MIDTERMS & HALLOWEEN PREPARATIONS

So the midterm exams are full on and I already had one last week I studied a lot for. It was so different from Finnish university exams that I don't really know how it went. It had only very precise true/false statements and multiple choice questions. I still have two exams left, and one of them is after the actual midterm season. So still some studying to do! However, we have also been preparing for Halloween! A small group of us is going to a costume party on Saturday, so earlier this week we visited a party supply store where we bought supplies for our costumes :) The store was called Joy Party and it was at Gangnam-gu Office.



From there we walked towards Apgujeong where we (I mainly) admired all the luxury brand stores! I especially fell in love with how the Dior store looked like. I also found a Cos store that had a 50% off sale where I found a perfect basic top :)

 

On the way home on the subway we encountered an older Korean man who had a pet bird with him! We got to hold the bird, or my friend did since I'm kind of uncomfortable touching them. But it was so cute! After the subway ride the man put the bird into his little bag before going outside. What an endearing duo! :)

 

Otherwise this week has consisted of another hospital trip, since my flu/illness seems to be a very resilient type, and a lot of studying. We also studied at a cafe a couple of times to get some change of environment which was really nice. The cafes here are really cosy and a lot of students study in them.

 

It has also gradually started to get colder here, although it's still not very cold in Finnish standards. But especially today was a cold and rainy Sunday. We coped by taking a break from studying to take a walk around the Heukseok-area and also went to eat Jjimdak, one of my favorite foods here.

 

WEEKEND SHENANIGANS

The Pokemon pictures are actually already from Thursday, so not from this weekend, but they're so cute I had to include them! We found a Krispy Kreme near our uni that sells Pokemon doughnuts! That's dangerous now that we know it's so close.. But anyway after that the Pokemon hype kind of kicked in again and we went to this "grabbing hook" game place as we call it, which Zarah likes. She's actually really good at playing it and has won so many Pokemons that she gave me one tiny Flareon and a bigger Pikachu one! Pretty nice of her I'd say :)
On Friday I went to the gym after class and studying Korean a bit, and after that I joined Sanni, Lisa and Kirill to sing some karaoke! It was my first time at a Norebang, and I had my doubts, but I ended up loving it! I really want to go again too :)

   

Yesterday I went to the gym in the morning again, after which I did some laundry and studied while waiting for the washing machine and dryer to finish. Productive morning, I'd say! After that me and Zarah headed to Myeong-Dong to find her a winter coat, which we didn't find, but we did find a lot of other things to shop! :D For example, I bought a Yankee candle which I have wanted for so long already. And they actually had a sale so I just had to buy the cinnamon & vanilla one, it's Christmas in a jar I tell you. After that we headed out to Insadong shopping street, I hadn't been there yet so it was a nice new experience. A lot of Korean girls in Hanboks walking around :) We had dinner at an Indian restaurant and the food (I had curry & yogurt chicken) was really good!


Today we were at Bongeunsa buddhist temple in the morning. The morning weather was really cloudy and actually when we left there it started to rain, but the temple was really beautiful and peaceful. I found a pretty bracelet with a tiny elephant pendant too :) After that we ate lunch at a cafe at Coex mall, which was opposite the temple. I had a chicken salad which wasn't very good since it only had green salad leaves, two tomatoes and white fluffy bread.. But there was a lot of chicken which was good since I needed the energy to study for exams! And that is what we did for the rest of the day with Zarah at school.

SHOPPING AND MOVIES

After I realized last week how close the midterm exams were, right around the corner actually, I've really started studying and preparing for them. However I've also had time to do a bit shopping with lovely Zarah and my roommate Sanni and also go to the movies with her with this dormitory gift card thing I'll explain later! :)

 

So on Monday this week we had some free time in the afternoon and decided to shopping to Hongdae. We tried to find some autumn/winter clothes since the weather has finally started to cool down here! I didn't really find anything except for a long-sleeved dress and some cool coloured contact lenses with my prescriptions, but I did find something else.. Those pink ♥ Timberland boots! We saw them with Zarah almost right away after we stepped out of the subway station at a store window and I must say it was love at first sight for both of us. After going through other stores and eating way too much at a pizza buffet called Pizza Mall, we had to go and get our babies home. We actually got a 10 % discount since we both bought them, which was good considering the price of them. But I told myself that good quality winter boots are always a good investment and that you could probably never get those in pink from Finland!

 

Our Cau dormitory can sometimes have rules or things I don't fully understand, but one nice thing is that they have a thing where you can send an application form to the management office saying 5-6 nice things about your roommate and get a 50,000W (40€) to spend at certain restaurants, shops and movie theaters! So first we went to shop at one of my favorite stores here, Artbox, which sells all kinds of small cute things, stationary etc., and bought an air moisturizer for our room. Afterwards we went to the movies with our huge haul of snacks to see 'Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children'. It wasn't as good as I expected but still okay :) We had also picked a quite small movie theater in Gangnam. I'd still like to go to a bigger one that I've heard has premium chairs/sofas and such! The phone case is a find from the streets of Gangnam, pink is apparently the color of the month :)

HOFSTEDE'S CULTURAL DIMENSIOS

Before I left to Korea I was told about a web page that shows Hofstede's cultural dimensions for each country and even compares them for you between countries. (You can find that page here.) Now that I have spent some time here in Korea I thought I'd post a quick comparison here as well. You can see from the picture that Finland and South-Korea differ from each other in every dimension, sometimes even quite dramatically.

   

Power Distance
- Power Distance is defined as "the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally". South-Korea is a slightly hierarchical country, but compared to Finland, a lot more hierarchical. It means that in Korea, people accept a hierarchical order in which everyone has their own place and which needs no further justification. For example age is a very important factor here, since the way you speak to a person older than you or even act around them differs from how you talk or act with your peers. In Finland there are more equal rights and independence. 

Individualism

-  Finnish culture as a Western culture is more individualistic, whereas Korean culture is more collectivistic. This creates differences in whether people´s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “We”. In Finland it is common for people to just take care of themselves or perhaps their closest family, but in Korea close long-term commitments to member groups, like family, extended family, or extended relationships, are important. Loyalty is essential, and it even over-rides most other societal rules and regulations, which is very far from Finnish culture. Management in companies differs also, since in Finland it is seen as management of individuals, whereas in Korea it is management of groups.

Masculinity
- Regarding masculinity/feminity, the two countries are most alike in this comparison. The question here is what motivates people; wanting to be the best (masculine) or liking what you do (feminine). Both countries are feminine, Finland a bit more. In feminine countries the quality of life is the sign of success and standing out from the crowd is not admirable. In Finland's case, this holds true but in my opinion, in Korea it is more acceptable to show around a bit and stand out if you are, for example, wealthier. In feminine countries, "an effective manager is a supportive one, and decision making is achieved through involvement".

Uncertainty Avoidance

- This score reflects "the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these". Korea's high score (85) means that it is actually one of the most uncertainty avoiding countries in the world. Further quoting from the page: "In these cultures there is an emotional need for rules (even if the rules never seem to work) time is money, people have an inner urge to be busy and work hard, precision and punctuality are the norm, innovation may be resisted, security is an important element in individual motivation." This could not be more true in the case of South-Korea. Security at my university's campus dormitory is really high, there are many guards in every lobby and the gates to the dorms need your password and scan your wrist every time you enter and exit them. There are a lot of rules and directions, but still things never seem to go as planned. We already have an inside joke about that among some exchange students here. Finland also scores rather high on uncertainty avoidance, but in my opinion Finnish rules and directions seem to be better planned out since they usually work. Also in Korea it is usual to be a little behind from schedule in almost everything, whereas in Finland punctuality is more appreciated. One thing where Koreans are more punctual is the subway and transportation, it's almost never late! Whereas in Finland I feel like I'm always waiting for a bus that's running late.

Long-Term Orientation
- This dimension describes "how every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future". Korea's score is 100, which means it is one of the most pragmatic and long-term orientated countries in the world. People live their lives guided by virtues and practical good examples, and for example companies' first purpose is not to make money every quarter for the shareholders, but to serve the stakeholders and society at large for future generations. Finland on the other hand is normative, which indicates great respect for traditions, a relatively small propensity to save for the future, and a focus on achieving quick results.

Indulgence

- Indulgence here means "the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on the way they were raised". Weak control is 'indulgence', and strong is 'restraint'. South-Korea, not surprisingly, is a restrained country, where people believe their actions are restrained by social norms and feel that indulging themselves is somewhat wrong. In my opinion, this is true in everything else except in drinking alcohol. In that area, I think Koreans have a more "work hard, play hard" -attitude, since Koreans do love their drinks. During the first weeks here I've been asked many times what is the maximum amount of soju (Korean rice liquor) I can drink in one night. I still haven't figured out the answer, something to look forward to I guess :D In comparison, Finland is an indulgent country. We as a country place a higher degree of importance on leisure time and mainly act as we please. In our case I can't agree with the statement of high indulgence countries possessing a positive attitude and having a tendency towards optimism though. I don't see Finnish people as highly optimistic or positive, so that's how we differ from other indulgent cultures.

SEOUL INTERNATIONAL FIREWORKS FESTIVAL

I have been pretty sick lately with the flu, but today evening I felt good enough to join some friends and go watch some fireworks by Han river. And boy was it worth it! I've never seen such cool fireworks before in my life! We were watching the show from Yongsan since Yeouido (where the festival actually took place) would have been so crowded, but so was Yongsan too. However, we found a place to sit and admire the show from :) The whole show lasted 1,5 hours, but there were some breaks too since there were three different countries, Japan, Spain and Korea. In my opinion, Japan's fireworks show was the best, but they were all pretty good. It has started to be a bit colder here all of a sudden, winter is coming, so today while sitting by the windy riverside for that long it got quite chilly. Luckily we had prepared ourselves with scarfs and warmer jackets, but I'm still happy to be back in the dorm under my warm blanket right now!

GLOBAL FAIR @ CAU

Today at Chung-Ang University we had a Global Fair, where exchange students could represent both their country and their university while presenting them to Korean students who are interested in studying abroad. We had to prepare some promotional material from our home universities to give to other students. It was actually quite a big deal here, there were local TV channels filming at the scene, and people from different embassies visiting. For example the Swedish students here were contacted to have "fika" (coffee and buns) at the Swedish Embassy in Seoul this week, and the ambassador of Denmark visited the fair to give a speech.
  Unsurprisingly the USA was the most interesting exchange destination and their booth had a lot of visitors, but there were also a few who were interested in going to Finland, which I am happy about! :) The Finnish spicy, salty liquorice candy Tyrkisk Peber was not a big hit among the students though :D I hope we didn't scare them away with that.. :D haha
  I was pleasantly surprised how well everything was organized, and I want to give big props to Cau's international office for putting this event together! The booths and everything looked really nice and professional.

 

PLACES TO VISIT

I thought that instead of doing a separate post on every sightseeing/tourist place I visited here in Seoul, I'd combine some of them together in one post.

GYEONGBOKGUNG PALACE / 경복궁

On the last day of Chuseok holiday, me, my roommate and some Korean friends visited the Gyeongbokgung palace. It's the biggest palace of the five located in Seoul, and the most beautiful, or so I've heard. I think it is a place worth visiting, but I personally, for example, liked the buddhist temple in Korean Folk village more. The palace, however, also has a Korean National Folk museum in the same area. The entrance fee to the whole palace area is 3,000W. Since it was Chuseok when we visited the palace, there were also some additional activities and booths. We, for example, got to make our own dreamcatchers, which I really liked. Now they are in our dorm room to make bad dreams go away :)

BANPO BRIDGE / 반포

This week we visited Banpo bridge during the evening with a group of friends. The bridge has a water fountain/rainbow light show with music every day at different times. It was pretty but I was actually more impressed about the walk there from Dongjak station, so many people having a picnic, "camping" with tents, fishing, jogging and just having a good time that the atmosphere there was great! :)

COEX MALL & AQUARIUM / 코엑스

Me, my roommate and some other friends here don't have school on Mondays, so we often do some city exploring on those days. One Monday after running some errands like visiting the Immigration office, we decided to meet and go to Coex Mall (click). It is really easy to get there, since the mall is big enough to include three different subway stations. I was trying to find good black jeans, which is not an easy task here because of the small Korean sizes, but I ended up buying them from familiar Zara at the mall. That was one of the few Western chain brands there, since there were more Korean stores and some more upscale international ones. I was also really surprised to find a Finnish Marimekko store there! The food court at the mall is also incredibly good, especially the different cafes and bakeries. We tried the red velvet cake at Magnolia Bakery.
At the mall there's also a big aquarium with different big and smaller fish, seals, manatees, jellyfish and even penguins! Me and my roommate were like acting like little kids there, we were so excited and taking soo many pictures and videos :D Definitely worth visiting!