Top 3 Things that are Popular in America, but Never Could be in Korea (and Why)

Tetris:
Though t may be mathematical and nerdy, Tetris can not reach a state of popularity in South Korea. The reason? The F word. That's right. You know how one of the Tetris pieces looks like an amputated medical cross?  Well, Koreans believe that looks strikingly similar to a representation of the middle finger, and have endearingly titled the gesture "f*** you."  Turn your back on a class full of rascals for 1 second and it is sure to happen: one student will shoot the bird at another, and that student will immediately shout, "Teacher!  He did f*** you to me." Of course, he will simultaneously demonstrate the offensive gesture in your direction while tattling, thereby compound the annoyance of the tattle with actually cursing and flicking off the teacher.  Back to tetris, this particular piece can be found scrawled all over the desks and walls of the schools.  A game based around it would be too much for them to handle.

Salsa:
A delicious condiment for chips, salad, or anything in a tortilla, we all know that salsa can range from sweet to extremely spicy.  While these are flavors that Koreans know and love, especially pepper based spice, I don't believe that this dip will ever find popularity without a name change.  This is because the word salsa is terribly close to the word sulsa, meaning diarrhea.  There is literally no way to pronounce salsa without garnering a cringe (or in the case of elementary students, an outburst of laughter), even if you enunciate with extreme precision.  If you walked into a foreign restaurant and there on the appetizer list was something dubbed "dee-a-ree-a," would you take the chance?

Drive Thru:
One of the qualifications of a true "fast-food" restaurant is the ability to purchase it without the extra hassle of parking and walking into the store.  The convention of the drive thru is so omnipresent that it may be hard to imagine a world without it, and yet it does not exist in Korea.  Yes, we have McDonald's and Burger King, KFC, Popeye's, even a Taco Bell now.  Not a single one of them offers drive thru pick up.  This is a combination of space problems and market needs.  For starters, the drive thru requires a wide swath of private road around the fast-food restaurant in question.  However, most of these establishments are on the first floor of a 12 story building that is crammed next to a whole row of 12 story buildings.  In a city that stacks everything from grocery stores to movie theaters, there just isn't the spatial luxury to pave a moat around your burger joint.  Of course, we also have to consider that the operative word in drive thru is drive.  In a city with a popular subway and bus system, not to mention a thriving pedestrian culture, a drive-up window would only be convenient to the smaller segment of the population that is actually driving their cars.  To counter act these space and market constrictions, fast-food joints have begun to offer walk-up window service or even delivery.