Korea Sparkling

This was their official motto for the Korean tourism website while I was working. As some have mentioned, Korea tries to revamp its tourism image very often... http://www.news.bkhmer.com/?p=4783. Now it's Korea Be Inspired (more like 'Be Uninspired'). What a load of dung. When I think of Korea I sure as hell don’t think of sparkling or inspiration. Korea doesn’t have much going for it in the way of tourism, probably ever. It has re-creations of its burned down temples and buildings; they’re about as entertaining as watching paint dry.

They don’t have any attractions that really warrant coming to Korea. No good beaches, no good amusement parks, no good food, and no good anything.

When it comes to tourism, they need to fix the image problem that they have. I remember when China was trying to change their image due to the Olympics. They taught people basic greetings and tried to get the public to stop spitting. Korea could easily do a campaign to help Korean people smile more than never.


Well, I heartily laughed when I saw this. Koreans don't know what courteous means... Even if they do do it, they're the farthest from my thoughts when I think of the word. As an example, they'll bump into people without saying or acknowledging the other person. I have yet to see random acts of kindness or anything that resembles polite behavior towards others.

There tends to be a veil of "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" behind every action that is done for others. One situation comes to mind, when I helped my co-teacher with the co-teaching competition (which she failed miserably at because she never actually co-teaches, practiced with only one class, and under practiced the class time by 15 minutes), she asked me afterwards if I would like to go out to eat "her treat." This is a common scenario I've encountered, ask me a favor, try to pay me off with food - uh, how about if they did they actual job they were supposed to the whole school year. Yeah, that's an ingenious idea.