Charming Korean quirks

You know you're in Korea when . . .

•People wave goodbye with both hands simultaneously.

•Every dish at a meal is purported to have some special quality -- this one induces appetite; that one helps your digestion -- except water, which is apparently bad to drink at meals.

•Female friends walk hand in hand down the street.

•People say "Kimchi!" when having their photo taken (for real).

•Men never wear shorts, even in the hottest, stickiest weather.

•To gesture "Come here!", people loosely flap their flattened hands up and down, in a gesture that looks like an American signaling "Slow down!"

•No matter what, people always bring you a gift when they meet you.

•You see Korean ladies of a certain age wearing enormous visors in the sun (which, no doubt, help make them look younger than they are).

•Everyone seems to have a cell phone charm.

•In hot weather, you see people wear full-length tight-fitting sleeves underneath their short sleeve shirts -- to keep cool?

•You see little old ladies (and sometimes men) working at cutting grass or weeding, but instead of wielding noisy, obnoxious weed whackers or power trimmers, they use charming, old-fashioned, wood-handled curved knives.

•Said landscapers wear floppy hats with loose bandanas in back, gloves, and long, baggy pants and sleeves, all of which suggests an improvised beekeeper's suit.

•You see men pulling metal carts on which they collect cardboard boxes.

•You see women bobbing through the open markets, carrying on their heads lunches on metal trays covered with newspaper to deliver them to vendors who will eat them while working in their market stalls.