Fast Food Nation

I've been pretty good thus far about cooking my own meals and not eating out, although the manduguk place down the street is delicious and cheap. In general, Koreans seem to be very health-conscious (Note: I hate making general statements about people; I leave that to sociologists... just kidding). Everything seems to either be "healthy" or "not healthy" to them. However, this weekend I was curious about the local fast food joint, Lotteria. Founded in Japan, but now more popular in Korea, Lotteria is a bit like an Asian McDonald's. "Fast" food is a relative term here, as it took more than fifteen mintues for me to actually get my food in a near empty restaurant (which is still a lot better than the half hour I could expect to wait at McDonald's in Prague). The only reason I mention it here is because I was amused by what was decorating one of the walls: written out in English were the lyrics to James Taylor's "You've Got A Friend." And what's more, friend was spelled "freind." I just found the whole thing very odd and wondered whether there was a particular reason for choosing that song, or whether it was just an aesthetic choice to put English on the wall. I am leaning toward the latter explanation given the tendency for Korean television commercials to include songs which seemingly have nothing to do with the product (e.g. a promo for Oprah set to "Hey Mr. Sandman").

Also, according to an impromptu poll I conducted in a few of my classes, my students far prefer Lotteria to McDonald's.