more things

Every time I go abroad, I become more and more thankful that I am not blond. As if people do not stare at me enough, the attention would be 10x more if I had blond or red hair. Korea has westernized beauty standards and advertising feature people who are obviously not Korean is very common. This is one of the reasons why plastic surgery is so rampant among Korean women. According to Christina, a Korean intern who has lived all around the world, about 70% of Korean girls have some kind of plastic surgery; the most common forms being eyelid surgery or a small cut by each eye to make them appear larger. It is very strange because in Gangnam, a popular district for night life, there are plastic surgery places mixed in with western-style bars, clubs, and nightclubs. In Korea there is a difference between a night club and simply a club. Night clubs are extremely expensive, and groups of men go there to drink. The girls stand around and the groups of men pick out who they want to talk to. The waiter then goes and gets the girls and invites them back to the table to have drinks. The more you spend on alcohol, the harder the waiter will try to bring you the girls you want to talk to. Needless to say, I have no desire to go to a nightclub.

Yesterday I had my first negative work experience during lunch with my department. I was embarrassed and offended, but there is no one I can talk to about it. Because my department is older, I face more of a language barrier than most of the other foreign interns. There is also only one woman in my department of 20 people and she is rarely invited to participate in anything. I have never even been introduced to her. My mentor took me to lunch with most of the department, about 10 people, including the department boss. For a bit more background information, most Koreans are much better at written English than spoken English because English is not a phonetic language and they are often taught by Korean teachers with no experience abroad. Katka told me that it is extremely common at schools for Korean English teachers to be unable to talk with native English speakers, even though they are both teaching English. In the office, everyone’s opinion depends on their superior. It is much more important to agree with your boss than to offer any other kind of insight. If you know a certain way of doing something, it is still better to ask your superior his way of doing it. As far as lunch yesterday, because my department is older, their English skills are generally poor. My mentor is the best in the department having lived in Australia for 5 years, but there are still a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunications. Korean does not use inflection as English does as it is a monotone language, and thus, I can never tell when my boss is asking a question and my coworkers cannot understand when I am asking a question. Talking to Mr. Lim, the man at the desk next to mine, is comparable to talking with a brick wall as I am sure he does not understand 85% of what I say. At lunch, my mentor asked me what I thought was “how do you like walking at Posco”, but was actually “how do you like working at Posco”. Needless to say, my answer was pretty concise after what I heard. I said “it’s fine”. Only after about 10 minutes did I realize what he had actually said. This was the only question I was asked during our hour lunch outing. Despite having worked at Posco for over 2 weeks and having eaten in traditional-style restaurants many times, they gave me a fork, covered me in aprons, and gave me a chair. All while talking about me, not at me, and laughing. I kept hearing things like “Michigan” (which Koreans pronounce “mich-gan”) and “juege hak” (which means accounting). I felt like an object instead of a person.

The next few meals went 100x better as our program coordinator from MSU was in town and we ate with him and Mr. Kim from Dongguk University. At dinner on Tuesday night, Mr. Kim took us to a restaurant close to the university famous for “pig trotters” or pig feet. It was actually very good, although a bit fatty, and we had a very enjoyable evening. It was nice to finally meet Mr. Kim from Dongguk as he helped all of us find a suitable place to live during our stay here.This past weekend I saw Harry Potter with some students from the Czech Republic, went to Gyeongbok Gung (palace) with other interns and hiked up to Seoul Tower.

I took a lot of pictures of Gyeongbok Gung, but it is late and so pictures of my hike to Seoul Tower will have to suffice.

After I got off the subway, it was a bit confusing as to where I was supposed to go. I walked for about 15 minutes before I could finally see the Seoul Tower.

About 40 minutes away from my goal at this point

These are ancient smokestacks once used to signal emergencies and other important events.

Once at the top, Seoul Tower is dominated by couples. It is a Korean custom for couples to demonstrate their love by placing padlocks and love messages all along the railing. There are signs warning lovers to keep their keys, but I am unsure if this has something to do with a nasty breakup.

On Sunday night, Seoul Tower was kind of like a Disney park before the fireworks show. There was live music and shops and food stalls (including Coldstone if I wanted to eat enough calories to void my past 3 days of exercise) - it was beautiful and would have been even better if I had not been alone.

The color changes every 10 seconds or so.

Inside the tower, there were love tiles. I think it is because marriage is extremely important in Korea and thus they are obsessed with finding lasting love.

View through a dirty window.

#ididitmom!