Elevator Protocol

It goes without saying that any unfamiliar country has countless protocols which seem odd at First Contact. For Korea, the internet and The Lonely Planet give fair warning about the importance of bowing (or scraping— if you’re a real brown-noser) and unswerving deference to elders. However precious little can be found anywhere about Elevator Protocol.

Jake and Elwwood on a Mission From God

One person alone in an elevator can pretty much do what he likes. He’s a little like Schrödinger's Cat; he may be in there, he maybe not, he may be both; who knows ?  But as soon as people share an elevator, strict protocols apply. 

Occupants immediately adopt a grid formation, 1x2, 2x2, 2x3 and so on. Everyone stands straight, shoulders back, hands to the side, head level. Under no circumstances, intentionally or otherwise, speak, mutter, hum, whistle, sneeze, glimpse cleavage, admire a sensual instep, reach for anything in your pocket, or inadvertently, in anyone else’s pocket. And never, ever, ever make eye contact. This protocol applies even if there are only two of you in the elevator, even if you have been married for 60 years and spawned 3 generations from your loins.

Last but not least, an elevator is NEVER full. The words “Don’t worry, I’ll get the next one” have never been used here in one sentence. Politeness obliges the people in the elevator to accommodate newcomers from each floor. The grid simply reforms to 5x5, 6x6, etc despite people turning blue from asphyxiation or turning red from involuntary sexual intimacy.

Kimchi

Whatever, wherever and whenever you choose to eat in Korea, your order will always be served with a diverse array of free side dishes which are replenished as you eat.  One or two of these sides will always include some variants of ‘Kimchi’, a food eaten proudly (to say nothing of bravely) with every meal in Korea. 

Some tourist guides have described kimchi as ‘cabbage dipped in teargas’ but this is in fact too kind. Records are unclear about its origins - perhaps an experimental germ warfare laboratory, perhaps fragments from a passing meteor - but in Korea it has been cultivated well beyond the realms of conventional earth science. It makes you glad that the USA only allowed Oppenheimer to play with plutonium, rather than something really dangerous. If Truman had dropped Kimchi on Hiroshima there would be no more Hiroshima today, in fact there would have been nothing east of India since 1945.

Kimchi comes without government health warnings

Kimchi however is no cold war secret.  Not only is it made routinely by most people at home, but as winter begins it forms something of a community welfare effort as huge groups of volunteers are mobilised across the length and breadth of the country to prepare kimchi for the poor and needy. 

Thousands of volunteers at Seoul City Hall making kimchi for the poor

First the cabbage leaves are rolled in a severe cocktail of basic ingredients, yeasts and spices. The whole lot is then left in earthenware pots to go off, biologically degrade and then reconstitute itself as an entirely new alien life form with the ferocity to make a Klingon’s knees buckle

Naturally Koreans suppress a chuckle watching westerners eat this for the first time. They openly encourage us with recommendations that the stuff is ‘very good for cancer’. It is just as we start to formulate a witty riposte that the reaction sets in. First the eyes becoming bloodshot, then the uncontrollable dribbling, the incoherent gibberish and finally that sensation of being 9 months pregnant with a nuclear reactor core in meltdown. 

It should be said the natives here are little better at enduring the stuff themselves. After lunch it takes a full two hours before any of them will venture more than 50 yards from either the gents or a water dispenser, while meetings in confined conference rooms are entirely out of the question.

Don't Stop Me Now ........ I'm Having Such a Good Time

One common jibe is that if it works fine, then from an engineer's perspective, it doesn't yet have enough functions. Certainly it is true that in ALMOST every aspect of our lives, new functions, buttons, gadgets and toys have been appended to enhance the user experience. I say ALMOST because there is one, deeply personal, hallowed, sanctity which has so-far escaped the technical revolution - and for sure it isn't the bedroom ! It is the bathroom. We've spent years getting ourselves all stressed out with IT, now we can let it all go with AT.

In Korea they have pursued Ablution Technology with the same rigorous quest for perfection that is applied to everything else. The toilet pans are equipped with a remote with which you can control the pan to apply a wide variety of mists, squirts, spays and deluges at whichever temperature, pressure or diameter takes your fancy. With the remote you can adjust the pre-heating of the seat, the angle and direction of the jets and when you have abluted sufficiently you can finish off with a balmy blow dry to the nethers, again with adjustable air temperature, jet strength and dispersion pattern to suit your whim. You can even pre-program your favourite combo and repeat the cycle time and time again if you're into a really good read.

Toilet Seats: why make them simple when it's so simple to make them complicated ?

When accompanied by a heart-rending violin concerto or some mellow piano bar jazz (as in the offices here) the sheer sensory delight is almost overpowering. Combined with a few basic controlled breathing exercises, this Ablution Technology enables you to achieve a sense of enlightenment which the most demanding Zen Buddhists would tip their hat to. It is perhaps the closest you're likely to get to Nirvana without resorting to chemical enhancements.

The sceptics and novices amongst you may be wondering what happens if one is enjoying one's ascendance on their stairway to heaven when suddenly the inevitable occurs; an incoming phone call or a pesky parcel boy at the door. As any experienced pan-master will tell you; just sit back, relax and simply repeat the wash / dry cycle a few more times while you reach out and take that call or buzz open the external door using your command console on the wall next to the toilet. Yes all the necessary communications and security features of the apartment are conveniently relayed into the bathroom so you are quite literally, never, ever, caught with your pants down.

In fact these toilet pans allow you to do just about anything short of 
launching Thunderbird 1 from the swimming pool.

To close this delicate subject, just one word to the wise from personal experience.  If by some chance you need to use a public toilet, then AWAYS be sure to check the ablution settings used by the previous visitor.  There can be few ruder shocks in this world than to press the rinse button expecting a warm, soothing trickle, only to be shafted by a freezing, full bore, fire hose discharge which penetrates to the back of your eyeballs.  I had pondered for some time about the deep finger-nail marks clawed frantically inside the doors of some cubicles and wondered what nature of emergency had previously occurred.  I am now fully enlightened.

The Only Way Is Up

Like many capital cities, Seoul straddles a great river.  However, unusually, the organic sprawl of the city is hemmed in on all sides by steep mountains.  So while high-rise towers may be considered as failed, post-war, social housing experiments in many European  cities, here in Seoul, blocks of 30 or 40 stories are quite the norm and socially they function very well.

Mountains which made Seoul an ideal defensive military position now limit the urban sprawl

Typically 5 to 10 towers are grouped around a central hub including some shops, restaurants, a gym, nursery school, children’s playgrounds, games pitches, water features and some parkland. There are 1 or 2 levels of parking underground and more solar panels on the roof than you can shake a stick at.

Modern family apartments have footprints of 150m².  These are built with the latest electronic wizardry, ostensibly to reduce energy consumption.  The windows are quadruple glazed, hot water is supplied centrally, heating is electric underfloor and programmable roomwise.  Air conditioning is silent, remote controlled and flush mounted in the ceiling with the LED  lighting. 

All the gadgets can be controlled centrally via a touch screen consul which also incorporates the video entry system for the main lobby and the apartment door while also displaying CCTV of the grounds so you can monitor your kids playing nicely with their friends.  Most importantly, when hubby arrives home, his car registration plate is read automatically at the barrier to the car park.  This relays a courtesy chime inside your apartment so wifey has adequate time to dispatch the boyfriend down the back stairs and put the kettle on so there's a nice cup of tea waiting for hubby as he steps out of the elevator.

Even the Jetsons never had it so good. 

First Contact

About two decades ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I nervously swallowed a little blue pill and washed it down with a double Courvoisier. The pill turned out to be a dubious 1960’s tranquiliser of unknown chemistry, strength and purpose which promptly made me pass out while speaking complete gibberish to a stunning, attentive stewardess. I chalked this up as the latest in a long lifetime of classic communication failures.

On this occasion I was on the long haul back from Seoul to London at the end of a months-long business trip which had taken me, one Kiwi, two Brits and three Ozzies on a whistle-stop tour of Republic of Korea. The last thing I remember before I blacked out entirely, was that although our experience had not been short, it had been rather superficial. We had spent months in a plush hotel, (barely) survived the unrelenting Korean hospitality and worked in a team of foreigners which was spared the hierarchical formalities and corporate protocols which dictated the working lives of our hosts. We needed translators and interpreters for everything since the English language was virtually unknown outside the newly blossoming world of Information Technology. That said, if you could improvise a few hand gestures, the city offered everything from ancient imperial palaces to the latest cutting edge technology; eg; 286 computers !

South Korea had already positioned itself to ride the global technology wave with a clear national mission statement to beat everyone, especially the Japanese, in the process. As the effects of the little blue pill wore off, my plane touched down at Heathrow and I mused that one day, given half the chance, Seoul would be well worth Second Contact ………….