Food etiquette.

(This is a long one, but I was bored during a two-hour break at work. Sorry.)

There seems to be a strange fascination here with food. It is polite to continually offer food around workplaces and homes. Though this is kind and, in a busy school environment often sought after, it does tend to give a foreign visitor the impression they are being fattened up for something.

Such was the case when I first arrived in the country. Being of a rather large frame I couldn't believe they truly thought I was malnourished. Instead I began to assume they thought I required lots of food to sustain myself and I would faint without it.

I have now realised, through my own experiences and some outside reading, that they are simply being polite. To show concern for someone else's welfare by concentrating on whether they eat enough food dates back to time when most Koreans were so poor they could often not afford enough rice to eat breakfast everyday. So by inquiring in fairly intrusive detail after my food habits, and constantly feeding me, they are simply showing care and concern for my welfare.

One of the traditional morning greetings in Korea used to be "Have you eaten rice today?" It is a practice that has sadly fallen out of favour in modern Korea (I think it has rather an adorable ring to it). I hadn't experienced that polite inquiry until a few days ago. I was in the middle of wolfing down some lunch in the school cafeteria (well, school shed really) during my horribly short lunch break. The school's male director (we also have a female one) was eating and, using one of my colleagues as a translator, he asked me whether or not I had eaten breakfast that morning.

I was bang in the middle of enjoying a mouthful of rice and gimchi, and my Western sensibilities led me to assume he was asking because he thought I was stuffing my face and being a bit piggy. To tell the truth I was rather stunned and only managed to reply with a confused "Yeah". The minute I left I recalled what I'd read about polite food-welfare enquiry, and felt like a right Charlie.

I can now only hope he asks again some day so I can reply in a more courteous way. It is just one of a number of Korean manners that are tripping me up. But, being of a clumsy disposition anyway, it's not too much of a break from the norm.

------- In other news in snowed a little bit here, but it is now too cold for it. The wind has picked up and is really biting. I've taken to walking the mile and a half home from school with a friend of mine, rather than sit in a crowded bus. It doesn't make much difference time-wise, and it gets me out in the fresh air. Always good. I really want it to snow again though, as we haven't had much and it makes the world look so pretty.

(I've only just discovered how to put photos on here, so expect a few more!)