It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

TRAVELOGUES: KOREA THROUGH THE EYES OF THE FOREIGNER. More than a century ago, Isabella Bird Bishop did it. Today Adam Greenfield does it.

Coming to Korea for the first time is, for those that fixate on such details, like stepping through a rippling mirror into the invert world that awaits behind it: of anywhere I've ever been, this is the place with absolutely the lowest market penetration of the Japanese consumer brands that so predominate just about anywhere else.

It's not just the roads - save for the occasional forlorn Lexus, bereft of Japanese cars or motorcycles. It's every shelf in every restaurant and every living room credenza, all the niches in which we have come to expect something from Panasonic or Mitsubishi and instead find an LG, a Samsung.

With ground rules like that, Seoul for me is like being transported to a universe which lacks, maybe, a single letter of the alphabet, or sports an extra one: nothing has changed, but everything is different.

There's more.