Halmoni Weekly Protest

During WWII, the Japanese government systematically kidnapped and held young girls between 13 and 24 years old to use them as sexual slaves. They referred to them as “comfort women” because they were supposed to “comfort” the soldiers so that they would be ready for battle. Unfortunately, that euphemism is still widely used, but the correct way they should be referred to, that is the way the survivors want to be referred to, is as forced sexual slaves. These girls came from all over eastern Asia, with the majority being from Korea and China.

After the war ended, the ones who were able to survive the atrocities which they were forced to endure, were shunned from their families because it was considered extremely shameful to be raped, even though it was obviously not the girls fault. As a result of that stigma, the survivors who did come forward – many were unwilling to due to the fear of being ostracized and shunned by their family and society – managed to get a house together and every Wednesday since the war ended these halmonis, which is what they are called in Korean, go out in front of the Japanese embassy in South Korea and protest. 

Watching these incredibly old women protest was heart wrenching. They seemed like such sweet, nice ladies who only wanted an apology and for the Japanese government to tell the truth. In my opinion, that is nothing to ask for after what they were forced to endure. It was even sadder when I thought about how it seems that the Japanese government is just waiting for these women to die of old age. They have been peacefully protesting for a long time and I think it would be a tragedy for the Japanese government not to do what is right and apologize to these women before it is too late.

In my opinion, I think the government's idea of justice for these women is similar to that of a spoiled rich guy who always gets his way. All they want to do is pay the halmonis and call it even so that they don't have to humiliate themselves by publicly stating that the whole thing was set up and run by the Japanese government and so they can avoid having to provide a sincere apology.

The halmonis' idea of justice is rather simple and straight forward, not to mention the true form of justice rather than the Japanese governments paltry attempt at justice by buying them off. All they want is a sincere apology from the Japanese government and for them to admit that the whole thing was systematically set-up and run by them, which they still have not done after over 60 years.

The Joys and Agonies of Being a White Male

Last week on our bus ride out to visit the rural elementary school, which was a little over an hour long, we discussed the privileges that we are afforded based on our language, citizenship, education, race, gender, religion, socioeconomic status, etc. During this discussion, I noticed that my main privileges are that I am a straight, caucasian, American male who's first language was English and that I am atheist. Since these are all considered to be "normal," with the slight exception being my atheism, I do not experience hardly any prejudice and never have to really think about my personal identities or how they might affect the way people view me and interact with me, which is exactly what makes them privileges for me.

On the other hand, being a Caucasian male in today's society can also have some negative effects, especially when it comes to graduate school admissions. Since engineering is predominately male and America is predominately white, minortity students tend to get a lot of special considerations when it comes to graduate school admissions for engineering degree programs. As a result of this, it is necessary for me to have higher grades in order to get into the same institutions that a minority student would be able to do with lower grades. Furthermore, as a white male living in Ann Arbor, which is a very liberal city, it is difficult to express opinions or arguments against basically any social justice movement, especially against affirmative action and about gender equality topics, because if I do I am instantly considered a chauvinistic asshole. To solve my first challenge, I just work hard to maintain exceptionally high grades, however I still have not found a reliable way to deal with the second challenge other than avoiding interactions with left-wing and right-wing extremists.

English Education in South Korea

Last week we were given a lecture by the National Institute for International Education about English education in Korea and afterwards we took a field trip to a rural elementary school to see what schools outside of the city of Seoul are like and also to observe an English class that was being taught by a U of M alumnus, Brian Lee. The presentation and the school were both very interesting. I was most surprised by the fact that the rural elementary school, which only had 36 total students and consisted of grades kindergarten through sixth, was far better equipped and much nicer than every elementary school that I have seen in the United States. It was also a lot of fun watching the English class being taught by Brian. The kids seemed to be very enthusiastic and were having a lot of fun. I was even lucky enough to have a chance to interact with the kids in one of their learning exercises :) It was a lot of fun!

I think the reason that the Korean government has deemed English education as so important and why they hire a lot of foreigners to teach the language is that the government realizes that the world is quickly becoming a globalized society. In order to prepare its future citizens to be successful in that society, it is necessary for them to know English because it is the international language and will continue to be so in the near future. Furthermore, their decision to hire foreigners I think is a result of their desire to have native speakers teach the language since they will tend to have a better accent and, more importantly, because it provides the students a chance to interact with foreigners and gives them some insight into other cultures outside of South Korea.

As someone who is fluent in English and who's first language was English, I think I have one huge advantage over those whose first language isn't English and even more so over those who aren't fluent in English, which is that my language is the international language and it makes it much easier for me to function in the rapidly globalizing world. By being fluent in English, I can go to almost any first world country and get around perfectly fine since there are more than likely going to be people there that understand and speak at least some English, especially in metropolitan cities. On the otherhand, if I only spoke French, Chinese, or any language other than English, it would be a lot harder for me to travel and function in other countries.


Everyone hanging out at Hwachon Elementary School's Library

Life as an International Student

Being an international student in South Korea has been a great experience for me for many reasons, but I think the most important factor that has resulted in my enjoyable experience is that Korean students love to meet and talk with American students. The fact that most of us look completely different from them and also their desire to speak with us to practice their English made it very easy for us to meet people and caused the students at SNU to be very welcoming and friendly to us. 

Unfortunately, when I take a step back to compare my experience with what I see going on back at the University of Michigan, I realize that my experience as an international student in Korea seems to be a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable than what I believe is the experience for most of the international students at U of M. In Ann Arbor, most people don't tend to go out of their way to speak with international students, which seems to make it much more difficult for those students to fit in and feel a part of the campus. I think this has a lot to do with the fact the we come from such a multicultural society, so that when we see international students, we don't immediately know that they are international students and therefore don't treat them any differently than we would any other student on campus, which typically means we don't go out of our way to speak with them and make them feel welcome. This causes many of the international students to feel isolated, so they end up only hanging out with other international students. This further reduces the likelihood of American students approaching them to talk to them, because many people feel intimidated about approaching a group of students to make friends, especially if that group is speaking in another language or seems to have something in common that you don't have with them. One last thing that contributes to the difficulties many international students experience at U of M compared with my experience in Korea, is that many international students come from cultures where it is almost unheard of to approach strangers and strike up a conversation, whereas we, as Americans, do this almost every day. So when we go abroad, we don't feel as uncomfortable approaching strangers and trying to make friends, whereas the international students at U of M just aren't comfortable doing that since that was not the way they were brought up.

National Art Museum

Today we went to the Korean National Art Museum. The museum was very interesting to me, especially because the art work there seemed so different than the art work you see in most western art museums, which are the only art museums that I had been to before today. By far, my favorite part of the art museum was the section on the top floor dedicated to Buddhist statues and some of the history of Buddhism, both in Korea and throughout Asia. I enjoyed seeing all of the different kinds of Buddhist statues and reading about their significance and what sort special meaning each one had, as well as learning some of the different hand gestures that the statues are always making and what some of them mean.

As a foreigner, another thing that I really liked about the museum and one thing that I think most other foreigners appreciated a lot, was that all of the displays had both Korean and English descriptions next to them. This, along with the fact that all of the employees at the museum spoke Korean and English, made the museum a very welcoming and inviting place for foreigners to go visit and enabled us to understand the culture attached to the art works without having to pay a tour guide to walk us around and translate everything for us. I think there is a very strong correlation between culture and art and I see art as a way of expressing and preserving one's culture, so I feel that by creating a museum that was this friendly towards foreigners, it goes a long way in spreading their culture and allows non-Korean speakers like myself to better understand it.

Buddha Statue at the Museum

USO? What's That?

Our other presentation today was given by the Director of the USO in Korea and a Colonel in the U.S. military in Korea. Now if you're like how I was before today, you probably have no idea what the USO stands for or what it actually does. The USO is the United Service Organizations and, in short, they provide entertainment for the U.S. military and ways for them to feel welcome and connected to home when they are abroad and when they are returning home from their service abroad.

The presentation by the USO director, Tony Davis, focused on what the goal of the USO is, what the structure of the USO is and how it functions. As he described it to us, the USO is not funded by the military and obtains most of its labor through volunteers. Some examples of the work done by the USO include concerts and BBQS for the U.S. armed services while they are abroad and also "Welcome Home" signs in the airports when they return home.

Colonel Dantonio, who is in charge of the Civil services division of the U.S. army in South Korea, discussed the Good Neighbor Program, the relationship between the U.S. and South Korea, the very real threat of North Korea, the view of American soldiers in Korea and the effects and influences of the media on these views. His focal point was the Good Neighbors Program, which is a program that exists in the military to provide service to the community where the base is located and throughout the rest of the country. His other main point was about the importance of the U.S. military presence in South Korea, not only because of the threat of the  very young new leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, but also because of its strategic importance in case of natural disasters, which we play a large part in helping during the relief effort after they take place.

After hearing from both of these individuals it got me thinking a lot about why relations are so complicated between the U.S. and South Korea. I think a lot of it has to do with the media since, after all, fear is what sells. Which is why we never hear anything in the news about the U.S. troops helping out local communities, but immediately hear about anything they do wrong. I think this gives people around the world an image of U.S. troops that is strictly negative and makes them believe that our armed service members do more harm than good all of the time. I think some of the creative ways that the USO has worked towards alleviating and improving these negative images is by helping the soldiers learn some of the culture of the country they are located, in this case South Korea, by helping the local citizens understand some of our culture through home stays in which a citizen comes and stays on the U.S. army base to learn some of our culture and in exchange on of our soldiers gpes to the citizens home and learns some of their culture for a few days. Furthermore, I think their efforts at providing on-base, 24-hour entertainment for the soldier will help to prevent some of the soldiers, especially those with families, from going out to the city at night, getting drunk, and making a fool of themselves. Instead, they are able to stay on base and go have fun in a way that is family friendly.

As a take-away from what the USO had been doing, I think it could go a long way for me to try to learn more about the cultures of the countries I plan on visiting before I actually go there, as well as their language, so that I will not offend people there and also so that the local people do not see me as an ignorant american. Furthermore, I think this will help me to be more open-minded to trying new things and considering new perspectives while I am staying in whichever country I may be visiting at the time.

Just Another Reason Why It's Great To Be a Michigan Wolverine

So today we had Christal Phillips, a University of Michigan Alumnus, come and give a presentation and lead a small discussion with us about alleviating poverty in other countries. She is currently teaching English at Yonsei Univeristy, one of the top three universities in South Korea. Another part of her job is assisting scholars from foreign, often under-developed countries come to her university to study and in research and discussing the governments role in supporting aid to alleviate poverty in other  countries. Unfortunately, we started asking a lot of questions about how she ended up teaching in Korea in the first place because many of us are interested in teaching and/or studying abroad again in the future. This resulted in a long discussion about the difficulties of finding jobs, especially at the time when she graduated in 2009, which was during the economic recession that was occurring in the U.S. As a result of this recession, jobs were vary scarce for recent graduates, even for those with J.D. degrees from Columbia Law School such as Christal. So we spent almost the entire time bombarding her with questions about how we should prepare for life after college and what factors to consider when deciding if we want to go to graduate school or straight into the work force. She was able to answer all of our questions quite well and provided us with a good prospective about what to look out for as we graduate in the next year or two. So while we did not get to discuss much about her actual work, it was very nice for Christal to share some of her wisdom and life experiences and also to provide us with some ideas and ways that we can enable ourselves to go abroad after finishing our undergraduate studies, whether it be for work or studying.

One of these ways, which we have already experienced since being in Seoul, is through working or volunteering for NGO's and other programs that are dedicated to alleviating poverty in countries through education and who assist the homeless by handing out food and housing them. This past Saturday and Sunday we volunteered with an organization known as PLUR, which stands for Peace, Love, Unity, Respect. Through this organization, on Saturday we were able to assist in teaching English to young students from low-income families so that they will be on par with the wealthier children in Korea who can afford private tutors to help them with their English language skills. Then, on Sunday, we had the opportunity to package food for the homeless and then walk around downtown handing it out. It was a great feeling to see that amount of joy that these simple acts brought people this past weekend. If it were not for these experiences, I don't think that I ever would have considered going abroad to help out impoverished and underprivileged individuals. They have opened another door for me as a way to give back to the world and go abroad at the same time and because of that will be something that I seriously consider doing at some point in my future after I finish my undergraduate studies.

In the end, although we did stray very far from our original topic that was planned for today, it was very refreshing and inspiring to see how vast our alumni network is. So much so, that it reaches half-way around the world and is strong enough to enable us to experience these great opportunities! This is just one example of the multitude of reasons that it is great to be a Michigan Wolverine.

Go Blue!!

More Questions

In addition to my earlier post, I have a couple more questions that have came to mind. The first one is how come I never see Korean people eating or drinking anything when they are walking around outside or when they are on the subway. Where I come from, it seems that the majority of people always have some sort of beverage with them, usually a water bottle or a soda, and it is also very common to see people eating while they are walking around or riding the buses. So I find it very strange that I never see that sort of behavior here, especially considering what a bustling and busy city Seoul is. My other question is why there are barely any garbage cans in Korea. I still typically walk around with a beverage here, but once I am finished I always spend  a good chunk of time searching for a recycling bin or a garbage can to dispose of it into. Is one of these two phenomena a result of the other?

Seon-saeng-nim Fair

Seon-saeng-nim is the Korean word for teacher, which is exactly what some of the other students on the trip and I were today. We were given the opportunity to tutor young Korean students in English for about two hours. The students were between the ages of 8-10 and were a very energetic group. It was an interesting experience given the fact that they don't know very much English and I know even less Korean. So we had to rely entirely on nonverbal communications which basically consisted of charades for about 2 hours. I was amazed by how quickly they picked up and understood the words I was using and were able to use them on their own and correctly. It was absolutely astounding!

However, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the tutoring session wasn't exactly a walk in the park. The students were extremely hyper and it was hard to maintain their focus for long periods of time, so we had to frequently change up our teaching strategies and the games/methods we were using to teach them in order to keep them interested. Another complication was due to the difference in their knowledge of English. Some students knew quite a bit and were bored by the basics, while others didn't know very much so the basics were a great place for them to start.

Going into this experience, one of my main concerns was that I would feel apathetic towards the kids since it was a one time experience and I would never see them again. Fortunately, this was not the case at all. The kids were a lot of fun, which immediately removed any doubts or thoughts of carelessness that I originally had. As a result of this, I don't think my interactions would've been any different with them whether it was a one-time experience or something that would be recurring weekly. At the same time, it was somewhat sad to see them leave knowing we would never see them again, so if this were going to be a recurring thing then that would have been much easier. All in all it was a great experience and I encourage everyone to try it at least once in their life, even if you don't think it's for you. You may surprise yourself as I did today!

Below is  a picture of me with two of the kids :)

$18 Rolex - Yes, please!

Last night we took a trip to Namdaemun, which is a large outdoor shopping region where you are expected to bargain with the vendors. It was a lot of fun and was my first experience with the famous "copy culture" of South Korea. It was also my first experience bargaining with vendors to lower the price, which at first felt a little awkward, but after a few times it actually became a lot of fun! Even with the language barrier, it was still very easy to bargain. In fact, I think not knowing the language made it even more fun because both the vendor and I had to use a lot more body language to communicate and it was really funny to watch.

Shortly after arriving, I found a silver and blue Rolex watch for 18,000 won (~$18 American) and Namdaemun instantly became one of my favorite new locations to shop. Needless to say, the watch was a knockoff, but I couldn't tell the difference, nor do I think most people around the world would be able to tell.  Rolex wasn't the only expensive brand that you could find "copies" of either. Basically every big name-brand item (Gucci, Coach, Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana, etc.) you could think of there was a replica of at the market, most of which you could not tell the difference between the real thing and the knock-off.

I think these products are mostly targeted towards middle-class people college-age students who can't afford the actual name-brand items, but who still want the look and style of them. Just as in the U.S., economic status is very important and so I feel these "copies" of normally expensive items enable middle-class people to affordably maintain an upper-class look.

So if I return to the states dressed like someone out of a GQ magazine, I challenge you to decide for yourself which items you think are real and which ones are "copies" :)

Below is a picture of the actual market at Namdaemun! 

DMZ Visit

Yesterday we visited the demilitarized zone, also known as the DMZ, which is a 4 km wide region between North and South Korea that runs from the west coast of the Korean peninsula all the way to the eastern coast. It was a very informative and interesting tour that consisted of three different stops.

The first stop was at Dorasan train station, which is located within the DMZ. This station is the only station with a track that runs from South Korea to North Korea, and more specifically to the capital of North Korea, Pyeongyang. It was built in an attempt to reunify the north and the south. Unfortunately, North Korea decided to change their minds midway through the process, so the tracks were never finished in North Korea and trains no longer run between the two countries. The station itself was very elegant and modern inside and seemed to have a promising future if the project would have been finished. Seeing as it wasn't, the station had a sort of eery feeling to me because it was such a beautiful station that appeared completely abandoned. Furthermore, the station showed me that south and north Koreans truly do want to reunite again, but that the North Korean government doesn't seem to be willing or ready to do so just yet. I say that it seems to be the North Korean government, because it was the South Korean government who was willing to pay for and build the entire track, including those in North Korea in order to bring the two countries together, but despite such generosity, the North Korean government still refused the idea.

The second stop on our tour was at the Dora Observatory, which is the northern most observatory in South Korea. From here, we were able to see the whole are between the two countries and into North Korea. It was interesting and sad to see how much less developed North Korea is than South Korea. There weren't many people that I could see in North Korea except for a few soldiers and a field fold of workers all dressed in white.

Our third and final stop on the tour was at the 3rd tunnel that South Korea discovered North Korea trying to dig underground as a way to sneak their soldiers into South Korea. It was a little scary to know that the road leading up to the 3rd tunnel and the entire area surrounding the tunnel was covered in around 750,000 land mines which have been left there from the Korean war. The South Koreans have already removed over 1,500,000 land mines since the signing of the cease-fire agreement with North Korea, so knowing that there are still that many left in the are was shocking to say the least. Prior to going into the tunnel, there was a history exhibit that provided a general overview of the war and had a display of all of the attacks on South Korea by North Korea since the signing of the cease-fire agreement. There was also supposed to be a movie that described more about the Korean War, but the projector was unfortunately not working on the day of our trip. So, instead we went straight to our descent down to the tunnel, which was quite a work out. The tunnel that we had to walk down to get to the tunnel dug by the North Koreans was just about 350 meters long and at an angle of about 60 degrees. Once at the bottom, we had to hunch over to walk through the North-Korean tunnel, which had a height of just over 5 ft. for most of it. Throughout the tunnel there were still the holes that were drilled into the walls to place dynamite into, which was how the length of the tunnel was dug out. Overall, the tunnel was a cool experience and reminded me a lot of the caves in Tennessee that I went to as a child, but they also sent chills down my spine when I realized how disastrous it would have been if North Korea had succeeded in its plan, and even more so when I thought about how close they did get to succeeding.

After finishing this trip, I am surprised at how relaxed people in Seoul seem to be and how unconcerned they are about the possibility of North Korea attempting to do the same thing again. Although, I feel my surprise might be a little unwarranted because even though North Korea did get close, it was over 30 yrs ago that this tunnel was found and so it seems unlikely that North Korea is still attempting the same thing because if they were they would have gotten all the way through already. Not to mention, North Korea appears to have far more primitive weapons than South Korea and the U.S. also has a permanent military base established in South Korea just in case of an attack.

Prior to this experience I always thought of the U.S. as somewhat of a world police in the aspect that we try to negotiate peace between countries, so I feel that this trip has reinforced that feeling and shown me the importance of our attempts to maintain the peace between countries. Unfortunately, I think our presence in South Korea has also had negative effects as well. North Korea still seems to have a strong hatred for America as a result of our aiding South Korea during the Korean War, and it is because of this hatred that I believe North and South Korea have not been able to establish better relations since we still have a strong presence in South Korea.

Questions

So I still have some lingering, albeit rather small, questions that I would like to get answered. The main one being where can I find japchae (Korean noodles stir fried with vegetables)?? I really like Korean food and have been doing my best to try as many different kinds of food as I can, but I have yet to find japchae, which is one of the foods I was really looking forward to trying before the trip even began. If anyone out there knows a place close to SNU that serves japchae, I would love to hear from you!

The other question that I am very curious about is the fascination with paler skin that is prominent in eastern asian countries, South Korea included. In the U.S. we tend to want to have darker skin, which has resulted in a huge business for tanning salons and tanning lotions. The reason for this is that darker skin makes people look slimmer, evens out skin tone, clears up skin, and also makes bags under your eyes much less visible than whiter skin. However, in South Korea it seems to be the exact opposite. There are skin whitening creams and lotions everywhere and I have yet to see a single tanning salon. So I am curious why this is so? I hope to find the answer before the end of the trip, so if anyone could should some light on the matter, it would be greatly appreciated!

American Celebrity In Korea

So I have been here about a week and one of the things that has been very interesting and surprising to me is that Koreans tend to stare at me everywhere I go and they are always taking pictures of the other students and myself. It's almost as if we were some famous band and everyone wanted pictures to show their friends later on. I think it may have to do with the South Korea being a very homogeneous society, so the people here aren't used to seeing people who aren't Korean, especially people such as myself who are white and have lighter colored hair and blue eyes, which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to the typical Korean who has black hair and dark brown eyes. It is also common for younger aged girls who are handing out flyers to run up to us, hand us one, and then run back to their friends giggling. It's kind of funny and doesn't bother me, but it almost makes me feel like an animal in a zoo who is constantly being gawked at for doing nothing special in particular. 

Other than the paparazzi-esque behavior of many Koreans, another notable thing about my interactions with them is that they are extremely nice and polite people, but also very shy.They are always patient and willing to help me, which is sometimes difficult considering I don't know any Korean beyond the simple "Hello," "Good-bye," and "Thank-you." I say they are shy because you never see strangers interacting with each other or making small talk on the buses or trains like you would in the U.S. Furthermore, when my friends and I went to a club the other day, it reminded me of a middle school dance. By that I mean, people weren't really dancing together and those who were seemed to be very awkward and uncomfortable.

The last type of interaction that I wanted to mention, was my experience with the students of SNU. All of them, including students not in our class who we met on campus one way or another, were extremely friendly and willing to talk to us about anything we had questions about. The students seemed a lot more outgoing than many of the other people in the city of Seoul, which may or may not have to do with the fact that they were all drinking makgoli (a korean rice wine) in between classes in the middle of their campus which enabled them to loosen up a bit more. The students also all spoke English remarkably well, which I believe was another factor that enabled us to communicate very easily with them.

All-in-all I would say the people of Korea are very nice and welcoming to foreigners, although it seems it is somewhat difficult to make friends given the nature of their culture in which it is considered rude or bizarre to strike up conversation with a stranger, even if it is just for simple small talk. I hope to continue meeting new and interesting people on campus and will update you as my trip progresses.

Day 2 - Campus Tour and Snacks With Vice President Kim

Tuesday, May 8th  was our second official day of our GCC Field-Site experience, but my 5th day in Korea. It was also our first day of classes, so we spent our morning chatting with students from NCHU in Taiwan. It was nice to get to talk to them again because we haven't had the chance to in about a month. After that we finally got to meet our partners at Seoul National University for the first time which was really exciting! Everyone seems to get along well with each other and our partners seem eager to talk to us and to get to know us. We spent about an hour with them in class and then a lot of students went out to lunch with their partners to get to know them better.

After lunch, we went on a campus tour of the beautiful SNU campus. The tour was really good, especially because it was led by student ambassadors from SNU who seemed very knowledgeable about the campus and were willing to answer all of our questions that we had about the college, life as a student, about Seoul, and even personal questions.

Following the tour, we had snacks and a brief presentation by Vice President Kim about SNU's opportunities for study abroad and how they are collaborating with top universities around the world. There were also more student ambassadors at the talk, so we were able to talk with them a little bit and were invited to join a "Halloween In Summer" party this coming Friday. It sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun and will be a great chance for us to meet some other SNU students.

We ended the day with no-rae-bon later that night around 9:30 pm. It was a lot of fun and we all had a great time. Unfortunately, some of the students on the trip were sick and still experiencing jet-lag, so not everyone was able to make it. However, I am optimistic that we will do it again soon with everyone in the program and hopefully with some SNU students as well :)

Us at the entrance to Seoul National University!

Who Am I?

I just realized that I forgot to tell you a little about who I am and why I am in South Korea in the first place. My name is Chris Fair. I am 22 years old and am a student at the University of Michigan. I am studying chemical engineering and will be a senior next year :)

As to why I am in Korea, I am a member of an extracurricular on campus known as the Global Scholars Program, which is a program focused on intercultural interactions and social justice. One of the requirements of this program is that all of the members must take an academic course and for mine I chose UC 178: Global Understanding. In this course, we video conference with other universities around the world, one of which is Seoul National University (SNU), in an effort to understand their culture by communicating with the students who live there. An optional portion of this class was a 21-day summer study abroad program during which we visit Seoul, South Korea and meet with our video-conference partners at SNU to gain a better understanding of Korean culture. Having not known much about Korean culture before taking the class, this sounded like an excellent opportunity for me to discover more about it and to help me better understand my own culture and values and how they differ from those in Korea.

And so, here I am in Seoul, South Korea trying to explore and understand as much as I can about Korean culture in the short amount of time that I have here. Through this blog I hope to bring you along with me, metaphorically speaking of course, on this auspicious journey and to try to provide you with a better understanding of Korean culture!

Day 1 - Seoul Friendship Fair

This is a picture of my friend Mary and I at the Japan tent at the Seoul Friendship Fair, which was an event where countries from all over the world came to share a bit of their culture and their food :)