Cell Phones

Korea is a country obsessed with cell phones. A majority of my students, especially the older elementary and middle school students, have a cell phone. The ones that don't usually have a plan or agreement with their parents to get a cell phone on their next birthday or if they do well on their school tests.
Only in Korea is it not considered rude to answer your cell phone when you are out with other people. In fact, you can talk as loud as you want on your cell phone on the subway without anyone caring, but if you have a loud conversation with the friend sitting next to you, you will start to get some evil stares.
This past weekend, I decided to become Korean and "upgrade" my "hand phone." I liked my phone, but it had the annoying problem of not sending text messages, especially when it was crucial for people to get the message (like when we realized our plane to Jeju left 1 hour earlier so we had to rush to the airport).
I went to Yongsan Electronics Mall in Seoul, which is THE place to buy anything electronic in Seoul and possibly in all of Korea. It is a huge building with 8 levels of anything electronic you could ever want to buy. The cell phone floor is slightly overwhelming, jampacked with brightly lit booths and more cell phones than there are probably are in the entire state of Montana.



After a little browsing and a little bargaining, I had a new phone. Here is a picture for comparision between the 3 phones I now own (I never thought I would ever have more than 1 phone, but I had 2 at my conference job, and now I have 3). My American cell phone is on the left, my old Korean phone is in the middle, and my new Korean phone is on the right.