One of the time-honored pastimes of expats is making fun of bad or otherwise incorrect uses of their native language.  Bad English has many names:  ”Engrish” in Japan, “Singlish” in Singapore, “Chinglish” in China, “Franglais” in France, and here in Korea, either “Konglish” or “Englishee” (the latter being how Koreans tend to pronounce “English”).  Usually the foreign language (in this case, English) is nonsense, or close to it.  If it’s something that is misspelled, it is usually in a context that the English itself is of little importance.  However, when the word “English” is misspelled on an English phrasebook/dictionary, I no longer wonder why my students, who have had at least 2-3 (and usually 4) years of English before they get to me, still struggle with phrases like “I like watching movies.”.  I found this gem in a stationery store near my apartment, and had to stifle my laughter so as to not offend the shopkeeper.  Given that my own second language is French, at first glance, I read this as “Living Eglise Language Everyday” (living church language everyday) and was incredibly confused..  Anyway, here you go:

Next one!  Okay, so… Koreans love Spam.  In fact, during holidays, you can even buy gift baskets of it, and it is considered something nice to bring to a meal.  My completely unfounded hypothesis as to why that is, is that since, during the Korean War, American GIs gave the starving Koreans cans of Spam as presents, the same way they gave local kids candy bars during WWII.  This association with Spam and charity/gift-giving has given the “food” a positive reputation here in Korea, rather than the “food of last resort” reputation it has in the states.  Now, this is completely my own theory, so take it with a large grain of salt.

What does Spam have to do with the next image?  Well, along with Sam, Koreans seem to be fond of highly-processed meat in general, and I saw this in the local grocery store and laughed.  I actually said quietly to myself, “Wait, isn’t ham….pork?”

Koreans seem to have a thing for wacky winter hats.  Brian in Jeollanamdo has a mocking post up about it here (though sadly his link to an even better post seems to be broken), including a discussion of how a food chain (Paris Baguette) seems to have an unusually strong influence over Korean fashion, given that it’s…a bakery.  This year’s fashion seems to be hats that look like animals eating your head.  Here are a few photos:

Yes, Rose, that’s a cute cow with horns and even a flower…

So, that’s all for now.  I have some other photos of strange stuff from Korea, but those will have to wait for another day.

I’d also like to put out a plug for a great Korean culture blog, The Grand Narrative.  He’s working on his masters in Korean society/culture, and his posts are great.  They’re academic in nature, but the tone is very readable.  So, go check it out!