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!