Costco + Korea = Fun, Fun, Fun

Yes, as I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve recently begun shopping at Costco but I felt the goodies contained within that quest were too much to cram into a paragraph or two. The insanity deserves so much better.

Let me first say that I’ve not spent much time in big stores like Costco or Sam’s Club or something else of that ilk in America, so for all I really know, they could be just as bat shit insane at the Korean Costco. But, probably not. Just my opinion though.

First, we must address the noise thing. And no, I don’t mean simply that there are a billion people in these monstrous stores like Sam’s Club, cuz there are. In this instance, Koreans do things a bit differently. Somewhere along the line when Korea was developing its consumer culture and practices, its consumers decided they liked having their senses assaulted when shopping. Like how all their websites and online shopping sites are nuclear detonations of bright colors and flashing images and pop ups and colors and more flashing and more pop ups and text and more text and more text and….phhhew, I’m exhausted. Honestly, its enough to have your eyes resign in disgust. If you don’t believe me, head over to http://www.gmarket.co.kr/. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This assaulting of the senses isn’t simply reserved for your eyes. No, no, they are democratic about it, they let all the senses join in the fun. When it comes to shopping in person, there are literally hundreds of employees that stand, at least one per aisle, about the store and yell at you about sales and deals and other shit. That is really all they do. They can answer questions about shit, but primarily they just yell about sales. And this is okay. This is standard procedure. Hell, even the little ma and pa shops do it. They just have one guy or two (it gets really interesting when they have two as they have dueling mics) on microphones that consistently shout out about how the bananas are on sale today or how 2 lbs of cabbage is 1.50 dollar. Really inane shit like that, that is helpful the first time you hear it, but after listening to it on repeat for several minutes gets very old. I kid you not. I’ll stay in these small groceries stores for 10 mins and I’ll hear 5 different sentences and I’ll hear music (which plays whenever the guys actually stop talking and turn off the mics) for less than 30 seconds or so. If you want to feel what this is like, I shall accompany you to the grocery store, follow closely behind and shout things like “Most honored customer, our delicious strawberries are on sale today for just 3 dollars a package. That’s right strawberries for just 3 dollars. Did you not hear me? You can’t go wrong. Strawberries for only 3 dollars….” and so on FOR THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME you are in the grocery store. If I didn’t feel so bad for the employees who have to burn out their voices talking nonsense all day, I would seriously consider ripping out their vocal cords just for some god damn peace and quiet.

The next issue is the crowding. But this I always assume, as its Korea, and everything is crowded. Always. There are just too many damn people crammed into too damn small of a space. And for a city of 15 million people, they have 2 Costcos. So naturally navigating is difficult. Compounding this is the issue of driving carts. In this instance, Koreans drive carts like their drive their cars…..horribly. Sure the lanes are wide to allow for the monster Costco carts to pass through, but when somebody parks their cart in the absolute middle of the aisle, pointed perpendicular to the aisle, it pretty much closes down the lane to traffic. I had a few instances where I was stopped due to a poorly placed cart. I would glare at the owner for some period of time, they would eventually see that I was trying to pass, they would then look at me, then continue doing whatever the hell they were doing. They would move in time, but for someone that despises shopping as much as I do, any extra second inside a store is one second too many.

The most interesting aspects of Costco relate to the free samples, display models and the costumer reactions to them. I shall attack the free samples first. No doubt everyone is familiar and well versed in the tradition of employees giving away samples of some new product in order to foster customer interest. Generally they were never really crowded. If what they were giving away interested me, I would try one, otherwise I wouldn’t give a moment’s thought. Things operate a little differently in Korea. EVERYONE AND I MEAN EVERYONE takes EVERY sample. I do not jest. You should see the lines of people waiting for free samples of shit they can’t even see. Seriously, at the back of the lines you can’t see what they are giving away and can’t hardly smell it either, yet line up they all do. Hell, I personally witnessed a monster line waiting for ddeokbokki, the really popular rice cake treat that you can find on any street corner. I imagine most people here have eaten hundreds of pounds of those buggers in their lifetime (and rightfully so, as they are quite tasty), so why the need to try one more? Its not gonna taste any different. It would be like a grocery store in America having free samples of French fries. Not any special variety, just your normal ass French fries. I imagine most people would simply look at the fries, think “French fries? Meh…” and then move on. Not here. I’ve discussed this issue with people here and one of the postulated explanations is that the folks, having been a not so prosperous country not so long ago, where free food or even plentiful food might have been unfamiliar concepts, respond very differently than I do to free things or things given to them. That probably isn’t right though. Honestly, I don’t know. But it sure is weird.

The other point of interest was the display models of furniture and stuff like that. When I entered Costco, I was immediately placed within the patio/lawn furniture section. Now, at first glance I was dumbfounded as to the existence of this section, as I’m in Seoul, where everyone lives in apts and has no patio or yard whatsoever. Hell, I couldn’t even fit those patio tables inside my current apt, let alone actually have a deck to place them on. Sure there are super rich Koreans that have regular houses with yards, and yes those fabulously rich people have plenty of disposal income to spend on patio furniture like these, but really are there enough of people like that to actually make the patio furniture section profitable??? I wonder. Even more interesting was how the customers responded to the area. Every single patio table chair and bench were filled with people. And I don’t mean they were testing the chairs to see if they were comfy. These families had settled down and were there to stay a long time. The kids had set down and were playing game boys or reading books, while many of the parents were reading the newspaper or eating some food or something. Did they want to take the family out to relax in the backyard on the patio, but not having one, just settle for what was available? If so, then I have much more respect for the people. They are going to enjoy themselves no matter the circumstances. I could not find a single table or LazEboy or couch unoccupied. And nobody else seemed to think this was weird, so it must be the status quo. If that is the case, then what actually goes down if they have toilets on display? Do people actually sit down and take a shit on those toilets? And what if they have mattresses set up? Do people really sleep on them? What about having sex on them, in the middle of a huge store? If any of the answers to those questions is yes, then I must humbly bow down to Korea and its enormous balls, for their pair is most certainly bigger than mine.