May I take your order?

I've gotten a Costco card and have made a few (four hour, round trip) forays into Costco in Daegu to get my delicious and necessary foreign foods. Hey, if I'm doing the cooking, we better have industrial size jars of spaghetti sauce and whatever else catches my fancy whilst shopping.
During the most recent trip, I ate in the ugly little food court, which is always jam-packed. The food is the same, (I'm assuming,) as in the Costco food courts at home. I assume this because it is standard foreign food court fare. There is one twist however, and it has nothing to do with Costco's attempt to be culturally sensitive, or to appeal to the Korean market. This difference is onions.
What are you talking about Melanie?
Here it is:
Costco serves delicious-looking hot dogs in their food court. Not everyone likes onions on their hot dogs, so there is the option to help yourself to the onions. The onions are available from a very nifty looking machine which has a handle that you crank to chop the whole onion into little, hot dog friendly sized bits. (Am I being too technical?)

Here's a bit of background information on Korean meals. Korean meals consist of main dishes and side dishes which all come in their own separate dish and are served at the same time and eaten communally. (You get your own rice. Don't touch anyone else's rice.) Korean meals always have something sour to eat with their meal and quite often, there are certain side dishes that are always served with a particular meal. For example, you ALWAYS get a little dish of pickles when you order pizza. ALWAYS. I don't know who decided that pickles were going to be it for pizza, but there you go. It has been decided and therefore, it is so. ALWAYS. In fact, if the pizza people forgot the pickles, you would phone them back to let them know that they were missing which would result in a separate, apologetic delivery of pickles.

Well, although Costco food seems to be palatable to the shopping masses in Daegu which is evident by the crowded food court, Costco and Korea have a little misunderstanding. Costco doesn't know about the side dishes and from what I've seen, many people will not put up with no side dishes. What has resulted is this: patrons of the Costco food court have taken matters into their own hands and are eating POUNDS AND POUNDS OF ONIONS BECAUSE COSTCO DOESN'T HAVE PICKLES WITH IT'S PIZZA.

Yes, it's true. More than one person has stood at the nifty onion machine and cranked out more than their share of onion bits, (meant for hot dogs, as previously mentioned,) onto a large plate for consumption as a side dish. It's insanity and I wonder if it really is necessary. It also leads to a second question which is, what would these same people not eat? I mean, seriously, if there was a little machine there that served something like, oh I don't know, . . . fingernails, and there were no pickles, would the fingernails be gobbled up as quickly? I even saw one table with their onions covered in mustard. Not just a dollop, mind you, I'm talking marinated, coated and smothered. That, to me is an obvious sign of someone saying, "Well, I did the best I could, . . . "

Everytime I think of this ridiculous situation, I really do smile and laugh a little to myself and the reason for it is the misunderstanding. Being a foreigner, I am therefore the resident example and expert and for all things foreign. I am frequently astounded at how easily assumptions are made. (Yes, I know I do it too and I am making an effort not to play the "us and them" game.) This example, I am CERTAIN, has given someone an opinion about something to do with foreigners/foreign food/foreign onions or whatever. The hilarity of the situation, (to me,) is that I can almost see it in cartoon form: a western costco employee staring down a patron of the food court, eating their most delicious onions and a little bubble over each of their heads reading, "What the fuck are you thinking?!?!?!"

Who knows, maybe you have to live here to appreciate it.