A Cheese by Any Other Name

I take a special interest in linguistic humor. One of my favorite things about being in Korea are the products, expressions and titles that get lost in translation. For instance, just yesterday I was in a Lotte Department store, which is a biggggg shopping center (they have their own baseball team, to really give you an idea of the size), and stumbled across the exit during my search for the food court. It read, verbatim, "This exit is the doorway to life." Pretty heavy stuff.... I managed to take a photo of it on my cell phone, but I accidentally deleted it when I was trying to show it to some friends. I know that I will be back in the area, though, so the next time I am there I will try and get another photo of it - I mean, it is the doorway to life and all.

However, that was just an example of the odd things that get tossed onto products or signs. My favorite thus far came while I was grocery shopping. My list was short, but I definitely needed the essentials (bread, meat, cheese, mayo) because I am a sandwich man. I had every item on my list completed save the cheese by the time I meandered towards the wine section. There are a lot of pretty good wines here and most of it comes on the relative cheap too, but what caught my eye were the snacks that go along with the wine, namely the cheese and crackers. The cheese here is pretty expensive, it being a rarity and all, so my selections were limited to two types (keep in mind these were paired with wine!), American cheddar cheese and American white cheddar cheese. The labels read as follows:

- Well Being Cheddar Slice Cheese
and
- Orange Cheddar Slice Cheese II

Yes, there was literally the roman numeral for "2", so obviously I was curious where "1" was. Needless to say, I went with the well-being variation (the white American cheese), and it has treated me quite well so far! One of the reasons I have enjoyed my time here, among the many, is that all the drab endeavors in America have become little adventures of their own in Korea!