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maxkoreablog · 5 years

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Blogpost

It's been a while since I've had the courage to start one of these posts...

I'm going to try to cover everything major that happened since my last my post, but ill probably forget some things so I might edit this post after its up...

The first Busan trip and the DMZ-Trip

On Wednesday, the 7th of November, we got invited to an event in Busan, held by Rotary Korea, because the president of Rotary International was visiting Korea. We got told about this event far in advance and were supposed to have some sort of little act, that we could perform at the event.

We decided on a traditional Korean song, called Arirang. In addition to that we would perform "Imagine" by John Lennon and at the end, we would do the Macarena and try to integrate our audience a bit.

On the 7th I got up at 3 AM and packed the last things in my bag, took a shower and headed towards the bus station, together with my host mother. Rotary rented a travel bus, like they do for most events and trips we go on.

I arrived at the bus terminal at 6 AM and after everyone was picked up, we headed for our 5-hour bus drive to Busan.

Nothing really exciting happened in these 5 hours and we arrived at around 11 AM in Busan. We immediately went to the Hotel, in which the event would be held and we had to practice our act two more times. After that, we had a small break of around 20 minutes, before the event started. We all were still very tired from the long bus drive, but we did well in our performance and everything went well. We then took some Pictures with the president and basically got on the bus again, to get back to Seoul.

It took us until 9 PM, to find a place to have dinner, so we all were pretty mad, tired and just wanted to go to bed when we arrived back in Seoul at 12 PM I quickly took a shower and headed to bed.

The next morning I had a trip to the border to North Korea. The trip wasn't organized by rotary, instead, we went with our the people from our Korean language school. We met up at 9:40, and I thought I was too late, because I had misunderstood something the week before, so I ran through the rain and turned up 10 minutes too early.

1 hour later we all got on a bus and started our trip. I didn't have proper winter boots yet, so my socks were soaked in water and I was cold. At the border, we visited a museum about the Korean war and the separation between North and south Korea. They also had a piece of the Berlin wall and a counter, that was counting up the time, Korea had been separated, while a different counter showed the time, Germany had been separated.

The piece of the wall was standing on the train station, from where a train, that drives to Pyongyang. The whole stay at the border felt a bit surreal. Especially standing at the big Trainstation, with no people waiting for the train, knowing that, if you went through the effort to get all the papers, you could start a journey into North Korea, from here.

But also looking over the border and seeing the buildings and Northkorean flags felt strange. Before everything related to North Korea was only stuff you would see in the News. Seeing an actual house and knowing that there were people living that lived so cut off from the western world.

On the way back we noticed a lot of signs by the road, telling you to not go into the forests, because of landmines.

When we got back to Guri, where our Korean lessons were held, I went into a shop and immediately bought myself a pair of winter shoes.

Wedding

On the 11th my guest mother took me to the wedding of her niece.

I haven't really been on a wedding before, so its hard for me to compare it to anything I've seen in Germany, but there were some parts that I'm pretty sure aren't done in Germany.

The whole event was held in a so-called "Wedding tower", which was basically a bunch of wedding halls in a tower with a giant restaurant on the top floor.

When we arrived, everyone was just standing in front of the hall, talking to family and friends and was waiting for the wedding to start. The hall itself was a runway, over which the bride was later brought in, by her father, with tables standing around it, without any recognizable pattern.

The ceremony started with the bridegroom standing in front and the bride being brought down the aisle by her father. After they were all standing in front, the father sat down and the couple went in front of each others family, where the bridegroom did a pretty long bow and then they all hugged each other. Then the pastor came and married them. After that everyone, except for the closest family was leaving and went to the restaurant, where they had TVs, showing the following photoshoot in the hall. Everyone involved in the photoshoot had switched into traditional hanboks. After they were done the couple got lead around the restaurant and being introduced to each other's broader family. After we were finished eating we just went home.

Ancestral worship

On the 4th of December, shortly after I had switched families, my new guest mother took me to a relatives house, where they held a ceremony to worship her father, that apparently had died years earlier. When she told me about it I was a bit scared at first because I didn't want the first thing that I do with my family to be something about the death of a relative, but my host brother told me, that I didn't have to be worried.

When we arrived at the apartment, we had some snacks at first and then everyone started to prepare foods and build a shrine. Everything was made out of wood and the shrine consisted of a small table, a big one and a small shrine, in which they put a piece of paper, with the name of the person, that had died. It was written in Chinese, but it was more than two signs, so I think there was a little more than just his name, but I'm not sure.

The bigger table made up the main part of the whole thing and on it was the small shrine and all the foods. On the edges in the back of the table, there were two candles. The small table stood in front of the bigger table and on it was a small bowl with sand and some incense sticks in it. On the left of the small table, there was a pot with rice wine and a bowl.

The foods on the table had a special order, with the first row are the fruits, which are sorted by size, with the smallest on the left and the biggest on the right. In the second row were the backed foods and in the third row plates with fish and other dishes, that were too big for the rows. Finally, in front of the shrine, there were two soups.

When everything was set up they started with the ceremony. One person leads the ceremony, I’m guessing the biggest brother. The relatives walked up to the shrine one by one and they got a small bowl filled with rice wine, which they circled above the incense sticks three times, before they placed the wine on the big table, in front of the small shrine. Then they stood up and performed two of the long bows, not three, like in the temple.

When the next person came in front of the shrine, the leading person poured the wine that was still standing in front of the shrine in a bigger bowl.

After everyone was done performing the ritual, the leading person performed the ritual with the pot of rice wine. Then everyone stood in front of the shrine and the leading person knocked the chopsticks two times on the table and laid them on the different foods. When switching the foods he knocked the chopsticks on the table two times every time.

After that was done the banner with the name on it got burned in the candles.

Then everyone sat down in the living room and we ate the foods, that were previously on the shrine.

GGGI

On the seventh of December, we got invited to GGGI, which is short for Global Green Growth Institute. GGGI is an organization, which focuses on helping developing countries to build a green and sustainable economy. First, we listened to a few very interesting presentations, about what GGGI is doing and what it means to live sustainably.

Then we had a little workshop about living sustainable and while we were switching locations and getting a tour of the offices, we got to meet former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. We got to take a picture with him and talk for about 10 minutes.

After we were done with our tour in GGGI it was about 1 PM and we had the rest of the day for us in Seoul.

Christmas in Busan

On the 22nd of December, we traveled to Busan, to celebrate Christmas there. We didn't instantly drive to Busan, we had one day in Gyeongju, a city with a major historical background for Korea. In Gyeongju, we visited a theatre and watched a show about some of the history in Gyeongju. It was fun, but nothing special. Then we went to the national museum and looked at some very old Korean stuff. It was nice, but again, I don't know enough about Korean history to really appreciate the importance of most of the things that we get to see in museums like these, or temples. On the next day, we drove to Busan and went to a shrine for traffic safety, a water temple, the beach in Busan, a Korean movie museum and an international market. It was a very full day, but probably one of my favorite days in Korea. We got to see a lot of Busan, which is very different from Seoul, due to the see being so close and the buildings not standing so tall and close to each other, but that might have just been my perception. The shrine for traffic safety was really weird because everything looked very traditional and then you just had a stone tire with some Korean text on it.

Everything around the shrine was also very traditional and it functioned as an entrance to the water temple. It was definitely my favorite temple so far. It was standing beside a cliff and everything around it just seemed very fitting.

The beach in Busan was also very nice, because before that I hadn't been to the beach in Busan, but it was also very weird because we had Christmas trees behind us while drinking coffee at the beach with not a single cloud at the sky.

It was a bit surreal and didn't feel Christmassy at all. The movie museum was really interesting because it had some very cool interactive parts in it and it wasn't only focused on Korean films. The international market was also cool, but we didn't buy anything. In the evening we did a small Christmas party, where we gave presents to each other and all got two from HoHyun. The evening was nice, but nothing like a normal Christmas. I enjoyed it nevertheless.

On the next day, we went to Dongbaek island, where we took a walk and saw a house, in which a big Asian Pacific trade treaty got signed in 2005. It's now a museum so we could look around a bit, which was nice.

After we were done with that we went to a so-called “skywalk”, which was basically a glass pier over a cliff. It wasn't as spectacular, as I had hoped, but the surrounding nature was very nice and we had a good time, before going back into the bus, for our six-hour drive back to Seoul.

On our way back, we had a problem with the engine-fan, and at first, we thought that we might have to go to a nearby hotel, to sleep there, but luckily it wasn't that big of a deal and we could drive all the way to Seoul, without any major inconvenience.

I think the Busan trip was my favorite so far because we got to know a lot of new exchange students from the area around Busan, that joined our multidistrict due to some (mildly put) complications inside Rotary. But I also just really liked the atmosphere in Busan and I'm definitely planning on coming back there and hopefully stay a bit longer than just 1 and a half days…

Jeju trip

From the 31.12.18 to the 4.1.19 my host family took me on a trip to Jeju, the biggest Island of Korea, which lays south of Korea. We took the plane, from a domestic airport and were in Jeju after about one hour. We went to so many places in Jeju, that I, unfortunately, can't recall the order and I might even forget some.

We rented a car and over the five days, we visited a tea-museum, an aeronautics museum, a folk village, Halla mountain, but we didn't go completely to the top, another volcano, a part of the shore, with some pretty cool volcano tunnels and a botanic garden.

I don't remember the order at all, so I'm just going to say a little bit about everything, in no particular order.

The tea-museum was very interesting and it showcased the history of tea in Korea and also all around the world. I found a lot of teapots from Dresden, for example. Inside the museum was also a big area, where tea and many other tea-related things got sold. We ate some Green tea-icecream, which tasted nice, but I don't think id eat it regularly. I also thought about buying some tea, but it was very expensive, so I decided not to. Especially because I might visit it again, with Rotary. All around the museum were a lot of fields, full of green tea and there was a platform, from which we could see over the while area.

On the same day, we visited the aeronautics-museum, which I really enjoyed, even though I knew most of the stuff, that was in the museum, already. It was still very cool, to see an Asian perspective on the history of space exploration because as it turns out, that is a very different one from the western. Especially because in Asia you have a whole bunch of different zodiac signs.

The folk village was also interesting, but it felt more like going through a park, instead of actually getting to know anything specific about the way natives used to live in Korea. You could see single things, for example, the houses were way smaller in hight than I ever saw it in Germany, but that was probably to be expected.

We didn't really go to the top of Halla mountain, as far as I understood, instead we went to a slightly smaller mountain, right beside Halla mountain. We were at about 1200 m over sea level and it snow was laying everywhere.

I had a few problems with the pressure on my ears, but in the end, it turned out to be okay. Going through snow and being at the beach on the same day was interesting but also didn't help in remembering what happened on what day.

I don't know exactly why, but I really enjoyed the botanic garden. It was very empty and calm. Sadly we kinda hurried through it, so I couldn't really look at everything. It was still very nice and I’ll try to visit more botanic gardens in the future for sure.

We also went on a little hike up a smaller volcano. It was very impressive to stand in front of the crater. There is not really a lot happening in the crater of an inactive volcano but it was still weird to imagine that right in front of you, where you now just have grass and flowers, lava used to come out of the earth. It was my first time visiting a volcano crater and I was really impressed.

The last thing I remember, that we did, was visiting a part of the shore where the imperial army of Japan used to have camps in the volcanic tunnels. It was cool walking through those big weird shapes and along the weirdly shaped shore, but unfortunately, it was also very windy.

All in all, I really enjoyed the trip to Jeju and I'm very glad that my host family took me with them. We didn't have any kind of new years celebration, but I also didn't expect something, so I was okay with that. I generally try to not expect celebrations and so far that has worked out very good for me, so I’ll keep that up.

The DMZ and snowboarding trip

From the 12.01 to the 14.01 our Rotary group of exchange students went on a trip to the DMZ, but we didn't go to the same part of the border, where I’d already been. Instead, we went to the section on the eastern coast of Korea. There we had way better vision into North Korean territory. We went to a museum, that showcased the whole history of the Korean war and, interestingly, also had a passage about the division of east and west Germany, again, with a piece of the Berlin wall. We had good weather, which was nice, so we could actually see something from North Korea. Probably because of the good weather it didn't seem as intimidating this time, to look into North Korea. Even though we were closer to the border than before. It looked like a 15 minutes walk. But apart from one single building, you couldn't really see anything North Korean, which made it hard to see where the actual border was.

The mountain, that you can see in the back is in North Korea. The border is about halfway there.

After we were done with that we headed to a cable car, which took us up a very high mountain, from which we had a pretty decent view of Seoraksan, one of the highest mountains in Korea.

Then we drove back down, got on the bus and drove to the ski resort.

In the ski resort, we had two suites for the boys and each suite had two beds. Simon and I just took the beds in our suite.

When we first got our equipment we weren't allowed to go and do our own thing instantly, first we had a little course, but it was only about 10 minutes long and we only got told how to fall properly and then we got sent out, down the least steep slope. The first day was really frustrating to me. Not because I couldn't balance on the board, that was not the problem, but because I didn't know how to change directions or break. So the first day I just went down the slope and fell, to break. After, what felt like a few hours, but probably wasn't that long we went to a different slope and started using our snowboards as sleds. That was really fun, but at the end of the day, it still bothered me that I hadn't figured out how to properly snowboard.

Then we went to a waterpark, which was also fun, but also a bit weird because everyone had to wear life jackets. The next day we went back on the slopes for three or four hours and I figured out braking and steering with some help from Linnea, a Swedish exchange student, who had done some snowboarding before.

Since we had checked out of our suits before going to the slopes we went straight on the bus after we were done with snowboarding and skiing. On our way back the mood was a bit down because we had a lot of air pollution which was something I hadn't seen in Seoul or at least, not been aware of. It was a little scary because as the air in the bus started to get worse, we wanted to open up the windows of the bus, but you could literally see the pollution outside, so opening up the windows wouldn't really solve our problem. It really was a little scary, because I had grown up with fresh air around me all the time. Not having access to fresh air is really something you need to get used to. In addition to that three of the Americans were leaving us, due to personal issues/ issues with Rotary in their home country. That was also kind of sad, but I tried to just sleep as much as possible.

To sum up that trip I'd say that it was definitely fun, but also physically strenuous. Especially because the following week was full of events and another trip, about which I won't write anything, because really nothing happened there. But yeah… That trip was kind of the beginning of 10 days of continuous tiredness.

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maxkoreablog · 6 years

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Experiences

This post will probably be very unorganized and maybe a bit hard to read, but it's more focused on keeping some thoughts and memories then people reading it.

All of the following themes are too short for a whole Post (I think so, at least) but I still want to include them in this blog.

Military

A few days ago I met the first boy in my age, who wanted to be a soldier when growing up. Before I had never met somebody with the dream job of being a soldier, or at least nobody told me about it, if they wanted to be a soldier.

In Korea between the ages of twenty and thirty as a man, you have to work somewhere around two years in the military, but women can also go to the military. The military is very present in the streets. Not with guns or something else threatening, or at least I've never felt threatened by any of the soldiers I’ve seen and met, but you always see young men in uniform walking around on their day off.

To come back to the boy I met… I asked him why he wanted to work as a soldier and he told me that if you want to have a safe salary and a safe job you should work for the military. In Korea the Job market is very competitive, as far as I've noticed, because grades and education are so highly valued, there are a lot of very skilled people ending up in positions where they don't live up to their potential. Not at all. I that regard I can understand him quite well, but I didn’t get the chance to ask him about his views about a soldiers potential duty to kill people. The language barrier was unfortunately too high, but maybe I’ll meet him again when I speak Korean better.

German culture

I've noticed that if you are in a different country you not only learn about the country but also a lot about the country you are from.

Here are a few things I've learned about Germany so far, while being in Korea:

1. The handshake you have with someone carries a lot of information about the respect, the interest and the opinion of each other.

I've been to a dinner with my guest mother and some of her former colleagues (my guest mother works in a charity organization, I don't know if on a volunteering basis, or if she gets paid.). But on that dinner, had to give a lot of handshakes and bows and when I wanted to shake the hand of one guy, instead of giving me his hand, he did the handshake with his pinky. I instantly noticed, how disrespected I felt, even though before I had never thought that a handshake would show respect. Over the evening I noticed in myself, that I really felt like I didn't like the guy, even though I have never really spoken to him. In the middle of the dinner, I thought to myself that it probably wasn't his intention to disrespect me, but I still noticed that even after that I couldn’t look over it and still disliked him. Another thing I noticed that is transported in a handshake is whether the person you are about to greet is interested in you or not. I think whoever stretches out his hand at first is the one, more interested in greeting and getting to know the other person.

2. Germans don't really have national pride, but more (if at all) an appreciation for the institutions around them. We don't hang Germany flags in our classrooms. Here in Korea above every blackboard, there is a small, framed Korean flag. We don't hang Germany flags in the public. In Korea, you have Korean flags on the side of the highways. Not only a bit but every ten meters another one. Sometimes after our Korean classes Maja, Ainhoa and I go to an old market in Guri. In the ceiling of the building is a huge Korean flag, and on the pillars holding the roof, on each one is another smaller flag.

3. Germany is unbelievably ordered. I think I mentioned that in a different post already, but Korea seems to me like a prototype, that is constantly being worked on to have more features or newer technology. The buildings seem between 50 and 2 Years old, same thing with the advertising-signs on them. The stores themselves are one old and crappy store beneath a new and totally tidy store. It's really hard to describe. And the same goes for the people. On one hand you have people that seem completely “unmodern” and on the other hand, you have students in their twenties running around with their new iPhone X. It's really a lot of contrast.

Traffic

The traffic rules are a lot looser than in Germany. And they are also very different, for example, you can regularly just do a 180 degrees turn. For the delivery services, they don't apply at all, I feel like. They just drive over the sidewalk, red traffic lights and nobody seems to care. It's so different than the first few times I drove with my guest mother I was pretty worried, especially because a lot of the Koreans just use their smartphones while going 40 km/h. They seem to still have control of the situation, but sometimes its a bit worrying. There are also a lot more speed bumps and other stuff to make the drivers drive slower. Also, the drivers use the (i don't know the proper name) red triangle light, that makes all lights at the same time blink. They use that light so often. The cars driving on the road are also completely different to Germany. There I feel like Audi, VW, and other German brands are just normal. Here you have basically only Hyundai and KIA. And some other brands, that I've never seen in Germany.

The usage of English

English gets used pretty extensively and I feel like its seen as a sign of “Westernness”. And if they use English it's in often very weird context and oftentimes it doesn't make sense or is just ridiculous.

Some examples:

1. When you walk into a Lotteria, which is a Korean burger store, you see their advertisement which says: “scientifically the best burger you will ever eat.” But not only that is a bit weird, over the kitchen they don't have something like “kitchen”, no, they have a huge sign saying “Burger Labrotary”.

2. On a lot of t-shirts, there is stuff printed that doesn't make any sense at all. There are literally shirts, pullovers, and bags full of random words.

3. I once visited a noodle restaurant with my guest parents and on one wall there was some sort of collage with random words making up a teapot. It was a bit weird but some of them had a connection to noodles or something like that, but there were also totally unrelated words.

Very reserved in public

Yesterday I went to Seoul with Maja and Ainhoa, because we had to attend a small meeting with some other Rotary-exchange students. It was a meeting concerning a Busan-trip we’ll have next month. Anyways, on our way back we drove with the subway. The subway we were in was like most subways. You have two opposing benches and in the middle, there is room for people to walk through.

On the opposite side there was one old man standing at the exit, the on the Bench there were two middle-aged women who were looking at one smartphone and quietly talking to each other. Besides them, a man in a suit, also between forty-five and sixty and then on the far left a couple in their twenties. On our bench, there were on the far left two women, who I didn't really pay any attention to in the whole situation. Then in pretty much the middle, there was one seat between me and the women on my left, I was sitting, to my left Ainhoa, then Maja and finally on the far right a man, about thirty years old.

At one point the man on the right of our bench started ranting and insulting the people sitting in front of us. I didn't really understand what he was saying. I only understood that he was saying something about their smartphones, I'm guessing that he wanted them to put them away and pay attention to him. It was a very strange experience. He started screaming and raging and literally, nobody reacted. Not even in the slightest. They were dodging eye contact and nobody talked to him. The women kept on looking at their smartphone and talked at exactly the same paste and noise level as before. The Couple ignored him as well, only the businessman seemed a bit tense, but he didn't engage into any. The man started to rage so much that Maja switched seats and sat down beside me, but that was pretty much the only reaction he got. Until the young man on the left, who was with his girlfriend said, that he should be quiet, he would be very noisy. Then the man jumped up with his fist ready to punch and apparently threatened the man. He stayed very calm and later Maja and Ainhoa told me that he was saying something along the ways of “I dear you”, or “Try it”. After he had said that the raging man switched seats and got out of the train at the next station. But before he left the train I saw him, I'm guessing apologizing to a man near the exit.

It was a very strange situation. First of all, it was the first time I felt threatened in Korea so far and the first time I felt like I was in danger. But it was also an interesting experience because you could see how everyone realized, that the man was about to fight someone, but everyone stayed extremely focused on whatever they were doing that the moment. The old man near the exit just stared along the train, the two women kept looking at their phone, the businessman listened to music and stared at his feet, the couple kept whispering to each other. It was a very strange atmosphere because it was so tense and everyone tried to not show, that they were feeling that as well.

I didn't focus on how everyone reacted when the man was jumping up, because I was so focused on him, and whether or not they would start to fight, but when I switched my focus again, nobody had really changed.

This situation showed me once more, how much volume and body language really can communicate. And that to make somebody feel fear of something like that you don't need to have the right sentence, it's enough if you just show that you are ready to just punch the shit out of your opponent.

But probably more interesting than that was how clear it became in that particular situation, how focused most Koreans are to not disturb, not be noticeable and not engage in confrontation. Of course, there are always exceptions and I think that guy was one of those, but nobody tried to interrupt him or something like that until it was nearly too late. And it also showed to me that “minding your own business” is held very high in Korea.

All in all, I’d say, that I'm glad I was in that subways. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have gotten such a clear presentation of those parts of the Korean culture.

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maxkoreablog · 6 years

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Seoul-trip

From the 7th of Oktober to the 9th, I went on a Seoul-Tour with the other exchange students in my multidistrict.

On the morning of Sunday, I woke up at 5:30 AM to take a shower and pack my luggage. My Hostmother and I left the house at 7 and arrived at Donong-station at 7:40. There I ate a sandwich for breakfast and I met Maja, Ainhoa and a Rotex-student, a student that had already been on an exchange year. On every trip we do with Rotary there is a small group of Rotex-Students that help with the organizing and all of that.

From Donong we got on a train at 8 and arrived at Seoul-station at around 9. There we had to wait for 40 minutes until we got picked up by the bus, which Rotary had rented and in which we drove around Seoul for the next three days. It was planned that we would go somewhere to eat breakfast together, but we skipped that and went to a place where we could rent Hanboks. Hanboks are the traditional clothes in Korea. They are worn on special occasions and nearly every Korean has one. But you can also rent them, which is what we did. With the Hanboks on, we went to a palace. It felt like a big temple, but we got told that it used to be the king's palace.

At 11:50 we had to turn in the Hanboks again and we got on the bus again, to drive to a restaurant in which we got to eat chicken soup. We got told that is was a very famous restaurant and when we arrived there was a pretty long row of people waiting to get in. We got in immediately and also got our food relatively fast. Everyone got a bowl of soup, in which a whole chicken was. It was tasty, but we didn't have forks or knives. Just some chopsticks and a spoon, so it was very hard to eat.

After we were finished eating we went to the president’s house and visited the Cheongwadae Sarangchae, which was basically an exhibition about former Presidents of Korea and the division of Korea.

After that, we drove to a different dong* and we got some free time to look around and go shopping. I bought myself a NASA-hoodie and we walked around for a bit, looking into different stores.

After some free time, we all met again and went into an Italian restaurant, where we had spaghetti and pizza.

Then we just went to our hostel, checked in, talked for a bit, got some snacks and went to bed.

On this trip, different to the ones we had so far, we boys got divided into two rooms, because there were only rooms with three beds and Rotary brought some Rotex-boys and apparently wanted us to also get to know different people, then just the ones, we’d see all year. So Simon and I were with another Rotex in a room. He had been to Germany and spoke a bit of German, but we didn't talk a lot in German to not exclude Simon that much. We got along very good and from what Quentin had told me he also got along with the boys on his room pretty good.

On the next morning we got up at 6:45, all took a shower, had breakfast, checked out and were on the bus again by 9 o’clock.

The first thing we wanted to go to was the National War Museum, but unfortunately, that wasn't possible, for reasons I don't recall. So Instead of going to the War Museum, we went to the Korean parliament and the National Museum. I enjoyed both of it. In the museum we were send off on our own and we looked at some caligraphyart. In the parliament we listened to a fourty minutes talk about the parliament and the Korean government.

Then we got on the bus again and drove to the Lotte World Tower. Lotte World Tower is the highest skyscraper Koreas, the 6th highest building in the world and has the highest glass-floor observation deck in the world. Almost more impressive, then the unbelievable hight was the speed, with which the elevator got up the almost 125 floors. With a maximum speed of 10 meters per second, the elevator is one of the fastest elevators in the world.

After everyone had taken some pictures and we had appreciated the view enough we got down the tower and went to Lotte World, the biggest indoor amusement park in Korea.

My classmates had talked a lot about Lotte World, so I had high expectations. Once we were inside, we quickly noticed, that we would only have time for one attraction, even though we had 4 and a half hours of time in the park. We also had gotten some cards, we could exchange in one of the restaurants for a lunch. We did that and then walked to the freefall tower, where we waited for two hours until it was our turn.

The waiting time was fun though because I had found some of the Germany-flag-pins, and some German candy in my backpack, that we gave to strangers. That way we made some friends and talked to some Koreans while we were waiting.

At 6:30 PM we met at the entrance of the park again and went to the restaurant of Hohyoun, the Coordinator of the multidistrict. He was also the guy who had organized all of our trips and he was also guiding us everywhere.

After the dinner we drove to the hotel we would stay in for the second night. When we arrived we noticed, that it was a five-star hotel and all got pretty excited. the rooms each had two beds in them and I was staying with Simon. Once we were in our room, we quickly noticed, that the five stars were probably a few years old. Not to say it wasn't a luxurious hotel, but I definitively expected something different from a five-star hotel.

On the next morning, we had to be on the bus by nine. The first thing we did was a trip through KBS, which is the biggest broadcasting service in Korea. I think we were there outside of the normal opening hours because it seemed to me as if we were alone in the building. It was still very interesting because in the KBS-Building there is a path that you can follow and it's like a small exhibition about television in Korea. We also got to see the live-broadcasting of one of the Radio-channels, KBS is providing. After that we went to Hong Dae Dong, to look around for a bit. Then we went into a place, where we ate pizza. After we were finished, we got to look at a cooking musical, called Nanta. We got told, that it’s the longest running musical in Korean history. Not play-lengthwise, but how long it stayed on a regular program. It was a very interesting experience, because barely and speaking happened and they still told a funny story. The play was around one and a half hours and after it was finished we all got back on the bus and got dropped off at the train stations we needed to get to come back home.

All in all the Seoul-trip was a very cool experience. We got to see the best, biggest and prettiest parts of the town, even though we had so little time. I'm sure there is far more to discover in Seoul then just what we saw, but I'm very happy with what we got to see.

*In Korea every major Town is divided in so-called “dong”’s. I, for example, live in Namyangju, that is my city, and specifically in Hopyeong-Dong. You can think of the different Dong’s like neighborhoods, just with individual names. There are some more terms and if you want to have a more detailed description of the administrative terms in Korea click HERE.

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maxkoreablog · 6 years

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The Temple-stay

From the 28th of September to the 30th of September I went to a temple to live with Buddhist monks.

In the morning, Maja came over to my house and after I had taken a shower and packed my bag, we left the house at 11:10 AM, to drive to Ainhoas house, where her mom picked us all up and drove us to the temple. It took us about two and a half hours to get to the temple.

1=Building from the monks, 2=Building from the monks, 3=Big Bell, 4=Building from the monks, 5=Fountain, 6=Building from the monks, 7=Main building, 8=Lake, 9=Shop, 10=Tea building, 11=Meeting building, 12=Hostel building, 13=Grave-building, 14=Building from the monks, 15=Building from the monks, 16=Buddah-statue, 17, 18, 19=Stairwell

Once we arrived, we met the other exchange students and got our room numbers. I was in a room with a French an American and a Korean boy. I was in a room with the French and the American already, at the first orientation in Seoul and I'm probably going to share my room many more times with them, whenever we have trips with Rotary. The Korean was a Rotex, which means that he was on an exchange already and just volunteered to act as a supervisor. Our room was split into two different parts and the Korean slept in one part while we were in the other one, so we didn't talk that much.

After we had everything in our rooms and received our temple clothes, we got an introduction to the rules and the general behavior when we're in the temple area.

The main rules were:

-We were only allowed to walk around in the provided clothes outside of our rooms, but we could wear our clothing underneath.

-We were supposed to hold our hands over each other, with the right hand on top, whenever we were walking on the temple's ground.

-We had to eat everything on our plates, because leaving something behind would be disrespectful, to the work somebody did to produce that food.

-We had to bow in front of every meal, to show that we respect and thank, whoever made the meal.

-If we met a monk we had to bow in front of them while putting our hands against each other. That type of greeting means that you respect the other person as they are.

-We had to wake up at 4 AM, to join the morning prayer.

-We had to go to bed at 9 PM and have our lights turned off at 9:30 PM so that we would have enough sleep to wake up the next morning.

-We had to talk as little as possible, while on the ground of the temple.

The introduction was held in a separate building (building 11) by a monk who would do some activities with us later on.

After that we had free time, to explore the surroundings.

At 5 PM we had to be back for dinner, which we had in the hostel-building (No.12). Before we went to bed we got to ring the big bell, that was hanging beneath a giant drum.

They were basically in the open, just with a very pretty roof over them.

We went to our room at 9 PM and talked about the school in the different countries were coming from. It was really interesting to hear the others talk about what they get taught in the different subject. We shut our lights at around 10:30 PM and I fell asleep pretty fast.

Waking up wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We had discussed the evening before, that we wanted to wake up at 3:30, so we’d have enough time to maybe take a shower before we go to the main building (No.7) where the ceremony would take place. When we got woken up in the morning, we got told that we'd only have to be there at 4:20, so we went back to sleep for a half an hour before we woke up and went to the temple together.

Quentin, the French boy, was finished a bit earlier than Simon, the American, and I, so we didn't find him in the beginning, but we still were the first ones to arrive at the temple. When we arrived, we did the 3 bows, like we got told in the introduction the day before. After that, we sat down, meditated and waited until the other people came, so the ceremony could begin. Just sitting there, with some monks sitting in front of us, also meditating was a very special experience. It felt so different from other experiences I've had with other religions so far because even though you had these very huge and magnificent statues, the paintings and of cause the amazing architecture around you like you also have in a church, it felt like everyone was on a similar power level. In churches, I often feel like you are just listening to someone in front telling you something about what you have to think or pray about right now. In this temple, it was very different. It was more like everyone had the same basis to believe in and of cause the same surroundings, but apart from that, everyone had a lot of free space. I personally used the time to just get calm, before the ceremony and to take up as much of my surroundings as possible.

After around 15 minutes of sitting there, the other people came in and at 4:25 one monk started to ring a bell, to signalize the beginning of the ceremony. At 4:30 it started with all monks standing up, bowing and singing. We just copied them, because nobody told us anything on how the ceremonies would happen. The ceremony itself was around ten minutes long and basically consisted of the monks singing and performing a row of bows. A complete bow in a temple like this isn't just a simple bend at the waist.

There are many parts to a complete bow. First, you bow with your hands put against each other in front of your chest, then you have to bring down the five major points of your body, so they touch the floor. The points are your forehead, both your elbows and your knees. You start by kneeling down while keeping your hands together, then you put down your hands on the floor. After that, you touch the floor with your forehead. You are not supposed to lift your but from your heel. When all your five points touch the floor you have to lift up your hands to the hight of your ears and turn them around there. That signalizes that you respect budda and see it as something higher than yourself. After that, you put down your hands again and stand back up. When you first come into a temple you are supposed to do three of there bows, but in the last one, before you stand up you have to close your hands in front of your chest while kneeling and touch the floor once more with your forehead. Then you end your three bows with a last normal bow, with your hands together in front of your chest.

The ceremony was as mentioned earlier around ten minutes long and we had to stand up and kneel back down over and over again. It was a very interesting experience though and I'm very glad that we got pushed to wake up so early.

After the ceremony, I went onto our room, took a shower and sat down at the lake together with Quentin until 6:30 AM. Then we had breakfast and after that, we had one hour of free time. Then we did a little walk with a woman, who was guiding our group through all the events we had. After the walk, we met with the monk that did the introduction with us. We had to go into groups of three, in which we had to give each other compliments. Each group got three elastic bands and everyone got 25 beans, with holes in them. For each compliment we got, we could put one bean onto our band, until we had a bracelet.

At 12:00 we had lunch. Afterward, we had one and a half hours of free time. When we met again with the monk at 2:30 PM we played a traditional Korean game. Before we played we each had to duel someone in "Rock, Paper, Scissors". I won against Simon, so I got on the winner team. Every team had to select a team leader and Simon and I got selected. The game itself was similar to "Mensch ärgere dich nicht" or "Ludo". Its called 윷 / 윷놀이 (Revised Romanization: Yut/Yunnori). I won't explain the rules here, but there is a Wikipedia-Article about it describing the game and its history in great detail.

We played a best of three, which my team won after a tiebreaker. We won some snacks, which we obviously shared with the other team. Then we had some free time, but we decided to keep playing until we had to go to dinner at 5 PM.

After the dinner, we were supposed to do 108 complete bows, as part of some ritual, but the women responsible for our group asked the monks to not do the ritual and they accepted, which we all were very grateful about. Instead, we did a massage for about half an hour. I don't recall if the evening ceremony was before or after the massage, but I remember, that I liked the singing of the evening ceremonies way more because there were more monks and the sang in kind of a canon. Then we had free time and we all went down to the lake to talk, without having to whisper, like we had to when we were in the temple.

After some time we all went to one room and kept on talking there. We went to bed way too late, which I definitely noticed, the next day, when we had to wake up at 4 AM again.

The next day I was really tired. We still went to the ceremony. After that, I took a shower and sat down at the lake together with Quentin, again. After the breakfast, we had a tea ceremony with the monk that did the introduction with us. It was very interesting and the green tea we got was also very delicious. After that, we had free time and then went back home. I tried to sleep on in the car, but I couldn't, even though we drove two and a half hours because we were dropping of Maja and Ainhoa at their homes.

Back home I didn't do very much. I went on a small walk in the evening, but then I just went to bed.

All in all, I really enjoyed the temple-stay. It was very interesting to experience the daily life of a monk, but I know for sure, that I wouldn't want to be a monk. Waking up so early every day and not having real friendships, outside of the few monks living in your temple would really take a long time for me to get used to.

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maxkoreablog · 6 years

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Differences I’ve noticed so far

Koreans (and I'm just going to generalize this. This is obviously only from my experiences so far) have a very different attitude towards cleanliness.

Its very hard to describe, so I'm just going to give you some examples.

Whenever I let a chopstick or something similar fall, by accident, they give me a new pair. Immediately. Even if I would have just continued to eat with that chopstick.

In every room, in that you'll be for a longer time, restaurants, your own home, academies or similar stuff, you are taking your shoes off at the entry. You come in the room, and you stand in a 1M² area full of shoes, with a shoe shelf beneath you. You then put off your shoes and continue walking in. There are exceptions, for example in cafes. I've not been to a cafe, in which you are supposed to put off your shoes.

In school, you can put off your shoes and then continue in slippers, but that isn't mandatory, at least in my school. If you enter a restroom, in a building in which you put off your shoes before, there are slippers provided, in which you go in the restroom.

All of these behaviors seem to me as if they are supposed to keep germs etc. away, which makes sense in a community where so many people live in such a small space.

On the other hand, some things are just messy. I don't know if that is just me, but I always feel like tidiness goes along with cleanliness. If something isn't tidy, it's not really clean. Its a bit irrational, but I still feel like a room that is tidy is automatically cleaner than a messy room.

But in Korea, I feel like, its totally messy, which I personally really enjoy, because then you have so much more to discover. You have these huge buildings with stores on 5 or more levels. When you want to find something, you really have to know where to go, if you want to buy something else then just some ramen.

Two weeks ago I wanted to buy myself some new pens. And I really enjoyed going into the city and walking for 30 minutes, even though i knew exactly where to go. Once you've arrived at your little bookstore, you really feel like you've traveled a bit into a different universe. Because the streets are just packed full of people, the elevators that you have to take sometimes as well. And then you walk down hallways, that themselves are little streets, with stores left and right, selling stuff you may have never seen. So once you arrive, its often very quiet in the stores themselves.

If you come to a new town in Germany, you can just wander around and eventually you'll find whatever store you were looking for. Simply because stores are just on one level.

Helping you navigate through all those elevators, hallways, and stores are the unbelievable amount of advertisement plates, mounted on the front of the buildings, or the huge plans, on which every store is written. But if you aren't decent enough in Korean, you really have a problem, if you want to buy something.

Two days ago I was at a market, on which everything got sold. You had one guy selling sunglasses beneath another guy who’s selling living fish. I felt like it was pretty messy, but again, it had this certain atmosphere, of letting you discover new stuff and look around.

To sum up this part of the post :

Koreans are focused on cleanliness, maybe they have a different kind of tidiness, but I wouldn't say they sort stuff.

Another thing that I've noticed which is really different from Germany is the behavior among boys. They have way more body/skin-contact then in Germany. You always see boys walking down the hallways, holding hands, even if they aren't in love. Its just casual behavior here. In the first few days, it was a bit weird to get used to it. For example, when you walk down the hallway, in Germany you don't expect somebody to run up to you from behind and hug you, or take your hand if you aren't in a relationship. Here its completely normal. Now I'm also used to the fact, that whenever I walk to a different classroom because we have a different subject, I'll walk with a group of boys and some of them hold each other's hands, or have their arms hooked into each other. Also when I come to school in the morning and we still have five minutes with our smartphones, before we have to hand them in, I often listen to some music. Sometimes people come up to me from behind pet my back, to greet me. Its interesting to me, because on one hand, I was pretty surprised by the behavior among boys and men, but I think it helps to form friendships faster. You get used to the people faster and I think its a good thing because it really strengthens the bonds of a friendship. On the other hand, I've discovered after a very brief recherche, that LGBTQ+ rights and awareness are pretty low in Korea, which I wouldn't have guessed if everyone is so familiar with boys acting so careful and loving around each other. If its the norm in a society the norm, that a man has to be strong and harsh, I understand that it’ll take that community a while to get used to the fact that everyone can love everyone, but apparently, in Korea, that's not the case so far. But I’ll try to find out more about that topic in the next months here.

They also have a very different approach to giving somebody a compliment. In Germany, it's often the case, that you don't give many compliments. At least not casually. There are some people that are really good at giving compliments, but it's not in our culture, to give compliments to people.

Here in Korea, I feel like it's not the same. It might be because I'm a western, blonde and relatively tall guy, that people give me more compliments here in Korea, but I've also heard between Korean friends that see each other in the morning and greet each other by complimenting the looks of the other person or telling them that they look handsome.

But that attitude towards compliments seems to be for both men and women. I've also had girls coming up to me, telling me that I'm handsome, in a totally casual way. And when I tried to find out if its uncomfortable for them, I asked them if they think the boy next to me is handsome, and most of the time answered completely normal, without blushing a single bit.

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maxkoreablog · 6 years

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School

On the Tuesday after my arrival, I had to introduce myself to my class.

Before I went to my class I had to sit down with the principal to clear some paperwork. While we were in the Office, students were hoarding in front of the door, even walking in just to see me. It was a very surreal experience. Whenever somebody waved to me and I waved back they started screaming. On one hand, it was kind of cool, because I felt very special, of course. On the other hand its very hard to concentrate, especially because I was sitting on a chair with my back to the door, so I constantly heard talking, screaming and laughing in my back. They kept me in the teachers’ room until the lunch break was over and I could go to my class. They had English, so it was just fitting, when I introduced myself in English. After I was finished, the students asked me some questions, but after about 15 minutes I was leaving again.

My first real schoolday was on the following Thursday. I was walking through the floors and everyone greeted me, everyone told me their names and told me to remember them. For some reason, the classrooms have windows to the floor and I was sitting directly in front of one of those windows. Between every lesson, there is a ten minutes break, to get from one class into the next one. In those breaks people were gathering in front of the windows, looking at me like an animal in a zoo. Whenever I had eye contact with someone for longer than half a second, they looked away and started laughing. It was a very weird experience, to be looked at so much. After the first lesson, my own class was pretty normal around me, so I wasn't feeling uncomfortable with them. The people in front of the windows weren't coming in as well. They just could have come in and talked to me, but instead, they just stayed there and stared.

The lessons were pretty normal. I was sitting beneath Ji Ho, a boy who was taking care of me, on my first few days. He showed me where everything was, translated as good as he could and really helped me in the beginning.

A problem I'm still facing is that in the school nobody really speaks English. All lessons are in Korean, apart from English, but even there, a lot on Korean is spoken. But everyone is really trying to communicate, which I really appreciate.

The subjects themselves are different in their way of teaching. At the moment I have eleven different of them.

Chinese

In Chinese, we mostly write Chinese signs in Din A5 notes, that have a special kind of raster to make it easier to fit the signs in. Apart from that, we don't do much there. Sometimes the teacher explains something at the blackboard, but I don't understand those phases of the lesson, because they are purely in Korean, and when I asked someone to translate it for me, they said it wouldn't be important for me.

Sports

In Sports, the lessons are pretty similar every time. Everybody stands in front of a little stage, on which the teacher or a special student instructs the warm-up. Everyone has a certain position on which he has to stand. At the moment we are doing Badminton in Sports, so after the warm-up, everyone gets a Bat and we go in pairs of two or four and start playing until the lesson is over.

Mathematics

Before I came here I was pretty scared of the Mathematics lessons, because I thought, that if I had to join in, everything would be way to hard for me, but the theme we have at the moment is actually pretty easy for me. Although I have to say that what I saw in their Textbook scared me a bit. I think I'm just lucky with the current Theme.

Korean History

In Korean History the teacher has a powerpoint presentation for every lesson and just talks for 50 minutes straight. After a few lessons she gave me a Book about Korean History, that is written in English. So now I'm just reading, that book, in these lessons.

Career

I really don't know what Career is about. At the moment we are planning a musical, and in the lesson before that, we went to a computer room. When I asked the guy sitting next to me what the task is, he just said that we don't have one, and can just use the computers.

Korean

In Korean were currently reading a story. I would say that these lessons are the most similar to the lessons I have in Germany. Even though I don't understand that much, it's still interesting. The teacher is in front, while the flatscreen, that every class has, shows the current text passage. They read a bit and then work with the text.

Science

In Science, it's also a lot of listening. But most of the time we get a worksheet which we have to fill out. After the lesson is over you give your worksheet to the teacher.

Music

Music is one of my favorite subjects. Our music teacher is super fun, even though she doesn't speak English she still tries to make the lessons interesting for me. And whenever she talks to the class you can sense that she really enjoys music herself. When you come into the class it starts off with a small warm-up for the voice, which was really funny the first few times, but is now casual. At the moment there are some sort of tests, so after that students have to go in front of the class and sing solo. I thought it would be terrible to look and listen at, seeing the student doing something they don't want to do, but some of them are really good and really do a performance. Before these tests, we just sang for an hour or listened to some classical music, while the teacher explained some things about the life of the artist.

English

English is, with Music, Sports, Chinese and Maths one of the only subjects I can work with the class. We have a really good English teacher as well, who speaks good English so I can join in the lessons, even though I am a lot better then they are. Most of the time a beamer projects a text on the blackboard and then the read the text. But they don't read it like I would read a text, no, they are very grammar orientated and so it takes a long time for short parts of the text.

Experiment

In these lessons, we just do experiments and analyze them. Its like chemistry lessons in Germany, but they are far behind what the pupils in Germany do in Chemistry. Currently, we are doing Redox-Reactions.

School starts at 8:55 am, so I have a lot more time in the morning then I have in Germany. But that time gets added on to the end, so that I have to stay at school until 5 pm every day, except Wednesday, where I can leave at 4 pm. As previously mentioned, I have ten minutes break between every lesson. I usually use that time to go to the drinking fountains and drink something. I've really learned to appreciate the way Koreans treat water-drinking. Water is always free in Korea. When you go into any restaurant or anywhere where you stay longer, you get unlimited water for free. But back to the school. We only have one longer break. Its the lunch break that is from 1 - 2 am. At 1:30 I go with some friends to the canteen. When I walked into the canteen the first few times, it was also really weird. Because you walk into this hall, where all the people are sitting, you come in and everybody looks at you. Not only am I really noticeable, because of my blonde Hair. I also am about 10 to 15 centimeters taller than most of the guys.

all in all, I really enjoy school so far!

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