Culture Clash

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This big post is a summary of the differences I have noticed between our cultures.
Let me just give you a quick rundown of our day today. It's been raining all day. We had a discussion this morning about how they prepare students to be teachers in South Korea and the U.S. For lunch, we went to a restaurant where I got pork cutlets and rice and this salad stuff. It was so good! I asked for ketchup, and Ben said that was "tacky" because only kids got ketchup. Haha. Just proof I am a total kid at heart. They also gave us kiddie forks with Tom & Jerry on them, but I refuse to use forks because I want to use chopsticks just like they do here. No matter how much my hand hurts...when using chopsticks, you use hand muscles you never knew you had. Haha.
Then, we had a Korean language class, and some cute guy came in and took pictures of us to use for the BNUE catalog for prospective students. So, we spent like an hour and a half just walking around and taking pictures.
Tonight, we were supposed to go to an international market, but since it is raining, we stayed in and Kylie and I just typed out a summary of our discussions and journal entries for each of the three weeks. At least we got that taken care of. Then, we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I forgot how funny that movie is.

FOOD/PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
They have lighter meals and eat super healthy, which is why it is so rare to see overweight people. Even the older people are skinny and fit. On this school's track, you can see older women walking around it no matter what time of the day it is...morning, afternoon, or night. I thought it was some women's walking club, but these ladies walk all the time!
One thing which is acceptable here is slurping and chewing with your mouth open. They eat their soup, then pick up the bowl, and slurp it all up. Also, when they drink their tea, they slurp it up. It's just hard to listen to because it is seen as impolite back home. It can get pretty annoying.
They share all their meals. Everything is put in the middle of the table and eaten together. Even if two peole order different things, they eat off each other's plate. They are a collectivistic culture, whereas we are an individualistic culture. They do things together, while we want to do things ourselves.

WEIGHT
It is a bit disgusting how everyone is so skinny. I even feel overweight here. Guys are punk-rocker style skinny. Uhh, a little meat on the bones, please? It is so bad that women cannot even have children. South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, and 70-80% of the women have some mental disorder where they think they are overweight and need to go on a diet. I don't know about anorexia or bulimia, but Bong-Ki just said, "mental disorder."

THE SUN
They hate the sun here. I thought people wore the face masks because of the flu...no. They don't want to get sun spots and wrinkles on their face, so to avoid the sun, it is the norm here to carry an umbrella when the sun is out. Women also wear those hats that many golfers wear to shield their eyes. We went to the beach, and Min-Jee wouldn't even get near the water. She stayed in the shade with her sun umbrella. They have an umbrella here for the sun and an umbrella for the rain. They do whatever they can to NOT be tan. It is the exact opposite from us. We want to be tan...they will do anything to not be tan. It is not a compliment if someone tells them they are tan. We have self-tanning cream. They have WHITENING cream. Yup, you read that right. White is in. Tan is out. Min-Jee was shocked when she came to ISU and saw tanning salons around town. Any beauty shop you enter here has face masks all around the store. Men and women use them religiously.

BUILDINGS
Since South Korea is 70% mountains and smaller than Lake Michigan, they do not have much space to work with. With so many people here, they build their buildings up very high. Restaurants cannot be built on wide floors. Instead, you climb up stairs to get to restaurants, and some of them are 3 or 4 stories high. As I mentioned before, their homes are not what we would consider houses. They live in apartment complexes. The higher the floor, the more expensive it is.

TECHNOLOGY
Do you remember when I talked about the guy with the cool phone at the baseball game where he could show the game to someone on the other line through a camera? Well, I thought we would have that in the States soon, but they said we wouldn't because America is so huge compared to South Korea. There is no way that could work with all the networks. I keep forgetting that South Korea is so small. So, they have a lot less space to work with, which brings advantages and disadvantages with it.

I do not know much about downloading, but it is really popular to download movies here. We watched a movie on Bong-Ki's laptop yesterday, and he had to have at least 50 movies on that thing. Also, they can download it in about 20 minutes, but one of the professors told us that they have an even faster internet connection now that can download a movie in minutes. Oh, dear. Everything is just getting faster, faster, faster. Ahhhh.

Soapbox time. My biggest pet peeve is the overactive use of cell phones for every function possible. In my opinion, it is making 21st century people more impatient, less caring, and ruder than ever. We were at a professor's house a few days ago, and one of the students was just texting as we were eating. I don't care what country you are in or what your norms are. That is is just completely rude wherever you may be. Not only have you been invited to a professor's home (which is very rare), but we were eating. When people start texting on their phone, it's the exact same thing as saying, "This person is more important than you" or "I'd rather be somewhere else."
I have forgotten what my cell phone looks like, and I don't care. My parents don't have cell phones, and they're still breathing. Cell phones have only been around for about 15ish years. I know it's hard to believe, but people actually did live their lives without them. Shocker, I know.
Okay, off my soapbox.

SCHOOL/STRICT PARENTS
Oh, gosh. So much for this one, since this is my main focus here. Well, I will try to get the jist of it out.
The classrooms are all laid out facing the teacher instead of in centers, which we are trying to get away from. There are public and private schools here. Since most people have once child, they want their child to be the best, so they want to put their children through private school. Most children play some sort of musical instrument, and after the school day, they do not go home. They do after-school programs, whatever they can do to make themselves more competitive.
Each school needs to have an English-native speaker, and children start learning English around 3rd grade. But, some children start learning earlier in after-school programs.
Parents are super strict. Recently, I found out Bong-Ki was ranked 4th in South Korea in tennis when he was 10 years old. He would have kept playing, but his mom made him quit, so he would focus on his studies. His mom focused more on him, I guess, since she let his brother play. His brother played in Japan and kept playing until he got to high school. But, Bong-Ki said the parents want the boys to be really smart and focus on studying, and they focus on just teaching the girls how to cook, clean, and perform household duties. I feel like the children are pressured too much to study and do not have as much free time as in the U.S...like they are being bred for the future here and not free to live in the moment and just be kids and run around and do whatever the heck they wanna do. Most of the student at BNUE are tutors. That is the most popular job. Parents want their kids to be tutored. They don't care about individualized attention here. What's taught is taught, and if you don't get it, then get a tutor. So, most students have tutors that they go to after school and Min-Jee said many kids don't get home till 9 or 10pm....ummm what?!

MALE/FEMALE...WIFE/HUSBAND
When a male is with females, he carries her things, whether it be a purse or just shopping bags. Bong-Ki wanted to carry Kylie's purse, but she said she could carry it herself (individualistic). Also, Ben instinctively held up his arm to protect her when a car was coming, and she said she could see the road just fine (individualistic). He said it was just their culture and he does that without thinking.
The wife is seen as the caretaker of the household. She does everything. There is no 50/50 or sharing the responsibilities. When a women has children, she stays at home with them and cannot go to work until the children have gone to school. I think one of the professors even had to ask her husband if she can pick up some work part-time. He is the leader of the household.

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