First Post! 11 Days Until Korea

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog!  I’ll be chronicling my adventures in Korea this fall, where I’ll be studying Korean at Sogang University, thanks to the generosity of the Light Fellowship.  Seriously, the Light Fellowship is amazing.  They fully funded (flights, housing, food, tuition) my trip to Korea last year for 6 months, and they’ve generously awarded me another fellowship for this fall.  If it were not for the Richard U. Light Foundation, I probably wouldn’t have spent more than a summer in Korea – and would not have had this opportunity to study in Korea for 3 terms.  Once again, thank you so much.  너무너무 감사해요!  얼마나 감사하는지 말로 표현도 못 해!

  The fall term runs from 9/1 to 11/1, but I’ll be in Korea from 8/17 through 12/22.  Basically, after my last trip to Korea ended, I missed Korea so much that I exploited the Light Fellowship’s gift of free airline tickets to try to stay in Korea as long as possible (sshhh, don’t tell them!) - hence, the extra 6 weeks.  Also, had I left Korea in mid-November, I would have found myself stuck at home in the middle of nowhere (Peru, NY) for 2 months.  I do miss my parents, but that’s a little too much time to be stuck at home doing nothing.  Now what exactly would I do with the extra time in Korea?  That actually took me a while to figure out.  Six weeks is too short a time to find a part-time job or do anything else constructive.   So I decided to ask Sogang if they’d let me enroll for 4 weeks (of a 10 week program) in the winter term and pay 40% of the tuition.  The Light Fellowship wouldn’t have covered this, but it would have given me a good excuse to stay in Korea for longer.  Unfortunately, they informed me that paying partial tuition was not possible.  But they made me an even better offer – to volunteer/intern part-time in the office to work on a project to improve the Korean language educational materials (The Sogang Korean Language Education Center writes and develops its own textbooks).  Not only did this give me a legitimate reason to stay in Korea longer, but I also won’t have to pay any extra tuition, and I’ll have the chance to help improve the language offerings at Sogang, to which I am immeasurably grateful for helping to improving my Korean last term.  Although I haven’t studied Korean anywhere else in Korea, I’m convinced that Sogang is the best place to study.   


Here are some of the goals I have for this fall:

·         Make new Korean friends – This seems obvious, but I’ve found that this is BY FAR the best way to improve my spoken Korean.  Not only do I get to practice speaking to them while I’m in Korea, but also when I’m away.  During my sophomore year, I took L3 Korean at Yale that used the Level 3 Sogang Textbook.  However, because I didn’t really practice much Korean the year after, last summer I had to retake Level 3 at Sogang because I had forgotten too much.  This past year, I’ve been in touch with some of the friends I made last summer, and it has helped tremendously.  I was looking back through the Level 4 textbook and I can actually remember most of the words!  I can also type in Korean pretty quickly now, thanks to the many emails I have sent.   Having non-Korean friends helps too, but being able to hear spoken Korean from a native speaker is indispensible.  Plus, in class we often only use formal speech, so talking to friends is a good way to practice 반말 (informal speech).  Even after studying in Korea, it can be hard to make Korean friends since you’re in class with other foreigners most of the day.  Also, I’ve noticed that most Koreans are afraid to approach foreigners because they assume that they’ll have to speak in English.  So this year I’ll try to make more of an effort to approach people.  Fortunately I made a few Korean friends in Korea last year that I still keep in touch with.  I’m hoping that I’ll meet their friends, and meet their friends of friends, etc. 

·         Eat and takes pictures of as much yummy Korean food as possible – Self explanatory.  I always love it when other people post pictures of all of the delicious things they’ve tried on their blogs.  I’ll try to do the same.

·         See a 판소리 (pansori) performance – Pansori is a type of Korean traditional singing – we watched a movie about it (서편제 Seopyeongje) in my Korean Cinema class at Yale, but I’ve never actually been able to see it live. 

·         See a live performance by a Kpop group

·         Watch more Kdramas – Other than practicing with friends, I’ve found that watching Korean dramas are the best way to improve my listening skills.  I’ve only watched a couple of dramas to date, and they’ve been extremely helpful.  While I watch, I found it useful to jog down notes of interesting phrases I hear used – then I try to use them. 

·         Travel around Korea – Last year I visited Andong, Gyeongju, Busan, and Jeju, but I feel that there are still many interesting places I haven’t explored yet.  I’ll read through the Lonely Planet Guide (given to me free by the Light Fellowship) to try to come up with some ideas.  Some places that I really want to go are울릉도Ulleungdo, 독도Dokdo, and 대구Daegu.

·         Travel around Asia – I have an extra 6 weeks in Korea, so why not?

·         Call people (strangers) on the phone – After taking Level 4, I was pretty comfortable conversing with people, even strangers, in person.  However, I’m still horrified of talking to someone I don’t know on the phone.  I’m not sure why that is – maybe because you can’t get away with using body language to express your point?  Anyway I tried once last year to do this by ordering takeout.  Unfortunately, it failed miserably.  I’ve been calling my friends and relatives in Korea every once in a while this past year, so hopefully my telephone speaking has improved.  In fact when I arrive in Korea, one of the first things I’ll have to do is call various apartments to see if they have available rooms.  I’ll let everyone know how that goes!

I’ll be wrapping up my chemistry research for the summer, spending a few days at home in upstate NY, and then heading to Korea in about 8 days.  This was my first summer in New Haven, and surprisingly it wasn’t as hot as I thought it was going to be.  I really wished I could have been in Korea during the summer, but every time I hear stories about the super hot & humid weather and flooding caused by 장마 (torrential rains), I remind myself that going in the fall was probably the best decision. 

So, why did I choose to name this blog 'Morning Calm'?  The official name of South Korea is 대한민국 (Dae-han-min-guk大韓民國), but for many years under the Joseon Dynasty, which ruled from 1392 to 1897, Korea was referred to as 대조선국 (Dae-Jo-seon-guk大朝鮮國), meaning the Kingdom of Great Joseon.  In fact, North Korea still refers to itself as Joseon-guk.  The literal translation of the Chinese characters for Joseon means something along the lines of ‘Morning Calm’, hence the title of my blog. 

Why is my blog address bejimil.blogspot.com?  In Korea, they have this amazing soy drink called Vegemil / Bejimil.  It’s amazing.  I don't like drinking regular milk, so I drank a lot of Vegemil last year.  They have a sweetened version that’s perfect on its own, and an unsweetened version that is perfect for cereal.  The funny thing is, the Korean spelling for Vegemil / Bejimil is 베지밀, which looks a lot like the spelling of my name 벤자민 (Benjamin), so one of my Korean friends started calling me Vegemil as a nickname, and it stuck. 


Also, I should point out that the photo at the top of the blog is one of my favorites.  I think it's the perfect juxtaposition of traditional and modern Korea, with Namsan Tower overlooking a traditional Korean folk village.  

I don’t consider myself the blogging type, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to blog this year.  In fact, my last (and only) blog that I tried to write 3 years ago ended after just two posts.  Instead of blogging last year for the Light Fellowship, I opted to write an end-of-program report.  But I figured I would give it a try this year.  Worst case, I can always stop blogging and write an end-of-program report again.  Hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up though.  Maybe if I can’t think of anything to write about, I can just post photos of delicious Korean food :P