I've always promised you that I'd give you Korea living tips each worth about 10 won. Well today, here's a tip that could be worth 45,000 won:
Be careful of plug tip type when you plug something in.
Background: plug and outlet safety types
Korean plugs are similar to those used in parts of Europe. Now, you may notice that some of the plugs, like those on the left in the graphic, are made of metal all the way down. Both prongs are completely metal. Others, like those on the right, are metal only at the tips and plastic after a certain point.
Apparently this is a safety design. While a lot of modern "consent" (콘센트) outlets are deep and recessed a lot of older ones still in plenty of apartments and workshops are the old style flat ones that are nearly flush with the wall. Compare them in this graphic:
With the newer recessed ones, both plug types are basically the same. But with the older flush type, it could be possible that there's a small gap between the plug tips going in and a portion of the prong being exposed. That could obviously be deadly if you happened to touch both when plugging/unplugging it or even if a piece of something conductive fell onto both exposed parts. So it makes sense that rather than pure exposed bare metal, having plastic at the grip end could help reduce those accidents. Makes sense.
Until you royally mess up.
Stuck plug
So last week I had this lamp that uses the half plastic type of plug. My apartment is old and has the flat type outlets. I don't think that actually matters in this scenario since it likely would have happened with the deep ones too. The problem was, the plug got stuck inside the outlet. Like fully stuck. Turns out the little grabber things inside got wedged just at the tip of the metal casings on the prong tips which I didn't realize were not flush with the rest of the prong. So when I went to yank the plug out, it got jammed even more.
So what did I do? You can guess what a guy like me did. I grabbed the cord even harder and yanked for all I could. Do you think the plug finally came out? Or do you think my old as hell outlet panel came out? If you picked B you win. The whole thing came out of the wall, lamp still stuck in it, now the consent panel dangling out of the wall. Looks like I was up a certain creek.
I didn't trust myself not to start a fire or electrocute myself so I ended up calling a handyman who charged me 45,000 won to come over, look at it, laugh at me, turn off my fuse box power, and reattach the box. He snapped the lamp plug out with a screw driver once the power was out and bent the grabber things down. He called something specific but I forgot the word now. He said I should be more gentle plugging stuff in and out of these old things.
So there you go. Be safe out there and honestly from now on I'm going to prefer stuff with full metal plugs. I'd rather be fried than have to sheepishly call the guy again for a repeat.
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