Mirror, mirror on the wall...dang I look good!

I feel like I’ve been in Korea long enough to make fun of the people:

Daegu is known for having beautiful women, and it’s true. I think most Koreans are beautiful. Seriously, beautiful. But, painfully and woefully vain. Narcissistic even. I’ve never seen anything like it.

It isn’t limited to a few people - men, women, rich, poor, single, married – it is a whole society. Every teacher at school has a mirror on their desk and continually looks at themselves during class. There’s a full length mirror in the school lobby, and every single time I’m down there, someone is in front of it, shamelessly and meticulously checking themselves out. It’s embarrassing. I guarantee that the secretary is more likely to be in front of that mirror than at her desk. I wonder if she is trying to watch herself age - kind of like watching grass grow. Replay her time in front of that mirror in fast forward and you would have a wonderful Discovery documentary on aging...or how to waste vast amounts of time.

Mirrors are everywhere. Everywhere. Where mirrors are not, people improvise. Glass, cell phones, spoons, cds. You name a shiny surface, I have probably seen people checking themselves out. They probably stare at their reflection in the toilet.

In the coffee shop I frequent, I always see people sitting alone, taking pictures of themselves, and then studying their phones. I wondered why everyone was taking pictures in a coffee shop. It’s because they are using the pictures to see how they look! People walking down the street are always staring very intently into their phones for extended periods of time. I know they are big on texting, but with the length of time they stare at their phones without moving, they could read In War and Peace. I think some of them might be using the screens as mirrors.

For women, plastic surgery is a part of life. Almost all women have their eyelids fixed so they have a double lid like we do. When I’ve asked about this, males and females have referred to it as a “need” rather than something extra or superficial. My guy friends say after Christmas break during school, lots of girls come back looking just a little different, and after summer vacation, some girls are almost unrecognizable. It’s not artificial to them. They are expected to look their best, and it’s what they “need” to do to look their best. And we all know, there’s nothing more natural than wanting to look your best, even if it requires invasive, painful surgery!