Last Updated on January 15, 2025 by Christine Kaaloa
My neighborhood has a lot of local flavor, which fuels my imagination and personal queries. Currently, there are 2 mystery people I come across each day.
Strange morning routines which you simply accept because you’re an expat in a foreign land
Table of Contents: Just Show Me Pictures! Expat mysteries and strange morning routines
Each morning, I hear a morning truck roll by with a loudspeaker recording, announcing “(wah, wah, wah, wah, something)…imnida!” . The situation has been my Amelie moment (chasing the elusive mystery of “the photo booth man”) and it just ended yesterday, when I chased the sound down a curved hanok neighborhood path to discover it was a slow rolling truck selling cartons of fresh eggs!
Expat life is filled with the mysteries of not understanding the Korean lifestyles outside.
I see the yogurt lady (for lack of a better name or job description), who lives in my building and who is out each morning, going from building to building with her metal box cart, consistently dressed in a cute pastel yellow uniform, hat and a red bow tie. Sometimes, she parks herself on the street and there are times I just want to ask– can’t people just buy those desert yogurts by the 18 pack at the store you’re next to for 1,000W (under $1)? Instead, I say “Annyong Haseyo” and bow with a smile.
Living in a giant classroom.
Observation is key…just keep in mind, it also produces more questions. Eyes take in a lot of information on a conscious and unconscious level and it tries to decode the language and symbols of things we see. Just a little semiotics 101 for you. As a daily benchmark, these things show me my own lack of progress towards understanding the most rudimentary and ordinary nuances about the culture I’m living in, despite my best efforts to observe, ask questions or take Korean language classes.
