Time, Italy, building & sleep in Seoul, South
Korea pg 9
Living
in Seoul, Korea book by Paul Symonds
What time is it - I am
sure that Koreans who go to Italy must wonder why everyone
takes a short sleep in the afternoon and shops and offices
close for two hours. ‘Siesta ’ time is an
integral part of life in Italy and also in some other
Mediterranean countries, such as Spain. In a country like
Korea, where shops are open until 5am in an area such
as ‘Dongdaemun’ and where people often work
12 hours a day, the concept of siesta may be hard to grasp.
Similarly, Koreans who have been to the U.S. may wonder
why the U.S. lets people aged 18 join the military, yet
will not let the same people drink until they are 21.
Koreans who have been to Britain may also wonder why all
of the pubs close at 11pm.
In
Korea the thing I did not understand, was why construction/building
work always seemed to start at 6 or 7am when I was trying
to sleep and why it also happened on weekends, where I
was living. In addition, on a personal basis, I also wondered
why the guy in the next apartment next to me always did
repair work on his apartment between 2am and 4am. The
truth and reality, is that Koreans take advantage of every
moment no matter what time it is, because people work
very hard and often have little spare time. With eleven
million people crammed together (a quarter of the population)
in one city, in a country which for land area is nearly
the same size as England, you are always going to be living
in close quarters to other people and as a result, noise
of some kind will never potentially be far away.
Such is the desire of
Koreans to get as much done as possible, a very high percentage
of Koreans sleep only five or six hours a day, be it business
people or school children. Several school children I talked
with reported staying in school for 12 hours a day. My
own experience of Korean culture
and time was when I found out that I would be teaching
one shift from 7:30am every morning. It was a shock to
realise that people would actually want to study at such
an early hour in the morning. The students would actually
start at 7am with a Korean teacher and then study with
a native English speaker from 7:30am. It simply would
never happen in the UK or America, that people would study
at such an early time in the morning. It was with even
greater shock that I found a student complaining to management
at the school, that some of the native teachers always
looked tired – at 7:30 in the morning. I was probably
one of those guilty teachers.
