cultural (mis)understanding?

you’d think that a month would feel like a really long time to be in a foreign country and that it would provide enough time to gather solid information on that country’s language, culture, and approach to green building. In reality, we’re halfway into week three of the trip and I only feel like we’re going to be able to scratch the surface, even though our itinerary is built around those things. I think that this is partly because I’m not in control of my own schedule, partly because I didn’t prepare for the trip in as complete a way as I could/should have, but primarily because it takes way more than a month, several visits to palaces and museums, and visits to a handful of A/E firms to even begin to get to the bottom of what the fundamental drivers in a society and people are, how the government is structured, how policy influences my particular field, and why Korean customs and behaviors are what they are.

at times I have found myself feeling critical, not only of our Korean hosts, but also of the GSE team members, and of myself, but I’m trying to channel the advice I once received as an exchange student, which is, “It’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s just different" (thank you AFS!). this applies both to acknowledging cultural differences without value judgment and accepting each of my fellow traveler’s way of taking in information, adjusting to difficult circumstances, and processing this experience.  I’m not saying that I have to force myself to like everything I observe… for example some gender roles appear to be so old-school that one of my host was embarrassed for me to know that his daughter-in-law is 5 years older than his son and the types of careers that are generally acceptable for women still seem so prescriptive (one person told us that women who are good at math and science generally “prefer” studies in medicine because they don’t “want” to go into engineering or technology).  BUT, even though these concepts/behaviors/beliefs seem strange to me, I have to acknowledge that there is history in this country that I don’t understand, cultural norms that are so different from my own that I can’t even begin to construct the logic behind them.

one other thing that I’ve been thinking a lot about is language and its impact on cultural understanding. Our Korean has not progressed much beyond “hello,” “thank you,” “tasty food” and a few other phrases we use pretty regularly, and although I know that there’s no way that we could become proficient in Korean in a matter of a few weeks, part of me wishes that I had a decoder ring that would allow me to eavesdrop on conversations going on around me, read signs, and express all my thoughts and questions fluently in Korean. so many of our questions go unanswered because the translations aren’t clear or we don’t get subtle cultural clues that would allow us to interpret the responses even if the words aren’t exactly right. knowing the structure (grammar and word formation) of the language would probably give some insight into the way Koreans think, how they see things through their cultural lens, and what they value. for example, I learned yesterday that what we call a sea cucumber is called “sea ginseng” in Korean. I’m not sure exactly what that reveals, except maybe that ginseng is more of a staple in the Korean diet so they’re more likely to make a comparison to it than to a cucumber… but I suppose this in and of itself is a cultural clue.  this is the part of learning a foreign language that I find fascinating, and I hope that I stay motivated to follow through on learning Korean when I get home.