Well this week was a short week. Friday was the equivalent of Canada Day as I understand it. Not that much happened other than the orientation for my Korean language classes began.

We had class both Wednesday and Thursday. So I went Wednesday morning to the classroom where I was been told it was going to be. When I walked in there was a resounding “OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” that filled the room. I found my way to the back to the only open desk and everyone’s eyes followed me. I sat down and most people were turned around looking at me and smiling. I waved and said “hello” to which everyone began to giggle.

The teacher was a little bit late, so while we sat there waiting one or two students sitting close to me tried out their best English. It was really just, “Hello, how are you?” over and over. When the teacher got there she got right to it. There was no taking attendance or learning everyone’s name, we jumped right into watching a movie. It was Kung Fu Panda... and it was in English. When the movie was over she told us we could leave. Good first day.

The next day we learned what sounded to be a children’s song. It had a little dance that went along with it too. Something about a fat papa bear, a skinny momma bear and a cute baby. I’m not sure. After that we watched a few Korean music videos on the overhead projector. The music in Korea from what I’ve heard so far is pop, and only pop. All the videos we saw were of groups of kids that looked like they were 12 or 13 years old. The people love it though. I personally like indie rock / alternative type of stuff but I don’t think that genre has made it out here yet. They’re still stuck in the age of the boy band. It seems to be going strong too. It’s even grabbed a hold of the early 20’s aged males which is kind of strange. Every guy I have talked to about music has told me his favourite bands are Westlife and Back Street Boys. Back Street Boys??? Aren’t they dead???

When the music videos were over we were allowed to leave. The teacher told us to go play basketball. Everyone wanted to be on my team. I’m not sure if it was because I’m a “westerner” or because I’m a foot taller than everyone. Before the game started though a girl from class asked me if she could have a picture taken with me. That’s all it took to break the ice, soon there was literally a line of about 15 other people (girls) waiting to have their pictures taken with me as well. When the individual shots were done we got into the group shots with me in the center. I felt like a celebrity. Twenty minutes later we started to play basketball. I think they were a little disappointed with my performance. Just because you’re tall doesn’t mean you’re a great (even good) basketball player. So I mostly stood under the net and grabbed all the rebounds.

I was told a few weeks ago that the class would consist of a bunch of a Chinese students and me. We actually have a big variety of people in the class. Yes, most of them are Chinese, but we have a few people from Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Rwanda. The guy from Rwanda’s name is Sam, he had the same kind of greeting when he walked into the class as I did, “OHHHHHHHHHH.” He speaks English very well, so he sat beside me and we started talking. He’s majoring in Theology and is going to be Korea for 5 years. The funniest thing is that he told me he hates Korean food. Good luck Sam.

Dr. Kim, his grad students and I climbed another mountain this week. I seemed to have started something with them when I mentioned I wanted to climb a mountain a few weeks ago. Dr. Kim has made it a mandatory weekly event for his grad students to climb a mountain. So we go on Thursday afternoons. For some of his students it was their first time ever climbing one of the mountains and they’ve lived here their whole lives! They weren’t happy!

I’m hoping to go into Seoul this weekend to buy a new camera. I’ve been scouring message boards and forums for the best deals available. I think I’ve got it narrowed down so I’m going to try my luck haggling with the shop keeps. Hopefully I’ll have some better pictures next week. Here are a few from our most recent mountain climb.

A few interesting things happened this week. The Chinese students arrived that I’ll be taking Korean language classes with. I was surprised as to how good their English is. They call it “Ching-glish.” They all seem really nice. One girl is really shy around me because I’m the first “westerner” that she’s ever met. They’ll be taking Korean for a year and then starting in Graduate Degree programs.

I’ve also joined the rest of the 99.999999% of the Korean population by finally getting a cell phone, or “hand phone” as they go by here. I’m glad I was able to finally get one because now I feel like I can jump on a bus and go exploring by myself. Getting lost doesn’t really seem like a problem anymore now that I can call someone up to get directions or help if I need it. It’s a cute little thing, I have to admit. It has some pretty handy features like a built in map of the Seoul subway system, exchange rate calculator and Karaoke. Yes indeed, portable Karaoke.

I’ve always had the dream of taking an ordinary thing like riding an elevator with a bunch of strangers and turning it into a Karaoke party. That dream is finally within reach.

Anyways, I went to Seoul this past Sunday for the first time. I went with my Korean language teacher and her boyfriend; Joyce and Bill. As far as public transport goes, there’s three ways to get to Seoul from where I live; high speed bullet train, normal train and subway. We chose to take the ladder which is the cheapest, and therefore the longest.  I was up at 6am to catch a bus for 7am to get to the closest subway station.  The subway ride into the area of the town where we went was 2 hours long. Yuck.

We got off at a station called Myeong-dong which seemed to be the fashion district. It was an enormous area with nothing but clothing stores, restaurants and street vendors. We arrived there at 11am and started walking around. The streets there are meant for pedestrians only; they’re not very wide, almost like large alleys. I felt like I was in a maze, a maze that had also trapped thousands of other people. The place was jammed.

The weather is starting to cool down a little bit so I figured I might as well look for a light jacket to wear for the autumn. With so many stores everywhere this should be an easy task I thought. Well, I was wrong. It’s not that there wasn’t a great selection, there was. There are stores ranging from Old Navy prices to high-end department stores. It was the sizes that were the problem. Even the XL sizes were too small. If the body of the jacket fit the arms were too short. If the arms were long enough the shoulders were too tight. If the shoulders weren’t tight it was bright purple or something. There was always something wrong with every jacket I tried on.

We went to one store that was 5 or 6 stories high, each floor was divided into a type of grid with nothing but small clothing vendors lined up. On one of the men’s floors there was one small shop with nothing but jackets. We walked in, the girl working looked me up and down and said, “We don’t have anything that fits you here, maybe you should try a different country.” A different country? My jacket shopping came to an end at that moment. No one had told nothing in all of Korea will fit me. Thank you for your honesty Shop Keep.

Maybe I’ll have better luck in Japan next month?

We had enough shopping so they asked if I wanted to go to Karaoke. I was all for it, expecting we were going to a bar. That’s where Karaoke’s done right? Unless you have it on your cell phone I guess. I was wrong about both things. Karaoke in Korea is done in private booths about the size of a medium sized bathroom. There were bench seats around the wall, a small table in the center, a large flat panel screen on the wall, a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling and a tambourine on the table should the mood strike you. So because it’s private karaoke you have full control of the music; you choose it, you can stop it, change the speed or key, etc...

It was a great time. Bill I found out is a rock star (not really). You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a small Korean man SCREAMING Linkin Park songs. Nothing is greater.

Well, for this week nothing that much exciting has happened. I’m starting to get into a routine and settle into my surroundings. The first few weeks felt like they weren’t real. Everything was new and different. Now it’s starting to feel like home (in a good way).

I have stopped going to my intermediate level Korean language classes because Dr. Kim feels that they weren’t really helping me anyways. I would have to agree. Four hours of the day were spent in a class with students who have been learning Korean for the last year. I would sit at the back of the room with a blank look on my face with the students occasionally turning to look at me and giggle. My beginner level class starts on October 1^st. I’m sure I’ll feel a little more comfortable in this class with students that are at my understanding level. 

Instead of going to these classes I have been spending more time with the OLED grad students. Dr. Kim has laid out a schedule for me for the next few weeks outlining what I’ll be doing each day. For the rest of September I’ll be learning about OLEDs and the OLED manufacturing process. So far I’ve been in the clean room cutting and cleaning the glass that will eventually become OLED panels. The clean room facility they have is enormous with lots of advanced equipment. Display Technology students get to do labs in these clean rooms to learn about all of the many types of display technologies that can be manufactured here. Most of the Display Technology graduates from Hoseo University will end up getting jobs at the Samsung Display factory that’s a 5 minute drive from the school.

I’ve learned a few other things about the school. Display Technology is one of the school’s undergraduate degree programs. After graduating from this a student can apply to get into a Masters program where they choose a specific technology and focus on that. For example OLED, LCD or Plasma. Display Technology is just one of the many undergrad degrees you can get here. I’ve been told by a few people some of the other programs that are available. At Hoseo University you can get a four year degree in Body Guarding. I thought that was kind of funny. If body guarding isn’t your thing, you can get an undergrad degree in tennis, soccer or golf. Of course there are many other programs, I just couldn’t believe you could get a degree in golf. But it’s true.

Oh! Did I say nothing excited happened this week?  That’s not true at all. I was told by Dr. Kim that he’s going to be sending me to a few Display Conferences over the next couple of months. The conferences are being held in Seoul, Beijing and Kyoto. What an amazing opportunity to see some more countries in Asia. The Seoul trip is in mid October, Japan is at the end of October and China is in November. I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures.

Before I end this entry I thought I should comment on a few odd things I’ve been noticing over the last few days. Well, you know how people in Canada and the US often get tattoos or wear t-shirts with Chinese characters on them? It’s sort of like that. I haven’t seen anyone with any English writing as a tattoo yet, but I have seen many t-shirts. Some of which I just couldn’t figure out. For example the other day I was walking home from school when I saw a girl wearing a blue t-shirt with a giant pink heart in the middle. Across the heart was written, “I Love My Hooker.” Another one I saw was a white t-shirt with big block letters that simply said, “Sun Your Buns.”  I don’t know if this is a cruel joke by some company printing these t-shirts knowing full well what they say, or if something was lost in the translation from what they were originally intended to say. In either case they’re quite funny.

There’s a room in the school. The door is always closed, I’ve never seen inside. There’s a sign with something written in Korean and underneath the Korean the word “Arm” is written in English. What could be in that room???  I’m not sure I want to know.

This week was an interesting week. The highlight of which was me climbing a mountain.

One of the international teachers here at the school asked me if I wanted to climb one of the mountains with him. He said he does it once a week or so for exercise and that it only takes about 30 minutes to get to the top. I told him I would love to. So it was set for Thursday morning.

The teacher’s name is David Hill, he’s from the UK and is about 45 years in age. If this can guy can do it I thought, well then I should be running up and down this mountain with no problems at all. So we set out early Thursday morning. For some reason I thought it would be in my best interest not to eat in the morning, just bringing a bottle of water should be enough. It probably wasn’t the best plan, but I should be ok. We made it to the bottom of the mountain where the trail begins. It was paved and ran along a small stream of mountain water run-off. It was very beautiful. It looked very much like the Niagara Escarpment area. I’m no Environmentalist, but it seemed to be the same types of trees and plant life that’s abundant in the Escarpment area.

There were a few small gazebos just off to the sides of the trail where it was obvious that more than a few parties had been held there. This area of the trail, the first third, was a clay trail that climbed the mountain very gradually. You knew you were going uphill, but barely. This was great I thought, I was keeping pace with David rather well. I could even go a little faster.

The clay trail came to an end at a resting area where there was bench overlooking the valley on the opposite side of the mountain where we had started. David said that from here it gets a little steeper and that the trail is a little bit looser gravel with tree roots and rocks. No problem.

We started up this portion of the trail. He was right, the angle of ascent quickly increased. I was off to a good start, still keeping pace with David until about 5 minutes up this second portion. My legs started to feel heavy and fatigued, I slowed down slightly and David gained some ground on me. He looked back to see how I was doing, I told him I was fine and not to slow down on my account.

My legs went from slightly heavy and fatigued to full out stiff and sore in a matter of another 5 minutes. The trail was fairly vertical at this point and every step was painful. I made it to a small flat area where I decided to rest. David was nowhere in sight. I was sweating like I never have before and I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I was fairly sure I was going to either A) pass out, or B) throw up. I’ve never had a panic attack before, but I thought that must be what it feels like. Then I got a view through some trees of how high I actually was and got dizzy. I had to sit down or I was going to pass out for real. The realization of how out of shape I actually am was more obvious than it has ever been. So I layed down on a rock and closed my eyes. I layed there for about 10 minutes until I was able to compose myself and then continued on.

The rest of the way was pretty much the same. Very steep and no footing, especially for my Nike Shocks I was wearing.

I eventually made it to the top and found a gazebo with some benches. David was standing there looking at his watch. I made it up in 55 minutes. He had made it in 25. I collapsed onto one of the benches and told him I was going to lay there for a bit. He had to leave because he had a class to teach soon.

So I was alone at the top of this mountain now and got up off the bench to take a look at the view. It was amazing. The mountain was one of the highest in the area at about 550 meters. Although it was a little bit hazy that day you could see for miles in all directions. I spent about 45 minutes at the top enjoying the view and taking some pictures.

As I was about to leave, an older Korean man of about 60 – 65 came up from the trail to the top. He didn’t have a bead of sweat on him. He casually walked over to the gazebo in his slightly hunched stance and lit up a cigarette. Stayed on the top for as long as it took to finish his cigarette and then promptly went right back down the trail.

I’ve never been envious of a 65 year old before. I should start smoking.

. Again, the mountains stood out. Coming from Niagara Falls this isn’t something you see very much. The whole campus is sort of nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains. Any place there was enough flat ground to build something, they did. So to get around from building to building on campus there are many bridges and paths to take.

I’m enrolled in a beginners Korean language class which starts at the end of September. So they have placed me in the middle of an intermediate level class that was already in progress. Needless to say everything that is said is way above my head. The class is made up of all Chinese students and one Russian student. Except for my name occasionally being said and everyone turning to look at me to giggle I don’t really know what’s going on, even then I’m not sure what’s going on.

I’ve met so many nice people. Everyone has been more than happy to show me around the campus and the town of Asan. Most of my time is spent with Dr. Kim’s graduate students. A few of them can speak a little bit of English. I’ve also met some of the English teachers here at the University. They’ve come from all over the world; a few from Canada, New Zealand, the UK and a whole bunch from the US. They’ve also been very helpful, offering to take me out to dinner so I can learn how to read menus and order for myself.

All in all my first week has been very hectic and tiring. I can’t wait to meet with Dr. Kim and get a schedule worked out so that I can start learning more about their display technology labs and clean rooms. More to come soon!

Week 1 – First Impressions

My name is Ryan Butler. I’m an Electronic Engineering Technologist student at Niagara College in Welland, Ontario, Canada. I’ve been lucky enough to have been offered an opportunity to come to Asan, South Korea for four months to study Display Technology and the Korean language at Hoseo University (pronounced Ho-so). This blog is meant to be a record of my trip to Korea and to document all of my new experiences. I’ve never considered myself a writer by any means, and have never kept a blog before. I just hope I’m able to capture my experiences and feelings enough so that you can understand a little bit of what it’s like to be here as I try to.

So here we go.

The week leading up to my plane leaving was pretty stressful, I had to pack for four months and I had a bad feeling I was going to leave something out. I also had to run around and say goodbye to relatives. It seemed there wasn’t enough time in the days. But when I sat down in my seat on the plane everything seemed to melt away. If I forgot something, too bad, they would have it in Korea (I hoped).

The flight actually seemed to fly by (no pun intended). Before I knew it, 13 hours had passed and I was landing in Incheon International Airport. Everything went smoothly at the airport thanks to many English signs. When I came out of the baggage claim area there was a big sign reading, “Mr. Ryan Butler” that was being held by two of Dr. Kim’s students. Dr. Kim is the professor at Hoseo University who was largely responsible for bringing me here. One of his students luckily spoke some English. Enough anyways to answer a few questions I had like, “Which way to the ATM?”

The car ride into Asan was about 2 hours from the airport. All of the sleep I didn’t get on the plane caught up to me in the car. It was a blur. I remember it being extremely hot and humid, and every time I woke up for a few minutes and looked around we were stuck in traffic on some highway. The one thing that did stand out was that we seemed to be constantly surrounded by mountains. This would make sense seeing as 60% of Korea is mountain ranges.

Once we made it into Asan the first stop was to take a look at my apartment. It’s in a building that’s brand new. Actually, it’s still under construction. I’m the first person to occupy this particular apartment so everything is sparkling clean. I was surprised to find a small fridge and a washing machine. Although using the washing machine had a small learning curve before I could use it.

Another strange thing I noticed when looking around the apartment was that the washroom had no shower. I was actually a little worried for a second before I noticed that in the corner there was a shower head pointed above the sink. Was I to shower standing in front of the sink? The whole washroom was tiled and looked water tight, so I guess that meant yes. So I did. For four days, in freezing cold water. This was a horrifying experience, but this is how the Koreans do it I thought, so this is how I’m going to do it. Until I realized that like in Canada things don’t work until you plug them in. After the hot water tank was plugged in for a day or so there was hot water. Although I felt a little silly, the warm showers quickly made up for it.

My building is right next to the University campus. So I took a walk around to explore a bit. It’s absolutely beautiful. Again, the mountains stood out. Coming from Niagara Falls this isn’t something you see very much. The whole campus is sort of nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains. Any place there was enough flat ground to build something, they did. So to get around from building to building on campus there are many bridges and paths to take.

I’m enrolled in a beginners Korean language class which starts at the end of September. So they have placed me in the middle of an intermediate level class that was already in progress. Needless to say everything that is said is way above my head. The class is made up of all Chinese students and one Russian student. Except for my name occasionally being said and everyone turning to look at me to giggle I don’t really know what’s going on, even then I’m not sure what’s going on.

I’ve met so many nice people. Everyone has been more than happy to show me around the campus and the town of Asan. Most of my time is spent with Dr. Kim’s graduate students. A few of them can speak a little bit of English. I’ve also met some of the English teachers here at the University. They’ve come from all over the world; a few from Canada, New Zealand, the UK and a whole bunch from the US. They’ve also been very helpful, offering to take me out to dinner so I can learn how to read menus and order for myself.

All in all my first week has been very hectic and tiring. I can’t wait to meet with Dr. Kim and get a schedule worked out so that I can start learning more about their display technology labs and clean rooms. More to come soon!