Some cultural differences of South Korea

Here are some things that I have learned in my first two weeks of what is culturally common and socially accepted in South Korea:

• The people here do not learn how to drive until they have graduated high school.  The average age to start driving is 30.
• The majority of people live "vertically", meaning that most people live in apartments.  This helps with the ratio between amount of land needed with the population.
• The average age to get married is 30.  It is also common for most people to not even start dating until they are 25.  Though you will meet a few people that got married at 25, it is a minority.
• Many students leave home to live independently when they go to high school.  My directors oldest daughter, for instance, lives up in Seoul 4-5 hours away on the north side of the peninsula.
• Students also have to apply to go to the high school they want (as if it were college).  This is why education is so strongly emphasized in grade school and students go to both public and private school to learn other areas (I will explain the school system in another post).  They need to be competitive in order to go to high school and, eventually, college.
• Recycling is strongly emphasized.
• There are no garbage cans on streets.  You simply leave your garbage bag on the street corner and the truck regularly comes by and picks it up.  Cans take up too much space, time, and money and its just not necessary -- especially with a relatively large population in a small area of land.
• The weather is often cloudy, though when the sun does come out you will find some people (typically the older people) with an umbrella, long sleeves, long pants, and/or face masks.  The reason for this is because a past cultural belief was that people with a tan were considered "lower class" because they worked outside a lot.  So some older people still do this today.  I have not seen any (or very few) younger Koreans doing this.  It seems that many of the younger age group like to try to follow the western culture trends.