Cute

Like in other parts of Asia the Koreans like everything to be cute and pretty. On our way to work we passed a road construction site where they had dug a deep hole in the middle of the street. To avoid accidents they had of course put fences all around it. This was not the unusual thing, what surprised me was the beautiful flowers they had decorated the fence with. In what other country would you find this? Also the motorway bridges were decorated with flower as you can see in the picture. Amazing!

Normally for us cartoons are considered a bit childish. Not in Asia. Even big serious companies have cute characters on labels and signs. The company I visited has a winking dog (picture) who is waiving his little finger on the tape that they plug all ports on your computer with (extreme security policy). What would a warning sign for a construction site look like in Europe? Probably it would just be text, maybe a sketch of a man without features and expressions falling down a hole or something similar. In Korea it is a cat wearing a helmet and white gloves telling you what to do and not to do. Different…