Koreans are Nice
I think Koreans are best described as nice. Of all the places we’ve been (Japan, China, Thailand, America, Malaysia) We were continuously impressed by the Korean people. It seemed that where ever we went, we could always rely on someone helping us if we asked for directions or recommendations. In countries like China, people would just brush us off because we were less important than their phone games but in Korea when ever we asked someone for help, they’d take the time to understand us and wouldn’t let us go until they understood exactly what we were looking for and could tell us how to get there. This is quite significant because with the language barrier, I didn’t expect that people would come out from behind their desks to point us in the right direction with what limited English they could muster.
Another example was on the subway where it seems like no one sits in the elderly reserved seats. Then, when those seats are full the “younger” elders get up for the older ones as do regular passengers on unassigned seating.
But the best part about this was without a doubt that one time I lost my wallet…
We took a plane to Jeju island and then a greyhound like bus from the North side of the island to the South. Getting off the bus I realized I didn’t have my wallet but it was too late because the bus had already pulled away. Yuki hailed a cab but the drive didn’t understand us when we asked him to follow the bus so instead she took us into the nearest hotel. I’m not sure if the guy helping us was a manager or not because he was dressed pretty casually but he immediately took down our information and then got on the phone. Not five minutes later someone called back and the hotel told us to go back to the bus stop on the other side of the street. We don’t know how they found it but the bus had finished it’s route and was on the way back. The bus pulled up and the drive came out with the wallet. At the same time, a ticket seller came out of a kiosk and also knew about the missing wallet so we didn’t need to say anything. Both of us were very relieved to get my wallet back and so we bought some beer for the hotel employees.
This would be the first time I’ve lost something of value on a trip and fortunately it had a good ending. A lot of that has to do with the kindness of the people we met and their willingness to do what’s right.
The niceness of the Koreas is also noticeable in all the restaurants we’ve been to. Service is excellent and even when the restaurants are busy they they still took care of us to make sure our BBQs didn’t burn and we knew how to eat the food properly. Not even in Japan did we receive the kind of hospitality that we got in Korea and it really comes through in the culture because the Koreans in Canada are just as nice.
