Lessons From Korea PT. 1

In this post I want to share some of my thoughts and reflect on the lessons I have learnt from my trip to South Korea.

Last summer I stayed in Seoul, where I followed a 3-months intensive Korean language course in Korea University. I lived with the family of my good friend Yongjin, who I met shortly after moving to London.

From the outset, my trip really was a crash course in survival rather than a calming holiday. It all started with the surprising announcement by the above-mentioned friend of mine. He would be going away to another city the very next morning after my arrival, for no less then two weeks. That being the case, I had to make my way through this massive city, where hardly anybody speaks English, with just the bunch of Korean phrases I had learnt so far, on my own. Not too mention fighting the effects of the gigantic jetlag and getting used to the very special Korean diet from day one. And this was just the beginning!

With Yongjin on the day of my arrival

These days, the media, and the Internet especially, give the impression that the world is as small place. But my trip made me aware that, in fact, the world may be small but is still so diverse that at times one may think that being in a new place feels like being on a different planet. Korea is one of these places. It really is. The list of these differences is almost never ending. Consider the examples below.

• In Korea, you don’t speak about “him” or “her” but about a brother or sister, an uncle or aunt, regardless whether you are related to them or even know them at all;
• In Korea, people avoid suntan as much as possible as it is associated with poverty and the working class;
• In Korea, newborn children are born with the age of 1, meaning that everybody is one year older than they actually are. Moreover, birthday is only a celebration of one’s birth. People get older on the New Year’s Eve, which happens twice a year. That is due to the fact that as other nations in South East Asia, Koreans also celebrate the Chinese New Year, which is set according to the Lunar calendar which differs from the Gregorian calendar that we use;
• In Korea, one of the most popular sports is playing StarCraft, an 11 years old, two-dimensional computer game!

The cultural differences I encountered had a tremendous effect on the way I started to think. This has been emphasised especially by the Korean language, which has absolutely nothing in common with European languages. Korean forced me to think differently, imposing new rules on the way I expressed myself. It was such an incredible feeling to realise that I could express the same thoughts in a completely different way. However, it was an overwhelmingly hurtful process, which put my nerves to an edge at multiple occasions.

The daily routine - catching a bus home after classess

Nevertheless, as I was adopting more and more to the Korean way of life I recognised that in fact, it was not that difficult to get used to. And after a while I recognised that it was not the case of Korea being so different, but it was my lack of my knowledge about these differences. What immediately stroke me was that change is so difficult for most of us, from the mere fact that it leads us into uncertainty, rather than brings something that is impossible to comprehend. Therefore, there is nothing to fear as long appropriate research is done prior to the planned changes, the data being clearly communicated to anyone affected by the change. In this way the change can be much easier to swallow. Still, I did not know any of that when I came to Korea and survived. Hence, I would say do change as much as possible – you will always learn something from it! Just make sure that the actual process of change does not produce more hurdles than benefits, or, as Barack Obama put it, remember, “It is not only what you change, but also how you bring that change about”.