You’re young, female and Korean. Perhaps you’re a student, a worker, even a mother. You’re slim, stylish, beautiful, have enviably flawless skin, and shiny long dark hair. Just like all your friends.
One night however, you go to bed, and you wake up in the morning as an ‘ajumma’, an auntie, an older woman. You’ve shrunk four inches, your hair is shorter, perhaps even curly. You’ll put on nice comfy trousers and no longer remain silent on bus rides. Most importantly, you’ll wear your badge of office. This is a quite enormous visor, worn to protect your skin from damaging rays from the sun. You won’t go out without one.
There is no half way house that I can see. You’re young. Or you’re an ajumma. That’s it.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
Well, I guess I must be an ‘ajumma’ because I am thinking how comfortable those shoes look!
By the way, the picture of your lady appears on Facebook although she is in amongst the French sheep, smiling man and dodgy mug!
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You’re joking! On my feed it’s just the Korean woman. I thought it was sorted.
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Not joking! The old photos are still very much there!
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I give up. I can’t do much about it from here. I appealed for help from WP community support and got none. Your link was helpful, but I couldn’t make it follow through.
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I feel there’s scope for a good short story in here. (The girl-into-ajumma thing, not your FB pix.) 🙂
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Do you want to write it, or shall I 😉 ?
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You first! 🙂
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Lovely observation. I wonder how that would translate in England?
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I don’t think it does. We seem to have the seven ages of woman in the UK.
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the young man stage right (or is it left) has a visor, though not as big. Maybe there are stages of visor, even if not as many as seven, so the stages of women may in fact be more than two? Makes sense though, to take sun damage seriously. I’m especially curious about how you graduate to no longer remaining silent on buses….
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Oh, silence on public transport is taken seriously. Until you get to A Certain Age. Yes, men wear visors too, but not quite as – um – large. I am pretty careless about sun exposure. Evidently my mother put me out to brown up nicely in my first months of life and I’ve gone on from there.
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I guess I’m an American ajumma–love my visors and comfy shoes!
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I threatened to kill Malcolm if he bought me a visor. I meant it. Comfy shoes are good though.
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So funny! I think I must be an ajumma now. Certainly prefer the comfy shoes. Was I ever young, slim and beautiful, with flawless skin? Better leave someone else to answer that 🙂
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Joyce, I didn’t know you as a bright young thing. But none of us was ever as gorgeous as a young Korean woman. Sad but true.
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hmm. . . I tend to think about aging in a more nuanced way (though I’m probably shouldn’t be doing cross-cultural comparisons that I know nothing about). 🙂
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So do I usually, Sheryl. But not here. It’s quite strange.
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How very strange! A bit like eastern/southern Europe until fairly recently. Beautiful young woman suddenly turns into little old woman in black.
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It’ not as extreme as that, but same kind of idea.
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It would be interesting to know what how a Korean woman saw things in one of our country’s, I suspect there are more stages, just not so obviously present in public.
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I’m sure there are in Korea actually. It’s just my untutored eye.
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