Ally asks:

“What is “fat” in Korea? Do you have stories about any shopping experiences when you went there (regarding the size or clothes they offer, culture shock, etc)? From what I’ve heard, they have clothing sizes that are quite different from US/UK sizes which my friend tells me is due to there being a little amount of “fat” people in Korea.”

Since I’ve only visited Korea and not lived there for longer than 1 month I’m opening up this question to those who are from other countries and living in Korea right now. Please share your experiences of shopping in Korea in the comment section and people can discuss it and vote up good answers.

There is a different idea of what is fat in Korea. As with most first world countries: skinny is in. But Koreans in general are smaller than Western people so when they are trying to achieve an even smaller size it is really small for us. Korean society is also very focused on looks so there is even more pressure to be skinny. Whereas Western societies tend to embrace differences more, Korea has a mono culture so those that are different can have a difficult time.

When Korean girls in particular come to Australia they often feel like they can relax a lot more here, they’ll eat more and not worry so much about being skinny. Australia has a lot more delicious sweet food and they’ll often take a liking to it (especially Tim Tams). But, as their working holiday or student visas comes to a close they will start to panic about their weight. Of course to Australians it’s not like they even look fat, but they start to worry about what everyone will say when they get back to Korea about their weight gain.

One of my friends had her mother say to her “If you are fat, don’t come home.” The things that are said, and the high standard can be quite shocking to me. If I stacked on the weight while overseas my friends wouldn’t even really mention it, but for Korean girls they know when they go back to Korea their friends and family will say directly to them “You are fat.” So much more pressure.

Okay, so what about shopping? I haven’t done much clothes shopping in Korea but I remember going shopping in Busan where there were lots of tiny and crowded clothes shops.

I felt overwhelmed and awkward. Luckily I can fit into Korean sizes mostly, which is good because sizes seem to be something like ‘Small’ and ‘Even Smaller’. And there is something called ‘Free size’ which I think is supposed to be one size fits all? In these type of clothes shops you pick out what you want and when you are at the counter they go get a plastic sealed one for you. Mostly here in Australia we will pick something from the racks, try it on and buy that exact item.

Once we live in Korea for a few years I’m sure I’ll have more stories about shopping in Korea.

Speaking of being overweight or a bigger size again, don’t think that every single person is really skinny. There are people who are overweight, there are people who are just naturally very big, just not as much as somewhere like Australia. I asked my husband where bigger people buy their clothes from, and he said, “The internet. You can buy everything on the internet.”

So there you go…