Some Cultural Factoids

Korea has many customs, traditions and superstitions similar to the U.S., and many that are unique to Korea.  Here are a few I've learned, though I'm sure there's many more:

For birthdays, instead of cake or ice-cream people make myokgook, a seaweed soup.

You don't, however, ever eat seaweed soup before an exam.  It's slippery texture will make the answers slip away.  Instead, it's traditional to have yeot, a sticky rice candy.  It's believed to have effects opposite to seaweed.  It's common to see yeot springing up in all the stores this time of year, as kid's are taking their high-school and college entrance exams (i.e. the ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS EVER THAT WILL DETERMINE THE COURSE OF THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. Got to have luck on their side.)

You also don't wash your hair on the day of a big exam, since the answers might end up swirling the drain with the shampoo.

If you sleep in a closed room with a fan on, you will die.  This is a phenomenon called "fan death," and even though no-one is quite sure what causes it, (spot cooling resulting in hypothermia, suffocation caused by the air moving too fast for proper inhalation, or the spinning blades breaking apart the oxygen molecules are among the theories posited) a few cases are reported every year by the mass-media.  Infants and the elderly are most susceptible, as is common with most made up ailments.

If you write someones name in red, they will die or you want them dead.  This comes from the Buddhist practice of writing the names of the deceased in red, on gravestones or otherwise.

Koreans have an aversion to the number four, since the pronunciation ("sa") is the same as the word for death.  Buildings will sometimes skip the fourth, fourteenth, twenty-fourth, etc. floor, just like Vegas casinos will skip the 13th floor.  Or in some elevators you'll see an F in the place of the number four.  But just like in the western world, seven is a lucky number.

It's bad luck to break a bowl or plate.  It's worse luck to eat from a bowl or plate with a crack or chipped rim.

There's an expression, "Sam han sa ohn," which means literally three hot four cold.  This is the perceived weather cycle when the temperature is changing, three warm days followed by four cold days.  I want to vet the system but I can't be bothered to keep track.

There's just a few I've picked up, if I hear of any more I'll jot them down!

Ko Phi Phi paradise, much delayed

So I believe I mentioned like eight months ago that I went to heaven on earth.  I needed some time to register what happened.  About time I posted some pictures though, methinks.  This, friends and family (and strangers who've happened upon this blog), is Ko Phi Phi, Thailand.

 

On the approach.  I'd estimate these particular cliffs to be at least three hundred feet.




Tourists arriving at Phi Phi Don.





Ridiculous beach, completely enclosed in horseshoe shaped mountains.  The water was  bathtub warm and crystal clear.  You could walk out for hundreds of yards with the water barely reaching past your waist.  I don't know why the sky looks so gray in this picture, it was never anything but clear blue.





Click on this picture.  Our hotel was a thirty second walk from this spot.  Thus the week was spent primarily shoe free.



This monkey has developed a taste for Coca-Cola.  A palpable example of humanity's befouling interaction with the natural world?  Or awesome.



Snorkeling trip to Phi Phi Leh.  Our boat looked just like the wooden one on the right.




Snorkeling.  I still haven't developed the pictures from my underwater camera (surprised?).  You can see some fish if you look carefully.  They really liked to eat pineapple (the floating bits).  The guides would toss it out and they would come swarming.




I got bit by a fish (maybe it thought I was a piece of pineapple?).  Jaclyn thought it was funny 'til she saw me bleeding.  Then she thought it was hilarious.


 



Us on the beach where they filmed The Beach.  I put on sunscreen probably 4 times a day (spf 50) but I still ended up roasted, as evidenced in this picture.  That's what you get for being so close to the equator.  A small price to pay.



Jaclyn is always at home on a boat, even a jankity wooden skiff.



Me, not so much.

This is the view from the top of the mountain (panorama below).  The beach to the right of the isthmus is the one in the pictures up above.  Almost everything on the isthmus was swept away by the 2004 tsunami, but sprang back up quickly thanks to tourist dollars and donations from good samaritans.  Around the island you could find signs thanking the donors that helped businesses to get back on their feet.  Our hotel survived the destruction and was used as an impromtu hospital.

 

Quite the vista.



One more for good measure.

Valentine's Day dinner in paradise.  It was a really nice restaurant, with our table directly on the beach.  But for whatever reason the food was crap.  We got a pizza afterwards.





Sunset on the water.