David Grajal

Before coming to Korea I thought korean people were quite small. I was completely wrong. Korean people is at least as tall as Spaniards and way thinner. It’s hard to see fat Koreans and impossible to see huge obese Koreans. After living in Seoul for 4 months I’ve only seen two fat Korean guys.

It may be the food or the lifestyle but I think they  simply genetically designed to be thin.

Korean people are really concerned about their physical aparence, women and men alike. Women are  constantly checking their hair and they always carry with them a mirror. Something interesting that I’ve never seen in any other place is that there are always full sized mirrors in the subway stations and the people use them constantly to verify that they look good before going to street level. Actually, they take advantage of the few seconds waiting in lines in the subway or to correct their (always present, and always perfect and simple) makeup.

Girls use high heels all the time, including places where a European girl will never use them (ie, in the beach) and when they reach a certain age, they start wearing huge visors to protect their faces from the sun. A medium age Korean girl seems machines, extremely thinner, always wearing huge visors, high heels and huge handbags.

Korean girl wearing a huge visor to protect her face from the sun

Korean people are obsessed with well-being products, the markets are full of healthy/eco-friendly and green products. They also have lots of vitamin enriched drinks you can’t find in Europe. Caring about other’s health is important, the health of their family and friends it’s a serious concern for them and fruit, vitamins and mineral enriched products are the best presents you can give to other Koreans when you are visiting their homes.

All together made the koreans look younger than they really are. It’s common to see hot and sexy women that appear to be in their 20′ and discover than they are really in their 40′. The combination of the healthy diet, the cosmetics and genetics make very difficult to guess the real age of the people.