Hasukjib Cultures

During my last week at the hasukjib, I had another one-on-one talk with Nuna after dinner. Although I couldn't understand every word she said, I could grasp the conversation as a whole, which was probably an improvement from our conversations early on in my stay.

We discussed the work ethic of Korean students as well as the different cultures of hasukjibs around the area. I was sort of unaware that other hasukjibs function differently than the one I was staying at. I guess I thought that the atmosphere in hasukjibs were more or less the same. After talking with Nuna, however, I realized this was not necessarily the case. She mentioned how the students at a hasukjib located under Yonsei University don't talk to each other during meals. Moreover, they don't even greet each other when they come to eat (two things that we always do at our hasukjib). They simply eat fast so they can go quickly back to studying, or multitask (study while they eat). I now realized why we had learned the term "eat urgently" in class. After thinking about it, this type of situation seems reasonable, especially if the students are under a lot of pressure to do well in school. When I think about eating meals at Yale, there are many people at Commons who study and eat by themselves in order to stay on top of their work. It is nothing uncommon. However, if I had lived in that sort of environment my entire stay in Korea, I probably would have been disappointed. I'm very glad that the students greet each other and engage in conversation during meals at my hasukjib. This engagement with the Korean students has been a big part of my learning here in Korea. And I found you can often learn more from people than you can from books.

Nuna also mentioned how she already started teaching her daughter English. Her daughter cannot be more than two years old. I was amazed at how early they start English, but the demand for the English language here is so great that it's not surprising. This was when I found out that Nuna's daughter loves Dora the Explorer, and so I went out and got her some more Dora books for her to read, as well as some Denzel Washington movies for Nuna (she loves Denzel).

Oh, and that night, a big lighting bolt flashed right outside my window with the loudest crack I have ever heard in my life.