Sunday, July 12, 2009

Korean Kulture 101:
This past week I was able to experience and learn about many aspects of Korean culture and regular Korean life. As I have mentioned before I have been spending the majority of my time now at Kangwon University, and because of our intensive schedule of language classes, teaching lectures, and meetings I feel as if I haven't been able to experience much of Korea yet. This Friday we were given our first sliver of freedom - more than 8 or so hours that did not have to be filled with studying or attending meetings. Friday evening we had a Fulbright scheduled "mixer" (complete with 90s pop hits and awkward dancing ... I wish) with the Kangwon Key Club. Key Club is an organization on the Kangwon campus for students who study English as a second language. It is primarily a place for them to get together and practice speaking English outside of the classroom. So all of the Fulbrighters headed down to a (somewhat shady) parking lot Friday night to hang out with about 30 Key Club members and participate in our first actual "cultural exchange". It was actually a ton of fun - we broke into groups and just sat around in a parking lot speaking English, drinking SoJu (the Korean alcohol of choice - it's similar to super distilled vodka and tastes absolutely awful, but is pretty much worshipped around here), and eating snacks. As the Fulbrighters provided a great outlet for many of the Key Club members to practice English, the Key Club members served as our cultural ambassadors and showed us the typical Friday night of a Korean college student.
After getting our fill of Korean snacks, SoJu, and shady parking lot lighting a group of us headed out with many Key Club members to a couple local bars around Kangwon. Upon arriving at the bar we feasted (well, they feasted) on some traditional dishes that I won't even attempt to pronounce or spell as of now that were full of noodles, meat, seafood, and cabbage. I ate what I could only deduce to be some rice balls covered in a bar-be-que type sauce and they were delicious. We all had a great time just hanging out and enjoying each other's company. Topics of conversation ranged from Korean popmusic (K-pop) to the San Francisco Giants, the Korean culture to what the weather was like in Atlanta.
As we grew tired of the bar, we then headed to a local kareokee bar - a "norae-bong" which was absolutely fantastic. Norae-bongs are popular througout Korea, especially in larger, college towns. They are basically a place where people come to rent out rooms for hours at a time only to sing kareokee. Each room holds about 10 or so people and is equipped with a wide selection of songs in both Korean and English. We sang to our hearts' content - I believe I had the best showing with some pretty solid jamz: Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back", the Spice Girls' "Wanna Be", and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". If I can't master Korean and properly teach kids English, I know I can always rely on my singing skills and become the next Beyonce.
All in all I thoroughly enjoyed our night out in Chuncheon and was glad to get a break from Orientation. However, I now find myself having to study pretty intensely for our first Korean exam tomorrow afternoon (eek). Wish me luck.

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