Here's to your Health

I was planning on a different topic for this week, but breakfast this morning changed my mind.

I like Korean food. For one thing, it is much more healthy than that chemical soup we call food in the US. I don't care what your religious preference is or even if you are an atheist, you can use whatever name you will, but you can't improve on God. Period. Call it nature, the great force, whatever, what God made is good, what man makes is bad. Pure and simple. American food is a man-made concoction that destroys what God made. It's no wonder Americans are the fattest, sickest people on the planet.

Korean food is, for the most part, natural and unadulterated. I like that.

This morning we had a soup made from the lowly mugwort.

The Koreans love to forage and you will quite often see Korean ladies wherever there are plants growing, picking the makings for their next meal.

Mugwort is one of my favorites. My wife makes a soup by coating the leaves with flower, then dipping them in egg and dropping them in boiling water. She adds some cut up green onion, and in just a matter of minutes a delicious soup is on the table.

Of course, we had the rice and kimche too, which are staples of the Korean diet. We also had some tweji kalbi, or pork ribs, which just added a little more to an already great breakfast.

May seem like a strange breakfast to Americans, but it is healthy, filling, and makes a great start for a great day.

The 3 Car Rule

Newcomers to Korea are often intimidated by the driving habits of the locals. Actually, driving in Korea today is relatively safe. When I first came it was a totally different story.

However, if you are going to drive here, you need to know the rules of the road, Korean style.

Korean law is the same as in the US. We drive on the right side of the road, and most of the traffic laws are the same as at home. It is the interpretation of the laws that leaves somewhat to be desired.

First, there is no real traffic enforcement. Cameras are used to catch speeders, however there is a sign a few hundred meters before the camera warning the motorists to slow down or get caught. So, traffic kind of undulates. It slows down for the cameras and speeds up after.

Traffic lights are rather interesting. Green means go, yellow means speed up, (kind of like in the US), but red only means stop if there is lots of traffic and other cars are at the intersection. Buses and taxis routinely go through red lights, but the average driver does the same. It is a lot better now than it used to be, but the propensity to run the red light has resulted in what Westerners call the three car rule.

It's very simple.

When your light turns green, wait for three cars to run the red light before you enter the intersection.

While this is a bit of an exaggeration, it's not far from reality. On more than one occasion when I have been guilty of pushing it just a little bit and entering the intersection just as the light turned red, only to look in my mirror and see the car several car lengths behind me following me through the intersection--long after the light had turned red.

I was talking to someone about it the other day, and we were waiting at the intersection to walk across the street. When the light turned, sure enough, we counted three cars that went through the red light before it was safe for us to cross.

Once you learn how the rules work, it's really quite easy to drive here. You just have to practice defensive driving and understand that the car beside you may just decide to cut in front of you and make a right turn.

The important thing is to not lose your cool, and don't get too upset. All you will do is to give yourself an ulcer, and the next driver will probably do the same thing.