Over the past six weeks, I have observed and learned SO many interesting things about the Korean culture. From time to time I’ll add these “Culture Notes” into my blog. Please understand that these are my observations and have not been reviewed and/or approved by the South Korean government and therefore, may not be a true representation of Korean culture.
Culture Note – Fighting
A couple of days ago as we were sitting on the bus waiting to go to work/school, we watched two Korean men “fighting”. It was 8am in the morning and it appeared that the younger gentleman hadn’t paid the taxi cab driver. There was lots of posturing, but there were no punches thrown until the very end of the fight. This “fight” went on for about 4-5 minutes. They were shouting at each other, which was about the only thing that looked familiar for a fighting situation. They kept pressing their foreheads together and then separating, kind of like mountain goats do. They must have done this about 10 times. They also took their shoes off. Oh, did I forget to mention that this fight was happening in the street. There was a friend of the younger guy that at one point, bowed to the two fighting men…not sure what that was about. Near the end, the cab driver called the police and the younger guy started punching him and he never hit back, just kept trying to evade the punches. Evidently, in Korea, if you throw the first punch, you can get fined a LOT of money, so there is a lot of yelling, posturing, etc, in lieu of throwing the first punch. Once the first punch was thrown, the driver was on the phone to the cops. They arrived in about 30 seconds. The bus left, so we didn’t get to see exactly how it ended.
I figure...if you decide to sell most of what you own, leave everything you know and love and move to the other side of the world...jumping off a bridge does not seem like such a huge risk in comparison. In early August, a few co-workers and I went on a white water rafting trip (with an option to do bungee jumping). The trip was on the Hantan River in the Gangwondo province, about 2 hrs east of Seoul. The rafting was first. The scenery was BEAUTIFUL, but the "rapids" were probably Class 0.5 and the only thing out there that was white was most of the participants. It was more like a trip down lazy river, but fun, nonetheless. Then the BIG event...it was not what I expected. At the last minute, once I was all strapped in and it was my turn to jump, I froze for a moment. All I could think was "What the #@/! am I doing...I can't do this." Then I just ran and dove off the bridge. It was kind of surreal. I expected a jolt when I hit the end of the cord, but the whole time, it was like floating. When I was rebounding back up, I thought I might hit the bridge, but didn't get anywhere near it. It was fabulous. I will do it again next summer. Here are a few pics and a video of the actual jump.
