It was time to say goodbye to my old hostel and head to Iteawan. I took a train there, placed down my bags and immediately made my way to Gangnam. No matter how long I walked around, or how many times I listened to Gangnam Style, I still couldn't find Psy...
I was a little disappointed walking around Gangnam to be honest. There were just apartment buildings and giant booming offices. I was expecting a Tokyo feel, but instead it was quite seouless.
I left close to 5pm and made my way back to my hostel. Rush hour is crazy here! I've seen stacked trains in Sydney before, but this was something else. I think it's because Koreans are so much thinner on average compared to Australians that they were able to get way more people per square meter on the train. Also because I was genuinely about a foot taller than everyone else on the train, I had to actively fight my desire to crowed surf from carrage to carrage.
While having my organs compacted by other Koreans, I had the chance to watch the korean television in the train. For the most part it was exactly what I expected it to be like; quirky cartoon characters selling toothpaste was a big part. What I wasn't expecting so much was just how many female actors were selling beauty products. The models were very artificial and used an array of feminine hand flicks, cute laughs and pouting to sell a tub of moisturizer. Sure, this form of marketing happens everywhere in the world, but its overwhelmingly abundant in Korea. The inner feminist in me was furious; there must be thousands of woman out there battling their insecurities becasie they don't confirm to an arbitrary notion of beauty.
When i got back I met a bloke called Tim from Utah at the hostel and decided to go out drinking with him. Tim was nothing short of a redneck. He was a 21 year old, Donald Trump supporting, gun wielding cowboy. He even supported Trumps ban all Muslims policy because "its like a tap that's leaking dirty water. You gotta stop the flow and figure out the problem so ya dont risk contamination".
Even though I strongly disagreed with Tims conservative outlook, if didn't stop me from enjoying the night out. We went to a whole bunch of different bars and got drunk. We met a few Korean guys and went drinking with them. They were super hospitable and friendly and bought us a few rounds of beer and vodka shots. Despite their broken English, one of them managed to communicate that he had visited Australia and been subject to crippling racism in Brisbane. I tried to console him by telling him that he was simply unlucky in his experience and that most Australians are kind welcoming people. None the less, I'd never felt so embarrassed and ashamed to be Australian. We bought rounds of alcohol back to the Korean guys and went our separate ways.
Almost immediately afterwards we somehow managed to run into 2 Korean girls we had met earlier in the night. They were heading to a club and invited us along. Even though I was drunk, its still very unusual of me to agree to go to a club; I must have misheard them say 'pub'. I didn't need to worry though because the entire club was so packed that it was physically impossible to dance!
I noticed more than any other club I'd ever been to, how much of a divide there was between male and female behavior. It was disturbing to see just how much everyone tried to live up to 1950's gender stereotypes. There were small pockets of Asian girls everywhere trying to dance and laugh just like in the TV commercials, and giant hordes of western men around them pumping their chest out like roosters. This type of thing exists in Australia too, but once again its overwhelmingy prevalent in Seoul. Despite this, I still had a good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment