Brooms, Brushes, Mops And Anything Else!!!!!!!

I have wanted to do a blog about this particular issue for a while now, but kept forgetting all the time. It is going to be about how short the handles on all the cleaning equipment in Korea are. It is no joke either! It really is a problem especially for foreigners that come here who notice it right away.

The Koreans are quite oblivious to it, to tell you the truth. Whenever I have mentioned the fact to them, they look at me like I have 3 heads or something.

Every single brush, bar none, has this little diddy, short handle that you makes you bend your back about half way over to use it. All you see all day long with people here when they are cleaning up, is them bending half of their body over. They wonder why people here have such bad backs and believe me there are tons of them especially when they get older.

The other big problem is how they sit too. Although as foreigners we are in awe of how they can sit cross-legged for hours at a time on a flat floor and eat at a table with minute legs, there is a price to pay for this. Lots of the Asian have joint problems and have bad backs especially the older men and women. Older women, as in their 40s and up work outside and when they are picking either for farming or for other manual jobs, they sit in a squat position, much like a baseball catcher, for hours and hours.

What this ends up doing is ruining their spines and they end up walking like handicapped people. I have seen so many older ladies here with their chests stuck out and their backs indented due to sitting like that and their overall general lack of calcium in their diet. Women here are not encouraged at all to drink milk or have calcium in their diet. As most of us know, women naturally lose calcium in their bones as they age and it is a very good idea to have dairy products that include calcium in their diet. The Koreans know nothing about that!!!!!

Even the sight lines of everything here comes across as short at times and not just for the foreigners, but also for the Koreans. Kitchen sinks are low for one example. Everthing has not been thought out, as I always say.

Another Korean nuance is how the men here who deliver anything from boxes to parcels or anything that requires lifting power to carry. They carry everything behind them on their backs with their hands off to the sides holding it onto their back. It looks so uncomfortable when you watch them carry like that and oh so unhealthy.

It is the same when it comes to stretching; like taekwando and hapkido. The instructors teach you to bounce when you stretch, which is the worst thing that you can ever do. There have been quite a few foreigners who have taken taekwondo here and ended up injured and in the hospital with pulled groins and pulled muscles and torn ligaments. I have talked to these people personally about this issue. The teacher would come around while they were stretching and push them down really quickly or even sometimes sit on them while they were stretching...... just nuts!!!!!!!

It all comes back to the main issue that I say is Korea's main problem; they don't give a shit whether what they are doing is right or wrong, it is just the Korean way.... like it or lump it. It is their attitude to most things in life, but it is done in a very sly way. It happens with their style of teaching English and goes into all areas of their life.

I was told about 6 years ago that Korea was one of the most autonomous countries that you could live in anywhere. They were so right!!!!! People ask me to describe Korea and I describe it like this; Korean!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even how the businessmen address English speaking people. i.e. the type of English they use. The banners on the huge department stores that have so many English mistakes on them. The advertisements on the t.v. that are written in such bad English and on and on. This carries onto all areas of life and as I read a paper about Korean workers a few years ago, Koreans are good workers, but in Western countries very rarely become supervisors or managers as they really have a problem thinking outside the box.

This is a reflection of their culture and one of the most annoying things about living here. Don't get me wrong, I love this place and embrace most of the differences with an open mind and an open heart, but this particular vane of thought is what holds them back from getting to the next level. If they could get there, they could excel in so many more areas of business and commerce, never mind as a country themselves.

Having the health and safety background from Canada, thanks to the City of London and some courses I took, the rules and regulations here are not just slack, they are just plain ridiculous. People walking under booms loaded with material. Road work with signs just before you get to them. Cars parked in bus stops, taxis pulling over anywhere and on and on........ I don't want to sound too negative, but it is the cold hard truth.

I like the fact that there are not rules attached to everything, but I now realize why the West doesn't accept credentials from some countries. There is such a big disparity in training and actual work habits. Again, I love this place, but realize that it will not be a country that I will live in for a long long time.

I plan to be here for at least 3 more years and then it will be time to move on and travel more of the world. I want to practice my French, Spanish and Greek and I can teach English in these places while improving my language skills. Also, the world is such a beautiful place, I want to see as much of it as I can. Travel 101 will be my motto now, then and for the rest of my life.

"Wherever I lay my hat, that's my home...." Marvin Gaye scripted it right and that is how I feel at the present moment. I have never been happier in my life and I mean that with a big smile on my face and a warm thump of my heart. I am glad to be alive and have a wonderful family and friends.