At the movies....
Last night, I went to see the latest Harry Potter (umm, Harry Potter and the... ummm... Something something...whatever, not important). It was rather okay, but obviously not a stand-alone movie. It also felt a bit like all the actors were like "Hey, Harry Potter, guess who is still after you?". It makes me wonder why JK Rowling didn't come up with other enemies for HP to fight, since the whole "Harry has visions/nightmares for 2 hours before fighting Voldemort in the last scene" thing is getting a bit tired.
Going to the movies in Korea is a rather interesting experience in itself. First off, the seats are assigned to you, you can buy squid as a movie-time snack, and NOBODY HAS ANY MOVIE THEATRE ETIQUETTE!
Most English-language movies that are shown in Korea are subtitled, which is great for me, since I can effectively ignore the Korean text at the bottom of the screen and just pretend that I am watching the original movie. This is not so convenient for the 4-year olds in the audience who can't read. Because, guess what? They get bored and fidgety. Then, they kick the seats, whine and are general nuisances until their parents send them off to run around the theatre on their own!
The Korean obsession with cell phones is well-documented. It should not be surprising, then, to find that Koreans don't feel the need to turn off their cell phones or refrain from texting during the movie. Picture a nice dark theatre, and then a bright cell phone screen shining just in your peripheral vision.
Conversations at normal volume (is there even a word in Korean for "whisper"?) and giggling at strange times, tooth-sucking and smacking on snacks, the dreaded "yobosayo?" on a cell phone, noisy yawning, and don't even get me started on the post-movie bathroom visit, where the concept of waiting in line and "first come, first served" is completely thrown out the window in favour of "every man for himself"....
Why does this even surprise me? The movie theatre etiquette is pretty much what goes on in any public place - be it the train, the bus, a graduation ceremony or a shopping mall.
I remember a friend of mine who visited Japan and noticed that conversations ceased as soon as one entered an elevator. Once the elevator door opened, they resumed. He asked a friend of his why this was and the guy said that given Japan's population density, you didn't infringe on another person's comfort while in an enclosed space. This is certainly not the case in Korea, where the high population density seems to have translated as "Hey pal, I'm going to suck on my teeth and/or spit and/or burp and/or fart and/or yawn at 120 decibels and/or smack on my gum and/or talk on my cell phone and if you happen to be within 3 feet of me, you get to share in the experience". But I also wonder, how much of this is the rural Jeollanamdo factor? Nobody seemed to be chatting up a storm on the Seoul subway, even though every single person had a cell phone....
In other news, there are only three more days left of school and I am saying goodbye to lots of folks who are leaving for the summer. I am psyched about my upcoming trip to Jeju (on a ferry full of tooth-sucking, ddeok-smacking ajummas, no doubt), and have decided to join JP and one of his friends on the tour to North Korea at the beginning of August. Other than that, my summer will be one of day tripping around Korea and hopefully seeing bits of it that I haven't yet had a chance to visit, until I go to my English summer camp at the end of August.
Going to the movies in Korea is a rather interesting experience in itself. First off, the seats are assigned to you, you can buy squid as a movie-time snack, and NOBODY HAS ANY MOVIE THEATRE ETIQUETTE!
Most English-language movies that are shown in Korea are subtitled, which is great for me, since I can effectively ignore the Korean text at the bottom of the screen and just pretend that I am watching the original movie. This is not so convenient for the 4-year olds in the audience who can't read. Because, guess what? They get bored and fidgety. Then, they kick the seats, whine and are general nuisances until their parents send them off to run around the theatre on their own!
The Korean obsession with cell phones is well-documented. It should not be surprising, then, to find that Koreans don't feel the need to turn off their cell phones or refrain from texting during the movie. Picture a nice dark theatre, and then a bright cell phone screen shining just in your peripheral vision.
Conversations at normal volume (is there even a word in Korean for "whisper"?) and giggling at strange times, tooth-sucking and smacking on snacks, the dreaded "yobosayo?" on a cell phone, noisy yawning, and don't even get me started on the post-movie bathroom visit, where the concept of waiting in line and "first come, first served" is completely thrown out the window in favour of "every man for himself"....
Why does this even surprise me? The movie theatre etiquette is pretty much what goes on in any public place - be it the train, the bus, a graduation ceremony or a shopping mall.
I remember a friend of mine who visited Japan and noticed that conversations ceased as soon as one entered an elevator. Once the elevator door opened, they resumed. He asked a friend of his why this was and the guy said that given Japan's population density, you didn't infringe on another person's comfort while in an enclosed space. This is certainly not the case in Korea, where the high population density seems to have translated as "Hey pal, I'm going to suck on my teeth and/or spit and/or burp and/or fart and/or yawn at 120 decibels and/or smack on my gum and/or talk on my cell phone and if you happen to be within 3 feet of me, you get to share in the experience". But I also wonder, how much of this is the rural Jeollanamdo factor? Nobody seemed to be chatting up a storm on the Seoul subway, even though every single person had a cell phone....
In other news, there are only three more days left of school and I am saying goodbye to lots of folks who are leaving for the summer. I am psyched about my upcoming trip to Jeju (on a ferry full of tooth-sucking, ddeok-smacking ajummas, no doubt), and have decided to join JP and one of his friends on the tour to North Korea at the beginning of August. Other than that, my summer will be one of day tripping around Korea and hopefully seeing bits of it that I haven't yet had a chance to visit, until I go to my English summer camp at the end of August.
posted by Ms Parker at
9:09 AM
2 Comments:
Lineups! Lineups! LINEUPS!!!!!!
...are evil in Korea.
By
Anonymous, at 11:05 AM
Wow, North Korea. Must be a really interesting trip. I was just reading (in Lonely Planet Korea) about traveling there.
My family kind of freaked out (while sort of trying to hide it/not overreact).. you know, "Why would you want to go to North Korea? Don't go there, it's not safe, etc", but I think I would go for a short while if I had the chance.
I'll be interested to hear how it is!
Et merci pour ton message sur mon blog. J'ai tellement hâte d'arriver en Corée!
고맙습니다!
(Just watch as I break a record for number of languages in one comment)
Lisa
By
Lisa, at 7:31 PM
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