An Austin Translation IV

Austin native Rebecca Rosenberg has been living in South Korea teaching English, and she wants to share her experiences abroad with all of Austin. Austinist believes that we could all use some Korean culture.

South Korea is what I like to call “an everlasting gobstopper laced with LSD.” These people constantly run around in a delicate state of homogenous insanity, which never ceases to amaze me. So, lest I someday forget all the weird and wonderful idiosyncrasies that make this place so amusing, I have compiled a list of a few of the best. I feel like I have aged five years just from all the sensory stimulation of the last 11 months. Here are some…..

Things you won’t find in Austin:

1. A swimming pool that REQUIRES all women to wear a swim cap (bad), AND sells beer (good).

2. Young, pretty girls dancing in skimpy outfits to celebrate the opening of a new business. Bedding store, kitchen supply store, or nightclub, it makes no difference. Behind them is either an arc of balloons or a flower display fit for a wedding. The music is loud. SO loud. But don’t you dare try to talk to your friend on the subway. That is a PUBlic place and therefore you must be quiet, buddy! And by the way, at least a third of these places will close within two years because they will finally realize there are….

3. Three Korean fast food joints/karaoke bars/pharmacies within a ten-yard radius of each other. (In Austin it would be taco joints…ahaaaaaaah my mouth is watering!).

4. Side-of-the-road plastic bag pig intestines. Though I haven’t tried this (don’t know whether it’s my Jewish roots or just the sight of it that’s stopping me) pig innards seem to be a pretty popular anytime snack. They just cut ‘em, bag ‘em, and send you on your way! The hippies in Austin would never be having that sh*t.

5. A swarm, I mean an absolute SWARM of school kids in uniforms with bowl haircuts, skate shoes, and super stylie glasses coming out of the school building at ten pm on a Saturday.

6. A drink cart in the park! Need I say more? Yes? Oh, well they sell alcoHOLic drinks. These ‘aint no slushies, people.

7. A t-shirt reading:

        

       THE BUBBLE GUM KILLERS

                GUB

      TOO MUCH JUNKIE BUSINESS

      RNAINC. THE ALTEI TOMATIV

This is coming directly off the shirt, I swear. I have accumulated an inordinate amount of five-dollar t-shirts just because of text like this.

8. A free side of dried squid with your beer.

9. Pizza with corn, sweet potato and a side of sweet pickles.

10. A weekend family outing to the sauna. In these ubiquitous bathhouses, you may share a hot tub with naked moms and daughters, grandpas and grandsons, or complete strangers, scrubbing the living crap out of each other’s backs and sharing a communal toothbrush, all to the soothing background blare of the big-screen TV. An entire weekend of fun for 6 dollars a person. (The ones with sleeping rooms do come in quite handy when you need a cheap place to pass out on a Saturday night.)

11. Women using the belt-shaker machines from the 80’s. They really think they are doing a world of good with these things. They even try to simulate the effect by hitting themselves with a fisted hand whenever they have a spare moment, on the bus, in line at the grocery store, etc.

12. Whitening cream!!!!!!! Oh no, we sun loving Austinites want to keep our skin somewhere within the range of healthy golden and fakenbake orange. Here, all you gotta do is buy some q-tips and you get a year supply of the stuff for free.

13. A little thing we Caucasians here in Korea have deemed “the Darth Vader Visor.” Exactly what it sounds like, these dark sun visors cover one’s whole face and eliminate the possibility of any sun creeping onto your skin on those oppressively hot summer days. No one wants to look like a farm hand. In keeping with this idea is the presence of fully clothed Koreans at the beach on a perfectly good swimming day. Women, however, attempting to walk on the beach in high heels, I don’t know where that one comes from. NO idea.

14. Perhaps someone in a grocery store, or a guy careening down the street driving a truckload of garlic (either, seriously), with a microphone screaming at you in public. Through the microphone you hear a marble-mouthed (exclusive translation by author) “Come on, buy this garlic! It’s dried out and brown but it’s cheap! This meat, look at this meat, it’s red and it’s dead and it’s cheap. Buy this meeeeeeaaaaat!”

15. A venue calling itself “Live Music Bar” and featuring a 40-year-old dude with a guitar, a Hawaiian shirt, and a laptop. Please tell me it hasn’t come to this.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By truecraig in Other on July 13, 2007 10:38 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

truecraig

Dear 'guest' troll,

Kudos on the use of the word "radical". Beyond that: you've got to be kidding me.

guest

I agree that the desire for fair skin is one reason visors are popular. Though out of the times I've visited family in the Seoul metro (Bundang), I never noticed sunglasses as being "hugely popular." It always seemed that the visors far outnumbered sunglasses.

Scooby, I didn't realize Kim Jong-il's sunglasses are typical and may I ask when South Koreans began following his fashion advice? Glasses are popular with swarms of school kids possibly because unlike many sunglasses, glasses tend to have leg extensions that enable it to fit easier on the nose.

Truecraig, I really don't think the comment on "SMALLER nose bridges" fits in the urban legend category of "sideways vagina." It seems radical to assume for the sake of political correctness that all ethnicities have the same characteristics. It's also very Western to assume that having a smaller nose bridge is something negative.

truecraig

Scooby, it's probably best assumed that the "no nose bridge" comment is a troll. At the very least it is odd with some of that "sideways vagina" igno-ridiculousness.

My money's on TROLL, though.

Scooby

Guest 1:06

Having a "smaller nose bridge" doesn't seem to stop KJI from wearing the most hilarious eyeglasses & sunglasses. Do a Google Image Search for "Kim Jong Il sunglasses".

It also doesn't seem to discourage "SWARM[s] of school kids in uniforms with bowl haircuts, skate shoes, and super stylie glasses" (item#5).

Got any other unfounded "theories" you want to just make up?

kenneth1

Instead of visors, I recall Seoul college girls prefer the standard baseball cap (it makes no difference what team) always with a ponytail tumbling out behind.

guest

I lived in Korea for almost 5 years - sunglasses (especially expensive name brand ones) are hugely popular with Seoulites of all ages and seem to fit them just fine. Korean women, like so many women in Asian countries, are somewhat obsessive about keeping their skin as pale as possible (hence, Rebecca's mention of the ubiquitous whitening skin fluid) - therefore, a lot of them wear wide, dark visors to avoid tanning - especially when they're going hiking, on picnics, to the beach, etc - they carry parasols or umbrellas, way more than Americans do, too.