Julia L from Australia asks: This is a really random idea but maybe you can do a TL;DR on service mind in Korea
because in Korea they give you free stuff all the freaking time
Mmm...True
Although I just realized that by saying service mind people might have no idea what we're talking about
We're going to explain what service is today
Yeah, so my car's been making some weird sounds. Could you service the engine?
-Not what we mean -Oh...
-Bring Bring! -Hello?
Um yes, I was looking at the optimal service for getting my internet made faster at home
-Mm.. That's now what you're looking for either -Oh....
When we're talking about service, we're talking about the Korean word seobeesuh
-Oh, I see! You've made it more clear-- Seobeesuh!! -Seobeesuh!
Okay what you mean to say is service is an English word that has a different meaning in Korea
When someone say "Oh, Seobeesuh!" and they hand you something it means shit you're getting for free
But not literally poop. They're not like "Here's some free poop. Have it."
I dunno how to do TL;DRs anymore
This TL;DR has gotten off to a rough start
On the plus side, look at how cute we are couple-y
Did you know that Martina bought this for me for Christmas and then she thought,
"I might as well get one for myself as well because why not
even though I just buy myself a Christmas present"
Our money
Thus you bought me a Christmas gift that I wanted
You didn't wrap it up and put my name on it and you gave it to yourself
I wrapped it up for you. I said Merry Christmas
-And I got one from myself too -From you for me
Lame. That's lame
Why is this conversation going on? It was actually buy two get one 50% off
And then she got herself an extra shirt on top of that
I got the Loki T-shirt!
-She went to the store, bought four things for herself, not one for me! -Okay why are we talking about that!
Okay so what does service mean? Think of it as one the house or a sample for free
So for example when we go to Canada and we buy face products that we need at stores like Kiehls
or Key-ehils or however you pronounce it -How do you pronounce that?
hl! Those two letters shouldn't be together!
*pronouncing Kiehls?*
Point is, whenever you buy something there at the end they'll be like,
"Oh, do you want to try this little sample of this avocado cream?" or something like that
So the idea behind it is that they're trying to give you a small sample so that next time you come,
you might buy a bigger version of that product.
Yeah. Now I will say that Korea has a similar version of that, except it's a lot better, I personally think
I go to Etude House. I can spend $10 on a single mascara thingy and they're like,
Here! Try these 15 things! These new things samples from these products that are coming out soon!
You already have this product? That's okay! I'll give you three more of them!
I'll come home with more samples than things that I actually purchased
So they way I think about it is that in Canada what I'm used to is them trying to be like
Here you should try this so you can buy it in the future
In Korea the feeling is more like,"You bought something? Let me hook you up with all this stuff right here"
-It does kinda feel like that actually -It has that kinda vibe to it
Even if you go to a beauty or cosmetic in Korea, especially in Myeongdong
You can just enter the store-- you don't have to buy anything and they're like,
"Here. Have a free face mask Have a free pen"
And then you walk around inside or like "Yes...Interesting..."
And then you just leave. You can gather all the free stuff to take home with you
I will buy this one Q-tip and I will take this $50 worth of free samples, thank you
You don't even need to buy anything! They'll just literally try to lure you in!
Screw you Q-tip! I will take the $50, thank you
-I'll tell you what else is really different in Canada -Okay
If you go to a grocery store and you buy a cereal for kids--
If you're lucky, maybe it comes with a toy
which I feel like there have been a major loss of toys being in cereal boxes
When we were growing up, didn't it feel like there were tons of toys in every cereal box?
There were like CDs in cereal boxes and whatnot
-I don't think CDs existed when we were younger -Yeah they did
I think they were tape cassettes
I'm sorry you were born in the 60s
I look really good for my age
Oh my gawddd
In Korea, you can go to the grocery store and be like, "I'll like to buy this coffee"
And uhh... We're gonna throw in some light bulbs taped to the side. Shablamblam
You can buy coffee and they come with mugs taped to it
or why get mugs taped to your coffee when you could get a free salad spinner taped to your coffee
why get a free salad spinner when you could get a free lunch pail?
-What's that other thing taped to it? -Strawberry iced tea
Right
So everything in these stores have these specials where you get things taped to it
but often they don't make sense
So many times whenever you go to Home Plus, you wanna buy an item and they just they just have
random crap taped onto it for free
You buy kimchi and it comes with olive oil and you're like, "...Okay."
Oh! You wanted this brick of cheese? Here's a water gun that comes with it.
You know what that carton of milk needs? Some yogurt taped to it.
Oh, you want some ramen? Let me give you a big bag of toilet paper as well taped to the side of it.
That could be for warning.
Perhaps it's very spicy ramen and they're like, "You'll need this bro."
Now sometimes you'll get things taped to other things that kinda make sense
I bought loose leaf tea once and it came with an entire glass teapot taped to it
Isn't that amazing?!
It was like really pretty, clear glass teapot
The teapot we almost break everyday that we open the tea cupboard
Oh! Is it because you've rammed all of you tea in there and you don't leave any room for anything else
I'm the organized one in this relationship Martina's just the-- *crams everything in places*
I organize the tea cupboard. I do! What do you do Martina??
I don't organize the tea cupboard because I'm hoping that it will break
so that you could learn your lesson!
The whole point is that here in Korea, whenever you go to a supermarket
and you buy something, you get a lot of extra stuff for free taped to the side of it
and we're not used to having that in Canada whatsoever
I think the reason they're doing that is it's kind of a way to say,
'You could buy the competitor's coffee or you could buy ours, which comes with a chicken taped to it.'
If you've got 40 different options of coffee that a lot of the times, mostly tastes similar,
why not buy the one with a free water hose attached to it?
You'd get an extra-- I'd get an extra water hose
You know what this is like? I just realized a lot of the stuff in Korea is like,
Buy this Shamwow now and it comes with 6 knives for sharpening your cat!
It's an infomercial everywhere you go!
You know what my favorite thing in Korea though is? Bar none, bar none my favorite
Do you want to sign up for a cell phone plan?
Oh yes! Let's sign you up to a two year contract for an $800 phone
And you know what? We'll throw in some toilet paper for you as well
There you go! That seals the deal!!
We're not exaggerating. You walk down the street and you see a cell phone shop,
-The big balloon arch outside of it -That's right and the girl being like,
"Oh! Annyeonghaseyo!" And she's dancing awkwardly trying to get your attention
And she's got the little mic with the speaker on her all blown out
And there's stacks of ramen or stacks of toilet paper and they've even had kimchi before
-Yes -I've seen stacks of kimchi
Why?--- I just-- I don't understand the reasoning behind it or how that's more of a selling point
Well because the competitors across the street will charge you for an $800 cellphone
and you won't get any toilet paper with you Simon
If you're in the market for a cellphone, might as well get some free toilet paper while you're at it
Now the above examples we gave of stuff being taped to other stuff
and getting toilet paper with your hand phone
Those are all examples of free samples or free stuff you'd get and
you may not actually hear someone use the word service
But when it comes to going to Korean restaurants I think that's when you'll hear the word service used the most.
That's when it becomes a real big deal here.
So here's a scenario:
You go to a Samgyeopsal restaurant and you order a whole bunch of meat
and when the waiter brings it out to you, he'll put all the meat on the grill
and then he'll give you a bottle of cola and he'll say Seobeesuh
-I just got a free bottle of cola -That's pretty fantastic!
Fantastic~ Fantastic~
So sometimes you get free stuff on the side like you might get a free egg dish on the side
You might get Doenjang jjigae on the side
You're not gonna get something like a whole meal
They're not gonna say "Oh, here's service Samgyeopsal" and give it to you
That's would be kinda crazy
Only if you've been to a restaurant a lot and you have a really close relationship with them
Like there are a couple of meat grilling that we're really close with
that whenever we go to them, they give us a whole bunch of extra sausages
and extra sweet potatoes and whatnot
And they're actually listed on the menu as one of the main dishes, but they're just trying to say,
"Thanks for coming here so much"
It's only because we contribute to half of their monthly revenue because we're there all the time.
I like grilling meat
But please do note this is only usually for Mom and Pop shop
You can't go to a Taco Bell in Korea and ask for a service gordita
because when it comes to the bigger franchises, they don't really participate in the whole service thing
-That would be great -That would be
You order like six tacos and they're like, "Here's your gordita"
-Gordita~ -I like gorditas~ I've never had a gordita actually
-Have you had a gordita? -Yeah, at Taco Bell, I have
Really? What do they taste like?
Tastes like the same shit, but just have different shells
Oh~ Way to sell it to me
-Oh~ -Somehow I'm craving it
Taco Bell: Same shit, different wrapping every time
Martina and I were having this discussion before
I never experienced on the house stuff in Canada
I've gotten so much free stuff at restaurants here in Korea; in Canada never
-Okay, I see your point -Yes
I think it comes down to-- In Canada you really really really have to know a place
for them to be like "Thanks for coming back to Johnny's."
Here's a free service starter or a salad on the side or here's a free dessert
You spit on me Johnny
Sorry about that. That's okay!
But I think in Korea, you do get more free stuff
just because the Mom and Pop shops are trying to compete with the bigger chains
It makes you want to go back to that location again because it makes me wanna go back again
doesn't it make you?
I get all this free stuff in Korea and I don't have to tip!
While in Canada it's like I'm not gonna get free stuff
and sometimes the waiters don't even give me my proper stuff and I still have to give them a 20% tip
That's true
I'm gonna say that you can demand service in very certain situations such as
You're ordering delivery and the food is taking forever and you can them back and you're like,
"Where's my food" and they're like "Holy crap, we forgot your food"
"Oh we forgot" "Well, you better hook me up with some service"
--And they do!
And they'll maybe give you a free side dish like free mandu or free steamed egg or something
So we're gonna talk a little more about different kinds of service that you can experience
outside of restaurants and outside of shopping malls in our blog post
so make sure you click on the link here if you want to read more about it.
And our question for you this week is:
Do you get free stuff in your country? And if you do, Where do you live and can I live there?
-Free stuff is really nice -Nothing tastes better than free food!
For last week's Tl;DR, intern Leigh and I discussed living in Korea as an international student
We talked about dorm life
We asked you guys to share your input on if you've experienced it and we got some awesome responses
We had an interesting combination of comments from magaman007, Shimei Wong and the Illusion of Beauty
who all went to Yonsei University and who all had very different experiences of dorm life there
Yeah. I think what we realize is that even if you go to the same university,
some people totally agreed with Leigh. Some people said combinations of what Leigh was saying
and the Illusion of Beauty was like, "Woah, I didn't experience any of that at all."
We had total freedom
So I think the point that we should learn out of this and out of all of our TL;DRs is that
our experiences that we talk about here don't represent everything in Korea
but only a specific set of experiences
And also I think it's best to come to Korea with a worst mindset possible
That you're gonna have the worst dorm, with all the rules and find out the Illusion of Beauty
"Wow there are no rules at all!" That's better
If things are great for you, then great
So at least come prepared and expect maybe not the best situation
When we moved to Korea, we thought that we would live in the countryside
-I thought I was gonna live on a farm -In like a hole in the wall
-I literally had no idea what was gonna before I came -So everything was just looking up
And the last comment I wanted to talk about was from _youjuch1ngu
who had mentioned to remind us that the goshiwon sometimes are really claustrophobically tiny
-That's a detail we forgot to mention in the last TL;DR -Yes
I mean I know Leigh mentioned it in the blog post,
but we didn't really emphasize that it's sometimes like living in a Harry Potter style closet
It's really tiny so if you're claustrophobic maybe not for you
Unless you're a wizard
Are you a wizard Harry?
You're a hairy wizard!
We didn't sleep well last night