The World I Experience Seems to Be the Opposite of the One I Hear About

00:01 I saw a post on Xiaohongshu

00:04 praising Korean women.

00:06 The author said that while visiting Korea,

00:10 they carried luggage up an escalator—

00:13 no,

00:14 carrying it up the stairs

00:17 on the way out of a subway station—

00:20 when a Korean woman helped them.

00:24 They felt that Korean women

00:26 were very kind,

00:30 and that mutual support between women

00:35 made them especially happy.

00:39 A post like that

00:41 implicitly compares Korean women and men.

00:46 So I compared it

00:47 with my own solo travel experiences.

00:50 I realized that most of the people

00:55 who helped me

00:57 were Korean men.

00:59 Korean subway stations

01:01 often have very few escalators.

01:05 So when you leave a station,

01:08 you either take the elevator

01:13 or use the stairs.

01:15 As for elevators,

01:20 I think each subway exit usually has—

01:24 no, each station

01:26 usually has only one elevator,

01:29 or perhaps a few.

01:31 There simply aren't many,

01:33 so most people take the stairs.

01:36 If you can't find an elevator,

01:38 you have no choice

01:40 but to carry your suitcase upstairs.

01:44 I forget which city I was in,

01:48 but I was carrying my suitcase upstairs

01:53 when a Korean man behind me

01:55 asked if I needed help.

01:57 At the time,

02:00 my suitcase wasn't very heavy.

02:01 I could carry it myself,

02:03 so I declined his help.

02:05 But he checked repeatedly

02:07 whether I really didn't need help.

02:09 I thanked him

02:10 but said I could manage.

02:13 So he continued on his way.

02:15 That's one example.

02:16 Another is

02:18 when I've taken taxis.

02:20 The driver paid close attention to how I was doing.

02:24 And he was a Korean man.

02:28 Once, for example, I went hiking.

02:32 I was exhausted returning to my hotel.

02:35 I was sleepy

02:36 and wanted to sleep in the car.

02:38 But the driver

02:40 kept talking to me,

02:42 asking me questions about the hike.

02:48 Maybe he was worried I'd fall asleep, or perhaps it was something else.

02:52 At one point, he even gave me some candy.

02:57 I remember wondering,

02:59 why was this driver giving me candy?

03:02 It seemed strange.

03:03 But I did eat it in the car,

03:07 and it helped wake me up.

03:11 Another example:

03:12 near a subway station,

03:15 I was looking for an escalator entrance.

03:21 I had my suitcase

03:22 and wanted to avoid the stairs.

03:25 I wandered around for quite a while

03:28 without finding it.

03:29 Then a man nearby asked

03:32 whether I was having trouble.

03:34 I couldn't find an escalator or an elevator,

03:38 so he showed me the way.

03:40 When I saw that post,

03:43 these counterexamples came to mind.

03:46 While traveling alone,

03:50 most of the help

03:51 that stayed with me came from men.

03:55 I found that fascinating.

03:57 Why did only these counterexamples come to mind?

04:01 So I searched my memory more carefully.

04:05 And yes, I had encountered

04:07 Korean women who helped me.

04:11 Once, my friend and I

04:13 were talking at a bus stop on Jeju Island.

04:16 We were discussing

04:18 when the bus would arrive.

04:20 Buses on Jeju Island—how should I put it?

04:22 If you're some distance from the city,

04:26 waiting half an hour

04:27 or an hour for a bus

04:29 is perfectly normal.

04:31 So we were discussing

04:32 when exactly it would arrive,

04:35 while staring at

04:38 the timetable at the bus stop.

04:43 A Korean woman nearby

04:45 seemed to notice something.

04:48 She told us in English

04:50 that we could use Naver Map.

04:53 The app

04:56 shows information about bus services.

05:00 We actually knew how to use Naver Map.

05:02 We were simply chatting

05:05 about these questions

05:08 while also checking the timetable.

05:11 But she took the initiative to help us.

05:14 She helped my friend and me.

05:16 So that's one example

05:17 of a Korean woman helping us.

05:20 As for other examples,

05:22 I can't recall help from women my age

05:27 or slightly older women.

05:30 What I can recall is,

05:32 when I was pulling my luggage

05:36 through a Korean subway station,

05:39 an older Korean woman—

05:41 probably a volunteer,

05:44 someone around my grandmother's

05:46 generation—

05:50 would point me toward the elevator.

05:54 That meant I could take it upstairs

05:57 rather than carry my luggage upstairs.

06:00 Gestures like that

06:02 still felt very warm to me.

06:04 So why,

06:05 when I saw that post,

06:07 did I first think

06:09 of Korean men helping me?

06:14 I found that genuinely interesting.

06:17 I wondered whether it was because,

06:19 before visiting Korea,

06:22 most of what I'd heard

06:24 said that Korean men were really not okay.

06:28 So I arrived in Korea

06:30 carrying that stereotype.

06:33 Then I experienced

06:36 several instances

06:38 of Korean men helping me.

06:39 And I thought,

06:41 the world I experienced

06:43 seemed opposite to what I'd heard.

06:47 So I wondered whether those voices

06:52 had greatly reinforced our stereotypes.

06:56 Perhaps they enlarged them,

06:59 so that when I encountered exceptions

07:02 or people who treated me kindly,

07:05 I was more inclined

07:07 to preserve those experiences

07:09 among my most accessible memories.

07:13 Meanwhile, what seemed expected—

07:16 Korean women helping me,

07:18 or older Korean women helping me—

07:20 was stored somewhere

07:23 less easily retrieved from memory.

07:26 That's one point.

07:28 Another is that

07:33 I was an outsider in Korea,

07:37 a foreigner,

07:39 or simply a temporary visitor

07:42 staying briefly.

07:44 I couldn't experience

07:46 life there as a Korean woman.

07:50 So I couldn't feel

07:52 the oppression of Korean women

07:55 that I'd heard about back home,

07:59 or understand

08:01 what their experience actually feels like.

08:06 Together, these two factors created

08:11 the illusion that Korean society was fine.

08:17 Essentially,

08:18 as an outsider

08:20 briefly visiting Korea,

08:22 I had a certain privilege.

08:25 Korean women don't have that privilege

08:29 within their own country.

08:31 It's like the oppression and pressure

08:36 we feel in our own country.

08:40 Foreigners who come here

08:41 can't experience it either,

08:43 unless they truly spend

08:46 a long time immersed in this society.

08:48 But however long they remain immersed,

08:50 their appearance

08:52 and accent

08:54 still give them

08:56 the perspective and label of a foreigner.

09:01 Their experience remains

09:03 fundamentally different from ours.

09:10 Breaking it down this way,

09:14 people occupy different perspectives

09:22 and choose

09:25 the narrative they tell.

09:26 All of them can be valid,

09:28 because to each person,

09:30 what they experience,

09:31 what they feel,

09:32 and what they see

09:33 is what feels real.

09:35 But they forget

09:37 that others may see things differently,

09:41 and that those perspectives are also valid

09:44 and genuinely exist.