Am I in Mexico?

Am I in Mexico?

Look at this truck...  it's selling vegetables.  When it drives down the street, it honks and everyone is supposed to run out and buy their vegetables.  I would run from 4th floor studio, where this picture is taken from, but I just can't imagine needing that many sweet potatoes.



When I was at the immigration office, there was a woman who had a cart and she was selling coffee.  To be more correct, she was selling hot water and instant coffee.  I like to think of it as coffee a la Nescafe.  Korean people make it simplier though, they premix a bunch of non-dairy creamer and sugar into their little bit of instant coffee.  (It is is good, but it's not coffee.)

I'm sure many subway stations have vendors around them, but the way people just spread everything out on a blanket on the floor, or sit on a box, reminds me distinctly of Mexico.  (I think this is Ginseng in the picture.)  Speaking of the subway, when I am riding it, trying to decipher the stops in Korean, I am often interrupted by a man trying to sell me something like CD's, somthing similar to crazy glue, or bug spray.  Admittedly, the people who sell things on Seoul's subway are often wearing suits and they usually are rather polite in their interruption.  Yesterday, though, I think there was a deaf man who was asking for donations.  He walked up and down the subway car and threw a leaflet on every person's lap.  I saw two people across from me try to discreetly thow their papers on the floor.  The man across from me went as far as shoving his paper under the seat, but the woman left it on the floor by her feet.  To our surprise, upon receiving nothing, the donations seeker briskly walked up and down the subway car and collected all of the papers.  He even picked up the papers that had "fallen" to the floor.  (Good thing I didn't take one; I'm sure I would have received one that had fallen on the floor of a previous car.)  In Mexico, this type of thing happens all the time, except no one goes back to pick up all the fliers, which just adds to the trash.

Speaking of trash, here, just like in Mexico, people just throw their trash on the streets.  In Korea, though, you have to buy these special bags which are particular to the district you live in.  You have to buy the right bag or the garbage people, who come like magic trash fairies, will not pick up your trash.  (I'm not sure how anyone knows that it is YOU using the improper bag, but anyway.)  There are three bags.  One is for food wastes; it is yellow.  One is white and that is for the main trash, but you have to separate the recyclables.  I know there is another color for recycleables, but you don't really have to buy that bag, because there are people constantly pushing these wooden wheelbarrow things up and down the streets to collect all the recycleables, including paper and cardboard.  So if you just set out the paper, cardboard, metals, and plastics in a bag separate from the food waste and trash, someone will come by in an hour or two with a wheelbarrow and pick it up. 

The last thing that just kills me (with laughter) is the way when the traffic gets bad, people walk up and down between the cars and sell refreshments.  Last time I saw that, I was certain I was on the TJ border. 

Of course, that all brings me to the last way Koreans are like Mexicans... both cultures really know how to hustle.  They will sell you anything.  And to make you really want to buy it, they will bring whatever it is they want to sell right to you.  You gotta love that, or at least I do.  I have to respect people who work SO hard.

I love Mexico, but Korea is cleaner.  So, despite all the similarities, I guess I am NOT in Mexico.