Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Impressions of... (the Way LIfe Used to Be)


They really do all look alike...on TV anyway.

Korean TV is surgery-obsessed: I have seen eyes made so alarmingly wide that it would put anime characters to shame. It does not make for confidence building. Everyone gets their eyelids done. Now, even the men. 

So put away your sunglasses. Only people with something to hide wear shades on the street. Maybe I just want to block out the sun and stares? Alternately, old lady ojimas love to wear Terminator-sized visors with skin-colored bib masks on their daily walks and cyclists wrap their entire bodies in Spandex and bandanna anything exposed beneath their sunglasses. Nobody really bicycle-commutes.

Think you’re a well-adjusted independent woman of the world? No one cares if you’ve made a life for yourself and are earning truckloads of cash. Mothers all over would really prefer it if you just permed your hair and found a husband.

In the suburb of Buchon, the city finally got around to planting some trees fifteen years ago, but birds are still scarce since the city is want to blast DEET or PEET or whatever it is down these streets. Even as the trucks roll pass, mothers will stand idly by as their children play, the spray navigating through their midst.

But in Seoul, the fish are back in the Han’s tributaries and gobbled up by ducks and egrets alike. Dragonflies swarm the riverside, magpies squawk in the trees. Cosmos sweep across coastlines and mountain valleys. Cars do not honk whether you’re holding up traffic on a slow hill-climbing bicycle, or crossing the street on cane at the burning end of a red light. That courtesy is shared by pedestrians who wait fully on the sidewalk on even traffic-less streets for the light to change.  For the most part.

Wifi networks have boring names like MyNet_82 or HelloWirelessA769. Nobody uses email; app-messaging rules the land. TVs can swivel by remote. Every commercial features a pretty lady making a pouty face. Variety shows OD on after effects.

Places are navigated by villages: my sister didn’t even know what cross streets she lived on after six years in the same apartment. Cars come standard with GPS that scolds you in a cute child’s voice if you’re driving over the speed limit. Yuke ship, yuke ship, yuke ship! Sixty, sixty, sixty! Alternately, making the correct turn makes you a winner — ding ding ding! Streets might dead end without notice, but at least apartment complexes have their names emblazoned on their pastel exteriors. Keypads have replaced key entry.

Fashion runs all over the place. None of it indicative of any ties to specific cultural niches or age groups. Tie dye skirts and leopard print leggings for ojimas, hiking gear for the fit, sneakers and sports sandals go with any outfit.

The prevailing furniture style hews heavily toward 17th c. European with a shoehorn of eighties modern. Rhinestones have replaced old-timey mother-of-pearl inlays, multi-sectioned sofas offer extra, extra, extra oomph. In the artist village of Haeiri, an Ikea is opening among bourgie, wood slatterned minimalist homes.

Recently another Northener defected. North Korea may have as many as twenty more infiltration tunnels aimed toward Seoul. A baby was born.