I like to think that I, and others who have been in a similar situation, have a perspective that many Americans can’t really see. I’m among the few (when compared to the overall population) who have gotten to live in a country other than the United States for a good portion of my life (nearly 24 years). This is thoroughly unimpressive to me. I’m just living and doing something I really love doing. It happens that what I love doing is on the other side of the world from where I grew up.
But that perspective certainly brings a different understanding to the world I observe around me. There are things I’m sure would drive a typical American absolutely nuts — things like the concept of personal space, queuing, communal eating styles, driving habits.
The thing is, I believe the Korean is generally more accommodating, even if they cannot understand exactly why someone would do something the way we do. The American, for all his talk of liberty, is still far more likely to stand firmly on the principle that you are free to do as you wish…as long as what you wish happens to agree entirely with what he thinks. If not, then comes the touch of rage.
I’ve long become accustomed to driving in Korea. I’m probably more part of the problem myself these days. I know the speed limit, but I still drive at what I think it should be sometimes (especially since the administration dropped the nationwide speed limits by a significant amount over the past couple of years). I’m just used to it all.
One of the things to which I’ve become more accustomed lately is parking — off-base. It’s just the way it is. I remember pre-’88 OIympics Korea, when private vehicle ownership was quite limited. There was a time when you really had to fear the taxi, because they made up such a large percentage of the road’s vehicles, they could really fly. You can go much faster on fairly empty streets. Of course, there were far fewer roads then, and many of them were quite narrow. But again, not many cars clogging them.
But today, whenever they widen a road from two to four lanes I know the result will be more along the lines of widening a road from two to two lanes with two lanes of parking.
But I’m still puzzled that they haven’t actually legislated some kind of parking regulations when it comes to building residential units – builders should be required to have at least one parking spot of sufficient size for each unit in a building. When I see a building go up, I do the math – I see that the building contains 16 apartments, and then I see only a floor of parking with may half those slots. I know that when it’s all finished, don’t bother going through there anymore – the streets will be lined with cars, leaving in some spots room for only one vehicle to (barely) pass.
But we get used to it. I see that and I’m fine with it (generally). But what I really can’t understand is the recent proliferation of illegal parking on the American military installation. Maybe it’s my expectations. Maybe it’s because I’d come to see the military as a group of people that held to some kind of discipline — that did what they were told. That they had higher standards. But I’ve observed a lot of evidence over the past few years that that’s not really the case any more. And maybe parking is just another nail in that coffin. Another sign that the military is just not interested in maintaining quite as disciplined a force anymore. I can’t say, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
In any case, it’s different being in a different country. It changes your brain if you let it — and letting it isn’t a bad thing. We could all use a little brain-changing sometimes.
Anyway, here’s an interesting article: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2021/12/281_320034.html?KK
Ick!