A complaint I hear regularly from expats is that X (where X is some Korean thing like beer or gum) tastes like chemicals.

“Korean beer sucks. It tastes like chemicals. Where can I get good gum? Korean gum tastes like chemicals. Anyone know where I can get shampoo online? Korean shampoo tastes like chemicals.”

(Yeah – I don’t know about that last one either.)

But my question is where the hell are these people coming from and what were they eating there to know so well what chemicals taste like?