Hi guys,

It's been two days, and now it is the weekend again! So great. Today was quite a busy day for me, I had to meet with 2 groups of people for 2 group projects. One is a presentation due on Thursday, and the other is a 20 page paper, 6 page summary, and a presentation due in November. We are going to finish the paper on Sunday with my partner though, so I am glad. Next weekend will be the Korea vs Yonsei games, so I will be quite busy and not in a study mood.

Anyway, this weekend I will be doing some cultural event with a lot of people tomorrow, but I don't know what it is yet.

I just wanted to share with you some Korean cultural symbols and norms. I am taking an amazing class called Korean Social Structure and Culture, and we had a super class on Thursday. So here are some of the interesting tidbits I learned from this class, according to my professor Andrew Kim:

• according to the 2005 census, Buddhism's followers make up 23% of the population, protestant (18.3%), catholic (10.9%), and 46.9% of the population has no religous affiliation! that is remarkably high.
• there are 6,800 languages in the world today, but 50-90% of them are expected to be extinct in the next 50 years
• Language shapes people's world view. The Korean's have 3 terms for the word wife, they all refer to the woman's role as being inside, she is in charge of the domestic domain. In Korea, it is still somewhat a male dominated society
• Unmarried woman, literal translation: virgin.
• Koreans use the pronoun "our" to talk about things or to introduce things, like this is our school, our house, our wife
• for over half of the world's population, rice is the staple food. there are 140,000 varieties of rice. You can make toothpaste out of rice. The UN launched international Rice Day in 2004 in which the slogan was "rice is life"
• Korean's use the phrase "eat rice" or "bap meokda" in the common greeting, "bap meokeotnya?" to mean literally "have you eaten rice?" and by extension "how are you doing?"
• eating is a very prominent figure in korean popular sayings
• in Korean there is a phrase which is literally translated as "to eat a mind" and this means to make up one's mind. or to "eat a bribe" to accept a bribe. "eat an ear"-not hear well
• For instance, American's have internalized their view that they are a Superpower. THey call the baseball championships the "World Series", instead of the American Series. or "World Championships" for the NBA. They even call themselves American, and Canadians or Mexicans cannot use the term American even though they are all on the American Continent.
• Hangeul is one of the simplest, yet most sophisticated alphabets according to many linguists. It is also the most efficient languaget to text in.

Some Korean Norms:

• Korean's use the honorific to older people, strangers, and people in superior positions,
• take off your shoes before entering a home
• bow to greet each other, except with same aged friends, subordinates bow first and bow deeper
• pass or receive objects with both hands
• practically everyone is called by their title, not their first name
• when one joins a company, they are called by the highest title they have ever held, like former so-and-so lee.
• Do not use red ink in writing a person's name, red ink is used only to write dead people's names-this is a superstition
• when drinking in a group, you let someone pour you a drink, don't pour it yourself (this is useful to know). others may offer their empty glasses to other members to be filled
• young people and women should not smoke in front of older people
• cover your mouth when laughing or coughing
• do not leave your spoon or chopsticks standing up in your bowl, they only do that in sacred ancestral rituals as an offering
• Don't blow your nose in the presence of others, don't blow it at the table, walk away and do it
• do not shake your leg while sitting,
• do not point your finger at babies or you could be helping evil spirits go to their direction

Please comment if you found anything interesting or have a different opinion! I welcome all comments. I found some of these very useful and would love to learn more if you know any.