When I was little, I believed that what I saw around me was all about the world. Now I have flown thousands of miles from Korea to America and have been able to experience a whole new world. Holding on to what I have learned in Korea while engaging in American culture has helped me see what I couldn’t see before. When I was in Korea, I did not pay attention to what surrounded me so I did not realize how valuable everything that was given to me was and how grateful that I was to be a part of Korean. Since I have been in America for about four years now, this time has given me an insight to look at Korea from a different perspective. During my time in America, I have also noticed that a lot of Americans have a prejudice or wrong information about Korea. Thus, I would like to bring my old memories back and share about a country that I am very proud of, and hopefully, my blogs can be a door for all of my readers to experience a whole new world.
There are a few aspects about Korea that I want to introduce in my blogs - Korean culture, food, political issues (North vs. South), economics. First of all, I want to talk about cultural shocks that I had experienced the first time I came to America. Since Korea is one of the most closed context cultures in Asia and America is very open minded, the two cultures are very different from people’s languages to behaviors. The more knowledge about the culture, the better understanding they will have and more open minded they will be. Secondly, Korean food that people know is very limited; Korean BBQ and Kimchi. However, there is more to Korean food than just those two dishes. I would like to introduce other kinds of food, possibly how to make them, and also how to eat properly at Korean dinner tables. Next thing I want to educate the readers is politics, especially about North Korea and South Korea. Some people still don’t know how they are different so they ask me which part of Korea I am from when I introduce myself. Also, as marketing major, I can’t skip the fact that South Korea’s economy is growing rapidly in this world. A lot more people use Korean products and invest in Korea market. However, everyone knows what Samsung is but a lot of them don’t know which country the company is from. Thus, I would like to talk about which level Korean economics is at and explain how it works.
Many factors have inspired and gave me motivation to write about Korea for my blog. I know that if you type “Korea” in Google, thousands of websites and blogs have information about it. However, I wanted to share my first hand experiences and my own thoughts with my readers. While I turn back to my old memories and play with them, I hope that my readers enjoy learning about Korea and come inside of the door to the new world to play in there.
