Movies

Since my time started here in South Korea, I have been to two movies, and I must say that they have been learning experiences. Since Koreans always build up instead of sideways, all the theaters are usually on the top floors of some buildings. The box office is on one floor and the theaters themselves are on the floor above. The way you get your ticket is sort of like getting meat from a delly. You pick a ticket from a machine and wait for your number to be called (the banks work the same way here). You than go up to the cashier and try and communicate with her to make sure you're seeing the english version of the movie so you don't waste your money. Than you either get seats assigned to you or you get to pick them yourself. It's pretty cool when you get to pick them, but when we were assigned them, we noticed something interesting happen in the theater. We were all seated in the same area but not really next to eachother. Koreans would come in, sit by us, and than kindly offer their seats so they either weren't sitting in between us or next us. So even though the majority of us weren't sitting next to each other, by the time the movie started, 7 out of the 10 of us were grouped together with out us ever having to ask to move. Either they were really friendly, or just wanted to consolodate all the foreigners into one section for whatever reason.
Another thing I noticed was while we were watching Toy Story 3. There definatly at least 3 moments in the theater when we were the only ones laughing at the movie (about 9 of us.) You see when they put korean sub titles they don't actually translate things the same way, so some jokes get lost in translation. Also some concepts such as american body language and sarcasm are lost on asian cultures, so they probably missed out on a good deal of jokes while we laughed and sounded like that person in the theater that you hate for making too much noise. It was a good learning experience.

Jason