Sunshine in Korea

One of the craziest parts about Korean culture is their determination to never be in the sun. It is assumed in the culture here that the darker your skin is the lower class you must belong too. If you have dark skin it is assumed you have a blue collar type job like a construction worker that causes you to be in the sun all day long. But if you have very light pale skin then you must have a very good job like a lawyer or doctor keeping you inside and away from the sun all day long. Koreans take this so seriously that they use whitening cream to make their skin lighter, they use umbrellas on sunny days, and of course they have the classic visors:

Korean men and women are literally hiding under these sun hats and wearing long sleeves and even gloves on sunny days because they do not want the sun to touch their skin! Numerous coffee shops and restaurants have nice big doors to open to let fresh air in but NO outdoor seating. Literally when you walk by and see outdoor seating somewhere you have to make a mental note of it because it is so scarce here.

Today a friend and I walked around Gangnam to try to find a nice restaurant with outdoor seating for lunch. With the weather being in the 70's we wanted nothing more than to be soaking up the sun and getting a little color on our own pale white skin. We were wildly unsuccessful finding anywhere that would work, so we got take out and sat at a plastic table out in front of a convenience store.

It took us about and hour and a half to organize this charade just so we could have a seat in the sun! Literally. from the start of looking for a place, to getting take out, and then walking to the GS 25 convenient store. But when we got there and sat in the sun eating out delicious fast food it was well worth it. One man who had previously been sitting at the convenient store had a towel wrapped around his head so the sun wouldn't touch his face! But not us, we sat directly in the suns rays and soaked up that Vitamin D, both being totally happy campers. People walked by and gawked at the foreigners in the sun as it is so against their culture to do such a thing, but we felt right at home.

This is just one of the reasons I could never stay in Korea for the rest of my life.....I love the sun too much.