Good Teeth are Hard to Find

It doesn’t take long to notice that people in Korea typically don’t have very good-looking teeth. I don’t mean to say that they’re all terrible looking, but a beautiful set of pearly whites is quite rare. Since I spent the four years prior to law school in Fargo, ND, some may say my standards are too high, considering Men's Health ranked Fargo 9th in their list of U.S. cities with the best looking teeth. However, for the past two years I’ve been attending law school in Jackson, Mississippi, which Men’s Health ranked as the 5th worst city in the nation for teeth. For this reason, I think I have a pretty good idea about teeth in the United States. If you think I’m making these stats up, look here: http://www.menshealth.com/metrogrades/april08/teeth.php)

Before coming to Korea I spent a week in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya Japan. Based on my observations of the people in those cities, the average set of teeth in Japan are worse than those in Korea. When I asked my Japanese friend about the multitude of crooked and yellow incisors, he explained that in Japanese culture teeth are not a big deal, so people do not spend a lot of time on them. He also said bleaching was very, very expensive. Perhaps the same is true for Korea, for their teeth are more similar to Japan than the United States. To be fair, however, I'd like to point out that my American friends tell me that teeth they've observed in Western European countries were also not up to U.S. standards either. Perhaps on a world-scale America has some of the best teeth. But that is a conclusion I’m not qualified to reach. However, what I do know is that I've seen many, many more sets of straight and white teeth in Jackson, MS, than Seoul, Korea. Therefore, I'd say it's safe to assume Koreans have ample room for improvement to be equal with the United States in terms of the aesthetics of teeth.