Travel Features

With the job market in Ireland as dead as Louth’s Sam Maguire hopes, many Irish graduates are swapping the doom and gloom of home for a year of teaching English in South Korea.

By Rodney Farry

Despite boasting one of the largest economies in the world, the country  doesn’t really register on Irish people’s radar. Most of us know little or nothing about it except that there was a war there in the 50s and that the locals are not averse to a bit of dog meat.

Often described as the “Ireland of Asia” due to its North/South divide and its people’s fondness for  the hard stuff, South Korea certainly has plenty to offer anyone eager to sample life in a new culture.

As someone who lived in the country for the best part of five years, I feel reasonably well qualified to give a few pointers on how to make the most out of your time in the “Land of the Morning Calm”.

Doing the dog on it

Contrary to some reports, dog eating is not that common in modern day Korea. Like most countries where our four legged friends have been on the dinner menu,  dog meat was a staple when people couldn’t afford or find anything better to eat. In the last three decades, as the country has become one of the wealthiest and most developed in Asia, dog meat’s popularity has been on the decline.While  many elderly Korean’s still believe that a portion of pooch is good for a man’s virility, most young people claim to be disgusted by the practice.

This writer only sampled dog meat once when it was dished out in a spicy soup called boshintang, and while the act of eating dog meat didn’t overly perturb me, meat is meat, it just wasn’t to my taste. A little too tough and stringy.

Ironicallly, the thing that a lot of foreigners miss  most about South Korea when they leave is its cuisine. The most popular form of eating out, with locals and visitors alike , is the Korean barbecue. Currently being exported around the world with some success , the best thing about these restaurants, apart from the food, is that diners cook their own meat on a barbecue in the centre of their table.

While some of the array of side dishes, such as the national dish kimchi (fermented cabbage and other vegetables combined with some serious spices),  that are served  often take Western palates  time to appreciate. Barbecue standards such as bulgogi (barbecued meat) and kalbi (marinated short ribs) are instant favourites with most visitors.

It’s also worth noting that unless you are going to a Western restaurant or a fast food joint, eating out will require the use of chopsticks. Like in many Asian countries, dining is a truly communal experience with everyone at the table sharing , so unless you want to draw attention to your newbieness, it’s not a bad idea to master using them before you go over.

Beware the local fire water

South Korea is known, not unjustifiably it has to be said, as a nation of heavy drinkers ,and if you have any inkling that you may have an alcohol problem then this may not be the country for you.

Drink is very cheap (500ml of local beer costs a little over a euro). Pubs (hofs in Korean) stay open very late , and  alcohol can be bought at corner stores at any time of the day or night. Some of the best nights out I had in Korea ended with a nightcap or three sitting outside our local Seven-Eleven watching the sunrise. Of course, with night-time temperatures in winter regularly hitting -20, drinking outside the Seven Elev en is a seasonal pursuit.

One drink that I generally stayed clear of, unless I was out with Korean friends, and then out of pure politeness, was the local fire water, soju. Often described as Korean saki, this rice wine is highly potent stuff. Similiar to the students’ favourite Buckfast in that its stated alcohol volume (15%) appears to have little or no direct relationship to how incredibly smashed you get, soju is something that should be respected when drank. Beware.

One glaring difference between the drinking habits of the Koreans and ourselves it that, while extreme drunkness is  not an umcommon sight -in my first week in the country I saw a very well dressed  though absolutely shitfaced  businessman  perched in a tree on a busy Seoul street- I never saw  the sort of public disorder problems that occur in Irish towns and cities every weekend.  In fact, Seoul is the safest city I have ever spent time in. Most of my mates, including myself, at some stage during our stay fell asleep  on its vast subway network after a late night/early morning. Not one of us was ever robbed or violated in anyway. How many other cities of ten million plus people could you say that about?

Stay off the grass

There is one main reason for the lack of petty crime in the country- it is virtually drug free. The Koreans have a liberal attitude when it comes  to the consumption of booze, but the same definitely can’t be said for narcotics of the illegal variety.

This comes as a surprise to many Westerners who arrive and expect drugs to be as readily available as they are in other Asian countries like Thailand and Cambodia. Weed and other drugs can be purchased, I am reliably informed, if you do a bit of searching, but for most foreigners even those that enjoy a toke back home,  it’s not worth it.

If you’re caught in possession or drugs are even detected in your system, then you are going to spend a minimum three months minimum in a local prison.

Cautionary tale alert

An American who worked in a school close to me suffered the indignity of being busted while in the middle of teaching a class of kids. Apparently, police were alerted to her illicit pastime when her number was found in the phone of a dealer who had been caught.

Although she didn’t have any weed in her possession or in her apartment, a drugs test on the spot came back positive. She was imprisoned for three months before being deported back home. Talk about a bad buzz.