smelly, sweaty Westerners

Yes, this is a post all about sweat. Oh ye delicate of sensibilities, surf on now.

So Daegu is hot. How hot? Well, the hottest city in Korea, for starters. The heat just seems to pool in the valley where Daegu lies, and if hot rains aren't fizzling down, the steamy river's evaporating up. Temperatures regularly climb into the 90s (Fahrenheit) in August, and it doesn't cool down too terribly much at nights. Which means Daegu is always pretty much hot as Hades - a swampy, steamy, stagnant Hades. No need to go to one of those famous saunas ... though clothing unfortunately is required on the streets.

Most buildings are air-conditioned, but only by room, and sometimes only certain rooms. And you usually have to start the air when you go in those rooms, meaning a good half hour of steaming while it cools down. And then there are necessary errands pretty much every day that require walking the blazing streets, and of course playing tourist on weekends ... so pretty much entire days running around outside.

Which of course means sweat ... at least for us Westerners.

Med school friends correct me if I'm wrong, but from reading and various other sources, I understand that Asians (at least in the Far East) generally have less sweat production (tied to less body hair on the whole) than Westerners - black or white. At any rate, it's quite obvious walking around the steamy Korean peninsula that the average Jin here looks a whole lot cooler than his dripping, smelly average-Joe counterpart. I'm pretty sure I work up more of a sweat brushing my teeth than a Korean does hiking a mountain. And you don't begin to notice body odor here the way you do in say, Western Europe.

Subsequently, deodorant just isn't a big thing in Korea ... at a major store you might find half a dozen or so products, and you could probably get caviar cheaper per ounce (antiperspirant is about $5 for a small container). So as you can imagine, there's a whole black market for the stuff among expats - you can find posts in English-language classifieds. Maybe that's what I'll do if my condo doesn't rent out soon, start a career in the burgeoning world of illicit deodorant trade.

The good(?) news: I've heard that Daegu also holds the distinction of being one of Korea's coldest cities in winter.