Culture Shock

I wish I could say that at this point I am really starting to adjust to things in Korea….but I would be lying. The fact is. That my body is having a rough time with the adjustment, and I am not feeling well, so that past couple of days I have been laying low, sleeping a lot, and catching up on my favorite American television shows. I feel like a terrible person. I feel like I’m supposed to be running all over Seoul and exploring everything and meeting more people, and instead here I am clinging to the comfort of the internet because it makes me feel so much closer to Western culture. Maybe I should be grateful for this time because tomorrow I start observing and then next week I get to start teaching and when that kicks in I won’t have time to veg around like this.

Despite my feeling crummy, it has still been a good past few days. On Sunday at church I met a girl named Cassandra who came to Korea only a week before I did, and she is also from Minnesota! We of course hit it off right away and were put in the same Bible study and everything. After Bible study everyone went over to Pastor John’s (this Canadian dude who has been teaching English at a Korean seminary for like 5 years now) for a spaghetti dinner. At the spaghetti dinner a bunch of the Korean girls were trying to tell Cassandra and I what kinds of Korean food we still have to try…… and they were getting so excited telling us about all these different Korean foods, that we just decided we’ll have to go out every week to try something new. So now every Monday night is “Seoul Food” night…haha. We started it off on Monday night with a dish called Donkatsu, which is actually a Japanese food, but was delicious. It’s basically deep fried pork cutlets and you dip them in a sweet sesame sauce. Yum!

Donkatsu

It’s so great to have Korean friends to teach me all these new things, and American friends to experience it with!

Jenn, Cassandra, Lucy, and Janice.

Me and Katelynn.

Today I was quite proud of myself because I found an E-mart (Korea’s version of Wal-Mart) close my house by looking it up online and I took the subway there all by myself and made it back in one piece with no problems all. It is very overwhelming to be in a huge crowded store where nothing is in English and everyone stares at you, but I managed to get most if the stuff I needed: a hair straightener (mine doesn’t work here because of the different voltage) peanut butter (it was like $5 for one jar though!!), tea, noodles, crackers, and spaghetti sauce (which even though is says is mushroom flavor is still surprisingly SPICY!)

As far as the whole “Culture Shock” thing , maybe I don’t know what exactly it is, but so far here are a few things that have shocked me:

• The Ridiculous Shopping
When I first got here I people would ask me where I was from and I would say Minnesota and tell them that I live really close to Mall of America, but I was surprised when people were not at all familiar with the Mall of America. Then Lucy took me to a mall here, and now I realize why no one here has heard of mall of America. The Malls here are HUGE!! And they are EVERYWHERE, and they are open like ALL NIGHT. There are like skyscrapers full of stores. I will never again bring up Mall of America….because it is like an ant compared to the malls here. Also, they are open at all hours of the night and day…people here are crazy about the shopping! And everyone here is so stylish too! I feel a bit out of style back home, but here it is like out of style times 10!


This is a shopping area in Meyong-dong that was pretty big. It was really cool to see it at night because every single corner looks like Times Square in New York! There are a lot of American stores here like Calvin Klein, Forever21, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, KFC, and McDonalds:

This is the McDonald's that is closest to my house. It is open 24 hours.....AND it has something that I don't know WHY we don't have in the states: MCDELIVERY!! Ohh yeah!


There are also stores here that can only be Korean...such as this one, called BANG BANG!

My neighborhood at night.

• Competition
Koreans are super competitive! The kids go to regular school from like 9-4, and then after that they go to a different school for more lessons in English or another subject. There is huge pressure to do really, really well in school.

• Plastic Surgery/Botox
As you may have gathered from the bit about the shopping, Koreans are very into their looks. A HUGE percentage of Koreans get plastic surgery to make their eyes look bigger and their noses have more of a bridge. Some parents will even offer their children plastic surgery for their birthday. A lot of people do Botox too. Koreans are very concerned about staying young, and so they use umbrellas all year round to stay out of the sun and the rain. They also don’t make very many facial expressions because they think that they will get more wrinkles if they do.

• Food
Dog meat, Pig’s feet, and live octopus are three things I have been told I should try so far that I especially do NOT want to try. And out of those three, live Octopus sounds the worst because I was told about a guy who died eating it because the octopus was still alive when he ate it so it suctioned onto his esophagus and wouldn’t let go, so the guy choked to death. Isn’t that terrible?

I have tried some very good food here too:

Mandu Guk (Dumpling Soup)

Kimchi (Spicy sour cabbage which is served with EVERYTHING...but it's good..I like it!)

Kalbi or Galbi which is marinated pork or beef that cooks right in front of you at your table and then there all kinds of various sauces an toppings to eat with it. This is probably my favorite so far.

• Age
Koreans calculate your age differently. They count the time you are in the womb as part of your life, so when you are born, you are already 1. And then everyone turns a year older every January 1st. So if you were born on December 31st, you would be 2 years old on January 1st, even though your were really only 2 days old. Anyway, my Korean age is 24.

• Electronics
Koreans are definitely more high-tech than Americans. One thing that I see all the time on the Subway is these little tiny hand held TVs that have little tiny antennas. And people just stand there on the subway watching TV completely blocking out everything else.

Well, that's all I have for now, so I'll leave you with this inspiring quote that I found (of all places) on my waste basket:

"Little Flower - But if I could understand what you are, root an all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is"