Happy Chuseok! A little more about Korea

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The longer I spend in Korea, the more I am able to appreciate and respect the Korean attitudes and customs. Some of these are quite fascinating and can broaden the mind of a sheltered Westerner like myself. As I see it, most of my experiences here are going to be very unlike home so the best way to enjoy myself is to embrace these differences and make the most of my ‘cultural expedition’.

Confucianism in Korea is rife. Society as a whole is very reluctant to compromise on this mindset and any suggestion of drastic change tends to be wholly shunned, particularly amongst the older population. One trait that has been very evident to me in my short time here is respect for elders. Obedience towards your seniors is imperative and often there are alternative phrases or words for when you’re addressing someone older than yourself compared with someone your own age. In return, older sisters and brothers have to pay for their siblings’ tuition fees and your most senior colleague will always pay for dinner. This explains why on all my outings with my co-workers I’ve never spent a penny and why I feel quite guilty for offering to do so before I knew the ‘rules’.

The work ethic here is pretty impressive. Obviously my first hand view of this is in education but I gather that people work more than they do anything else in most industries. The children are often at various schools throughout the day but essentially their school day runs from 7am to around 9 or 10pm, with many of them at school on Saturdays as well. I’m amazed at how sprightly they are by the time they reach me for an 8.20pm class and I’m always very forgiving if one of them claims to be ‘sleepy’. I’m sure it’s as a result of this attitude that Koreans seem to be manically going about their daily business wherever you look. There is always a calm and friendly but frantic hustle and bustle going on around you. There’s no time to thank you for holding a door open, the roads are pretty crazy with everyone tooting at everyone else, and as far as I can tell motorbikes are welcome to drive on the pavement more or less at will.

When they do have time to themselves, they use it well. This leads me nicely on to this weekend which is a big national holiday in Korea called Chuseok. It seems that I got here in time for one of the main events on the Korean calendar, although it doesn’t really affect me as a foreigner other than meaning extra time off and extra cash! Chuseok is a kind of thanksgiving and is a rare chance for Korean families to get together, entertain at home and, eat traditional foods. It’s a very family orientated time and many will visit ancestors’ graves at some stage over the weekend. It means that most people have Monday off and my schools’ director chose to give us Friday off as well so I get a nice long weekend (kind of a shame since I have some of my favourite classes on a Friday!). There are a lot of gifts flying around and it appears that oversized fruit is the present of choice. As much as I like fruit oversized or otherwise, I was probably a little more grateful of my Chuseok gift from the director…..50,000 won. Not as impressive as it sounds but probably about 25-30 quid which goes a fair old way here.

As the weekend gets underway, I’m heading on a big trip to an Island off of Korea’s west coast called Deokjeokdo. I’m hoping it will be worth a blog entry of it’s own so I’ll tell you all about that next time……..

For now I’ll sign off and as always send you all my love and thank you for visiting once again. X

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