By TED STABILE
Contributing Writer
I can recall asking a gaggle of graduating friends what their was one thing they would do differently in their college career. Virtually every one of them told me that they would have tried to study for a semester abroad. A day later in the evening, a drunken lad outside of a fraternity house, while holding back tears of jarring joy in his eyes after I gave him a free balloon hat, cried out, “Yooo, get outta here..!” So I called his bluff, took my friends answers to heart, and a few half baked whims and waivers later, I’m writing this to tell everyone back home: “I’m not dead, so you can feel free to stop asking now! Also, greetings from South Korea!”
I’m currently studying for a semester at Korea University in Seoul. While I’m away I’ll be chronicling (pun viciously intended) my adventures, hijinks and all else in between for you to enjoy. I arrived at around 5 a.m. Aug. 26 (in KST, 13 hours ahead of New York), however my semester didn’t begin until Sept. 2., as the first week was mostly orientation. That said, there’s been an abundance of happenings, and as I type this my mind is going a mile a minute yet going nowhere fast, so to save some time and trees on everyone’s part I’ll try to give a quick summary of a few events over the first few days .
On day one, I landed at the Incheon International Airport and had 12 hours until the actual International Studies Abroad (ISA) pickup for the exchange students for the KU campus. Rather than twiddle my American thumbs on foreign soil, I found a pamphlet for the annual three-day Seoul animation festival, which was having it’s closing ceremony that day. Spurring a call to adventure, I consolidated my luggage into a half wearable/rollable unit and exited the terminal. Right outside a bus pulled up, flashing with neon lights. I wasn’t quite sure where the bus was headed since my Hangul (the Korean writing system) was a bit rusty, but I could tell the fare was free, so I hopped on.
On the ride there, while it was cloudy outside, you could see that the sunrise is definitely more center stage than in the west. Twenty minutes later I found myself at the other airport terminal. More importantly there were convenience stores as far as the eye can see. At Terminal 2 I wandered around till I found the entrance to South Korea’s world renowned subway station, but before that I swung by the Korean convenience store “Nice 2 CU.” I picked up a “T-Money Card,” a more eccentric, e-friendly and less expensive Korean version of the MetroCard. The particular subway I rode on connected Incheon to the heart of Seoul.
I arrived in Seoul at around 8 a.m., and on the ride I figured out a route to the MyeongDong district. Transfering over to the line four, I was in the district by 8:30 p.m. People have said it’s one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world, but that fell on hard-of-hearing ears, as I stumbled across my true destination,”Cartoon Street.” Some of its many features included webtoon workshops, cartoon studios, hills lined with walls draped with wooden carvings of Korean/Japanese characters, as well as statues of cartoon police cars, larva, and of course: anime characters. My personal favorite was the towering statue of Gigantor. At the apex of the gourd was the ‘Seoul Animation Center.”
Imagine Nickelodeon Studios in a summer dress; that’s the best description I can muster. The venue was absolutely dynamite, with murals, statues, and decorated walls and gates surrounding the area almost to the point of hubris. However, while the entire district seemed fitting for Seoul’s annual film festival, I deduced that the museum was closed until later today, and the festival was actually being held at a convention center in Gangnam. Perhaps it was the subconscious jetlag talking, but the journey more than made up for the incorrect destination. I even visited some shrines, churches, and even an Elvis Presley memorial museum fused with a 7/11 on my way back, kind of like a cosmic consolation prize. I do intend to fully explore the inside of the museum, so please consider this a journalistic IOU.
Day two and three were mostly orientation at the ISA office and on KU’s campus. Saint Rose has spoiled me with it’s compact campus size and smooth terrain. Korea University’s campus is nothing short of gorgeous, but it is vast, with hilly areas scattered about. Many of the buildings’ architecture range from metropolitan technodomes to even small castles, and each building is five stories on average. While definitely a coincidence, four is an unlucky number in Korea, their version of ‘unlucky 13,’ some elevators even use F instead of 4 as a label.
The dorms actually are quite similar to what you would find on Saint Rose campus. Korea University has a program called KUBA (Korea University Buddy Assistants), which assigns groups of visiting students to a local KU student called a “Buddy” who helps exchange students adjust to life in Seoul. They went by both their native Korean names, as well as their English “nicknames.” I was a bit of an administrative anomaly and juggled between a few buddies; Daniel, who has lived in Ecuador and is trilingual, and two buddies named Sean, more specifically “SeanOne” and “SeanTwo,” the former who had just recently finished his required two years of military service. Through this program I’ve also met people from all parts of Europe, Asia, and both Americas, so it seems this multicultural melting pot can be coached through the impending culture shock as a family.
Later on in the week, my group had an excursion to the Gangneung Curling Centre, where the Curling event of the Seoul Winter Olympics was held. Curling is a criminally underrated sport and the sense of sportsmanship, especially in Korea, is palpable; truly a thinking man’s game and can’t be written off as some derivative “pinkies up ice hockey.” Surprisingly the center was located in the Gangwon-do district, which is a curling stone toss away from a district that features the closest train route by the East Sea shore which we visited during our excursion. I broke off from the group during free-time and walked along the Jeongdongjin Beach shoreline. I came across a massive hourglass shaped monument that represents unity and prosperity for Korea’s future, but much more importantly I saw in the distance a funny looking bench right on the shore, occupied by a middle-aged Korean man.
As I got closer I noticed he was smoking a cigarette and looking forlornly at the waves. I was told as a foreigner it’s a nice bonus to have small gifts to give to people you meet in a new country, so using some intuition, some botched Korean, and a little elbow grease from Google translate, I approached the man and brokenly hollered in Korean “HELLO! CAN I GIVE YOU A GIFT!” He dropped his cigarette and gave me a puzzled look, but I was too invested to stop so I made him one of my signature balloon dogs. The look on his face was like a child on Christmas morning, he accepted the gift, beamed a beautiful smile and said thank you in Korean.
The day before I was wandering around a night market in the Cheongnyangni district and came across a kebab stand. It was being run by a married couple and the husband saw me and excitedly began speaking a hybrid of Korean and English. His enthusiasm was infectious so I bought a kebab and was given an extra one for free since the stand “don’t see many foreigners.” At first I thought this was a kind gesture, but the man wondered where I was from. I told him New York, an answer which caused him to clap happily, as well as refer to me as “New York” by name for the rest of our relationship. I asked him his name, which he said was Lee, but told me to call him Bruce, which I appreciated. I went to sit at a table in the square, but he asked me to sit with him and his motley crew at the table next to his stand.
It was here I met Bruce’s Japanese friend Koi, and another middle aged Korean man who was a strong but silent type. Bruce asked me why I was in Korea, then gave me an elevator pilot of his life story. He lived in Boston for a few years which is where he learned English, and loves baseball. He has three daughters who he loves yet misses and is passionate about grape soju and cigarettes. For listening to his tale he gave me a plastic piggy bank, so of course I had to repay his eccentric kindness with a balloon animal. My first one got a hair too close to a lit cigarette while I was making it and popped, but Koi seemed to enjoy playing on the broken bits. I carefully made a mini balloon giraffe for Bruce, who was so elated he asked Koi to hang it on their kebab stand, which was extremely flattering. As I left Bruce called out to me, toasted a shot of soju and chanted “Enjoy life! Come to me if you need a cell phone” until he was out of earshot.
I intend for this series to be multipurpose. I aim for it not just be an anthology of my antics abroad, but also a check-in on the family back home so they know I’m still kicking, as well as a written testament to what it’s like for a Saint Rose student to leave “Home.” for a spell and the ramifications of a semester overseas. If you have any questions or any curiosities please don’t be bashful! I’d be delighted to help and can be reached at stabilet327@strose.edu.
Godspeed Te🅱, we all miss you