Relationships and other randomness

There are mirrors everywhere here. It’s kind of amazing actually where all they shove these. Goes along with the Korean woman’s obsession with their looks (not that the US is any better really but I feel that in the US there is a broader acceptance of what is attractive, here it seems very narrowly defined). Plastic surgery and weight loss are huge topics here. In fact two of the three women in my lab have talked about starting new diets (the Special K plan, which is exactly what you think it is-eating special K cereal, was attempted by two of by labmates on seperate occasions). But at least they were reasonable about it (they both abandoned it pretty quickly). Honestly I don’t think that either of them needs to lose weight, I think it is more of an issue of finding time to work out and get toned rather than eating less or more healthily. (Which Euna at least seems to be focusing on).

Polo shirts are very popular here and guys often pop the collar. They are also popular as couple shirts…that strange phenomenon where a boyfriend and girlfriend wear the exact same shirts on purpose.

Which brings us to couples in general. Let me just say that I would hate to be living here and be single. It’s bad enough to be visiting shortly while being single as I am currently doing, but to have to deal with it all the time…I would go crazy. There are sort of two reasons why it would be bad. First, couples here are very into PDA. It never goes so far as kissing, but you always see couples cuddling on the train (fine) or being very cutesy with each other (which I admit I find more annoying). Example of the latter: A guy had his arm around his girlfriend who was trying to read a book. He kept interrupting her by pressing two of his fingers against her lips which he would then press against his own. Indirect kiss! So overly cute and annoying, particularly because she was trying to do something else, and this couple was in their 20s certainly (I could tolerate it more if they were young teenagers I think). You see this sort of thing alot. Even older couples partake in the overly cutesy behavior.

Second, and this is really the bigger problem, there is a ton of pressure to be part of a couple (particularly on women). Everyone obsesses over it here to the point that it is extremely annoying. One of the guys in my program lives next to me and I have gone out to dinner and lunch with him and his german labmate (who also lives on my floor) a couple of times. I mentioned this to the women in my lab and they proceeded to ask multiple times if anything was going on between us. Which clearly there wasn’t. And when I did mention in passing that I had met this Japanese guy that I thought was kind of cute, well they just went crazy (I should have known better than to say that to this group of people but I wasn’t thinking). I kid you not that the conversation quickly turned to marriage. Of course they were joking, but only partly. It was clear that they were half serious. I am almost 30 of course, and once you cross that age, the pressure to get married really kicks up. Sung-jin in my lab is at that stage and I think it’s unbearable how often others bring up her single status. That is one aspect of the culture I will be glad to escape when I leave.