Before we move on to Korea Street culture, take a good look at the background. Find these backgrounds familiar? No? Can’t recognise? How about the picture below:
Pictures of Korean singer G.NA taken from Seoulbeats.com
We thought the cupboards looked oddly familiar until we looked at the floor tiles, there is no mistake. The food are all props from the original settings (that box of Cheerios must have been there for quite sometime):
Anyway, the korean singer that’s featured in the first 3 pictures is known as G.NA. (From wikipedia) This korean singer, Gina Choi or G.NA (stage name) drew a great deal of scrutiny when publicity pictures of her were released. Guess what the fuss was all about? It was about her chest size. The singer claimed to never having plastic surgery and that she is a natural D-cup.
Moving on… Take a good look at the picture below, we thought it was a rather creative and clever advertisement. Guess what kind of services is being advertised?
picture credits to Gourdins on the go
picture credits to The Grand Narrative
This is the more typical version of advertisements promoting the same kind of services. Neat copywriting though, ‘beauty upgrade’. You don’t see such advertisements in the movies and dramas, do you?
There is plenty of plastic surgery advertisements in the streets of Korea (be it big billboards, in subway stations or on the train).
Korea Street Culture #1 – “Mirror, mirror on the wall…”
Korean girls love dolling up! That’s why they have all the lovely make-up brands, isn’t it? Laneige, Skinfood, TonyMoly, Etude House, The Face Shop, Nature Republic … …
Yeps and this is probably what isn’t shown in the drama or what you didn’t know: there are plenty of mirrors around in Korea. Shortly after boarding the train during morning rush hours (~8am), we spotted 1 lady holding a mirror and putting on lipgloss, another one doing touch-up and another lady looking into the mirror on the train (yes, they have mirrors on trains).
Also, we spotted a mirror at the bottom of the stairs to a shophouse (shophouse consists of a logistics company which has no female employees).
Korea Street Culture #2 – Korean girls don’t wear spectacles
You can HARDLY spot korean girls/ladies/woman wearing spectacles (except the branded or trendy kinds). We’re not talking about shades but spectacles. It’s either: (i) everyone has perfect eyesight, (ii) everyone wears contact lenses, (iii) everyone went for lasik. If your relatives/friends/colleagues run an optics shop and would like to branch into Korea, do let them know this.
Picture taken from Shinja
On your next trip to Korea, try counting and spotting the number of Korean females wearing spectacles.
Korea Street Culture #3 – Korean Street Food Stalls
Remember these typical Korean street food stalls? Usually only the actor/actress are featured. Let us show you the other views of the pochangmachas (loosely translated as “covered wagons”:
This isn’t the only kind of Korean street food but it’s usually the only kind shown in Korean movies and dramas. Will blog more on Korean food the next time – till then!
