Streets of Korea

snow-bound furntiture
Originally uploaded by The Central Scrutiniser

The streets of Korea are packed with goods. Shopkeepers keep their excess stock on the footpath, and when it is closing time they just leave it there, with at most a tarp over it to protect it from rain. Like this furniture, sitting in the snow after the shop has closed.

No-one seems to steal things. I thought for a long time it was because people are very honest - then I realised that it is because any time of day or night, there are always people around. One is always observed.

Sometimes I think I was happiest in Korea when I didn't have a clue what was going on.

I knew nothing of Korea when I arrived. Nothing at all. To me it was a sort of Japan or China. I had ideas that it was "The Spiritual East". My main experience of Asia had been India.

So, when I heard the vegetable trucks in the mornings with the veggie sellers droning away in their unique way, I thought it was monks chanting. "Wow," I thought, "How cool and spiritual."

I actually blissed out listening to them.

Oddly, it was no great disappointment when I found out the truth. By that stage the spiritual east bubble had been burst anyway. Korea had revealed itself as the shallow materialistic country that it is - that most countries seem to be.

I actually somehow blocked that out though - and still kind of bliss out when I hear veggie trucks....