A friend of mine was eating a pork cutlet when his phone rang. It was his landlord calling. Assuming something serious had happened, he picked up. A barrage of questions followed. His Korean was not good enough to comprehend everything, but the urgency in his landlord's voice was unmistakable. Had there been a fire? Had someone broken into his apartment? He hurried home and found several police officers waiting outside. Then one of them explained what had happened. An older man in the neighborhood had called the police after seeing a man walking around without a shirt. My friend was that man. What the caller failed to mention was that the runner was wearing running shorts, carrying a water bottle and sweating in the middle of the day. He had just finished running and had taken his singlet off just meters from his home. The police explained that seeing a shirtless man walking around a residential neighbourhood in Korea might have people assume he is drunk, behaving like a "pervert" or otherwise causing trouble. Having lived in Korea long enough to become familiar with some of its social norm