In from the cold

Having been in Korea now for three months there is one thing that I have come to understand; Koreans are cold people. Not 'cold' as in hard hearted or malicious, but rather 'cold' in that they are always complaining about how cold it is. Meanwhile foreigners are still wandering around in t-shirts or occasionaly shorts. The thing I don't understand is why, if you are constantly complaining about how cold it is, do you insist on opening all the windows in the school?

For instance, this morning it was pretty nippy, hovering around 2 degrees celcius. The teacher who is kind enough to give me a ride to work two days a week begins our morning conversation with "it is cold today," and blows on his hands to warm them. Is he wearing a coat? No. Does he have the heat on in the car? No. But he still complains that it is cold.

When I get to school, like any other day, the windows are flung wide as teachers and students alike huddle inside winter coats or with a friend under a blanket. I've seen some wrather interesting wraps that students have brought in in order to keep them warm while at school. 

I've been doing some looking around prior to this, but today I made a point of looking for a heating system throughout the school. I can't find one. They rolled in portable heaters today for the cafeteria. Can you guess where most people congregated?

So I get that they find it cold out. I mean its only 2 degrees (I wish I had packed my toque). But why then, would you do virtually everything in your power to make sure that you remain as cold as possible? Just so that you can constantly complain that it's cold? I'm beginning to think so.

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In a previous post I commented on the apparent sexualization of young girls here in Korea, as evidenced by their outfits during the school festival. Well, I'm obviously not the first nor will I be the last foreigner to comment on such things as is evidenced by this other bloggers post. 

But I was hoping that against all odds, that it was only apparent sexualization and that it only appeared that way because of my tainted western view point. I'm not so sure. I was discussing the occurances with another foreigner and we are now wondering if it's not so much that they aren't sexualizing children, but that they don't see anything wrong with sexualizing children. That of course is a little scarier. 

I mean, I know we do it back home. All one has to do is take a look at Brittney Spears when she first came out through a number of other examples up the latest one (perhaps) in Miley Cyrus. But back home there seems to be this duality about the whole thing. We do it on one hand and decry it on the other. Hypocritical to be sure, but there is a glimmer there that we are doing something wrong. I have yet to encounter this glimmer here in Korea. I'm hoping that that is only because I haven't been here long enough.

Of course the comments of people who have been here much longer than I, don't give me much comfort. Nor does the survey data that shows one third of teen girls in Busan have been propositioned concerning prostitution, while five percent admitted to being part of the sex trade and another 10 percent were intrigued by it. 

The ministry questioned 2,012 female students in the southeastern port city and found 33.4 percent, or 672, answered they received prostitution offers. 

Among the female students who received the offers, only 35 percent said they ignored them. Nearly 20 percent said they were actually engaged in the sex trade, while the rest said they were ``intrigued'' by the offers.