Far East

For more than a year, I have been craving a visit to the Far East. On one hand, strictly from a professional perspective, Far East presents a great business opportunity and in an increasingly global market an exposure is must for anyone aspiring to the higher echelons of any corporation. On the other hand, it represents the best mix of a well developed country where 1st class amenities and infrastructure meet with the third world diversity, cultural values and more importantly humility. For a light sleeper like me, 13 hour non-stop flights are never a fun. Add to this a middle seat in the middle row, and its recipe for disaster. As my protests, with the added air of being a Silver Elite member, were mocked away by the rude ticketing agent, I resigned myself to boarding the flight early and grabbing both my arm rests. However, a tiring 3 day business trip of Los Angeles and 2 glasses of wine made sure I slept like a log through the remainder of the journey. An interesting point of observation - I was the only brown man in the entire Boeing 777.

The one hour bus ride from Incheon International Airport to Seoul was rather un-scenic but gave me enough evidence to establish that this country is highly developed. Four, and at times five, laned freeways were whizzing with vehicles at 100 Kmph. There were not many small cars of the Maruti, Santro sub-compact kind and hardly any two wheelers. Once under the shadow of the city skyline, the streets resembled Manhattan, with tall buildings towering car filled streets. Although, at parts, the traffic was as unruly as Manhattan there was no incessant honking or irate drivers. And then there were markets which resembled tiny stores in India minus the filth and the crowd. For a city with a 11 million population, the city never seemed really dense. There was always plenty of open spaces.

The city is split into two halves by the Han river. I was restricted mainly to the northern half. The surrounding green hills and mountains provide a pretty backdrop to the city. However, the perennial haze impeded the mountains from doing a complete justice to some of my attempts to take post card snaps. But the hills did provide some pretty drives with great vistas of the city. I was fortunate enough to be put up in one of the higher floors of a rather tall hotel which provided panaromic views of the city. Call it high-tech or just plain luxury, but my hotel bathroom had an electronic toilet seat, which would spray, clean and rinse my behind at the push off a button. Hell ya, you could even choose the water pressure, temperature and the spray rythm! Just tells you how far the technology has advanced in the East! Also, residing in the club level of the hotel, I was at the receiving end of some great hospitality, where I was reminded of the Indian subservient culture. Money can buy you a lot of things in America, but this is definitely not one of those things.

Most youngsters in Seoul seemed fashion crazy as duty free shops and fashion markets doled out some of the really expensive fashion brands worldwide. The airport had more stores for perfumes and handbags than for food! The ladies were extremely pretty and seemed to have a keen sense of fashion. The men were almost always dressed nattily in suits, and made me seem like a sloppy informal American with his casual sense of dressing and arrogant disrespect to other cultures. Business meetings were trifle annoying with the customer jabbering away amongst themselves in Korean for 15 minutes before asking me a question. I guess it is not seen as disrespectful in Oriental culture to talk in the native language in front of a non-native speaker.

In US, I often joke around that "I eat anything that moves". I was careful not to blurt this out in Korea, lest they take it seriously cause I am aware that they are fully capable of implementing the above sentence. After 1 traditional meal, I had perfected my chop stick skills and was successfully downing all the kimchi and noodles that were thrown at me. Most Korean meals are very elaborate with atleast 5-10 ceramic bowls utilized to serve just 1 person. I wonder if the most hated job in Korea is that of the person who cleans the dishes. Despite much hype, I never got to taste Dog! When I mentioned this to a co-worker this morning, she expressed utter disgust, "Geez, Arun, I own a pet, I could never imagine eating a dog". To which another co-worker remarked, "It probably tastes like chicken".....and I could not agree more.