Joaquin Del Mundo

Adventures in Itaewon: Part 2

After my two new friends departed, I had to waited a few hours until the sub-ways started again.  I didn't want to pay for the taxi to go back home, as it costs several times more.  I sat down, and saw this hip-hop styled white kid from Alaska and a gypo from D.C.  Two Korean girls entered in later behind me.  And these guys tried to put on their game to talk to them.  They were rather pathetic.  They got the point to even begging them to know the other girls name, even saying "Come on, be polite". 

After that pathetic ordeal, I thought to myself "Man, that was sad", so I started to talk to them.  I was friendly, asked their names, and if I may sit next to them.  We got a long real well, exchanged information about each other, you know the basics, like where I'm from, how much Korean do I know, etc.  I couldn't help notice that the one girl Jina was cuter than I before, when she expresses herself.  Her friend started to watch this animation from Japan.  It was pretty good one, I hope to see if I can get a video of it.

Later the place started to get crowded, and these two inebriated guys entered and started to pick a fight with three younger guys sitting down.  One was from Australia, judging by his accent, and the other was black American, possibly a G.I.  They pored their drink on them, and the black guy wanted to start a fight, and wouldn't leave.  The Australian guy was stumbling into Gina's friend, and this is when I stood up. 

Their safety was a concern of mine at this point, and I felt an instinct to protect them.  My back was against the chairs and in a defensive combat posture.  They black guy just wouldn't give up, and he wanted to pick a fight for me to stair at him.  He would call me a homo and every possible insult, and asked me what I was staring at, and I said: "I'm staring at nothing."

Of course that set him off, and they edged closer to me, with the Australian guy forming a fist.  I wondered how long was needed to drop the swaggering Aussie first, and then calculate which attack to do on the larger black guy: a take down push learned from Karate ages ago, Wing Chun punches to jaw, or simple thrust punch to the mid section to knock the wind out of him that would buy some time.  The Aussie fell backwards trying to approach me, and at that point they started to withdraw.  I am not sure why. I stood my ground.  I encouraged Jina to call the police, which she did.

Later we departed when the trains opened.  And now I had a new friend: Jina.

Hasuk From Hell, Part II: Outside the Hasuk

Like anyone coming to a new country, I ran into some cultural and societal problems that contributed to stress at certain times.  I think I could have brushed this off, and maintain the steady course, but when these problems are combined with the Hasuk From Hell, it doesn't get pretty.

Alienation

As any human being, you want to belong and connect with others, and being in any new country this can be difficult with the culture and language barriers.  However, in Korea in particular, people group up into clusters, and if you are not in a group, or introduced to someone by a third party, you'll get alienated.  Many foreigners have faced problems and found Yonsei society to be closed and sometimes even xenophobic, with even some college clubs excluding foreigners.

Maturity &  Gossip

Yonsei like many colleges in Asia has something unique about the student body.  Many of the students are sheltered and still live with parents, and so they enter the university with the maturity of grade school to high school student.  The gossip is rampant, and as non-Asian foreigners particularly stand out in a homogeneous society, gossip can be quite damaging, even spreading outside of the university. 

Age Discrmination

In my case, being a much older student, right away they'll gossip and discriminate.  In colleges, older students don't attend universities, it's just uncanny here.  And many are disdainful to have friendships or close relationships with older people.  One Korean guy even commented that he thinks it is very strange to have a friend that is more than 2 years older than him.

Resources & Redress

One the academic side, in dealing with the professors and getting access to resources, this will be the same as any college with some exceptions.  For professors, there is no recourse to address extreme grievances, and being political environment, these courses can be scary.  For access to resources, one has to be resourceful, because staff at the library and elsewhere do not speak English.  Many systems and computers are broken, printers don't work, etc., and Korean students figure out how to workaround them, but for foreigners, we're stuck.

Well I can go on all day about this, but here's a list of external factors that contribute to stress:

• Access to Funds (1 stress point) - Most ATMs do not work with foreign bank cards.  The small number of ATMs that do work with foreign bank cards only give the balance, or error out.  In 6 hours, I was able to find one ATM that functioned.
• Access to College Resources (1 stress point) - Need to print that homework or final project?  Know about the printing charge system with instructions in Korean? 
• Bad Professors (1+ stress point) - Some classes professors made it impossible to pass even for top honors Korean students, and awarded good grades to those he favored, other classes the focus was more about testing and working around trick questions than, assessing the student's knowledge of course material.  Nothing too different than from USA.
• Midterms/Finals (3 stress points) - This is always stressful for everyone any country.
• Alienation (3-5+ stress points) - Everyone needs to belong; never underestimate this.  It is imperative to find peer support to function normally, as students will face discrimination, xenophobia, age discrimination, cultural misunderstandings, etc. from Koreans, and even racism from some foreign born Koreans.
• Nice Campus (-1 stress point) - There are places you can sit, think, meditate, relax and forget about things for a while.
• Convenient Food (-1 stress point) - Food is abundant and affordable, and tastes good, offering a variety of Korean and Japanese style food, with fast food at nearby hospital, and affordable coffee everywhere.
• Library w/ Internet Access (-1 stress point) - Library is really high-tech and modern, has place to park your laptop and connect to the Internet, and also computers available.  In the older part of the library, there's a cafe and 24-hour study areas.