There's beauty in diversity, and it becomes more real and loving if one gets to experience this diversity firsthand. But if one can't get on with experiencing the diversity of different beautiful cultures and lifestyles of other people, the nearest and easiest way to feel the beauty is to have someone from a particular part of the world whose lifestyle you admire. Unfortunately for me, none of my foreign friends are Koreans, because there's really a lot to talk about and learn regarding the lifestyle of people there—getting a more original feeling than what we see in movies.
If I had a Korean friend, the following are the things to talk about:
The first on my list to discuss with the friend is their food style, especially in Korea. I have watched a lot of their movies, and their food never ceases to amaze me. I remember watching the Jumong series, and one of the characters was very well-known for eating uncooked pork—and not just pork, but also the offals, which are the parts I don't eat even when cooked. Not just this, there are lots of foods that appear unrealistic and unimaginable in my sight anytime I see them in movies, yet these people eat them happily. I would like to be talked into eating such foods by my Korean friend.
Music and fashion are other things I would like to go on for long hours discussing with my Korean friends. Korean music is totally different from the kind of songs we have in Nigeria, and I've seen many Koreans dancing and singing to Nigerian songs. How do they do that? I would like to know if my friend also loves Nigerian music and to see if I could also be talked into loving the music in Korea. For fashion, their typical indigenous dressing style is what I admire a lot. Although modern fashion styles have taken over, I would still want to know more about the apron-like traditional dressing.
Many times I have seen how Koreans bury their dead through cremation, and that never ceases to amaze me—especially how it is carried out. This may appear like a kind of off-topic or too deep into the culture, but I would like to have this conversation with my Korean friend to see how comfortable they are whenever such ritual burials are to be carried out. How do they cope in the presence of such rituals, especially with regards to the smell of the burning body? Oh my God!
Let me stop here.
Thanks for reading.
Image: MetaAI