It is rare that you get to meet a living, breathing
stereotype. I have had the pleasure to
meet not one, but a country full of them.
Welcome to South Korea, the land of the Cute, K pop, and untempered
Confucianism. An odd mix, but it seems
to work here.
Korea has its own brand of the Kawaii lifestyle, originally
a Japanese idea that was then exported to the rest of capitalist Eastern
Asia. Kawaii is the name of the cute,
happy lifestyle that is now associated with eastern Asia. If you are still confused, think hello kitty
and anime, and you are just about there.
Elena and I went out to buy soap, and the first stuff we found was in
the shape of a teddy bear. The only
staplers available in the stationary store are in the shape of ladybugs. And it is difficult to find hairbands that do
not have oversized buttons attached to them.
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The cute life translates, for women, into a desire to look
small, young, and almost childish.
Oversized sweaters and boots or pleated miniskirts fall along these
lines. Big eyes are valued, as is clear
skin, leading to the explosion of the makeup and facial care industries. High-pitched voices are also valued, to the
point where phone operators will chirp in artificially high voices.
We are staying at Yonsei University in Seoul, one of the top
universities in South Korea. Apparently,
they only accept the top 1.5% of scores on Korean University entrance exam
(like our ACT or SAT). That makes them
better than their rival university, which will accept the top 2%. Of course, there is variation within
different majors, anywhere between the top 0.5% to 1.5%, depending on the
popularity of the major. Majors that
prepare you for civil service are the most popular, as tradition dictates that
the highest honor jobs are governmental jobs.
Yay for Confucianism, which values education, statecraft, and
standardized tests!
Upon arrival, we were paired up with “buddies,” Korean
students who are supposed to help show us around. They have actually been, for the most part,
pretty awesome. They are all very sweet
and friendly. In their spare time, they
do things like dance, sing and go to photo art exhibits. And we do cute things together, like going
ice-skating and playing board games at restaurants and such. And they are all creepily fashionable. And they are always smiling and happy. It is like some of the K pop music videos. It is wonderful though, meeting people again
and actually getting the feel of a place.
Now life here is not cute and fun all of the time. Like I pointed out, academics here are
extremely high stakes. Koreans also
fulfill the stereotype of studying very very hard for a very very long
time. The library here at Yonsei has not
only a café, so you don’t have to leave for meals, but also beds, so you don’t
have to leave to sleep. And yes, these
beds are in use during finals week.
There are also kiosks, where you can reserve a chair to study in in the
library. You even get a recite, saying
that for the next two hours, you own that chair. This obsession with study has translated also
to our class, in which we have been given a lot of reading, plus an intro level
Korean class compressed into four lessons.
No, we are not just learning “Hello” and “thank you.” We are learning verb conjugation and sentence
structure in a new alphabet. I don’t
care haw easy Korean is to learn. You
cannot learn a new language at this level in four hours. And I don’t want to spend too much time out
of class working on it, because, well, I am in a new country and want to do
cool things. All in all, we are in class
anywhere between 5 to 6 hours a day. But
it is only for 3 days a week. Then we
get day excursions to do cool things like ski.
I can’t wait to go skiing! Which
is why I should not feel guilty about working right now. Oh, the ongoing balance between work and play
that is present in all study abroad.
So what have I been up to besides class? Well, lets see. We got here on January 2nd,
and I can’t for the life of me, remember what I did that night. I don’t think it was very interesting. Mostly unpacking and watching the new
Sherlock. Actually, yeah, that is all I
did. And laundry. We have laundry machines now. The next day,
Elena and I got lost, sent a package and found pasta all before noon. We then had orientation, met our buddies, got
a campus tour, got a nearby area tour, ditched the tour and went with our
buddies to a photo booth store and burger king, went out to dinner, got Jamba
Juice, had a global meeting, then went out again with our buddies. Very fun day.
Next day was a city tour, where we visited Gyeongbok Palace (remember,
Korea was its own independent kingdom for thousands of years), the Blue House
(like the White House, only Korea gave it a blue ceiling), Insadong, a
neighborhood of artsy shops and tea houses, and Gwanghwamoon Square, the site
of large statue of Great King Sejong, creator of the Korean alphabet (before
that, the Koreans used Chinese characters with their own pronunciation).
The next day we went to the International Lutheran Church. Claire (my buddy) and Minwoo dutifully came
along with us, though I assured Claire she didn’t have to. I was kind of expecting the Vine all over
again, since the Christian community in Korea (an impressive 25% of the
population) is notoriously evangelical.
In fact, it was more like a small town Lutheran church, complete with
middle-aged white guys coming up to you and asking “Where are you guys from?”
The pastor was actually from Mankato, and knows the family of Lisa on our
trip! We got talking to another family
for a good 10 minutes after the service.
When we left, Minwoo and Claire asked us who we were talking to. They thought we had found someone that we
knew! They were stunned to hear that we had only just met these people.
After church, we met up with more people and their buddies
and went skating. Unlike Shanghai,
skating is actually a thing here, and the rink was so crowded that there were
multiple collisions, mostly involving us and little children.
The next day (yesterday) was our first day of class. Being in class from 9 to 4:30 with only a
lunch break does not make for a very interesting blog post. We had dinner with Annika’s buddy. Then I watched K Pop in preparation for an
upcoming project, and felt really bad about myself. K pop idols work for years on singing and
dancing, while continuing their schoolwork and developing a quirky talent. They barely have time for a social life, let
alone sleep. And then you start
wondering what you have done with your life…
Don’t get me wrong.
It doesn’t sound fun. But it is
an accomplishment.
But, so is traveling around the world, and studying to be a
doctor, and all that stuff! And on
Thursday and Friday I get to go skiing.
That is something else that I am decently good at. And it will be fun.
It technically isn’t nighttime yet, but I really don’t know
how else to end this blog post. I guess
it is night somewhere in the world. So…
Good night.
Andrea
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