Seoul Man: A Memoir of Cars, Culture, Crisis, and Unexpected Hilarity Inside a Korean Corporate Titan by Frank Ahrens Page B

felt bad about it. To the quite natural question “Why don’t you learn Korean?” I would plead the following: I was trying to learn a new job, a new career, a newculture, and a new corporate culture all at once. It was, frankly, overwhelming, and I wasn’t doing so well at it. I didn’t have the bandwidth to take up a new language as well.
    It was just awkward all around, and so I started coming to lunch in the executive dining room by myself at around twelve thirty, after everyone else had eaten and left. I’d catch a quick nap in my office chair—it’s completely common and even encouraged to see people sleeping at their desks at lunchtime in Korea, either with their heads down on their desks or leaning back in their chairs—and then head down to the dining room as everyone was walking out. I know this created the impression that I didn’t want to eat with Koreans, but I just couldn’t bear the awkwardness of those stilted and uncomfortable and frequently silent lunches.
    But eating alone did not solve the problem of actual lunch. I’d sit down at the table by myself and try to guess what they would bring me.
    Usually it was a tray packed with food, twice the normal amount, that was a surprising mix of Korean and Western food from every meal. So I’d have, say, a bowl of Korean soup with a huge unshelled prawn floating in it, waffles, kimchi , noodles, Korean sirloin, French fries, and sometimes—and this was my favorite—a hot dog (no bun) with one end split into four slivers so it blossomed like a lily. The lengths to which the serving staff went to accommodate and please me was stunning and unheard-of in the West.
    The problem here was that many of the side-dish staples of the Korean lunch—the pickled foods, the fish jerky, the bean sprouts, the shredded squid with chili pepper, the lotus roots, the cold noodles, the kimchi —were not to my liking nor filling. A small cooked fish was also typically offered, served whole, which meant I had to use chopsticks, which I was just learning, to pick out the fish’s dozens of sliver-like bones. I ended up with about a fingernail’s worth of fish and a fistful of frustration. This meant that the only things I could really eat were the beef and the noodles. So every day my lunch was meat and starch.
    My eventual solution was to bring my lunch from home or get in my car and drive ten minutes to the closest Subway or Outback Steakhouse or Tony Roma’s, where I could get a turkey sub or a chicken Caesar salad.
    The other choice for lunch hour was a workout in Hyundai’s well-appointed gym.
    I decided to take advantage of the gym on one of my first days at Hyundai. When I walked into the locker room with my gym bag, I got some curious looks: first, because I forgot to take off my shoes and put them in a small locker at the front of the locker room; second, because I was carrying a gym bag. I quickly realized that everyone working out in the gym was wearing the same gray shirt-and-shorts set. Workout clothes, including socks, were provided in the locker room by the company.
    But even before I tried on the shorts, I knew it was folly. I was able to pull up the Korean XL shorts to my mid-thighs, where they stopped. The shirt was a second skin. I looked like a bursting bratwurst and could barely move. I peeled out of the company togs before too many people saw me, pulled on my own gym clothes, and worked out. I never really fit Korea. Too big.
    After the workout, I walked into the shower room with my towel and found rows of showerheads along two walls with only symbolic dividers between them. There was no privacy. There was a large soaking pool and smaller, floor-level sinks where you could sit and wash. Naked Korean men were everywhere, chatting amiably in the pools, joking while waiting in line for the showers. Not an optimal time to start recognizing coworkers.
    For me, anyway. For everyone else, it was as routine as working together in the cubicles upstairs.