Nam - there are rules!) The girl that was running screamed "Hey!" and grabbed me. She pointed at the little red man and looked at me like I was crazy.
There was a geniune look of dread on her face. She saw this foreign person who was about to commit suicide. No one in Korea has ever been daring enough to cross on a red. I could tell she thought I was stupid. Why else would I be in the street while the little red man looks down on me with shame? It was her duty to point me in the right direction - back to the side of the street from whence I came. She was doing her one good deed for the day; she was saving my life.
I said, "Thank you," and proceeded to cross the street. I think her first inclination was to call an ambulance to scrape my body off of the street. Then when I fully crossed the street with my body still intact, I think she wanted to call the police. How dare a foreigner come to Korea and break the rules.
The 60's never happened in Korea. Anti-establishment is a nonsensical term in this land and that is something that I have trouble dealing with over here. Fuck Authority...
Much Love from Seoul
Koreans do not think the same way. They love rules. The phrase "thinking out of the box" does not exist in this country. There aren't very many risks taken in this country. Every neighborhood looks the same. Every building looks the same. The insides of buildings look the same. I find it quite astonishing the minimal amount of diversity I encounter in a city of this size. In actuality, it is baffling.
People in this country need the rules tell them how to behave. There are little cultural guidelines on how to behave in almost every situation. I feel like everything in this country is all just pomp and circumstance. People don't always say what they feel - they generally say what they feel is the right thing to say.
As I walk the streets of Seoul, I am constantly surrounded by rule-followers.
The other day, as I was walking to work, I was crossing a crosswalk. This is a crosswalk I cross virtually every day. The little green man on the sign was beckoning me to cross the street, but as soon as I began to cross, a red man appeared on the sign as my green friend disapeared, warning me that the time to cross was over. I know this intersection well enough to know that there is about a 20-second buffer from the time when the crosswalk turns red to the time when the actual light turns red. I had plenty of time to cross the street without any real danger of being hit by a car, so I went ahead and began to cross anyway.
A girl was running across the street towards me as the light changed (people always run through crosswalks and up to crosswalks. God forbid getting caught in the street while the light is red. This is not 'Nam - there are rules!) The girl that was running screamed "Hey!" and grabbed me. She pointed at the little red man and looked at me like I was crazy.
There was a geniune look of dread on her face. She saw this foreign person who was about to commit suicide. No one in Korea has ever been daring enough to cross on a red. I could tell she thought I was stupid. Why else would I be in the street while the little red man looks down on me with shame? It was her duty to point me in the right direction - back to the side of the street from whence I came. She was doing her one good deed for the day; she was saving my life.
I said, "Thank you," and proceeded to cross the street. I think her first inclination was to call an ambulance to scrape my body off of the street. Then when I fully crossed the street with my body still intact, I think she wanted to call the police. How dare a foreigner come to Korea and break the rules.
The 60's never happened in Korea. Anti-establishment is a nonsensical term in this land and that is something that I have trouble dealing with over here. Fuck Authority...
Much Love from Seoul
posted by Kyle at 11:26 AM
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