Korean People are nice

In the last week here I have had about 10 women tell me how handsome I am. This, because I'm 66 and not 20 or 30 I find kind of embarrassing to tell you the truth, especially now I am a grandfather.

It sort of reminds me of how my mother with Senile dementia would say things in her rest home to the nurses. "Oh, you should go out with my son, he loves women." So, I found that embarrassing about 10 years ago when she was still alive and knew who I was too. However, I mostly enjoyed people telling me this from about age 16 or 18 to about 30 or 35. But, after that I found it sort of ridiculous when I had children 10 to 20 years of age. Now, my oldest children are 40 to 43.

However, the best way for me to describe my experience so far is that people are very polite (much more than in the U.S.) but in a completely different way. For example, shaking hands is difficult for many of them because you are encroaching on their personal space. Bowing to them from the hips likely would be best, especially if you don't know them well or have a dear friend that is there friend.

Also, anyone who can speak English at all wants to speak English to you and to show off for their friends. When I was at the Emperor's palace in Seoul a few days ago for Hongol Day (the emperor created the Hongol characters for the Korean language around 1500 or 1600) and is a national hero because of doing this. He has not only his palace near the American Embassy but also a statue of him nearby too larger than life in I believe bronze up high on a pedestal.

Anyway, this boy likely about 13 to 15 or so with his classmates walked up to me and I honored him by listening to me and talking to him like he wanted to. When he asked me where I was from I said, "San Francisco" and he was excited at this and told me in English how much he wanted to speak with me and to go there too. His 5 or 10 classmate friends all watched excitedly too. When we finally had finished talking about 5 minutes later I said to them all "Have a nice day" and shook the young man's hand and they all said back to me, "Have a nice day" all 10 of them.

So, the best way I can describe Koreans would be very polite (in an unexpected way) but also very sort of unexpected and honest and wild in an unexpected way too. So, I found myself surprised almost every day when I least expected it when meeting people or shopping or traveling. And the other thing seems to be that often happens is that Korean women often seem to have fantasies about European looking men. So, this sort of surprised me some too. However, like I said, I have been married for 20 years to the same woman and faithful to her that long too.  So, it mostly is amazing to see all the reactions people have when a western man 6 foot 5 inches tall walks by in his late 60s. Some people are amazed and some people are just scared. I had the same reaction in India and Nepal and to a lesser degree also in Thailand and Japan when I was there in 1985 and 1986.

However, it has been about 30 years since I was in the Asian region since then, unless you consider Hawaii Asian. To me, Hawaii, especially Maui I consider to be one of my homes now. Almost every year now I go at some point with my wife and one or more of my grown children. Now, I have a grandson to take there too and to Disneyland as well when he gets to be about 2 years old or so.

The thing you have to know is all the prudishness we have from the Pilgrims in the U.S. doesn't exist here. Another thing that doesn't exist here is "Spiritual but not religious" which is likely how I and at least 20% to 30% of Americans classify themselves. In other words we would rather live our spiritual beliefs 24 hours a day 7 days a week rather than go to church on Sunday and be hypocrites the rest of the week.

But, like I said, "Spiritual but not religious" is not a way people classify themselves here. So, people are either Christian (there are a lot of Korean Christians) or they are Buddhists primarily. Or they don't believe in anything at all.

These appear to be the 3 classifications of people here in South Korea mostly. I suppose there are minority religions of all kinds here I just haven't seen them yet.

My friend's wife had an Amway soap dispenser in her sink and I asked her if she was an Amway distributor. She said no but I had heard that Amway is really big in South Korea among Koreans.

So, though I'm sort of deep in culture shock (from all the details that are different here) I sort of am coming to love the people here too, and adopt them as one of my families here on earth.

However, just remember, going back to the U.S. is usually the worst shock of all if you are an American. There is the old saying, "You can't go home again."

The reason this is true is world travel inevitably changes us all and makes us more international every moment we are traveling and even when we go home we really never see ourselves, our homes or anything completely the same ever again. And maybe becoming more a Citizen of the World is a good thing?