Korean Weddings – two in a month!

Over the span of a month, several members of the group got married. Eunhasu, who helps us deal with housing and various other administrative issues was married. The actual ceremony is about 20 minutes, followed by about 30 minutes of pictures (which are put on multiple screens in the different dining rooms). Then a couple of weeks later I went to another co-workers wedding, his family had flown in from Belgium for the wedding! This was Christian ceremony, and lasted much closer to an hour (as a side note, religious ceremonies are harder to understand when it is all in Korean).

Housewarming Party - There goes all of the TP

I held a housewarming party, and apparently a sign of good luck is never-ending toilet paper. So one of my Korean colleagues brought me about 20 rolls of toilet paper. This was great until one of my friends decided halfway through the night to cover as much as he could with paper. I woke up the next morning with substantially less toilet paper and a lot of cleaning to do.

Overall the housewarming party was a great success. I had maybe 30 or 40 people. The only interesting thing is that you don’t typically mix groups in Korea. So this party was specifically for my co-workers. Given the regimented hierarchy of the society, if you mix groups, people don’t know who is what level of seniority and therefore people can be much more uncomfortable.

Apparently I going to get fat

Being in Asia, I decided that I was going to get acupuncture and try to work on many of my age-old rowing injuries. I went to a hospital where one of my co-workers has gone (and his back is in much better shape). They performed an MRI, but also practice eastern medicine. Needless to say, I was not surprised (but also not happy), to realize that I have a degenerated disc in my back and a torn tendon in my shoulder (dating back 10 and 11 years respectively).

The most entertaining part about the whole experience though was the bedside manner of the doctor (he is Austrian). I was told that when I was about 40 I was going to put weight on around the middle that I was not going to be able to get rid of (according to my blood), and then other things would happen when I am around 50 (can't write about these online). You know that phrase naivety is bliss?

Cell phone etiquette (or lack thereof)

It is funny, you notice all of these little things that are indicative of the overall culture. In order to silence a ringing phone, you have to hold the volume-down button for a few seconds. It is telling that it isn't easy to silence a cell phone, since Koreans will happily answer their phones, even in the middle of a meeting. It is just the way it goes.

I need help with Everything

Furnishing an apartment, NOT easy. Especially when they have no IKEA and almost everything is in Korean. Like my TV menu for example. Or my dishwasher, where my real estate broker had to provide a translated sheet so I could figure out what button is what.

Korean Thanksgiving

So Koreans celebrate Thanksgiving as well, called Chusok. It occurs a little earlier, we had 5 days in late September. After only 3 weeks of work, I decided I wasn't quite ready to have another big vacation, so I stayed near Seoul. I had just settled into my apartment the first day of the holidays, so I wanted a bit of time to get used to my new digs.

I did manage to have one expedition. Bukansan, which is one of the more famous mountains around Seoul. It took about an hour to get there by subway and bus, and I climbed it with my co-workers Tom (who was wearing dress shoes since his boxes had not yet arrived) and Tony. Some parts are so steep that you have to practically pull yourself up the rock!

Project 1 – Back in Advertising

Our projects were announced and I ended up back where I left off. My first project is working on Cheil Worldwide, which is Samsung's wholly owned advertising agency (and one of the other 30 companies. It was interesting to be back in an area that I knew so well, and was the perfect excuse to catch up with many of my old colleagues! It was fascinating to see where many of them ended up, and to see the changes in the industry (and Ogilvy). I still find the industry fascinating, but I may prefer to be on the client side for a little while.