Trip~!!!

I decide to travel from Memphis to West side. One of my dreams is trip with friends by a camping car. My final destination is California. At first, I have to make plan how to go there and where I should stop by. I am going to visit several tourist attractions on my way. I will take 55th highway to Memphis for watching Graceland which is a big house that Elvis Presly had lived until 42 years old. In addition, I am going to appreciate one of blues in Memphis because Memphis is original place to create blues. After finishing trip of Memphis, I will go to Arkansas on 40th highway which is connected to California. There is very famous hot spring national park in there. So, I will enjoy hot spring and camp there. Next spot is Oklahoma. Oklahoma is also located on 40th highway. The reason why I want to visit here is that I really hope to go to National Cowboy museum located in Oklahoma. Cowboy is one of my heroes when I was so young. I can still remember that I screamed out when I watched western movies. I will change 40th highway to 25th highway at New Mexico to go to Denver of Colorado state. Denver has big and famous architecture museum and Colorado has very beautiful environment. I will do bike riding. Since there is excellent bike rode, I expect to see spectacular scene of awesome landscape. I will stay at there at least for 3days. Even though Colorado has great hotels and accommodations, it is not my purpose to use these luxury hotels. There are 39 Colorado camping sites located in the San Juan National Forest. The most popular Colorado camping sites in the San Juan National Forest are near the larger lakes, major highways, and communities. I will stay one of those beautiful sites. My final destination is California. In order for the place, I have to take 70th highway. But I will decide which 15th highway I should take at Utah. If I take 15th highway downward, I can go to Las Vegas. On the contrary, If I take 15th highway upward, I will see salt lake city. The answer is definitely Las Vegas!!! Who wants to go to salt lake city instead of Las Vegas??!! Yes maybe someone wants. However, I want to play gambling as main character of movie and there is a big tourist attraction which is involved in 100 places where people must visit before they die. The place is Grand Canyon. I will play gamble at MCM, Bellagio, Wyen and so on. I do not have a suspicion that I ‘m going to hit jackpot lol~! Moreover, I am sure that it would be awesome to take a picture at Grand Canyon. Maybe at that time, my destination would be very close to us. We will departure to California State for Los Angeles, San Diego, and Long beach with 15th highway. Actually, there are a lot of interesting places in there such as Hollywood, cities, Disney Concert Hall, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, and much more places. I cannot count all of attractions. Finally, after enjoying those places, I will arrive at San Francisco!! I can say that Golden Bridge will hit my heart!! Actually, main purpose of this trip is just for Golden Bridge. Lol~! I hope that this plan is true..




colorado- camping pic




I really wanna ride a bike at there (Colorado)



Beautiful art museum in Colorado



This is very famous architecture which is Desney in LA~!

Imagination ----------------------------------------------------------------------
One day when I was going to Denver on 25th highway, I saw one guy walking along highway without any car. He gave me very urgent signal. We stopped and took him into our car. His name is Daichi. He was supposed to go to Salk lake city. But his car was broken up and he even did not have any cell phone. Walking was only thing that he could do. We served some food and drink to him. However, when we arrived at Denver and took a rest, he disappeared. Even though we were worried about him, we just kept going our way because we believed he can come over his destination by himself. However, after few hours, we realized that he stole our money, food, drink, and even our precious sexy magazines!! We were so frustrated and upset. We were just going to Las Vegas with only little money. But, we could not believe our eyes when we went inside one of hotel casinos. There was him at there. He was perfectly paying attention to gamble machine. He could not notice when we even approached to him very closely. Finally, we caught him and deprived him of our stuff again and then kicked his ass. He escaped from us. After the happening, we cannot see his face again so far.

Anti-smoking advertisement

My vice is tardy. Whenever I go to somewhere to meet my friends, I am always late at least 5 or 10 minutes. I tried to make an effort to fix my bad habit by this way to rearrange my watch 10 minutes faster than real time. However, even though I did, I was able to find myself calculating real time unconsciously when appointment time came to me. Sometime, this habit caused conflicts with others. So, nowadays I am trying to go out of my house as soon as possible when I got appointment with someone. But, I am still late whenever I meet Daichi. It is not easy for me.




“You are killing your children unconsciously”

I am really interested in anti-smoking advertisement especially about children. They have no power to complain and no idea how much smoke could affect them as much as adults. We must protect them from smokers. This picture is one of my best anti-smoking ad about children of my life.


I picked up this anti-smoking advertisement for smoking parents who have babies. We already know that smoking has negative effects on people. So, they try to avoid the risk to affect their children. However, I saw very shocking article several days ago. The research presents that even though smokers who have babies make sort of vigorous efforts to protect their children from their smoke, such as going out of their house to smoke, washing hands before touching babies, washing teeth after smoking and so on, the babies who are exposed the environment that parents smoke have almost the same density of nicotine in their body as much as light smokers who smoke 1 or 2 things per one day. They are killing their babies unintentionally!! This research teaches us that the most effective way not to affect others is just stop smoking. No matter what kinds of efforts you make, it is not effective rather than stopping cigarette.


Actually, there is not impressive and kind of grotesque advertisement in my country. Korea government does allow advertisers to use such pictures. Only the words of caution are printed on products. But, sometimes, I could see such very strong advertisement pictures on cigarette cases while I traveled to other countries. Someone says that such pictures are so excessive grotesque that it could have negative effects not only smokers but also non-smokers. However, even so, I think such shocking advertisement is much more effective and practical way to warn danger to people. For example, when I saw picture printed on a cigarette case which is related to cancer caused by smoking, I could not forget about it for a while. Yes, I know this way would be able to bring side effect. But, as people know, cigarettes are addictive. That means we need sort of strong way to release addiction and such pictures are true not false. That could be happened in smokers by smoking. So, I really want my government to accept these stop smoking campaigns of other countries and allow to advertisers to use effective method rather than now.

Ideal language school

We discussed about how makes a perfect language school. Jess, Michelle, and I prefer to establish a collage only for adult and Luisfe wants a school for kids. Each of them including me has somewhat different thoughts on an ideal school. Jess and Michelle would like to make a school in big city such as New York or Seoul. Luisfe also prefers that. However, my thought is little bit different. So, I’ll show my opinion about ideal school what I think.


At first, I think that students should make an effort to use language which they want to learn for whole days. So, I am going to build my school in country side which is adjacent to a big city but the place should have convenient public transportation to City. This means that all students must live in a dormitory. I believe that this place helps student to pay attention to their study more efficiently. They should speak foreign language during semester. Unless they speak, they would get penalty on their grade. I do not want to build only one school. If I establish English school, I will build one school in Korea and another one will be built in one of states in USA. If I build up Japanese school, I will make the school in Japan. So, I will provide an opportunity to study in native place with students who get good grade. The number of students should not be over 16 people for efficiency and group study. Their teachers must be native speaker. However, even though the teachers are native, they should know about Korea history, culture, custom, and even Korean language. I will give them who will be a teacher very difficult test. Only the people who pass this exam can be teacher. Of course, they will get a lot of money compared to other normal teachers. I think that teachers can affect their students directly. Therefore, they must have big responsibility for students and the method to figure out who has such qualification is asking about questions that I mentioned above. Tuition is free. This school is supported by Korea education department (I hope). This school only operates from Monday to Friday. But the special thing is that students do not need to attend to next whole week, if they had class on last week. Teachers should teach students as much as they can for one week. So, students would have a lot of tasks. However, such tasks are not traditional homework such as reading, writing, and so on. The tasks are activity. If topic of class is America food culture, students should go somewhere to take a video about their interview with American. If students learned about American movie, they should take a movie with friends, foreigners, or whoever. But they should do their task in foreign language. That is why they have kind of big holidays. So, in every last week, teachers and students evaluate other students’ video and give feedback. All activity fees should be supported by school, if they bring receipt which is reasonable.


I know this school is just ideal school. But, if I earn huge money($100,000,000) in the future, I will do that!! lol~!

compliment and insult

We played role play exercise of pregnant situation. We assumed that we are in famous restaurant and then suddenly someone comes to me in order to say “hello”. Luise was someone and we were eating together. In this situation, Luis said that congratulation~! Finally you got a baby~! How long have you had your angle?? However, actually, she was not pregnant. So, she just tried to avoid this situation with joke. She said “Oh.. um.. yeah nice to meet you. Yes right I think I have to stop eating anymore hahaha”. And then Luise said “Oh.. alright.. Sorry and I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner nice to meet you, too.”


I think that we have almost the same way to compliment and insult of the world. But, even so, there are little bit differences each other.


At first, in USA, Americans would like to compliment others. Whenever I attend my classes, I can see the situation that professor compliments students or students do that each other, sometimes, it is just simple expression though. However, in Korea, even though we compliment, it does not happen as much as America. We only applaud in the situation when we really need and they really deserve getting praise. I think Chile has middle characteristics between America and Korea. Sometimes, they express aggressively and sometimes they rarely compliment. Another interesting thing is that when Korean gets praise from others, we do not tend to accept compliment directly. For instance, if somebody says “Wow it is very nice shirt~!”, we almost respond like this “really? No.. it is not good as much as you think” Korean regard such this expression as polite expression. If we say “Yes, I think so”, it can be seen kind of rude.


The way to insult is quite similar to each country. The most common thinking accepted by people is that we do not have to insult others directly, even though somebody makes me so upset except for special situation. If we are in the situation when we need to complain about something, it is best method to explain what is wrong and correct indirectly and politely. But, I think insult depends on each personality. In Korea, we have always been educated about the thing which we have to respect others even in unreasonable situation. However, one friend of mine does not care about such courtesy. Of course, he has quite good manner, unless he get an unreasonable disadvantage. In USA, they have also such person like a friend of mind. That is why I think that insult depends on personality rather than country’s custom [of course, culture of country cannot be neglected.]


Especially, Jess said those characteristics of compliment and insult are slightly different from states. When Jess went to New York, she waited for ferry to visit the statue of liberty. After they allowed people to go inside ferry, so many people tried to get in simultaneously and there was someone who held a baby and pushed a baby cart in the line for ferry. Since she could not control herself with babies, it was little bit delayed to get in ferry. In this situation, someone beyond the woman yelled out hurry up at her. Jess said “if the place was located in Mississippi, such horrible event did not happen.”


As we can see, we have almost the same reaction in these situations. Even though there are little bit different things, it can be ignored in terms of having similar situation. Moreover, I think the most common thing is that we always try to respect others and such way to respect is quite similar no matter where we live in.

What is real beauty?

First of all, I watched the movie which is linked to youtube. In the movie, heroine participated in Miss university as a representative of New Jersey and then she starts her mission. Another movie is Gothic Lolita Undressed. Actually, when I met my group member, we watched another movie because the movie was changed to “Gothic Lolita Undressed”. But I am so confused because I cannot find any relationship between the movie and beauty. The movie, Gothic Lolita Undressed, focus on only specific and weird field of beauty not general beauty. Anyway, the main story is introduction about Japan Lolita culture. So, this movie shows which one is real Japan Lolita or not.


We were all confused by the second movie in discussion about beauty. So, we discussed about beauty with the first movie. Actually, I can say the fact that there are only few differences about beauty. That means we almost agree with the common standard beauty such as curl body, long hair, white and clean teeth, and so on. Chile, Korea and even other countries pursue western beautiful standard. We can see this phenomenon easily in everywhere and anytime. Whenever we turn on the TV, almost all commercials use beautiful models in order to introduce their products and we can see that all dramas and movies tend to use handsome and beautiful celebrities as main characters. We cannot deny the fact that such beautiful people make us sometimes happy and pleasant. That means we have accepted such beautiful aspect made by media and entertainment unconsciously.


We agree with the standard beauty but there is little bit different opinion. Americans have a tendency of regarding beauty as mature beauty not cuteness. However, In Korea, we prefer cuteness to mature beauty. Except for this difference, we cannot find different things about beauty. However, there were sorts of different opinion about what real beauty is between Luis and me. Nowadays, it is almost trend to have plastic surgery at least in Korea. So, almost all Korean women want to have plastic surgery in order for beauty. But he said that such artificial beauty is not real beauty. However, in my opinion, if that is not real beauty, what is real beauty? Beauty is evaluated by appearance [I know inner beauty is also important, however I think we cannot deny outer beauty could affect people strongly] and some animals try to make up with feathers and something like that in order to attract a partner. Plastic surgery can be seen by such a way. But the different thing is only that we use medical science and animals do not use.


When we talked about who makes you think what it means to be beautiful, our answer almost corresponded with each other. We picked up the famous celebrities, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox, blah blah blah. This means no matter how much we say that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty in order to determine who is a real beautiful person, eventually, we regard such people having beautiful appearance as beautiful people. It made us feel uncomfortable that we tend to judge others by appearance at first.

American culture

I saw several pictures in the video. Actually, the first thing to catch my eyes is fast food commercial, such as Mac Donald, Coke and so on. And interesting thing is that everyone has different opinions from each other about American culture. Actually, in my opinion, it cannot represent American culture perfectly. Of course, I agree with some thoughts but I cannot agree with anther thoughts. Since sometimes America is called immigration country, there are so many cultures which come from other countries and then some specific American cultures are made from them. In this process, each state has special and characteristic culture compared to other states. For example, this Mississippi culture is totally different from New York. I have been to my roommate’s house at thanksgiving holiday. Actually, my roommate is African-American. So I could feel directly southern home culture. They are living together and have many sons and daughters. Moreover, before I came here, United State, I thought that Americans do not have their special and distinguished food. But, I could eat real southern homemade food at my roommate’s house. That was very shocking to me. But when I went to New York, everything was different, including atmosphere, food culture, clothing style, vehicles, and even people’s thought. I know some differences are caused by different place between rural and urban place. However, I think that nobody can disagree with the fact that each state has their specific cultures. So, it is a shame that this video shows only surface American culture.


I could see diverse thoughts about American weather in the video. I think the biggest reason is huge continent. The United State has lots of states and some states are almost the same size as some countries and even bigger than those. In addition, it might take too much time from west to east in America. Therefore, it is so natural that they have totally different weather at the same time. That’s why people who are in the movie have different thoughts.


I think that it is depends on personality and personal environment to like music. As I mentioned above, my roommate is African-American. He is crazy at Hip-hop music and another friend who lives at next room always listens to Heavy metal music even at night. So, sometimes that makes me so crazy.


In Korea, especially in Seoul, there is no place where I can run around like here. So, I usually just go to watch movies and drink alcohol with friends. However, at least here, Americans play more activities. I played so many activities, such as baseball, basketball, and even shooting a gun. I think these amounts of activities that I did at here are almost the same as I did of my whole life.


To tell the truth, when I was in Korea, I always regarded American as white people. So, I thought that Americans have blue eyes, blond hair, long legs, and so on. But my thoughts were totally changed after arriving at here. I knew that some Americans do not have such characteristics and some Americans have totally opposite things and the MOST important thing that I realized is that foreigners including Americans are exactly the same as me.

medical differences

This picture represents demonstration to reject changing public management to private management of Korea medical system.




This picture shows the fact that Korea tend to eat a lot of medicinces.





This picture indicates the problem of medical insurance in America.





This picture (johns hopkins hospital) expresses that America has established main medical system in the world.


I chose the second one (hospital “ER”) of the movies. The brief story of the episode is that someone who got accident cannot be recovered and doctors regard his life as end in terms of medical aspect. In this situation, doctors asked his mother for donation of his body to others. Even though his mother insisted possibility to stand up again because he squeezed her hand, finally, she accepted and made a decision to donate his body to other people.


First of all, I think Korea medical system is almost the same as medical system of America, such as medical devices, references and so on. Since America has established main medical system so far, almost all countries follow America medical science. However, if I look at inside of Korea medical environment, there are some different things between Korea and America.


Actually, I do not know well about organ donation but I can say that I know about circumstance of Korea hospital because my left leg was broken when I was in military service. At first, I do not know America hospital atmosphere and system, however if the environment of this movie is true, Korea’s thing is totally different from America’s thing. In Korea, it is hard to expect that main doctor tries to contact with patients deeply. They usually have a lot of patients per one main doctor compared to America, so they do not have the time to consider specific people. Normally, patients can have only official and really essential treatment. Another big different thing is insurance and cost. I heard about insurance system of America from my roommate. He said that America medical system was changed to private management and then insurance price has been increasing rapidly and price of surgery and another treatment is unimaginably expensive. For example, if someone calls the ambulance because of injury, he or she should pay around 3,000 dollars just for ambulance. When I heard this one, I was so surprised because injury is not people’s intention. Who can know when we will be hurt? In addition, when I went to health center about 5 month ago in order to cure my cold, I could not help having suspicion on my eyes. I got about 400 dollars just for a prescription and medicine. In Korea, it is sufficient to pay only 6~7 dollars if I have medical insurance. Even if I do not have, the price will be only 20~30 dollars. Of course, there are several reasons why this America medical system became like this. However, if I look at a big picture, these two things are big different from Korea.


Additionally, In Korea, people tend to visit a doctor so much. If they feel little bit strange, almost 50% people go to a doctor or take a medicine. I think the big reason is relatively cheap medical price in terms of normal prices.


The only one thing that I hope in Korea is that people are willing to donate their body after death. Fortunately, nowadays, people’s thinking has been changing but it is not sufficient to cover demand. I hope someday Korea medical system and American too will be much better than today.

Superhero

At first, Luisfe who is from Chile said “a superhero of my country is condorito”. Condorito is normal man but looks like condo and has some feathers and tail. This character represents Chile culture. The most interesting thing is that this character is almost for adult not children because this comic satirizes society and sometimes government. He lives in virtual city, Pelotilleahue, and the city name comes from meaning of stupid in Spanish. This character is very famous and important in Chile. There is no person who does not know this condorito in Chile. He can be anybody such as priests, vendors, and political persons. He also has girl friend (He is better than me, he looks like the bird though). Actually, he does not have any superpower like superman. However, this character represents Chile’s comic culture and industry.



This character is "Condorito"


We do not have many superheroes in Korea because cartoon industry of my country could not develop as much as America. We have only own character. The character name is Doli who is a baby dinosaur. He was in big iceberg and drifted and then after melting the iceberg, he came out and went to one of houses in Seoul. Actually, this character is only one and last one representing our comic industry and comic culture in Korea because Korea government gave him social security number officially. Another superhero is “Hong-gildong”. He is a kind of robin hood. Actually, he was real person in 1440. He resisted corrupt government at that time. He was also leader thief guild and stole properties of corrupt political persons and distributed them to poor people. This story is quite similar to robin hood. Although we have also some characters who have superpower, such characters are not popular even in Korean. Therefore, I think these two characters are most popular and famous in Korea.




This character is "Doli"





This character is "Hong-gildong"


In America, there are a number of superheroes. Jess said that we cannot count how many superheroes exits so far. Her favorite superhero is “Tank girl” that I have never heard before. However, the story is similar to “Hong-gildong” and “Robin hood” but the age of background is future. The superhero also opposes corrupt government. While she, Jess, explained her superhero, she said very interesting information how such superheroes were made. Most American really needed someone who can save their country and life during World War 2. Ironically, at this time, so many superheroes were made. Superman is one of them. People contained their hope into such superheroes and American could achieve their wish indirectly through superheroes comic series. Actually, it is not fiction that most superheroes were made by America in the world. This is most different thing between American and other countries, including Chile and South Korea. Even though Chile and South Korea also has some characters, nobody knows the superheroes except their own people. In addition, I felt this different thing how much a superhero is familiar. I mean, in South korea, people who like cartoon are considered as this people who are incapable. However, I often saw someone who spoke like this “I have a feeling that I became a superman” which means this comic culture including superheroes is settled deeply in Americans’ thinking.



This character is "Tank girl"

Table manners

Actually, since we did not have enough time to make each countries’ foods, we just made a decision to set up fake foods of each countries.



At first, we talked about Korea table manner and settings. Actually, Korean almost eats a kind of soup with rice. So, Korean soup was supposed to be right side of rice in this picture. In Korea, we MUST put rice on left side of soup and put soup on right side of rice. In addition, a spoon should be located on the most right side. Moreover, big soup (called “JJigae”) should be put on the center of table. That means we share the food with families or friends who eat together. So, we do not use individual dishes expect for soup located nearby rice. That is big different food culture from other countries. Another interest thing is that we cannot eat before the oldest person start to eat. Of course this custom seems very strict. So, nowadays we do not consider the custom in families. However, if I have very formal and important dinner such as meeting of my girlfriend’s parent, I MUST do that. We also rarely use tables and chairs while we eat which means we sit down on floor and use only table to have short legs in a house. We also think this behavior to make some noise while we eat as rude behavior. However, when we eat noodles, we do not care about noise. And we do not care dress when we eat something in a house but when we go to luxury restaurant, we almost dress up, however this is not force.






Another country is Chile. In Chile, Chilean never shares food. They use individual dishes except for traditional food which is a kind of salad with a big mud bowl. It is very interesting that they should put their left hand (if someone use left hand, he/she should put right hand) on the table. If someone do not the behavior, people think strange. They usually have a lot of talking time after their meal. This is called “Sobremesa” This is quite different from Korea because we usually finish meal within 30~1 hour and then go to each destination. Chilean thinks that making noise is very rude while they eat including noodles. In addition, if they go to restaurant, they should dress up without exception. Sometimes, they cannot go inside unless they dress up formally.






The last country is USA. Table manners and settings of USA are almost similar to Chile. Making noise while they eat is forbidden including noodles and soups. Sometimes, they have strict table manners when they go to very luxury and formal restaurant. So, each spoon and fork should be used with proper foods. That makes me so confused. Some Americans even do not know how to use properly. In America, they also should dress up when they go to restaurant, however sometimes it depends on restaurant to dress up formally. They used to dress up formally even when they have meal in their house very long years ago.




I think food manners are almost decided by location because food settings and manners are very similar between Korea, Japan, and China. America’s food manner is also similar Canada and Mexico which is adjacent to USA.

Party~!!!!!

I’m going to write down my party plan which is not real and real holiday party that I experienced.
Actually, I will more focus on Valentines' day and Korea New year day.



1. Valentines’ day and Korea New year day.

Valentines’ day(14th Feb) was the New year day of Korea because Korean use lunar calendar, which means that yesterday was New year day of Korea (actually china also uses lunar calendar). So, several days ago, we planed Valentines’ day and New year party. The most interesting is that we should make traditional each countries’ food for this party. So, I prepared “Ddogbogkki” which is very famous and well-known food in Korean. But, there is no Korea food ingredients in Mississippi.


I ordered some ingredients through website. Finally, I could make my food and then went to the place, 1st floor of Student union. There were so many people gathered at Student union more than I imagined and I could see diverse traditional countries’ foods. Actually, my food was little bit spicy despite I made an effort not to make spicy. So, some people could eat well but some people said “oh, it is good but too spicy to eat”. I cannot write down guest list because so many guests came over there. But, I post a picture instead of announcement of guest list.


After dinner time, we played one game. This game was so interesting. At first, we should sit down as a circle and then one player stand at the center of circle. The player should say “I love you so please give me your smile” to in front of anyone and then the other person who received should say like this “I love you, too but I cannot give a smile to you” WITHOUT any smile. If receiver fails to endure smile, he or she will be changed by proposer. Actually, when I got another’s propose, I couldn’t stop laugh. So, I did the role of proposer TWICE.




This above picture is group picture. I cannot forget about this day~!!!!





This picture is the game that I mentioned above. Soooooo funny~!!!!!


The most wonderful thing was that we got beautiful snow when we went back to each dormitory after this party. What a fantastic ending of this party~!!!! lol~!!!


2. Plan a party

1)Party details
We are planning to hold Christmas party. The location is one of Bars which is in Square. Time is midnight to sunrise.
2)Guest list
We will invite unknown people. So, we will just give our invitation to any people whenever we encounter unknown people. But maximum people are about 50 people.
3)How you would invite guests
Just give invitation to any people. We do not consider who will receive our invitation. In addition, we will post our party on facebook website.
4)Supplies
Actually, main supply will be alcohol such as, beer, vodka, and so on. But we will prepare some pumpkin cookies because the day is Christmas.
5)Activities
We will write it on our invitation that all inviters should bring their wrapped gifts and then we will distribute the gifts to each person. Nobody knows what the gift is. Another activity is sexy dancing time. Luise will lead this dancing time with Santa costume.
6)Why you picked to celebrate this holiday.
Christmas is the biggest holiday of America and festival day in the world. That means everybody can be familiar with this party.
7)How is this party different than a party in your country?
Actually, there is Christmas day in Korea. But, big different thing is that this day is special to couples not families. In America, everybody goes back to their families at Christmas day. But, in Korea, only few people celebrate this day with their families.
8)photos that represent this holiday or your party.

Social norm

When I came here, United State, I did not know any social norm that American know and accept usually. So, unintentionally, I broke some social norm. Maybe my experience is very common in Korean.

The first social norm that I broke is leaving a tip for the waiter. I cannot be familiar with this custom because there is no tip custom in Korea. As far as I remember, when I went to Japanese restaurant located adjacent to Olemiss, I just paid food price without any tip. I did this rude behavior several times whenever I went to there. Finally, one of my friends who is a American said to me “Do you hate these waiters? Why do not pay any tip?” When I heard this, I really was surprised and so sorry for my ignorance of tip. After this shocking experience, I always make sure whether I paid tip or not whenever I leave restaurant.

The second thing is dressing up for formal place. Even though in Korea, people tend to dress up for formal places such as, wedding, graduation, and so on, most Korean just go to art place for watching opera, musical, or something like that. So, when I traveled to New York during winter break, I made a decision to experience opera in broad way. I bought a ticket and went inside. At that moment, I noticed that every people dressed up formally except for me. They did not look at me directly but I could feel their gaze. I really hoped to turn off light and start opera immediately. When I said this story to a friend of mine, he said that although there is no designated rule to dress up, almost 100% American accept the rule as a public rule like social norm.

These two things are my experience to break up social norm of my America life.

Interview HW_1

Today, I meet 3 persons who are from different countries. So, I asked some questions to them. There are two women in the meeting group. One of them is Korean. Her English name is Michelle and another woman is American. Her name is Jess. Finally, last person is man and his name is Luisfe. He is from Chile. We talked about a lot of things. So, I’ll show my interview.

First of all, Luisfe is the person who I want to introduce at first. As you can see above, He is from Chile. I was little bit surprised when I heard that He is belong to dancing group because his body doesn’t seem to be fit in dancing in terms of my aspect. He is studying linguistic and came here by scholarship provide by his country. In addition, he said a kind of eating custom which means that whenever they eat some food, bread always comes with food. Another interesting is that he has no brother and sister. So, I guess that is why he is raising dogs(mutts). Favorite colors which he likes are red, black, and purple.

Next person is Jess. When I saw her, I just thought that she might be 23~24 years old or something like that. But, after she said her age, I was also surprised. But, I am not going to reveal. That is secret (lol). A region where she is from is Lexington of Kentucky (I’m not sure but I heard like this). Interesting is that she has been to Seoul for trip because she traveled to Japan where is located nearby Korea. She has 3 brothers and cats. Actually, Jess and I have some common things. I really like heavy metal and she is also big fan of heavy metal. I am not good at sports with a ball and she also feels sacred at a ball. My favorite color is black and she is the same as me. Finally, she likes going to Karaoke and she is a very good singer and I like going there but I am not a good singer lol.

The last person is Michelle. She is from Korea, even though her name is English lol. She has been to so many countries, such as England, France, and some countries (I’m sorry I can’t remember). Her major is architecture but unfortunately there is no architecture in olemiss. So, she is taking business instead of architecture. One interesting thing is that reason why she chose this university is Samuel Mockbee. There is very famous architecture professor, Samuel Mockbee, in Alabama. So, even though she could not go to the university where Samuel Mockbee is in, she can go to Alabama easily by choosing this university of Mississippi in order to feel and learn his performance indirectly.

I was so impressed by this interview. I realized again that there are so many different people having different thinking and life style in the world. I really expect next meeting.

email

twarhol@olemiss.edu
saralph@olemiss.edu