Honor Your Elders

I'm so sorry for the lack of posts lately. :( I've been back from Korea for awhile, but I still want to blog about so many things. School is sucking up my life, with college applications and whatnot, not to mention all my extracurriculars and just ugh. I just wanna be back in Korea~!

Today's blog post will be about the importance of age in Korean society. To Koreans, age is an extremely big deal. Even if it's just by a year or so, the age of the person with whom you are acting determines how you can speak to them, the level of formality you are expected to use (it can get pretty complicated), and even your gestures.

In my host family, I had a Korean grandmother, halmonni. The grandmother, and great grandparents in general, are given the highest form of respect. When eating, they are the first to be poured a drink, the first to be served, and the first to begin eating. You should also bring a gift, even just a small one, for your elderly family members (or if you will be visiting someone older that you don't know, such as a friend's parents/grandparents). I also noticed, when I gave my host family their gifts which included some fun little keychains, halmonni was asked to choose first. It's a sign of respect, since Korean women work very hard for their family and for this, are honored in their old age.

Also, when arriving/leaving, it's really important to greet or bid goodbye to people, especially family members that are older than you. When you leave, you should go to everyone in the house, even if they're in separate rooms or whatever, and tell them "tanyogesseumnida". When you come back, you should do the same and say "tanyowasseumnida". When someone else leaves, you should say "tanyo-oseyo", and when they come back you should say "tanyooshassayo". It sounds a little complex, but these were really emphasized in my host family! As I always say, no one's experience is exactly the same, but these rules seem pretty uniform, from what I've noticed. :)

When dining, it's customary that the youngest person (above the age of five or six) at the table pour drinks for the rest of the table. Since one of my host sisters is only one day older than I am (isn't that crazy? Same year and everything, she just happened to be born one day ahead!), she and I would often jokingly tease each other about who should pour drinks.

Age also applies to honorifics. Although their are honorifics for younger family and friends, you can get away without using them if you know them well. But for older family/friends, you should ALWAYS use the proper honorific, no matter how well you know. This, I found to be different from Japanese honorific system, where the more you get to know someone, the more casual you can afford to be with them. In Korea, honorifics are more defined.

Also, if you're on the bus/subway or in line somewhere, you should ALWAYS give up your place to someone elderly. Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be like, if you're a high school student you should give your seat up to a young college-age guy, but if you're young and healthy and sitting down while an elderly person struggles to keep their balance, you had better get up and offer them your seat right away. Even if they refuse, insist. It's respectful, and in a society where respect is so highly regarded, Koreans will be very impressed by you. It gives off a good image of foreigners in Korea.

Some pictures of my halmonni (grandmother) and onni (older sister). :)

Coffee in Korea!

Coffee, coffee, coffee. Anyone who knows me well by now knows that I have a love for coffee. My obsession started last year, my junior year of high school, when our school opened it's own coffee shop, cleverly named Sparbucks (our mascot is the Spartan). The coffee was fairly cheap, but it wasn't the greatest coffee ever known to man. Still, it wasn't bad, and the extra kick of caffeine definitely helped me get through those long days of AP classes, tech theatre rehearsal, SAT class, and the endless other tasks that I must complete throughout the day. And so, I was hooked.

The nature of the program that I went through to study in Korea was quite intensive. Class everyday, weekly morning meetings four days out of the week, additional cultural activities, not to mention homework and other obligations. Add the mental stress of trying to learn and constantly being surrounded by a new language while keeping up with two other foreign languages, and you've got a lot working against you. That's the challenge of studying abroad: being able to mentally and emotionally handle all the stress and exhaustion. Think of how you might be beat after a tough day at school-it's a thousand times harder when everything is in a language that, for the most part, you can't understand. The brain works so much harder just to process simple things. Exchange students usually find that, once they arrive in their host country, they become tired more quickly and more often than they did in their home country. Some adapt to this pretty quickly, some sleep in/go to bed earlier, others find an energy booster of their choice. Mine was coffee, exactly like in America. Hey, why change a good thing?

And so, I discovered the pure awesomeness of Korean coffee shops.

But before I get to that, I ought to mention that coffee in Korea tends to be on the pricier side. While clothing and most other food tend to be cheap compared to American prices, I found that coffee was usually a bit more expensive than the Starbucks in my area (although Starbucks prices are irregular throughout the U.S. Four dollars for a tall latte in NYC? That'd be three dollars where I live!). In Korea, coffee usually runs about four dollars to four dollars and eighty cents, or sometimes even toppling the five dollar mark depending on the shop. Unlike American coffee shops, you usually don't get a size choice. The standard size runs between a tall and a grande. Again, I'm going by Starbucks standards here.

That's another thing. In America, we understand that Starbucks is THE coffee chain that rules the country, causing smaller chains to melt away like whipped cream on top of a steaming vanilla latte. In Korea, there are many major chains that compete fairly equally with one another, in addition to countless independent coffee shops that manage to survive somehow. And they are seriously the most charming shops I've had the pleasure of being in.

Back to pricing: a friend of mine mentioned that the price of coffee drinks in Korea isn't necessarily to cover the cost of the coffee, but for the experience of visiting the coffee shop. Coffee shops, in Korea, are the real deal: relaxing environment, comfy furniture, bookshelves, decorations, great music, impeccable service...all things that American coffee shops claim to have. While they may do have those things, they don't have them to the extent Korean coffee shops have them. To be honest, I can't put my finger on exactly what it is that sets Korean cafes apart from American ones. But EVERYONE and ANYONE who's been to a typical Korean cafe will swear by the different atmosphere. It's so much better. When you walk into a cafe you just get this sort of feeling. Time slows down, kind baristas greet you with a smile, the air is perfect: not too dry or too cold or too warm. The smell of coffee beans lightly linger the air in a pleasant, not overpowering, sort of way. The cafes themselves are impeccably clean, large, and airy. No lack of space, always enough room and enough tables for you to grab a seat while you wait for your order to be made. Everything is just perfect. I don't know why all the cafes I've been too have been this consistent, but whatever system they're going by, they've got it down to a T.

And the coffee just tastes better. Not quite sure why, but when I came back to America and had my first     Starbucks fix, I was quite disappointed. It was a standard Cafe Latte, my go-to drink that I usually order. They never failed me in Seoul, but since I came back to America I've been disappointed. T__T

Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures of the cafes I went to in Seoul. It's one of those things where I was like, "Oh, I have plenty of time to do that later!" And then I looked up and it was time to leave. D: That happens to me a lot, haha. Time flies by so quickly! It's rather sad.

But I stole pictures off Google Images of many Korean cafes that I had been to, so those are the ones I have displayed throughout the post.

Bottom line: Korean cafes kick the java out of American cafes. Starbucks, you've got some catching up to do!

Cheapest Coffee in Korea: Ediya Coffee (chain)

Best Overall Coffee: Caffe Bene (chain)

Best Variety: Holly's Coffee (also a chain. And Sweet Potato frappuccinos? Come on now.)

So, if you're headed to Korea anytime soon, stop by a few cafes when you need a quick pick me up. It'll be worth your time!

The End Is Near

I leave in five days.

This is crazy.

It feels weird. I feel like I've been here forever, but I also feel like it was only a few days ago that I was in NYC for orientation.

It's a weird feeling, but one that I've felt before. Around this time last year, the same thoughts were going trough my head.

I can't leave.

I'm FINALLY starting to become confident in my new language.

There's so much I haven't done yet.

So much to learn.

Places to go.

Things to experience.

I can't. Leave.

I feel like I've gone a year back in time to when I left Japan. Rebounding was awful. I spent a lot of time crying. I would see pictures of my friends and family on Facebook and thinking that, if I were still there, that I'd probably be in those pictures. Even now I feel like I've missed so much, that I should have been there. It still hurts, although less sharply.

I'm about to go through all of that again.

It's going to suck.

I mean, it'll be nice to see my friends and family again, but like I said, it feels so incomplete. I need to be here longer. The summer exchanges that I've done have been great, but anyone who's as heavily involved in the exchange world as I am knows that a year is the only way to get the true exchange experience. I feel so deprived of that.

I feel like I fit in so well here. My host family is perfect and amazing and I truly feel like a member if the family. They've shown me so much love and support. My host dad said, in broken English: "This home Grace's home. Everyday." My host mom told me at dinner that even after I leave I will still be part of the family. My host sister plans to visit me in America next year.

They are the absolute best part of my exchange here in Korea. I can't leave them.

I can't deal with this. Just wrapping my mind around the fact that I have to leave my life here behind just kills me. I've already found myself tearing up at the thought of leaving.

But it has been so, so worth it. All the pain that I'll be in this time next week is a small price to pay for all that I've gained by coming to Korea.

I just wish I had more time.

My mind is a jumble of emotions that I cannot convey through words on a computer screen.

A Comparison: What is Beauty?

Let's face it (no pun intended):All over the world, appearance matters. But to what extent? This is whereAmerican cultural views on beauty differ from those of Korea.

In order to properly analyze these differences, it's important to understand theenvironment in which they developed. America, as a racially and ethnicallymixed country, doesn't necessarily have specific standards that define the term"beautiful". Women of various colors, ethnicities, shapes, and appearancescan be viewed as beautiful, although individual opinions on what is beautifuldiffer depending on the person. However, in South Korea, a country that isethnically homogenous (roughly 98% Korean, and whose largest minority groupsinclude other Asians), a sort of checklist for beauty has developed. A youngKorean male we interviewed gave us a list of terms used all across the countryto categorize beauty.

Vocabulary:

S-line: a nice body with curvesand a tiny waist

V-line: long pointed chin andthin face (they sell face rollers to fix this)

Double eyelids, also known as 쌍거풀(sang-koh-pul): Sang koh pul surgery is the most common cosmetic procedure donein Korea, according to several sources. Additionally, eyelid tape and glue isquite common to achieve a temporary "double eyelid" effect.

X-line: skinny waist

U-line: lower back

W-line: cleavage

In addition to these, being tall,having a slim figure, and pale skin are sought after in Korea. Our sources alsocited a small face, high nose bridge, and small lips as common features thatKorean women undergo cosmetic surgery to achieve.

We interviewed several Koreansabout their opinions on plastic surgery. These people surprisingly had opposingviews on the trend. One of the Koreans stated that there are two types ofimages in Korea that are admired—one of them being cute and small while theother image is tall and skinny. Both of these types are considered to be idealin Korea, however, this opinion came from a male’s point of view. One of thefemales that we interviewed expressed a different perspective by consideringthe personality of a person as a standard to measure beauty. It is evident thatKorea has both a positive and a negative perspective on the concept of plasticsurgery. On one hand there is a notion of following the media who encouragesthe mentality that “beauty is everything”, while on the other hand there is thefading idea of beauty being an interior quality.

우리는 몇 명의 한국인을인터뷰해서 성형수술에 대한 생각을 물어보았습니다. 이 사람들은 놀라울 정도로 트렌드에 반대되는 생각을 하고 있었습니다. 한국인 한 명은, 한국에서추구되는 두 가지의 이미지가 있는데 하나는 키가 작고 귀여운 것이고 다른 하나는 키가 크고 마른 것이라고 말했습니다. 두 가지 모두 한국에서 이상적인모습이지만, 이 의견은 남자의 관점에서 나온 것입니다. 우리가 인터뷰한 다른 여자는 한 사람을 평가하는 기준은 외적인 미가 아니라 인간성이어야한다는 관점을 나타냈습니다. 명백하게 한국은 성형수술에 대해 긍정적인 관점과 부정적인 관점을 모두 갖고 있습니다. 한 쪽에서는 미디어를 좇아“아름다운 것이 전부”라고 생각하는 반면, 다른 한 쪽에서는 아름다움은 더 낮은 가치일 뿐이라고 말합니다

According tothe Koreans we interviewed, appearance is a significant factor in many portionsof their lives-perhaps to a greater extent than in the lives of averageAmericans. It's common for Korean women to undergo cosmetic surgery of somekind in preparation for a job interview. This would be viewed by most Americansas an extreme action, however, it's important to understand that in Koreacosmetic surgery does not have the negative connotation that it does inAmerica. Korean parents often encourage their children to improve theirappearance because they want their children to be happy and successful, andcosmetic surgery is often viewed simply as a step towards that goal.

While suchspecific actions taken to be beautiful may initially shock Americans, the USAis also obsessed with appearance. In fact, it'd be outright hypocritical to saythat Americans are less preoccupied with appearance than Koreans. Time and timeagain you hear stories of people who want to lose weight for their high school reunion/sister'swedding/bikini season/whatever event they deem important enough to alter theirappearance for. There are tanning salons on every corner, weight loss clinicsevery few blocks, and countless diet drugs crowd pharmacy shelves. And it'shard to ignore practices such as beauty pageants and media photoshop.

While thesethings are certainly not limited to only America, and certain beauty practicesin Korea are not limited only to Korea, it's important to recognize that thoughthe two countries have their differences on this touchy issue, stemming fromcompletely different cultural upbringings. Neither is "more correct"than one another. One must keep an open mind, and not let their native country'sidealism cloud their judgement.

Written by Vashti W., Grace K., and Maggie Z.

These pictures represent only a few of the thousands of cosmetic surgery advertisements the three of us have seen around Seoul.

Flowers, Flour, and Potatoes?

This week my host sister said she wanted to do our nails together. So Sunday night came, and I'm in the living room with my family relaxing and watching the Olympics, and my sister says, "Hey, let's do our nails now!" I agree, and she runs off for a second and comes back with...a bag of dried flowers. She immediately dumps them into a bowl with a little water and begins crushing them with a spoon. She saw my perplexed expression and began to explain. This wasn't nail polish as most people know it, but a traditional Korean art. These flowers grow on Jeju Island and bloom in the late summer, and the flowers can be crushed with a bit of water to create a flowery leafy blood orange type mixure. You coat your fingernails in this mixture, wrap them in cloth or plastic, and sleep overnight with your fingers wrapped. In the morning, after you wash off the flowers, your fingernails are stained a blood orange color. Legend and tradition say that, if the color lasts until the first snow, you will marry your first love. Now, as she was telling me this, I couldn't help thinking about the fact that I live in south Texas, where it snows about once every five years or so, haha. But anyway! Here's an article that explains the whole process a lot better than i do. :)

http://jejulife.net/2008/10/24/bong-seon-hwa-dyeing-fingernails-a-yearly-traditional-korean-custom-by-sherrin-hibbard-jeju-south-korea/

While she was applying the flower mixture to my nails, she noticed a rash on my arm. It was just a small rash from my eczema, nothing serious. I usually just put on some extra lotion and ignore it, but it freaked my host sister out and she called my host mom over to look at it. My host mom called my grandmother over, and before I know it they're talking about traditional medicine practices and treatments and whatnot. They told me that they can make mdedicine for me using potatoes, and I agreed. Hey, when in Korea...!

So, I'm sitting there, my hands useless while they're wrapped in flowers and plastic, and the next thing I know, my host grandmother comes over and starts spooning this ice-cold potato mixture over my arms and legs. They explain it's a mixture of potatoes and water and ice and flour (not flowers this time!), which sounds more like a recipe for some baked good, but they told me all about how this is a traditional medicine to to treat minor skin ailments. And boy, did it work! After a thirty minute application of the potato mixture, my rash had calmed down significantly, and in the morning it was even better! Sadly, I cannot say the same for my nails. I woke up and washed away the flowers, eager to see the results, but my fingernails were/still are an...interesting...shade of orange. My host sister's were the same, so we didn't do something quite right, haha. We're going to re-try this weekend, so I'll update on how our second attempt goes!

Here are a few photos! Please excuse my unattractiveness, as it was about 11:30 at night and I was getting ready to go to bed. xD

Culture Camp!

NSLI-Y/I-EARN/YES organizes a ton of events for us scholarship recipients. Last Saturday we participated in a "Culture Camp", where we met with YES and I-EARN, and fifty Korean high school students. We were split up into our supporter groups, and given missions to complete, some at the hostel that hosted us, but most took place at various locations around Seoul! First our group had to memorize part of the lyrics to a kpop song and perform it accurately in front of everybody. This was easy for the Korean high schoolers in our group, but for us Americans? Not so much, haha. Each group had a different song snippet and had to go sing in front of the judges, who would decide whether or not they were accurate enough to move on to the next round. It took my group...three tries ...to pass. Yeah, we were last. After stumbling through the lyrics for the third tine, we were allowed to move on to the next round, where we were given various clues that, if I described them, would bore you to death. We eventually figured out we had to take the subway to Changdeokgung Palace, which celebrated early Korean traditional culture and archtecture. It was a beautiful park! Once there, we met Joe, a YES coordinator, who gave us our "missions" where we had to find golden dragons and secret passageways and whatnot. Then we grabbed some Japanese food for lunch and headed off for our next mission at Cheongyecheon, a river that runs right through the middle of Seoul, a sliver of nature and relaxation in the modern hustle and bustle of Seoul. We met Taesung there, and our missions involved finding clues/information posted along the river's length. Since the river's about 5 miles long, we definetly got our exercise in! After finishing our missions there, we headed back to the hostel, where the entire group had a quiz over what we were...uh, SUPPOSED to learn that day, but of course none of us remembered, not even the Korean students! But thanks to some lucky guesses, our group managed to come up in third place, and only five small points shy of a tie with second place! We chatted for a bit, an then headed hone after a long day. I had an awesome time, and it was great to interact with Koreans my age! We become Facebook friends, so hopefully we'll keep in touch.

I wish I could blog more often! But I've just been totally consumed by my language classes and program meetings and my host family. But I've been having a blast, so I'm not going to sacrifice my precious time left by spending it all on the computer. But I can easily write up a post or two on my hour-long commute to school, so if anyone out there has a suggestion for a blog post, let me know! :)

And now for picture spam, haha. I wish I could organize everything better, but I'm blogging everything from my smartphone (we're not allowed to bring laptops on my program, but smartphones/tablets are okay), please bear with me! :)

Meeting my host family!

Saturday, June 31st, the day after our Myeongdong adventure, it was host family meeting time! After showering and getting dressed (and making an effort to look a bit nicer for first impressions!) my roomies and I headed down to the lobby. Most students were scheduled to be picked up between ten and eleven, and as I dragged my luggage down to the lobby entrance around 9:45 I saw one student leaving with their host family! Right then it hit me...any minute now, the REAL part of my exchange would begin. I'd meet my host family and begin truly immersing myself in the Korean culture.

The student I had seen was, as I found out from the other students who had arrived earlier, was the first to be picked up by their host family. I didn't know then that I'd be the second! After grabbing a bottle of tea from the lobby store, I stood and chatted with my friends for a few minutes before Michele (one of our resident directors) pulled me over and told me that my host family had arrived to pick me up.

Here it was...the big moment. I had been unable to contact my host family prior to arriving in Korea (unlike a few of the other students), so I was especially nervous. But being the person that I am, I put up a calm, cool, and collected front as I gathered my luggage and walked to the front of the lobby. I saw a woman and a girl who looked around my age standing with Michele near the doors. I smiled as I approached, and managed a poorly-accented 안녕하세요. They smiled and said something back in Korean I didn't understand, haha. Then Seohyun (our Korean resident director) talked with them for a minute or so, and then waved goodbye as we left the hostel. I immediately felt guilty as my host mom and host sister insisted on helping me with my luggage (which amounted to about 100 pounds total...) and struggled to lift it off the ground into the back of their car, haha. Then we were off to my new home in Eunpyeong! Once in the car, my host family and I began to get to know each other. My host mom and sister quickly realized that my Korean was...er...lacking, and I was shocked to hear my host sister speak English! I knew Korean students studied English intensively, but I would have never imagined that my sister's English would sound so natural! She introduced her mom and herself, and told me I'd meet my other sister, my grandmother, and my host dad later that day. We spent the rest of the car ride talking, and my host sister would translate for my host mom. They asked me about my family, how my first few days in Korea were, etc, and I asked a few questions about them. I found out the mystery behind the email address (the server had had several problems over the past month) and found out that I indeed had an additional host sister! As I posted about earlier, my program had told me I had one host sister (age 21), but failed to mention I had an additional host sister that was my age exactly. And by exactly, I mean we were both born on the same month, day, and year. Crazy, right? Eventually, we finally arrived at my host family's house, which I'll make a separate post about later. I met my older host sister and my host grandmother. I was again shocked when my host grandmother greeted me in fluent Japanese! It makes sense that she'd speak it, since she was a teenager at the time that Japan had occupied Korea and forced the Koreans to speak Japanese. Since my Japanese is far better than my Korean, I've been able to communicate with my host grandmother a lot easier than I believed I would!

After arriving, my host sister helped me get settled into the room I'd share with her, and then the entire family settled in the living room and just talked for a bit. My host mom speaks only Korean, my host sister speaks very good English, and my host father and host sister also speak a little Japanese. My host sister studied it in her university and my host father learned a little for business. So, luckily, communication hasn't been a huge problem for me. But I'll have to be careful to use as little English/Japanese as possible so I can progress in Korean!

As my host parents both had to return to work, my host sisters took me out to a little cafe for lunch. They ordered peanut butter, cheese, potato, and jelly sandwiches, which are apparently really common in Korea. I was floored by this, and decided to stick with a simple ham-lettuce-tomato sandwich. Then they showed me host to get to Sogang by bus. My commute is about forty five minutes to school, and about and hour and ten minutes going back. Of course, sometimes it's longer or shorter by a few minutes depending on the bus schedule.

This post is getting lengthy! I'll finish up by saying that I LOVE my host family! They're super relaxed, laid-back, funny, kind, and I just feel like I fit in with them really well. We joke and poke fun at each other, and the whole atmosphere is just awesome. I feel really at home and within a week I felt super comfortable and at home here. I'm so happy and grateful to have been placed with such an amazing family! I have a picture of all of us together, but it's on my camera, which I can't upload pics from yet as I don't have my laptop. One of these days I'll borrow my host families and post them here. In the meantime, here's some pictures of my host sisters and I...and, of course, the weird sandwich.

Until next post!