Hospitality

I just felt it necessary to make a brief comment on the hospitality that exists in Korea.

People here are some of the most helpful, generous people I've met. Yes, I know that is Asian culture, but Koreans go out of their way to help out. Obviously, knowing no Korean, I need more help than others but if they speak even a lick of English they will ask, "what do you need" and help you out.

If you are asked to dinner by a Korean, don't expect to pay or even offer. To them its insulting.

Just wanted to share one example that epitomizes Korean hospitality. Sunday night, Tina and I went to the mall food court in Sinchon to get dinner. Adjacent to the food court was a BIG supermarket (kind of a rarity here, everyone eats out, cooking at home is not common); anyway, we saw a sign for "International Cheese" and ran over. After browsing and realizing it was all crappy American/European cheese we started walking out. A older woman with neon blue eyeshadow heard us speaking English, stopped us and began talking to us about what we are doing here/how long have we been here, etc. Within 2 minutes of speaking, she tells me to get out a piece of paper, writes her name, address, phone number and email address telling us how to get to her house/what subway exit to take and that she would love for us to come over for dinner and English mass with her. "Just call me when you get off the subway." This all happened BEFORE she even knew our names. We were cracking up as we left, her English wasn't perfect but we think she said something about having two neighbors from Wisconsin she wanted us to meet...

Anyway, this place is great. If only I knew the language...