I got my hair cut over the weekend. And my students were quick to notice. One student, Zina (she of the musical performance) said, "but teacher… you are more haraboji than before!" Haraboji (할아버지) means grandfather, so her meaning was rather obvious: she meant it made me look older. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.
Having gray hair in this youth-obsessed culture is a double-sided thing. On the one hand, I probably get treated more respectfully than many foreigners do, given the xenophobic edges of Korean society, because of the traditional "respect" due to elders. But on the other hand, people find it incomprehensible, for example, that I don't make an effort to dye my hair. No self-respecting forty-something Korean would allow gray hair to show. It's not just strange, to Koreans — it's impossible. I must be older than I say I am.
I we were talking about appearances and self-image in one of my classes the other day, and I said something along the lines of "so, how can we improve our self-confidence about our appearance?" It was a slightly rhetorical question, to which I didn't expect a response (nor did I have one, myself, really). But Sydney raised her hand immediately and blurted out, "Plastic surgery?" In all seriousness, even. Although Sydney does have an odd sense of humor, the fact that such an answer was on the tip of her tongue must indicate something about this culture.
In the news, today, Kim Jong-il was reelected, just north of here. Really? How shocking is that!