Blog 27

7 SEPT 2022

In the Blog 19, I wrote about going to Korea for my Global Experience in Arts and Design module. We first went to Busan, and we weren’t able to go many places there as we were still not used to the transportation system. Many things went wrong on the first day, starting with the tickets we did not book. This was a mistake we definitely learned from, as we had to get take a train to Busan from Seoul Station and they only had standing tickets, which meant we didn’t have a seat for the 4 hour ride.

Just as things seemed to be getting better (we were half an hour away from reaching Busan), one of the group members received a positive result for her Covid PCR test in Korea and had issues providing proof she had recovered within 45 days. We spent majority of the evening tired, hungry, and slightly panicked over the situation. It was a weekend so the school couldn’t be contacted and she had a limit to how long she could stay at the Airbnb. While she settled things on her end, we discussed as a group what we could do as an alternative, which was basically finding her a place to quarantine as per the Covid measures if necessary. We also talked with the Airbnb host to figure out an alternative, which she was kind enough to help with.

Eventually the matter was settled, which was when we started to realise one other thing: not only were we not able to follow the schedule because of unexpected events, but we were actually pretty bad at time-management. We had factored in extra time into the itenerary given most of the group, including myself, are notoriously late to most things. However, a key factor I had forgotten was how much time we would spend taking photos. We had to take photos to document the trip for assignment purposes in addition to personal ones, which took much more time than necessary.

It did stress me out a bit at first, but things never go as planned so I decided I shouldn’t stress out about something I couldn’t control. I wasn’t the only person on the trip after all, and it definitely didn’t revolve around me, so I decided to enjoy what I could, as long as we got to where we needed to go at the end of the trip. If we were taking too long, then I’d drop in a reminder but I’d otherwise just embrace it.

Most of the trip highlights were in Seoul. We had less time in Busan and were much more unfamiliar with getting around given that we just arrived. We used the bus and got off on the wrong stop, and the train system there was less convenient than what we were used to in Singapore. For some reason, they didn’t have a diagram of which direction the line went and you couldn’t change platforms after you scanned in. I also think it’s much more convenient to travel around using cars, as quite a few places were inconveniently accessible by public transport.

We learned from our mistake on the first day and booked the tickets to Seoul from Busan a day before we were scheduled to leave. Seoul was where majority of the trip highlights for me were. Firstly, a place I really enjoyed was Dongdaemun Design Plaza. I was set on visiting the “Meta-horizons: The Future is Now” exhibit by Zaha Hadid Architects as my final project was metaverse-related. It was interesting to see the move towards sustainability in other industries, and, something I hadn’t considered, which was the move towards the metaverse as well. I had been so immersed in fashion’s move to the metaverse, I hadn’t actually considered how other industries were participating. The group basically worked on designing spaces in the metaverse, particularly an art gallery, which I actually got to visit through VR. They also worked on collaborative workspace within the metaverse called Project Corral, which I found to be really interesting.

The gallery also hosted a Tim Burton exhibit while we were there, so we decided to go. I like the director’s films but I’m not particularly a fan of his. The exhibition itself was incredibly interesting though, and thoroughly enjoyed. It was actually really popular with locals, and there were a surprising number of children given how disturbing some of his work is. Like most artists, Burton’s work takes heavy inspiration from his life, with a key theme being the misunderstood outcast. I also learned a bit on the reasonings behind why specific themes were utilised, which was really good for general knowledge. For example, the theme of carnivals is very common in horror, and I found out the reason why was because they usually symbolise the grotesque as overconsumption is a major aspect of carnivals. We were unfortunately not allowed to take photos of the exhibition.

The third highlight of the trip would be the skincare workshop we attended. I’m pretty interested in skincare so I was really excited to learn about the ingredients and being able to mix my own product was also fun. I learned that there’s a big culture of informed decisions in beauty, particularly with skincare. Olive Young, one of their major skincare retailers, even has their own app which shows each product's ingredients and rates them. The host also made me more aware of the general move of Korean skincare into clean beauty. Seeing as many Southeast Asians use Korean skincare, I think correlates with the organic, all-natural trend I’ve been noticing as well.

Some local trends I observed were that:

Korea has a lot of local high street brands.
National Geographic is pretty popular. I saw many people wearing a specific National Geographic shirt I had seen in the Lotte department store.
People go to Aesop to buy perfume, which was something one of the staff had mentioned. I did observe this passing by another Aesop store.
The celebrity influence in Korea is very self-sufficient, as in it’s maintained mainly by their own talents. I didn’t see many other celebrities promoting items, and evem luxury had more Korean celebrities.
Couple culture is very big. I saw many people especially wearing couple outfits and being unapologetic of PDA.

Culture-wise:

People tend to stand to the right on escalators
Less people spoke and understood English than I thought, especially as it’s a more globalised society. Many people just automatically speak Korean to you even as an obvious tourist.
Many girls don’t really wear shoulderless tops, but are fine exposing skin on their lower halves. So there were alot of short skirts and pants, but not too many exposing tops.
They tend to employ attractive people in shops and cafes, especially those working the storefront (basically anyone interacting with customers). It was really interesting to see that especially in higher-end stores like Dior, the bodyguards they hire were attractive. I observed that they all had the same standard of being tall, well-built, and having their hair styled in a specific way, which made sense as they also acted as greeters.
People who work fashion retail jobs interacting with customers have their own “look” whereas in beauty retail stores, they tend to be more uniform.

Having set goals of what to observe really changed my approach to the trip, in a way that I think would be helpful for my future as a marketer. I found myself observing people while they shopped and what people shopped, which is a useful habit to pick up, and keeping in mind off-hand remarks from shop workers. These were all things I knew were helpful before, but had never really put into practice. I find that it’s not as hard as I thought.