I live in Korea, and my mother-in-law fucking LOVES this stuff. It’s called 누룽지 (nurungji) and it tastes awful. I’m open-minded and like most Korean foods, but nurungji is like sadness in your mouth. Just...no.

When I first moved in with my now-husband and got my period, he was absolutely horrified if he saw any evidence of it. Bloody tissue in the garbage? A smudge of blood in the toilet bowl? A pair of rinsed-out but still possibly stained underwear in the bathroom? Yegads! And heaven forbid he buy tampons for me or even…

I have a turtle shell that still has the back legs attached, found in my grandmother’s backyard 20+ years ago. We think a dog got its front half. It’s one of my more prized possessions.

Um, I’ve never seen Mad Men either, but I guess that makes me a hipster and not, y’know, just a person who has never watched it. Also, not everyone is from America.

I went into what everyone around me refers to as “doll mode” for the majority of the ceremony—plastic smile, eyes open but unseeing, ears closed. I usually tear up at sentimental moments, so I was so focused on NOT CRYING DAMMIT that I totally didn’t even hear the (droning, boring) officiant ask for my vows and I just…

The big chain grocery stores here have the price per unit listed on the price tags, so it makes price comparing much simpler. Sometimes they get tricky and have one thing per 100g and another per 10g, but that’s simple enough to figure out if you’re paying attention.

I picked a friend who was planning on getting married and tossed the bouquet to her. It was a big photo op and nobody was forced to be up there. (She hasn't gotten married yet, but whatever.)

My coworker was trying to do some internet banking via her phone and got a text asking her to confirm her ID number (basically Korean SSN). It came from the same number that her bank always used so we thought it was legit. So she entered it and her name, and then nothing happened so she tried it a couple more times.

The Starbucks in Korea doesn’t use customer names unless you order through their app, where you can choose what you want to be called. Instead they use receipt numbers, which is about a million times more irritating because “one” and “two” sound really similar in a crowded coffee shop, as do “three” and “four,” plus…

My husband planned basically our entire wedding and only really involved me when picking out my dress, the venue (after he’d narrowed it down to two), and our honeymoon hotels. It was glorious, and all of the planners and coordinators absolutely loved him and gave him all sorts of discounts because they'd never had a…

On the wedding day itself you change into traditional wedding hanboks for the traditional part of the ceremony and the photographer takes pictures of that too. Then you change into a more everyday hanbok and wander around saying hello to your guests.

There are many, many things I like about the Korean system. There are also some not-so-nice things.

My mom and several of my college friends are all librarians, and they get asked this a lot. My mom even works at a university with a library science degree, and students STILL ask her. I’m surprised librarians don't rage stroke more.

Korean homes don’t have dishwashers unless you have lots of space and/or money. Sometimes not even then.

There’s a Chinese place about an hour and a half outside of Chicago that is authentic...IF you order off the Chinese menu. What looks like a decorative pattern on one wall is actually the real menu, and the one in English that looks like a menu is just your standard take-out fare. My old Chinese professor took our…

One of my old coworkers was Muslim and she had this problem. (I live in korea.) “Is there pork in it?” “No, none!” Then the food would come out and there’d be ham. “Oh, but ham isn’t pork!” She basically went vegetarian the whole time she was here to avoid that kind of nonsense.

I understand this so bad. I have an “aversion” to all citrus—fruit, juice, scent, zest, any way it can be used—and you’d think I tell people “I like to kick puppies” from the reactions I get. Citrus makes me want to vomit, okay? Yes, I can taste the piece of pineapple you snuck onto my pizza. No, I don’t want pink…

Me tooooo. Even the stylist for my wedding was like “We can give you volume, but it won’t last more than an hour or so.” THIN HAIR IS PURE SUCK.

I have to start off by saying: I live in Korea, I love Korea, my husband is Korean.

The French guy speaks decent Korean, but his English is awful. His character is British, too, so the first few episodes are a bit painful until he magically learns some Korean. The other guy is probably the same one you're thinking of; I can't remember his name, but he has a country accent.