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.