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Every Monday evening, right before we start our club activities (but after the compulsory gathering), we undertake something known as 「ラジオ体操」or, in English, Radio Gymnastics.

This tradition, which I have no idea when it originated but strongly suspect it was sometime in the post-war 50s, begins with removing the tiny, battery-powered mono cassette (!) player from the storage room. This task is, of course, relegated to a first year student. After the device has been removed and placed in a suitable position, we spread out in a large circe in the garage or, if as in the above photo we are outside, in rows according to year-level. The play button is pushed, and the gymnastics begin.

What follows is something that conjures up in my mind a mix of Play School, 1984 and 50s socialism (which, believe you me, Japan was). The piano starts playing and a man with a kind and all-too-happy voice begins counting sets of eight while briefly explaining the exercises. Of course, right away I am reminded of the piano man in Play School, who I remember being excited at seeing whenever they rarely showed him ("So that's where the music came from!"). This Play School connection is futher enhanced by the fact that some of the things we do strongly resemble a piano-accompanied activity that I often partook in whilst watching the show - 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes', anyone?

Needless to say, I was struggling to contain a grin the first time I partook in this activity. The Korean student to my right, however, was not so successful, and burst out with laughter. None of this fazed the Japanese students though. They have apparently been doing this exact same exercise since they were little children in primary school and as such all knew the moves by heart. Not one of them batted an eyelid when they found out that we had to continue those same activities as university students!

The longer I stay in Japan, the more I realise just how fundamentally different our cultures are. It goes all the way down to our ways of thinking - distilled down to a very basic level, it's individualism vs. what's best for the group. But I won't go into such a discussion in this post, as it only has one photo, and I'll probably kill people with boredom.

(PS: The above photo was taken at the recent trip out to the University's practice grounds in Niigata Prefecture. I snuck in this photo while no-one was looking - it turned out pretty well, I think!)



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I find it a little weird to be writing a blog about something that happened half a month ago. I really should have written this post earlier, but it seems a combination of busyness and laziness has meant that I kept putting it off. If I were to make my contribution to the social problem of blaming someone else for everything, I would say that it's just a lot easier for me to quickly upload photos on Facebook and tell people about my experiences that way. But I won't say that...

...anyway, back on topic: two or so weeks ago I flew over to Korea with three friends of mine. I needn't mention that it was the South that we went to  - although I'm just dying (hah) for a visit to Pyongyang. We spent the entirety of the four days that we were there in Seoul, which was only a two-hour plane trip from Tokyo. To put that in perspective, travelling to another country took about the same time as flying from Adelaide to Sydney - and cost about the same too!

Contrary to what I had thought, Korea was a very different country to Japan in almost every respect. Sure, the languages share the same grammatical structure and the two peoples look similar (at a first glance) - but that is where the similarities end, and the latter isn't even really the case.
In fact, I'll begin my description of how Korea and Japan are different by talking about the differences in appearance of the people (of course all of the following is just my own somewhat exaggerated opinion and shouldn't be taken too seriously).
Let's start with the guys. Korean guys are in general taller and more well-built than Japanese guys. This latter fact is in no doubt helped by the two years of compulsory military service that they have to undergo. As a result, the fashion is also more 'manly', with less of the crazy fashions that you'll see in Japan (not that that's a bad thing!).
On to the women. Where a Japanese woman could be described as petit and cute, a Korean woman could be generalised as... well, more 'well-bult' shall we say. They also have a reputation for being more sassy.

The atmosphere of Seoul is also very different from that of Tokyo. Tokyo is what all modern cities should aspire to be. It has an amazing, punctual transportation system of trains, subways, buses and highways that covers pretty much everywhere you need to go. If you don't live in the centre of Tokyo (few people do), you live near a train that will get you there within an hour. As a result, the streets are surprisingly empty and calm at any time of the day. Calm, that is, except for the maniacal cyclists, who seem to have no regard at all for road laws, riding all over the footpaths and roads in any manner they please. I've had many near misses, and I don't think it will be long before there's an accidental (or otherwise) collision.
Seoul, on the other hand, is what most other major cities in the world actually are. That is, the streets are packed with cars, each competing with each other for right of way and resulting in no-one really getting anywhere. Cars aren't afraid to use their horns, and the cyclists stay well away for fear of their lives.

Korean food is also very different to Japanese. For starters, there are two stereotypes about Korean food - once is that it's spicy, and the second is that it comprises entirely of meat grilled on a hotplate on the table in front of you. Often it's both.


In reality, those stereotypes aren't too far off. Compared to Japan, whose cuisine can best be described as 'rice with condiments', Korean food has an abundance of both meat and vegetables. And it's cheap! On one night, we stuffed ourselves with delicious grilled beef at a local eatery that our Korean contact had taken us to, eating easily a three-person portion each. That, combined with drinks, amounted to less than $20 - something that would be impossible in Japan, especially considering how much meat we ate.

But perhaps the most interesting and unique food we ate in Korea was of chicken, not beef. In a large traditional style Korean house which had been converted into a restaurant and was a favourite of the old President, we savoured on the delicacy of chicken soup. But not just any chicken soup - this one had a whole chicken in it (each), stuffed with rice and cure-all ginseng. Oh, and did I mention that the chicken was black?


Very fiddly to eat with nothing but chopsticks, but oh so satisfying. My mouth is still salivating at the thought...

The final difference that I'd like to mention about Korea reflects not the country itself but my personal abilities. Whereas in my time in Japan I've come to be able to read and understand and even speak enough to live a daily life, going to Korea was my first experience in going to a country where I could understand nothing. Even the writing system was foreign to me. (Korea used to use Chinese characters (漢字) like China and Japan, but changed after WWII to distance themselves from their old-time rulers. Instead, they have hangul (한글), which is a phonetic alphabet invented by a Korean king some hundreds of years ago and supposedly mimics the way the mouth moves when words are pronounced.)
Still, we were luckily enough to have a guide who showed us around to all of the best eateries and tourist attractions. And since all Koreans spend seven years learning English in high school, there were not really any problems with speaking to the, uh, local population either... ;)

In any case, I think you'd all like to see some more photos. Here they are!



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