how to be Korea cute

Do you love adorable, random cuteness? Who doesn’t!? If you’re in Korea, you’re in the perfect spot to be bombarded with it daily.

I think there must be a rule that all stationary, pillows, and any kind of container must have one of the following: a face, ears or cute Konglish sayings. Honestly, my pencil case looks like a 3-year-old’s toy box.

My white-out and tape measure. See? Not kidding.

Some other things that are often over-the-top cutesie in Korea:

Glasses and jewelry

Hair accessories

Everything’s gotta be ears or bows.

T-shirts and sweatshirts

Not sure if my shirt says Your, Tour, or Jour. Any guesses?

Anything from Daiso.

Daiso is a Japanese dollar store. I think a lot of the cutie-pie trend originated in Japan but Korea has totally made it its own.

My dad and sister LOVED their cute Daiso purchases when they visited!

Konglish – signs, advertisements, stationary, cafe walls – they’re all full of it! But Konglish (Korean that has been poorly translated into English) really needs its own blog post.

Phone apps – not just photo-editing, which I’ve mentioned before. Every game, background screen and emoticon is hilarious and adorable.

Kakao emoticons are the best! Facebook stickers are catching up though!

Koreans have perfected the art of cuteness, and they even have a name for it! ‘Aegyo’ is a style of acting, dressing and posing to seem cuter than you actually are. This is not just for girls, as you can see below ;)!

There are people who are professionals at this who are called ‘Ulzzang’. Ulzzang are people who post tons of photos of themselves on the internet and some become internet celebrities for…. looking like they have big eyes (?!? somebody help me out here).

The point of this picture? Not tooooo sure.

Korea is ALL about random quirkiness, even though it is quite a conservative culture. I think that since Koreans have such an intense work ethic that having cute things and being cute is a way for them to release some of their inner quirkiness. People really dress up for work and dress professionally but after hours, the inner quirky-loving side comes out and makes everyone’s life a bit more loveable and liveable.

Personally I love all of the accessories and clothes… it’s just that after I buy them I can never bring myself to wear them out in public!! Those are my two cents, thanks for reading and good luck with being ‘Korea cute ;)’!