Week 1: Arrival & things

Here's to you.

So yeah, the flights took me to Seoul from Helsinki via Amsterdam 27th August and I arrived here 28th August at 11am local, 5am Finnish time. The first week has been full of student life at its best. Here's a feeble attempt at describing my time in here so far. Because I dislike reading a lot of text in a messy format I've structured the blog the following way. I'll also be able to reflect on the most important points of the day. If you see that there's some logic missing just say so.

1. Learn
s) school
l) language
p) people
c) cultures
2. Feel
3. Do
4. Random

As you can see it's not just parties I do here! Maybe you'll get the hang of it.

1.s) School

Hands. Up. for Gathering. HUG is the local exchange committee here and they welcomed us with a dinner on the night before the first school day after the very good introduction from the Office of International Affairs. Oddly though the business students have a buddy of their own and other students belong to a group. I think they could just welcome everyone to HUG instead! My buddy came to pick us up from the airport with a car though so that's pretty awesome. Some people's buddies were not even found...

I had a positive problem with the courses offered by Sogang. I found quite a lot of courses I wanted to attend... fortunately there was some time to decide which courses I ultimately take at the beginning of the semester. My major is management & organization and I'll be studying both management and psychology during my time here. According to what I've heard the exchange semester is a good time to just study something that you're interested in, as it might be the last chance for you to reflect on your career choices. Later will be a lot more difficult I think. For me... I love studying organizations. I find psychology very interesting too, and as the studies in the two subjects go hand in hand I ended up having the positive problem. My courses now:

• Strategic Management Simulation
• Management Science
• International Business
• General Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Confidence in Communication
• Introduction to Personality Theories

of which I'll probably drop one. I didn't take some other interesting classes which e.g. didn't have group work. I now have 21 hours of lectures a week of which I can in total miss four in each course. It's pretty strict and, as I'm not the one to learn that much during lectures, not exactly meaningful either. The content of the lectures so far has appeared quite basic for me. I really,really need a laptop.

I believe the teaching protocol in the education system here is being detail-oriented as opposed to educating the way things work (processes). Let's see if that's the case in the mid-term exams in mid-October. More about the courses as the semester goes on!

Professors have assistants at their classes working pretty much as a secretary, including supervising the class attendance...

1.l) language
I actually spent a good while reading the extremely useful Lonely Planet phrasebook during the flights and amazed everyone with my dictionary of two words when I arrived. Despite the initial goal of learning some Korean even before the flight, all I did during the summer was 1 hour on the alphabets. It takes a lot of energy to study something that isn't present in your daily life, yet. So now I'm pretty much able to read stuff (slowly) but have no idea what it means. After one week I'm already navigating my way through basic requests for help. The Korean in question needs to know some English though.

Learning the language has been a lot of fun. Those who know my language skills probably know why... the pace has been a word or two a day depending each time on what I've needed. I probably shoud've taken the language course but the workload didn't really attract me. Besides, dropping the course would've cost quite a lot of money! No trial and error there.

I've come to the conclusion though that maybe the different alphabet is the reason for why people often speak quite little English and why it's difficult for them to pronounce it.

1.p) people
The first impression is often critical. My first impression was that especially the accommodation has been organized quite unefficiently and I cannot help but think if its because of the people here that these things just could be done a lot better. Let's see. A friend of mine complimented me of being brutally honest; hope nobody gets offended by my rambling. ;) Anyway: just read further in such case.

At least I could count on the accompanying Finns to understand my criticism. I travelled together with two other Finns of whom the other I met by a coincidence: our mothers having been study pals year this and that led to them meeting by accident and discussing what their children are doing at the moment. Well, it looked like both had one son going to Korea for exchange studies this fall. And guess what, on the same day. No way, they're even on the same flight. Small world, huh.

When I arrived here it seemed to me as if most local people just don't get it. If you know what I mean. They appear not to grasp the big picture and expect you to explain everything very in-depth, causing me to have to repeat everything I say. Or to translate from advanced (my everyday) English to baasic Engrish. But pretty much every Korean appreciates if you e.g. say hello in Korean. And if they do understand what you're trying to ask they'll be more than happy to help. With directions many locals consider it easier to even come to show the place to you themselves than to just tell you where it is. Also, I'm feel like I'm considered quite a genius here I guess due to being quick in doing things and in learning them. At least that's the impression they want to give...

The people here are quite shy when it comes to meeting new people. Especially the girls. Nobody will probably come and talk to you but they'll be very interested in getting acquainted because westerners are located high in the hierarchy.

About me and people in general though: at times it takes a lot of energy to get to know new people... but so far it's been 100 percent worth it. Groups of friends start to form from day 0, so it's good to know a lot of people to be able to socialize with everyone later on, too.

1.c) cultures

The hierarchy in everyday life. Ooh it's very present. It does have its pros and cons though which I'll reflect more later in the blog, I believe. One thing that you need to do is showing respect. People are very polite thanks to that.

The dormitory has verry strict rules: no arrivals 12-05AM (even though I spotted the guard sleeping at 2AM one night when I couldn't get sleep). No outsiders can come further than the lobby. Girls and guys live on different sides and do not have permission to enter the other sex's side. This and some other stuff has caused a lot of exchangers to move out from the campus... I won't, due to the scholarship I applied for and received for the dorm from Sogang and due to the dorm's location in the campus.

In comparison to Finland everything (shops, restaurants & services) appeared very primitive in a way. Not at all as structured or clean... wonder how I could better express the feeling. But it's different. Very safe though: I really don't feel scared about anything even on the side streets. Well, maybe on some dark alleys in a sketchy part of the downtown alone in the night, but that's called common sense.

Breakfast! People here are hungry in the morning, so the breakfast is pretty similar to lunch and dinner. One morning they actually served potatoes with no side dish. :D I also accidentally though the salad dressing was yogurt so that was an unpleasant surprise... Luckily they have a westerner side, but as the stuff there is just full sugar and the like I've decided to go with the local food pretty much every time. I hope I'll get rid of my sugar addiction here...

Breakfast and dinner are included in the housing, definitely one of the upsides of the dormitory. Pretty much no queues or stuff and no hazzle with money. OH, and you get kimchi at every meal (everywhere). It's spicy cabbage thingie served as a side dish. Very popular, very cheap, very healthy. And very spicy. Other side dishes are also included in the meal prices.

People don't drink that much here but we're exchange students who do. At some places you cannot even get any drinks without ordering food too. I thiink it's legal to drink outside but nobody does it here. Except for my crew.

2. Feel
Despite having prepared rather well I always feel like in a rush when I'm about to travel somewhere, anywhere. So I didn't like the feeling of D-day morning - the minor stress disappeared only at the airport when you couldn't really change anything anymore. The flight went by quite fast thanks to the good company. I especially enjoyed KLM's liquid snacks.

Having been here for a week I can say that I love the feeling of being free. Just no strings attached in a way. Do what you want to do and learn from it. Before you settle down, if you do, I think you really need something like this for you to know what you're doing. Even if it's difficult to leave everything you have behind. Take enough cash with you though.

I try the things I want to even if at times it takes a lot of energy to start doing them, especially true when it comes to social events. Later on I'll be able to as lazy as I want, having done the things I want to do. Right?

All in all, I feel positive. As long as I keep an open mind and try to think in a positive way I think I'll be able to get the most out of this. I tend to think of everything quite critically, including of myself, which can create the impression of me as a snob... which I'm not. Or at least don't want to be.

I will probably write a lot about my personality during this blog, and I hope you can see that I'm studying a lot of psychology. The starting point for my personal development is that I pretty much know my strengths and weaknesses but would need to find sources of energy to help me get started in doing things in the everyday life. As I write this I'm confident that the experiences I get here will make me more valuable even as a professional.

I might at times appear somewhat confusing as a person, probably because of the totally different personalities I have. At times I'm the most social person you can think of and sometimes THE introvert when it comes to socializing. I believe it has a lot to do with energy levels, changes and the human attribute of resisting anything that is new, whether it's good or bad. Quite like an autoimmune system in which the white blood cells strive for cleaning anything unknown from the body. Let's see if I can find patterns that would enable me to if not control at least identify my personality better at a given time. That would make me... well, better, e.g. more patient.

The jetlag will surely quit annoying me at a point or another.

3. Do

Me, Daniel (the other student from my university) and a Jessica from the States took a tour around the campus on the first evening even though we felt quite tired. Worth it. We went to a local barbeque buffet with no idea what the food was. All the locals were staring and laughing at us, at least that's the way it felt. Fortunately we had some westerners to guide us in the neighbouring table. Despite the food's interesting looks it tasted pretty awesome [bashi-soo]. So... the looks can be misleading. And you know that applies not only to food...

Afterwards we had some soju (ricewine, used like vodka) at the very inexpensive price of 3000KRW (2EUR). That's a very common street bar price for a bottle of it. I guess you can already guess how my liver will feel after my time in here!

As I already wrote we also had a welcome dinner. After it we went to the international Pub (iPub), which I guess will serve as some sort of a hub for us later on. The bars here serve 3 liter beer kegs which are very handy with an exchange student group! After iPub and another venue we ended up just on time to avoid the curfew at midnight (time: 23:59). That thing really is a bugger.

A welcome party took place on a Thursday evening as well. It was for all the universities in Seoul and it seems like there are a lot of Finns around here. You could see the party was for exchange students because of the great atmosphere. Some of us might have skipped classes on Friday. I woke up just in time for dinner...

What I didn't do because of that was become a model. Damn! Some friends went to a photoshoot where they auditioned for some company while I was sleeping. I hope I'll get a chance to do that some other time. Should be quite an experience, something I probably won't get to do in Finland.

I've been shopping, too. Namdaemoon, a local open air market of various vendors is the place to buy souvenirs, cheap clothes and e.g. towels. It's quite big and even the locals go there, it seems. So not that much of a rip-off place but remember that you're a tourist there (you will be ripped off). Getting a phone was relatively easy, but I had to make sure I ask all the questions so as not to get any unpleasant surprises. Now I have the coolest phone on the campus hands down.

The subway network is very large compared to Finland, but getting around is simple after the unavoidable fuzz in the beginning. I've been to places but haven't done that much sightseeing yet. My focus has been on people but also having some time for myself. Sinchon, City hall, Seoul station, Mapo and Yongsae are some metro stations I've been to. There's a big electronics market at the last one but its for ripping off tourists.

Learning by doing! I already consider myself quite ok when it comes to eating with chopsticks. The food has been pretty awesome, you merely need to accept the fact that it's different from western food. And very spicy compared to any Finnish dish. I've gotten used to that because I tend not to not try anything new and keep on eating the spicy stuff.

Grocery stores are quite difficult though... I've been to one so far and couldn't really see that much food I would've known about. The locals prefer kiosks though, you have them everywhere. Or well, they're a lot smaller than e.g. Alepa in Finland. At places you can warm up your micro noodles or [kimbab], the local sushi, and eat it there.

4. Random

See a brilliant video a friend of mine made of our exchange student life here.

The weather is tropical! 30C, and the first few days it was pouring. We even had the biggest typhoon in 15 years here (during which I slept like a baby).

Situation comedy: I once asked for directions but only got a single response: handicap. I don't know what the guy wanted to tell me with that.

Let's see if I'm lactose intolerant. I haven't drunk milk or eaten sugar since coming here and my stomach is making a lot less noises than before.

I'm probably gonna switch my bank from Nordea because they need you to send an sms from your registered number (my Finnish one doesn't have a network here) or to call them to Finland from here (expensive) to confirm some transfers. F*. There are for sure some business opportunities when it comes to banks and being international.

...Phew! That took a while... I'll try to be more compact in the future.

Over n out!

ps. the topic's "and things" refers to a professor whose English otherwise is ok but who repeats "and things" as a synonym to "etc". Situation comedy & a good example of the level of English here.