Today a fellow teacher said that Korea is cute. I'd have to agree. There definitely seems to be bigger marker for 'cute' here than in Canada. You don't have to go very far to find adorable knick knacks and toys.
Since I spend all weekdays in close proximity to young children, I see a ton of cute things. I will say this, Korea is at least ten years ahead of the rest of the world with pencil case technology. When I was just a lad pencil cases were basic; if yours had a zipper, you were hot shit. Here I see kids toting around the most elaborate pencil boxes ever. And every kid has a different one.
They got sliding drawers, flip lids, secret compartments, video games, mirrors, tiny dry-erase boards, invisible inks, pinball games built into the top, and some even fold out into larger games you can play with friends. Spinning wheels, retractable handles, and little buttons that shoot rulers and erasers. Why don't we have these things in North America? I'll tell you why, because we've wasted all our time with 'fruit roll-up' technology.
Every possible thing a Korean child takes to school is colorful, cheery, and covered in delighted glossy eyed characters. It's like stationary made by Care Bears.
One thing you'll find in Korea are these 'cute' stores. I say cute stores because I don't know how else to describe them. They aren't quite toy stores, nor are they really stationary stores. They are just packed with tiny pointless girly ... things. There are several of these stores in any major shopping area and they are usually packed to the gills with females of all ages. They've all converged on the store to buy their panda hairbands, rainbow notepaper, cupcake-bunny coupon card sleeves, choco magnets, plush animals on sticks, and sweetie-pie bracelet pouches. Those aren't exact things, but hopefully you get the picture.
Changing the subject, I'm writing this now in a new Internet cafe that opened in my neighborhood. There's only a few people, which makes it virtually smoke and noise free. Therefor, I like it. A little while ago, the owner got my attention to offer me an egg. He was just standing there with a bunch of hard-boiled eggs rolling around on a tray. At least I hope they were hard-boiled.
"An egg, sir?"
"Um... no thanks. I'm not hungry."
"No, it's a raw egg. If you can take care of it and return it unbroken on your next visit, we'll give you a discount."
Anyway, I declined his generous egg offer and he moved on to the next dude playing warcraft.
Ain't that cute?
5 comments:
As a bonus, if the egg hatches into a chick you can put it into a tiny pot, bring it to school to play with, and when it inevitably dies of trauma you can just wing it into a pile of trash on the side of the road...
I've seen that enough times to know THAT is adorable. It was a big hit around easter time last year.
I can't believe a) you didn't take the egg, b) you didn't tell the store owner you would take care of ALL the eggs, and c) that someone deleted a comment on this blog. Fuck, what a tease...why would it stay there, letting me know there WAS a comment, but its gone and I'll never know what it was.
I like this post. Thanks for this post. You just put into words some thoughts I was having for the past 13 or 20 months or something.
The eggs...how come everyone's offering me salvation through Mother God, but no one's offering me an egg to take care of for a discount? This isn't fair. And was it just a normal egg? How would he know that you were taking care of the same egg since your last visit?
oh~ I really want someone to give me my own egg. :s
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