May 19th 2008 was quite a day. I turned both 21 and 22 years old. While I may be 21 in Canada, I'm 22 in Korea. Here they give you credit for the time spent in the womb. I wonder what the pro-choice groups have to say about that here.
The 19th was also my first day at work. I didn't know what time I was to start at so I showed up at 8am, but prof. Lee wasn't there. I wandered around a bit and came back at 8:15. Still not there. 8:30. Not there. 8:45 ... 9:00 ... 9:15 ... 9:30. Not there. I walked back to rez to check my e-mail in case there were instructions to be found there. Nope. I finally found him in his office at 10:30. Ends up most people start work at 10am.
First Prof. Lee showed me his lab. The place is pretty impressive. It's not very large, but has tons a really interesting equipment like sputtering and atomic layer deposition machines and a yellow room (a clean room). You have to get dressed up like spacemen to work in there. The second part of the lab has a couple of desks where prof. Lee's students work. There's Yong-Mu Kim, a graduate student (he picked me up at the airport) , Song..., an undergrad and myself. Neither one of them speak english very well so the first meeting was a little awkward, but they've improved a lot and we can at least function moderately effectively.
Next on the agenda was finding out what exactly I would be doing for the next 3 months. I was a little disappointed when prof. Lee told me that he didn't have anything planned for me and that I would be doing my own little research project. I was hoping to work with prof. Lee or at least be working on a project that would help with his research. He suggested I look into the synthesis of nanoparticles and come up with something to do with them for the summer.
I was also given a second task. English is very important in the Korean business community and proficiency in the language is a huge hurdle for many Koreans. Koreans start learning English in middle school and most continue taking classes well past their university years. However, most of their classes consist of listening to the teacher speak English and reading textbooks, very rarely do they get a chance to practice speaking the language. They have all of the knowledge, but no execution. Because of this, prof. Lee asked me to help his students with their English.
For this reason and because I'm the only foreigner in the department (everyone is Korean) I attracted so much attention that I felt like a local celebrity. For the first few weeks it was hard to get any work done because people were constantly dropping in to chat. I didn't mind this at all since I got to meet a lot of people very quickly and made me feel welcome in the department almost instantly.
It was fun listening to everyone because they seemed to ask the same questions:
-Do you like Korea?
-Do you like Korean food?
-What time did you go to bed at?
-How old are you?
-Do you have a girlfriend?
They seemed particularly interested in the time I went to bed and how old I was. Koreans work ridiculous hours (more on that later) which explains their interest in my sleep patterns and age is very important in Kroean culture. They need to know if you are older or younger then they are and there are conventions depending on who is older. For example, if you are at a restaurant it is tradition that the oldest person picks up the tab. Also, when addressing someone who is older then you, you add Hyung at the end of their name, or Nuna if it's a woman. Through all the questions about my age the word got around that it was my birthday.
I was starting to feel a little homesick because it was my birthday and I wasn't sure what I was going to do that evening. I had settled on getting a nice dinner and watching a movie in the dorm when Young-Mu brought me to the conference room downstairs. They had bought me a cake and they sang me happy birthday. Here were a bunch of strangers that I had only met once or twice that day and they all gathered around to wish me happy birthday (actually they say "congratulations" instead of "happy birthday" I haven't figured out why yet), it really speaks volumes about Koreans. They are the friendliest people on the planet. After eating the cake, with chopsticks, they took me out for a traditional Korean dinner.
We had Sangchussam which was described to me as a Korean barbecue. We all sat around a hot plate and cooked little strips of pork on a bunsen burner. We then took the pieces of meat and placed them on a leaf of lettuce with garlic and onions and other toppings. We then folded the lettuce over the food and ate it in one big bite. It was very good. The meal also featured lots of Soju. Now Soju is Korean liquor. It's only 19% alcohol, but that is all that it is. There's no flavour other then alcohol and it has no redeeming qualities other then the fact that it can make things begin to spin if consumed in large quantities. The did make me a bomb though, which is composed of soju placed on a shot of coke in a glass which is then filled with beer. It was ok but had nothing on an Irish Car Bomb which I tried in vain to describe to them.
After dinner we went out to a bar and then finished the night off at a little diner (which also served Soju). The night ended with me stumbling back home just before the midnight curfew and landing hard on my bed. I then had to get out of bed and stand, with everything slightly out of focus, for the room inspection before crashing back onto my bed.
Tuesday was going to be a rough day.
The 19th was also my first day at work. I didn't know what time I was to start at so I showed up at 8am, but prof. Lee wasn't there. I wandered around a bit and came back at 8:15. Still not there. 8:30. Not there. 8:45 ... 9:00 ... 9:15 ... 9:30. Not there. I walked back to rez to check my e-mail in case there were instructions to be found there. Nope. I finally found him in his office at 10:30. Ends up most people start work at 10am.
First Prof. Lee showed me his lab. The place is pretty impressive. It's not very large, but has tons a really interesting equipment like sputtering and atomic layer deposition machines and a yellow room (a clean room). You have to get dressed up like spacemen to work in there. The second part of the lab has a couple of desks where prof. Lee's students work. There's Yong-Mu Kim, a graduate student (he picked me up at the airport) , Song..., an undergrad and myself. Neither one of them speak english very well so the first meeting was a little awkward, but they've improved a lot and we can at least function moderately effectively.
Next on the agenda was finding out what exactly I would be doing for the next 3 months. I was a little disappointed when prof. Lee told me that he didn't have anything planned for me and that I would be doing my own little research project. I was hoping to work with prof. Lee or at least be working on a project that would help with his research. He suggested I look into the synthesis of nanoparticles and come up with something to do with them for the summer.
I was also given a second task. English is very important in the Korean business community and proficiency in the language is a huge hurdle for many Koreans. Koreans start learning English in middle school and most continue taking classes well past their university years. However, most of their classes consist of listening to the teacher speak English and reading textbooks, very rarely do they get a chance to practice speaking the language. They have all of the knowledge, but no execution. Because of this, prof. Lee asked me to help his students with their English.
For this reason and because I'm the only foreigner in the department (everyone is Korean) I attracted so much attention that I felt like a local celebrity. For the first few weeks it was hard to get any work done because people were constantly dropping in to chat. I didn't mind this at all since I got to meet a lot of people very quickly and made me feel welcome in the department almost instantly.
It was fun listening to everyone because they seemed to ask the same questions:
-Do you like Korea?
-Do you like Korean food?
-What time did you go to bed at?
-How old are you?
-Do you have a girlfriend?
They seemed particularly interested in the time I went to bed and how old I was. Koreans work ridiculous hours (more on that later) which explains their interest in my sleep patterns and age is very important in Kroean culture. They need to know if you are older or younger then they are and there are conventions depending on who is older. For example, if you are at a restaurant it is tradition that the oldest person picks up the tab. Also, when addressing someone who is older then you, you add Hyung at the end of their name, or Nuna if it's a woman. Through all the questions about my age the word got around that it was my birthday.
I was starting to feel a little homesick because it was my birthday and I wasn't sure what I was going to do that evening. I had settled on getting a nice dinner and watching a movie in the dorm when Young-Mu brought me to the conference room downstairs. They had bought me a cake and they sang me happy birthday. Here were a bunch of strangers that I had only met once or twice that day and they all gathered around to wish me happy birthday (actually they say "congratulations" instead of "happy birthday" I haven't figured out why yet), it really speaks volumes about Koreans. They are the friendliest people on the planet. After eating the cake, with chopsticks, they took me out for a traditional Korean dinner.
We had Sangchussam which was described to me as a Korean barbecue. We all sat around a hot plate and cooked little strips of pork on a bunsen burner. We then took the pieces of meat and placed them on a leaf of lettuce with garlic and onions and other toppings. We then folded the lettuce over the food and ate it in one big bite. It was very good. The meal also featured lots of Soju. Now Soju is Korean liquor. It's only 19% alcohol, but that is all that it is. There's no flavour other then alcohol and it has no redeeming qualities other then the fact that it can make things begin to spin if consumed in large quantities. The did make me a bomb though, which is composed of soju placed on a shot of coke in a glass which is then filled with beer. It was ok but had nothing on an Irish Car Bomb which I tried in vain to describe to them.
After dinner we went out to a bar and then finished the night off at a little diner (which also served Soju). The night ended with me stumbling back home just before the midnight curfew and landing hard on my bed. I then had to get out of bed and stand, with everything slightly out of focus, for the room inspection before crashing back onto my bed.
Tuesday was going to be a rough day.
No comments:
Post a Comment