Korea probably would like to think it's nothing like Japan, since older Koreans carry around some pretty
unpleasant memories of Japan's occupation. Sorry, guys; there are more similarities than you want to admit. Here's one - cartoon mascots. You see them at businesses and tourist traps. They even show up in ads for banks and - of all places - on the signs for the police stations (photo, left). Cartoon cops! ;-) The flower sculptures above were about the most dramatic display of the cartoon mascots for the Kyongju World Expo, which Margaret visited in late October of 2000. These mascots (in other forms) were all over the expo site. If you're familiar with the typical Japanese cartoon mascots, you can see how these are similar and yet a little bit different, with their own Korean accent. The man posing in front of the sculptures is Margaret's taxi driver. He not only delivered her up to the expo, he also found her a place to stay, helped her buy a ticket to the expo, and saw that she got inside with no trouble. Now that's service.
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