Koreans are nice.

Busan, Korea. 12:24am, December 5, 2011.

It’s hard to define exactly what it is that makes Korea such a fun place to live. There are a lot of things that go into it. The cities are well planned and have amazing public transportation. There’s hardly a street corner in Busan or Seoul that doesn’t have a bus stop on it, and in many parts of the city you are never more than a 5-10 minute walk away from the subway.

Korea is something like 70% mountains, and most of those, even in the city, have almost no development on them. From my apartment in downtown Busan, I can be hiking in the mountains within about 20 minutes. There are beautiful steams and creeks on the sides of all these mountains, and breathtakingly beautiful temples on almost all of them.

But I think what I really like about Korea is the people. I have had conversations about this, especially with Bianca. I don’t think Koreans are incredibly polite. It’s not unusual to have someone bump into you walking down the sidewalk. Oh, yeah, you can also be honked at by someone riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk. This strikes me as incredibly rude, and I don’t think I’m going to change my opinion on that anytime soon.

I once heard Bianca tell a Korean, “Korea is such a happy place!” and I agree somewhat, but I think that’s missing the point a little bit. Koreans are pretty stressed. Many are overworked. They are under a lot of pressure to succeed, and the pressure starts early. My middle school students are already worried about getting their test scores up so that they can get into a good university, so that they can get a good job with a big corporation, so that they can get married and support a family... It’s a lot of stress, and I think it gets in the way of really being happy.

Tonight, after spending much of the day sitting around the apartment watching TV shows, I ventured out into my neighborhood to get some bibimbap. One of the staple dishes of the Korean diet, bibimbap is basically rice, vegetables, a spicy paste, and a fried egg, served with side dishes of course. So I went to my usual place and ordered my usual bibimbap.

I noticed a strange voice coming from the table next to me. After observing for a minute, I figured out that the middle aged people sitting at the table, two men and a woman, were all deaf. They were communicating in what I assume is Korean sign language, and also making some of the vocal sounds that I have heard deaf people make before. They noticed me eating my meal, and we kind of nodded at each other and smiled.

Sometimes, when I am hungry, I can eat an enormous meal in less than five minutes. It’s a skill I developed by being a kid, and then perfected when I was in the Army. That’s pretty much what I did with my bibimbap tonight. I wolfed it down. One of my deaf neighbors pantomimed a bulging belly, and I laughed.

The woman offered me some of their gimbap (rice, “bap”, wrapped in seaweed, “gim”). So I got up, walked over to their table with my chopsticks, and ate a piece of their gimbap. Of course I had to exchange handshakes, fist-bumps, and pats on the back with them. I then sat back down at my table to finish my side dishes.

One of the men at the table communicated to the waitress that he wanted to order another plate of gimbap. I realized that he was ordering it for me! So the waitress made a plate of gimbap, put it in a to-go box, tied it in a bag and set it in my backpack.

I went back over to their table for another round of handshakes and fist-bumps. I wanted to say something in Korean to them, but I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to hear it. So I pulled out my flash cards and found the card that says "가는그렉이에요", or “My name is Greg” in Korean. Then I was out the door and back onto the street, with my plate of gimbap that was bought to me by some deaf Koreans who probably don't have as much money as me, and almost certainly have a harder life than mine.

I think I know what makes Korea such an amazing place: the people. They aren’t supernaturally happy, or polite, but they are the friendliest people I have ever met.

Everywhere I have been in this country, Koreans introduce themselves to me, want talk to me in broken English and compliment my very basic Korean, and treat me like family. They always want to buy a meal or a drink, and they always ask about my family. One day I was hiking in the mountains and stopped to ask a Korean for directions. Half an hour later, this guy took me to a little restaurant on the side of the mountain and bought me my fill of pajeon, aged kimchi, and makkeoli (rice wine). Suffice it to say that I was full and a little drunk by the time I got on the bus back down the mountain. Oh, and the old woman who owned the restaurant made me take about a kilogram of her aged kimchi home with me.

I think a language tells you a lot about how the people who speak that language think and act. Korean doesn't really have pronouns. When you’re talking about someone, or to someone, you either refer to them by their name or by your relationship to them. And most of these relationship names that people use are really family names. A Korean girl or woman will refer to an older friend as “unni”, which literally means “my older sister”. My Korean friends tell me that I should call a middle aged woman working at a restaurant or market “imo”, which literally means “my mother’s younger sister”.

All these are words to describe family relationships. And that’s what I’ve found about Koreans. They will go out of there way to treat you like a member of their family. It feels great to be treated that way, especially when you are thousands of miles away from your own family.