Week three

I have never lived in a world with such restrictions, such harsh traditions and values, such a rich and deep culture.

This was Korea, three weeks and i learnt many things about the Korean culture; the over-working nature, the hierarchy and respect, the patriarchal society. The one that astounded me the most however was the lack of freedom, the lack of trust, the restrictions.

A simple aspect of a dormitory at a university having a curfew. Has anyone heard of this before?? It seems insane to me. University is about freedom, learning without the rules or detentions like high school. But in Korea there is a curfew of 11pm. That is quite early for a university student. I shocked by the rules. If you were late by even a minute, the dormitory guard will lock the doors and you will have to sleep outside, and if you sleep outside and the guards of the dormitory find our you get points taken away from you and have to clean or do things for the dormitory crew to get your points back

Tell me that is not shocking?!! At university! wow! the lack of trust and the restrictions shocked me. This is a apart of Korean culture that i could not wrap my head around. Here in NZ i live with my parents so i can come and go as i please, but at the AUT university there is no curfew. It simply would not happen in a western university. The rules at the dormitory in Korea was prison tight.

I felt like a caged animal.


This aim allowed me the opportunity to really look at the Korean culture, the good and the bad. I found it was so interesting in comparison to my own culture. I think i prefer my culture however, i loved Korea but there is something so ancient about men being the hierarchic or dormitories having a curfew and a lot of restrictions that i simply could not handle long term.

Week Two

Week two was a good week. I had started to feel comfortable in my role and a second language teacher.



My students seemed like they too were being to feel comfortable with me and trust me. It was a great feeling. I was starting to see a different part of Korean culture. All the students had the right amount of enthusiasm. They all wanted to learn and seemed so excited to see each intern every day. Being welcomed every time we saw a group of students with a massive 'hello teacher" was amazing. The respect (most) of the students had towards me and the fellow interns was so different to my own culture.



I've never seen such respect for teachers or elders before. It is something that my students explained to me, it was all about traditions. It has always been that way in Korea and it was not changing anytime soon. It is a part of Korean culture that I liked. Too many teenagers in western culture are so unmotivated, no disrespectful. It was refreshing to see teenagers and university students with the utmost respect for us interns straight away, even though we to were mere students back in NZ.


The second week went so quickly but i definatley learnt about the hard-working nature of the Korean people and the respect instantly given to anyone with a little more power then their own.

Week One

The first week was a worldwind of culture shock and jet lag.





My first day of teaching for me was like being punched in the gut, i was completly wounded by one of my students. In the first hour of my class a very nervous me and an equally nervous students sat in my classroom and tried to get to know each other. I felt this was important on the first day to straight away try and establish a rapport with my student s ad it seemed as though they agreed. When i started to discuss some of the rules and what they layout of the daily schedule would be a make student of mine began to yell as me to repeat myself, when i asked him what to repeat he began to yell at me.
I did not understand him and he did not understand me. He then told me i was teaching wrong. I got so emotional that i excused myself to the bathroom where i began to cry. After a few minutes i returned to class with my puffy eyes and tries to continue the lesson.

Then later on in our 15 minute break, the male student cam eup to me and harrasssed me on what i was doing wrong and that we should do speeches as that is what his strenghts were. He continues even when i tried to leave.



This was my first experience of apart of Korean culture that is so different to my own, a partriarchal society.
My male student believed that because i was a younger female he tcould treat me with a lack of respect and yell at me. In New Zealand and my culture this would not happen. I was so shocked by this confrontation with the Korean cultur that i felt winded for the rest of the week.



How could this female and male dynamics be so different from my own culture? Will i ever gain respect from him? These questions kept me up at night. I found it even harder to cope with this different in culture then mayeb the other interns did as i come from a family of all girls. My family consists of my mum (a head strong woman who voices every opinion), my dad a man who never yells, unless you are really in trouble) and my two sisters. A male dominated society or culture is definetley a foreign concept to me. So to be yelled at on my first day by one of my students was very overwelming.

This 'patriarchal' society and culture in Korea is something i will never get used to or ever want too.  I had definetly gained more knowledge about of a part of Korean culture within thefirst week on my internship, however onyl near the end of my internship did i understand it, though i will never agree with it.

Week 3

Week 3 was surprisingly upsetting for me. Although for the most of the trip i felt fustrated due to personality conflicts and my body not dealing so well with the different food (I am a fussy eater -i dont like seafood, spicy food or egg. Aside from rice, thats all Koreans seem to eat.), like rice for breakfast lunch and dinner. There were heaps of positives from the trip, which i can only really seem from hindsight. Like my students, they were amazing and in that last week i felt a real bond between us. A few tears were shed on the last day. One thing, that although can be seen as mean, that made me happy, was when one student from another class gave me a note (and present) on the last day saying how much she liked me and she wished she was in my class. This made me feel like the students, not only my own, really enjoyed me being there. A new thing i learnt about Korean traditions/culture in the last week was to do with nail dying. I got two of my nails traditionally dyed (orange). This was done from the use of a specific flower being mashed up and put on your nails. It was supposed to stay on for 24 hours and not get wet. But after i got this done we went and played sports in the gym, so of course i had to have a shower. The flower stuff was on my nails for a total time of about an hour. However it lasted ages. If it lasts over a month it supposedly means that you will find your true love. Although the Korean culture is very different and i accept that, i could never live there. Coming from a country where i had so much freedon(which i wasnt completely sure i had, before i lost it)i could not live in such a controlling environment. I would consider going back but i would not stay on the campus. Therefore i could come and go as i please.

Week 2

The second week was extremely exhausting as we had just had a really busy weekend. We were orignally told we would have the weekends to ourselves, but this weekend we had spent the whole time with our students. This was cool as it allowed us to gain a friendship of sorts with our students. However we had not had anytime to ourselves since stepping of the plane. This was good in the fact that we were fully absorbed in their culture. But having no downtime was really irritating. This is the week where many issues arised for me. I was getting really sick of not having anytime to myself. We were also having internet issues where for the majority of the week the internet did not work in the whole girls dorm (5 floors). This made it even harder to talk to our families and boyfriends. Another issue i was having trouble with this week, was the need for control and heirachy within the Korean culture. We had to be in our dorms before 11 and the lights went our at 11. I am 20 and at my house i am allowed to go to bed when i want and come and go as i like. Having these restrictions in Korea felt suffocating. As we were also having issues with our clothing. We were told in the first week that the majority of our clothing we had brought with us showed too much skin and the male security guards did not like this as they saw it as inappropriate and they were having "happy feelings". We were unaware of this before we went to Korea. All we knew was that it was going to be summer and hot! Heirachy was also an issue as it is something i am not used to at that level. In my culture, although we respect our lecturers, they are not regarded to such a high level. I feel like i could have a casual conversation or even share a joke with my lecturers. Whereas in Korea they are deemed as untoucable. The male students would bow in front of their professor (same as a lecturer). This is an issue that i had with my work-based supervisor as she expected us to do what ever she said and agree with it. This was evident in the night that we were practically forced to go drinking with a professor who did not speak English. We said that we did not want to go and after a large debate we eneded up going. I basically sulked the whole evening as i was so tired, i didnt want to be there and i was even more aggrivated my the fact that she didnt have to go because she didnt drink. Despite my many fustrations during that week, i did learn a lot about their culture and how organised it seems. They did really try to get us to experience everything Korea has to offer. However this backfired for me as i was so fustrated doing it. It also showed me that they have different facial and bodily cues, as mine were very evident and not taken any notice of.

Week 1

Our first week in Korea was extremely intimitating and uncomfortable. This is mostly because the agreement that was agreed upon before going to Korea, changed as soon as we got there. Without Paul Mountfort who organised the trip being there, we were unsure of what to do. There were a few dramas in the first week, with Danni's student yelling at her and the intern group trying to get along with each other -which was essential in the fact that we were going to spend a lot of time together. Danni's issue with her student was extremely important in my understanding of the Korean culture as i have naver heard of this happening in New Zealand. Dealing with this isssue was also a good learning experience. As i was not sure at first how Danni or the rest of the group should deal with it. The work-based supervisor dealt with this by making excuses for the student. Saying he was just shy and or he was really enthusiatic. This is most likely related to the idea of "saving face", or i hope so anyway. We used the computer and projector screen a lot in our class. I did this because i felt it would keep the students interested by using different teaching methods. I feel like the students found this a little shocking at first as they were not used to this teaching style. From what i have heard they students usually had a very formal teaching and learning style, this was also shown by the way the classrooms were set up. I found that the Namseoul staff were very accomodating. We were given an assistant, he was part of their English programme. Anytime we asked him a question he would jump up and do it right away, even when we were not asking him to do so. This was something i had no experienced before. As coming from a New Zealand culture i am used to the mentality of 'if you can do it yourself, do it yourself' or 'DIY'. Sometimes when asking a simple question like "how far is the closest town?", he took it quite seriously. By finding us bus routes or saying he would organise a taxi for us. It was quite nice to experience this kind of hospitality.

The beginning...

The Five Interns Outide the Imperial Palaces in Seoul, South Korea