One thing I kept on looking forward to after moving into to my host family’s place was the climbing I would get to do with my host dad. With the whole retirement thing working out for him, he’s got plenty of time to chill with his peeps. Fortunately, I have lay time on the weekends to utilize and, in this instance, I went along with my host parents to climb around in 북한산국립공원 (Bukhansan National Park), the only one right next to Seoul proper.
For reference, my host dad has a six plus decades and counting on him. Nevertheless, his gang of 윗사람 (elders) seemed to just take the climb. I guess prioritizing it during your leisure time works out pretty well for one’s fitness. Now, although not the most sizable, Bukhansan has plenty of depth to it. It has a number of peaks for those who want a roller coaster-like trail during their hike. It has a number of scenic spots for the Instagram filter addicts. It has a fortress wall for folks keen on getting panoramas of Seoul. Going through our planned trail, we spotted a good number of other groups picnicking along various points. The 아주마들 and 아저씨들 sure do dig having 야유회들 (outings) in mountainous locales.
Shucks, so did we after reaching our planned peak. You folks may already know about 소주, but you don’t about it as well as 아저씨들. They drink it on the daily, including during relatively rigorous activities. Even with all the Pocari Sweat available, apparently liquor helps fuel their blood. Speaking of fuel, I apparently over-fueled and needed the bathroom real bad. But with a highly frequented mountain and people everywhere, taking public use of a shrub seemed like a no go. In turn, the rest of the hike for me became a hunt for a ranger station. You would imagine, in a national park, there would be a propensity of them, right? Unfortunately, I went about nearly the rest of descent feeling like Boo.
That story had a happy ending and we went off for a group lunch. I felt so bad for the 종업원들 (waitresses) because the 아저씨들 didn’t take too long to reach inebriation. In fact, they appreciated my company enough to pour me an entire bottle of 막걸리. Along with all that, they started getting all impressed-parent-like on me and offered to set me up on a 소개팅 (blind date, pronounced “sogaeting”). As fun as the day was, that was a good cue to head home.
A fun hike aside, the week brought on another experience–a new research position! After doing a modest amount of behavioral work in the summer, I worked out with Dr. Young-Shin Kim a position with a colleague of hers, Dr. Murim Choi. Dr. Choi, Ph.D., actually worked under Dr. Richard Lifton in the Department of Genetics of the Yale School of Medicine while Dr. Kim was still part of the team at the Yale Child Study Center, where I was fortunate enough to reach out to her before her shift to UC San Francisco with her husband. What’s with all the Korean doctors leaving Yale, amirite? Well, I got started in my first lab were I would actually be coding a part of the time, which I barely put enough time into with my curriculum. The first week actually wasn’t too much coding and more so just getting familiar with how the lab works on each subject we deal with. I’m working my way up!
A classmate from Shanghai, Ing-Ing, and I actually dabbled into KU’s art scene a bit Thursday night by attending their production of “Santa Co.”, a musical about, you guessed it, a company running for Santa. In the story, we follow Sonny or 한선우 as he ends up starting his job for Santa Co., designed to figure what all the children of the world want for Christmas to simplify the process. However, Sonny witnesses his troubled childhood paralleled with 김선아, Kim Sona, and her mother. The story develops into a mission making sure Sona and her mother have a real Christmas unlike child Sonny. Despite my mediocre Korean abilities, a lot of the story was well elaborated with the context of each scene and the character interactions. I even understood the little bits of humor throughout!
At the start of the weekend after Friday class, Joseph convinced me to go to a little YouTube program set up by one of the language school coordinators–KUlture TV. Unbeknownst to me, they were looking for a new host. I eyed Joseph seeing through his ploy to make me fill in for his role. I didn’t know they taught kids the art of cunningness in Louisville. Nevertheless, I made sure if we did this we would at least would do the show together. However, unbeknownst to the both of us, we had to actually have a prepared topic in mind.
Well, shhhiii…
But actually this all fell in place with what I was learning in class and my desire to relay info on Korean culture. So our topic–sogaetings.
My class just finished up learning about how to discuss personality in Korean. Obviously, we cannot be super in-depth at intermediate Korean but we covered a good amount and I already learned about a good amount of it outside class with my own Korean friends. If you know anything about Korean culture, you know there are often a number of prototypes portrayed by various actors, comedians, and artists. These characters often form the personality traits used to describe people and vice versa in everyday life.
Like horoscopes in the States, a large portion of East Asian culture have blood type give way to one’s personality. Like no joke, those two social constructs are so similarly popular that you can even find people listing their blood types on dating sites. Again, similarly enough, there are pros and cons to each type. Blood type As can be introverted perfectionists, but are also known to be both patient and creative. Blood type Bs are viewed as the wild optimists, but are known to also known to be irresponsible “bad boys”. Blood type ABs can be highly intelligent and good with money, but are also known to be unpredictable and have split personalities. Blood type Os can be energetic natural leaders, but are also known to be arrogant and ruthless.
So unlike blind dates in the US, which, at least in my mind, seem to occur more so for folks when they are older (30s on up) or after serious break ups or divorces, blind dates are frequent and often start right out of high school in Korea. That doesn’t mean that blind dates don’t occur for older people, too (my host parents met each other four years ago on one). Well, a principle reason why they may be so frequent and rapidly occurring is the 100 day anniversary. Actually though, I really have no idea how it came about but being able to hold down a relationship for 100 days is a feat in itself, apparently. But like at the same time, Korea dramas, K-pop, and social culture in itself has this hyper-romanticized aura. I’ll elaborate on all that another time, but like know for dating and sogaeting and having a relationship are so prioritized in Korean culture that there exists books on how to properly go on a sogaeting, special events for singles to speed-mingle literally, and online calculators to count your 100-day anniversaries. That’s why knowing one’s blood type can act as a good heuristic on the type of person you might end up dating (it may even pop on those Tinder profiles).
