Korean Culture and Language Class

May 7-9, 2008 – The past three days Joseph and I have been blessed by some wonderful friends who watched our kids so we could go to a Korean Culture and Language class at Pyeongtaek University. We have been busy learning about Korean Culture, Courtesies and Etiquette. The list of do’s and don’ts is a bit vast but fascinating. One is don’t write a person’s name in red. They only write a name in red if that person is dead. Another is don’t tip service workers (except for hotel service). Koreans usually say little during a meal because they trend to concentrate on their food. If a Korean invites you to a meal you should accept and reciprocate. Your age is very important in Korea. So, Koreans will ask your age and the older you are then determines the level of respect/honor you receive. The Koreans figure your age a bit differently than we do. Once you are born you are one and everyone adds another year on January 1st. So, Mark is 3 and Andrew is 9 in Korea. We won’t talk about my age! It is kind of neat if you think about it. These are just a few but if you ever come to Korea let me know and I’ll get the list to you. We tried many different kinds of Korean food. We both discovered that we like cucumber Kimchee. I got to try many different kinds of seafood and sushi! It was all very YUMMY! There are pictures of some of the food we ate on Shutterfly during the Korean Culture Class. The Language part of the class was a good place to start learning to speak Korean. There are 21 vowel sounds and 19 consonants and we can now sound out words but have no idea what they mean. We also learned basic expressions to help us function and get around. We then learned how to write our names in Hangeul. This was hard since they do not have the same “F” and “R” sounds that are in our names. Plus you can not have a consonant with out a vowel. We also went shopping at Lotte Mart for an outing to practice our Korean. After the shopping trip we ate at a nice restaurant called “Alaska” located in Lotte Mart. We then drove to Suwon City to see and learn a traditional dance, drums, games and watched a traditional wedding performance. It was a wonderful learning experience and time together as a couple. It left me wanting to discover more and improve my speaking.