This weekend, I was able to get away from school for two days to spend some time in Seoul. I have been extremely busy with classes and my exchanges. A part of my international program here at SCH requires me to meet with Korean students for cultural exchanges, where we talk about basically anything, mostly in English but I have been able to start discussing a few things in Korean. Last semester, I had six exchanges per week with ten Korean students. This semester, I have thirteen hours of exchanges with twenty-four Korean students. When I am not in class, I am almost always in the exchange room, it has been crazy! I am happy that I have these exchanges though because all of my exchange partners are very enthusiastic about learning more English and helping me with my Korean. I hope that by the end of the semester, I will be able to have the last exchanges with them in Korean, we'll see!
On Saturday, I went to visit the Byeons. I hadn't seen them since I left for school a month ago, so it was great to catch up and hear what they have been up to. Hyesun is finishing her last semester of University, Kyunghye has been busy studying for the college entrance exam, and Seungyoung has recently picked up basketball, so he plays with some neighborhood friends at the court in the apartment complex. I went with Hyesun and Kyunghye to see "The King's Speech" which was absolutely fabulous. I have read quite a bit about that era in English history, so it was great to see it come to life. It is so inspiring because the main character overcomes a speech impediment to become a leader for his people in one of the darkest chapters in history. I think everyone has individual mountains we have to overcome to become the person we are meant to be. I feel like I am trekking a few of these mountains as I continue to learn Korean and live in a different culture. I am excited to see where this journey will lead and what kind of future God has planned for me.
On Sunday, I went to ILC (International Lutheran Church) and visited the Wasmunds. I have come to realize, being only able to attend an English speaking church about once a month, how important church is for me. It truly renews, encourages, and connects my faith and soul to my Creator. I am going to try to visit ILC more often, because it is such an encouragement for my faith to be surrounded by so many devoted and passionate Brothers and Sisters in Christ. While at church, I met Autumn, who is an English teacher not too far from my school. She was a missionary in Papau New Guinea and now teaches here in Korea. It was interesting to hear about her experiences and the places she has seen.
She joined the Wasmunds and I for lunch. I was so happy to visit with Matt, Dee Dee, Lily and Olivia again. I hadn't seen them since my Sisters and Mom came to Korea, which was over a month ago. Dee Dee is working with the girls at home as well as sending them to Chinese school part time. Lily started Explode the Code, which for all us homeschoolers, is the textbook for learning to read and write basic words. Dee Dee asked Lily if she had some exciting news to tell me and Autumn. Beaming with pride, Lily announced that she read her first words by "sounding it out." A huge milestone! Another exciting thing that is happening with the Korean Lutheran Church is that the first outreach missionary is coming to Seoul this Summer. Matt also said that all of the missionaries in Japan are safe, which is a huge relief.
I got back to school Sunday evening, just in time to help a few of the girls with English homework and study for my two Korean language exams. On Monday, I had my Korean Speaking class and my Korean Dance class. Korean Dance is a lot of fun! The girls in the class have a good sense of humor and the teacher is very helpful. We are learning a traditional Korean Fan Dance, which requires a new kind of coordination: keeping knees together, while walking gracefully without changing the level of your body. Extremely complicated, but it is fun to learn with the my classmates who always have a smile on their faces as we stumble through this dance.
Monday evening was the date for the much anticipated "Meeting" with one of the guys suites. In the Global Village Dorm, there are four towers: two for girls, two for guys. Girls aren't allowed in the Boys towers and Boys aren't allowed in the Girls. It is this gender separation that coming from a coed public university dorm last year, I was quite shocked to see. I didn't like the extreme of anything goes in my home university, but at the same time this is quite the other extreme.
So, in order for guys and girls to spend time together in the suites, they have to set up a prearranged "suite meeting" approved by the head of the dorm. In these meetings, a guy suite invites the girls from one of the girl suites to come and hang out in their suite. Girls are never allowed to invite the guys suites to the girls dorms. In these meetings, the two suites order food and spend time with other people from Global Village.
My suite was invited to one of these meetings a few weeks ago. It has been the main topic of discussion for the last week. The girls in my suite started getting ready for this "meeting" around an hour before. They were so busy fixing their hair and picking an outfit that was cute but casual. It still amazes me how much thought they put into their appearance, American girls do this, but not to the amount of detail as the Korean girls. I just slapped on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, we were going to eat and hang out, not to meet the president or something. After everyone was dressed and ready, we paraded from our girls dorm to the boys dorm. It was so funny to see the girls faces as they walked down the "forbidden" hall to the illustrious boys dorm. It was like Belle in Beauty and Beast walking to the West Wing: a place once forbidden, but curiousness and anticipation overcoming the initial reservations. Seriously, they were hyping up this boys dorm way too much. It reminded me of a bunch of junior high girls going to the first dance of junior high.
Sure enough, the adolescent like behavior continued. When we reached the third floor to suite 301, all of the girls stood away from the doorway like it had a contagious disease. Me and the other older girl in my suite led the parade of giggling, blushing girls into the boys suite. The guys were very polite, bowing and greeting the girls as they sat down. Their room was unbelievably clean, cleaner than our suite. Then again, they may have cleaned it because the "girls" were coming, but I did see a cleaning schedule, something our suite lacks. The boys sat on one side of the suite, while the girls sat on the other. It looked like an American middle school dance: boys and girls separated, awkwardly glancing at each other. After a few minutes of this, I couldn't take it anymore. Granted it's cute for twelve year olds, but everyone in the room was 18-24 years old! I know Koreans are very outgoing when given the opportunity, so I decided to shake things up. I told some of the guys to move to the girls side, while moving some of my suitemates to the boys side. We were there to meet one another and have fun, not to awkwardly stare at the other side. Once people moved around, the rest of the evening was a lot of fun. We ate Chitang, played some Kpop, and got to meet some of our fellow Global Village residents.
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