Why I was so Surprised when I came back from America

Hello! I am Seoin. (This is actually how I start a Gmail)

I don't really speak about my 1 year of America life(do I?), so here I am, recalling my memories of not the life LIVING in America, but when I CAME BACK from America.

Some of you know that I lived in Gangneung for about 5 years(I was still born in Seoul and lived in Seoul for 3 years or something hem hem). Well, I did. So the point is- I cannot recall my 2-year-old memory which means that when I was about 8 living in Gangneung, I didn't remember Seoul. (Just in case you're curious, my family moved to Gangneung because my dad was tired of the really really reallllllllly busy working(doctor-ing?) in Seoul Asan Hospital so he went to Gangneung Asan Hospital instead where he got paid similarly but could work less. )

And then we went to America. And then we came back. But when we came back, we went right to Seoul because my parents thought that they couldn't just let me live in this farming-looking area where I had no education. So when I was in 2nd grade, I came to Seoul. And then I was so surprised.

1. Because there were motorcycles crashing around everywhere

Look, I know Seoul is a busy place, but still, I was TOTALLY horrified. I'm not disliking South Korea or anything, but the two countries - Korea and America - are totally different. TOTALLY. Oh, and can somebody tell me if there is a law in Korea saying,

"Korea's motorcycles are equal as people, which means that they can drive where people walk and come inside apartments.".

So far, I hadn't heard of those. And what's more ridiculous is that polices don't catch these people. If I go into their brains, they are probably thinking, "wow, a motorcycle is driving on the crosswalk, they are driving along with people walking. Wow, they come out and suddenly become cars again and drive where motorcycles are supposed to drive. Wow, the motorcycle goes inside an apartment complex. They probably go inside the whole apartment until they see a stair".

Now, some of you guys never stepped a foot outside Seoul or something, but as a person who lived in a place(America) where people are scared of the police, I couldn't dream of it.

Also, what if someone gets crushed by one of those delivery motorcycles? They're not really slow, even. Probably there are like 70 motorcycle accidents in a year.

1. Almost every student had a phone. (This has to be #2 but it says #1 I don't know why)

In America, a student doesn't have a phone. Which means that boys don't do games. Some will even say, "what's a mobile game?". But in Korea- totally different. When I first went to school and saw girls doing weird things with their smartphones, I was like, "wait- isn't that thing that my mom and dad have? Is she an adult? Definitely not. So what is she even doing? She probably didn't steal the phone... did she? Maybe she's a mean guy or something.". But then, that whole day, I saw like 50 students using smartphones(including outside school). So I was really confused, and I asked my mom, and she said that probably their parents were concerned that they might get kidnapped or something, so I believed that. But as time passed, I realized that that was definitely not the case. I dunno. A kid with a flip phone will say to a kid who had smartphones, "wow, you're so lucky, I wish I had one of those smartphones". But I couldn't totally understand that, because I never really wanted a smartphone. And there's this phone called gong-shin phone where it only has a shape of a smartphone but is not 'smart' and can only do messaging and photos and stuff, but I really didn't understand that too. Why do you even have the gong-shin phone thing when you really can't do the thing that the phone is supposed to do? I still can't really understand that, but I just assume that there are people who want those not-smart-smartphones because their outside looks pretty(?).

3. The Cars had really black windows

I don't really want to compare America and South Korea as good and bad, but this is the concept so please understand :)

In America, you're not allowed to have black windows. It has to be just pure glass, very transparent. That is so that the polices can know who you are and so that people can communicate while driving more easily. (I actually saw people doing really bad gestures toward each other because someone did a really bad thing, and it was kind of scary 😨)

In Korea, they're almost all black. Totally. Toooooooootally. I was so surprised when I saw that. I mean, of course, the cars are all black in Gangneung too, but I didn't really have a working brain when I was 7 so I really didn't care about this stuff.

I have no idea how they can see in the dark. They probably can't. They're risking their lives to make their window black, and I will never do those stuff.

4. They had stop signs but they are no use.

You can sometimes see a stop sign in South Korea, but no one seems to care. Now, they are not ignoring it because they are mean, but because really they don't know how it works. I reckon most of you guys don't know what a stop sign is on traffic, so I'll tell you now.

A stop sign looks like this:

It does not mean you cannot go any further. It means to stop for a tempo.

So what you're supposed to do is, if you see a stop sign, press the brake of the car, stop for a second, and then move along. This is so that there can be cars suddenly coming out of nowhere and cause accidents.

My parents never really knew that so they first just ignored them, but then people were glaring in their transparent-window-cars, so my parents learned them quickly.

There are sometimes these signs in South Korea, but I have no idea why they are there since no one even gives a glance at them.

I hope you enjoyed my blog!! It's 10:13 PM and I'm sleepy. I'm not fully myself because of the sleepiness, so please understand if they are some mistakes in the blog. Hope you had a nice weekend(I am writing this on Sunday)!

Sincerely,

Seoin