Korean and the West (26th Feb. 07)

Sometimes Korea is no different from Western countries. Whichever country I go to, one situation is always the same and I have never understood it. I guess some things in life just have to be accepted. Picture the situation. You are in a supermarket and a woman is in front of you, with her groceries being scanned through at the checkout. She stands there. She could get her purse out and have the money ready to pay. She could (if someone else is not doing it) grab a plastic bag and start bagging her own groceries. What will she do? Nothing!

She will stand and watch the assistant scanning the goods through or she will stand and look into space, thinking about something that only she knows about. Once the groceries have been scanned through, she will then fumble around in her purse for half a minute, looking for coins to pay the exact amount. Watch a man going through and he will almost certainly have his money ready in his hand to pay. He will pay with bank notes and use all the coins at one time and he will bag his groceries as they are being scanned through. My thought is that many women love shopping so much, that they will do anything to delay leaving the shop. They want to hang around and take in the atmosphere. Men usually want to get home and catch the sport (or Star Crafts in the case of many Korean men).
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