[TL;DR Theme Music]
For this week's TL;DR we're gonna be talking about the differences between Korea and China.
Well, not all of China.
Not all of China. China's pretty huge.
We were just in Beijing for a few days
and we noticed a few recognisable differences between Seoul and Beijing.
Maybe your experiences are different from ours
but we're gonna talk about what we noticed that was very different.
Point Number 1:
Korea, we have an apology to make to you.
I'm sorry, Korea.
I'm really sorry that we ever said that your driving was bad.
Oh man. I'm so, so sorry.
Ohhhh. I take it back.
Y'know. Now that we drive in Korea, there's some things that still piss us off,
but I cannot IMAGINE driving in Beijing.
Why did you bother putting down lanes?
Like, what is the point of this signal thing that you have?
Like, it's supposed to tell where you're going
But everyone's just like merging in with each other like
Ok so imagine a 5 lane highway
and it's got those little lines on the ground
I think they're called 'lanes'
but it's just a suggestion for, perhaps, where you're aiming
This is driving in Beijing.
Very accurate representation right there.
There's like no signals
The two of us are just holding each other in the car like
WE'RE GONNA DIIEEEEE
And when we were in the rickshaw
Traffic was coming this way and the rickshaw's like playing literal Frogger
Like, 'I can make it'
'It's not your light!' 'Just wait!'
'Please!' 'This is my life we're talking about here!'
You remember we did our TL;DR on Driving in Korea?
...and I don't think there's a Korean person who can really deny this.
'How dare you. Korean driving is safe and...' 'We are great at driving'
'We stop at all the red lights' 'We obey the law'
And the taxi drivers would never try to kill you
And the bus would never knock down old women who were trying to find their seats
like, Everyone knows this, ok.
No denial.
But in the comment section, there were a lot of people who said
'Oh, you're complaining about Korean traffic?' Yeah
'You should come to China.' Ok
And also, people in India. Ok
So now, we've never been to India so I don't know Never been to India yet
I'm not sure
China or India, who's got the worst driving, I don't know You guys fight it out if you've been there
All I know is that
Korea's driving is not perfect, but it's not the worst that I've experienced.
Yeah. Korea, I'm so sorry!
Point Number 2:
Beijing skyline and architecture is so much nicer than Korea's.
I actually disagree with you on this point.
Ok well let me say my point first Ok
Because what I notice about Beijing Where's your conch shell
Let me find something that I can hold That's punchy
Hold yourself, woman.
What I notice about Beijing is that the buildings are a lot wider
and there's a lot more land in between them
So as a result the buildings could be bigger
While in Korea it's like here's the first floor of this business
second floor has this business third floor has a gym
fourth floor has a swimming pool fifth floor has offices
sixth floor has hogwons
while Beijing, everything is spread out and so there's much diversity in there also
so I actually like the way Beijing's skyline looks
How can Korea have their building vertical if they have less land
Well - China's like the 3rd largest country
No, I totally agree with that
Omg I'm turning into like a defensive patriotic Korean person
Yes The guk-bang
Oh ya 'How dare you say anything about Korea?!'
It's perfect!
Totally understand Korea's situation which has very limited real estate
But I just appreciate bigger architecture
because I don't like feeling like I'm in tiny cramped spaces
like I am in Korea because I'm a big guy!
and Beijing let me feel more open.
Ok what I will say is that I agree that the buildings are actually kinda funkier looking
because like, when we first drove from the airport, everyone has the same comment
which is that the Korean apartments look exactly the same
It's really kinda like striking when you drive into the city
You're like. Umm. Ok. What?
Very homogenous.
Beijing had a couple of buildings like that, that kinda looked the same
but mostly, even the apartment buildings, they all look different
Different roofs as well, like different balconies sticking out
Like, they had diversity there.
So you agree with me?
No; No, I don't agree with you
because I actually really love the Korean skyline
I just really, I don't know what it is.
When I drive over that bridge, or on the subway between like Hapjeong and Yeouido,
it's like my favourite view
Can you play cheesy music over this part right here please?
I will, because I'M editing it
I'm the editor! It's me!
The Meems!
Ok so I'm gonna put Rock'n'Roll music over
and you're gonna get all the cheesy music
Point Number 3:
We found that Beijing had a lot more foreigners
And a lot more foreign STUFF
Like, we went to that foreign market that had
SO MUCH CHEESES!!
uh, that sounded like a, holy name there
Now though we did see a lot of foreigners, it seemed like a lot of them were in suits
Yup.
so maybe we were in like a special neighbourhood?
but despite all the foreigners we saw,
we seemed to get more stares than we do in Korea
I have no idea why, like
my guess is because a lot of the foreigners are very professional-looking,
at least the ones that we saw,
while Martina's got like, half-pink hair
and we both have like, half sleeves here
What are you trying to say?
We actually saw a guy on a bike
that, like, when he saw us, he did like a full 180 degree turn
as he was driving away
and I wanted to be like
YOUR LIFE IS ABOUT TO DIE
THE TRAFFIC IS GOING TO KILL YOU
It could, it could be that.
It could be that we just look very odd
Or maybe Korean people have become more subtle in looking
They have the sunglasses on
Oh they have those, they have those glasses we got from G-Market
G-market ones that go down, but
they have the ones that goes sideways
It could just be that I'm weird.
I think you're weird.
What?
Hey, it's ok.
But -
You're special.
You're so beautiful, special one
When I first saw you, fell in love with ya
Point Number 4:
Something I really appreciate about Korea is that
the men here don't roll up their shirts
to expose their bellies
and then scratch their stomachs and slap them in public
I saw a lot of that in Beijing
I'm not sure if that's a trend that's actually going to transfer over to Korea
I sure hope not
Because I didn't really like seeing all the, all the guts and the scratching
Ok, you know what
We talked to somebody
Like, we were, we stopped by some Nasties
and we chatted with them and we said like,
What's up with this whole stomach thing
It's called 'Turning on the AC'
Something interesting that we talked about on our way here Why don't they just wear crop tops?
Yeah -
OH YES
We saw a guy in the hotel
He has like, fancy linen shirt It was amazing!
And it was gorgeous - It was covered in like -
and you saw the back and it had like tails
but then when he turned around it was actually cut
so that, his stomach was -
He didn't roll it up, it was PHYSICALLY CUT
so that his stomach could hang out
And it was so shocking, because
on this side of him,
you just saw this long, funky shirt
and then on this side of him, we were like
DUN DUN!
But the one thing you and I wound up discussing was that
in Korea,
I don't think I've ever seen a shirtless man
No, never
Like, people always wear their clothing regardless of how hot it is
That's why we're saying they're so well dressed
yeah, or, or their nipples
like, everyone's always keeping, like
from here to here covered
There's a lot of modesty in, in men here in Korea
Ok, but you know what
I think the only time I've ever seen
and this is like, really digging back to my mind palace
I might've seen some Korean guys when it's really hot
drinking makgeolli,
OLD Korean dudes
Um, and they had like those tank tops on
Well not tank tops, like
undershirts, like
but buttoned shirt over
BUT, no belly buttons and no nipples exposed.
But I mean, that's really rare
Maybe in the countryside?
If you live in the countryside, let us know if people rock around shirtless going like
WOOO!!
WOOOHH!!
WOO!
New Campaign:
Korean Men: Show Us Your Nipples
And our last point is that;
uh, Beijing's air
KILLED US. DESTROYED US.
Ok, we were being prepped in advance by people, saying that
We've talked about yellow dust before
And you might've seen us if you follow us on Twitter saying things like
'Yellow dust is really high in Seoul, you guys should wear your masks'
We always follow the reports, so we can see if it's healthy outside or not
So we followed the Beijing yellow dust version on our Twitter feed, and
even when the yellow dust wasn't that high,
when we stepped outside, it was like
the air smelt like a combination of
someone blowing a cigarette consistently into your mouth
and the back of a car, like just being in a parking garage, like that smell
and sometimes there was a periodic fart smell that kinda followed you depending on where you were
I'm not exaggerating, guys.
This isn't me being like 'Oh, Beijing'
I mean, it was bad.
And the thing is, we're not just saying that the smell was bad,
but it had really bad effects on us.
like, I had a crushing headache
for the day that we were walking around outside
even though I had a mask on a lot of the time
Yup. I had a mask on the whole - I didn't take my mask off once, cos I have asthma
We were like, floored, exhausted, like
we could barely operate
and it wasn't even on, like, the hottest day
it was on a day that was only like, 30 degrees
rather than 40 degrees
and we were just DESTROYED by the air quality.
Ok, not just that, but my lymph nodes were swollen.
Like, you know when you're gonna get sick and you feel like, it's like tender
We walked outside, with my mask on, my lymph nodes went tender,
immediately, I started to feel sick
I felt a pain in my heart
Then we went into a shop
with the door closed, we sat down for a coffee
and within like, maybe 2 minutes
I felt fine again.
Maybe it doesn't affect you as much as it affects us
We don't feel the same kind of effects in Korea as we do in China.
So we're gonna be talking a bit more about our experiences in Beijing
and the differences that we noticed, in our blog post
so make sure you click on the link here, and contribute to the conversation
also tomorrow we're gonna be posting our WANK adventure
about what we did in Beijing so you're gonna see a lot of the food porn shots
make sure you stay tuned for that
pretty...pretty much food
We didn't talk about food in this TL;DR
cos we're saving that for tomorrow
but I put two thumbs up for food~
Though the question for you is this:
If you've been to Beijing or other parts of China,
did your experiences line up with what we experienced,
or was it totally different
let us know in the comment section below.
And I'd also like to know, What is the shirtlessness like in your country?
Do men expose their nipples and belly buttons
or is it not appropriate?
When we used to live in Windsor
people were shirtless all the time
We developed an actual
It's called - we'd see a guy and be like 'WINDSORRREEDD!'
'Windsor-ed', it is 'to be Windsor-ed'
Not as much in Toronto though
For last week's TL;DR we talked about being alone in Korea
and we got some really interesting comments from you guys
The first one was from Neta Benjamin
who said a really easy way to make friends or meet other people if you're travelling to Korea
is to be in a guest house.
Because there are a lot of other travellers there who are probably just as confused or alone as you are
You could form little groups and be best friends forever as a result.
I think that's actually a really good comment, because a lot of people felt scared
they kept saying like, 'I don't know what I'm gonna do if I go to Korea'
Guest house, man.
Guest houses will help you out.
Hongdae has tons of guest houses, there's gonna be guest houses near our coffee shop as well
so it's like, you go to a guest house
Our coffee shop is in the guest house area
Yeah, exactly, so
On our website we had a cool comment from Sara Suzanne Berg
who is currently living in Korea
and she had some things to say.
One of the things was that she had a friend who ate samgyupsal alone
but she said the owner was NOT impressed with this situation
so apparently you can bully your way in into being served alone
but the other interesting thing she said is that
she uses a lot of apps to meet up with people
and they go to Gangnam, and they meet in coffee shops
and do like, handicrafts together
like stitching, and knitting, and all that kind of stuff.
So this is where we want to shamelessly plug the coffee shop that we have opening up
Which is not built yet
Not built yet
but it's gonna be ready in the middle of July
If you wanna crochet with your friends, do it at our coffee shop!
it's gonna be so fun! So many lovely people, Nasties, and friendly, and loveliness
No but that's like, that's one of the big goals of this coffee shop
We were trying to find a place where people could do comfortable meetup
where you can meet people, and knit,
and bring your dogs and cats and all that jazz
So we hope to see you there.
Yeah. I'll bring my knitting. I knit.
I'm just saying. But I don't know how to crochet.
And the last comment was from last week's PromPosal,
You remember that Zhang wound up asking Grace out to the prom
And she said yes!
YAAAAAAYYY!!!
~Love is the moment~