The First Month of School

As I sit here sipping on Theraflu to alleviate my cold symptoms, I realize that I haven’t updated this blog in a month.  Which means that I’ve been in Seoul for a month!  It’s hard to believe that it’s been so long. The beginning of the school year has kept me occupied with some interesting Korea University events.

Friends from Korea, Lebanon, United States, China, France...yep, just a normal Sunday :)

All first semester students are strongly encouraged to attend MT, or Membership Training, to be initiated into their program.  At Korea University, this basically consists of renting a cabin out in the country and drinking a lot of makgeolli, or traditional Korean rice wine.  In small groups, attendees have to drink makgeolli out of bowls before everyone stops singing a KU song.  In my case, this meant that the team leader had to jump in and finish my makgeolli to avoid penalization.  After doing this, in a show of bravado, everyone has to stand and individually shout out a set introduction…in Korean.  Luckily, my enthusiasm helped me to pass this test, because my Korean language abilities are surely subpar. 

The rest of the night is spent eating, drinking, and listening to music with other students from the same program, in my case, about 50 or so of my classmates.  It was really cool to be a part of this tradition, which apparently goes back for generations.  I was told that my group leader helping me out with my makgeolli is meant to signify that people in your program have your back – obviously an important point in a highly collectivist society.  Also, introductions reflect what I perceive as the militarization of culture.  All Korean men have to serve in the military, and it has definitely had an impact on modern Korean society.  The introductions made it sound like we were all off to fight a battle. 

This past weekend was the traditional rivalry between Korea University and Yonsei University, which rank 2nd and 3rd in the country.  (Seoul National University knocks them both out of the ballpark, so to speak.)

A vicious rivalry indeed.

I attended the largest game of the weekend, the soccer game.  This was another interesting cultural experience.  No one really watches the game, so to speak.  Led by a uniformed dance team, everyone sings and dances in the stands to music…that EVERYONE knows.  So, in unison, people belt out lively music while busting out the choreographed dance moves.  It was quite entertaining, to say the least.   Korea University won, of course.  The rest of the night was spent in the streets near KU mingling with students from both schools.

Other than that, classes have been going well.  Taking six classes has kept me really busy, but living quite close to campus has been conducive to getting to know my classmates really well.  I’ve definitely been enjoying my time here.