Interesting Differences Between the U.S. and Korea

Traveling to another state to work is one thing, but traveling to another country puts things into perspective and really shows how different cultures are.

The most startling difference, coming from Maine, is the temperature. It is regularly in the 100s or near that with heavy humidity. It also, lately, has rained at least once a day for roughly 20 minutes.

One of the first things that you notice here is that Koreans do not heat or cool their hallways... so with the temperatures approaching and passing 100 degrees, you sweat doing anything... especially walking down the halls. Every room and classroom is air conditioned, but other than that you are "exposed to the elements". Another unique thing about Korean is that their doors open in both directions, so instead of the door saying pull, you could decide to pull it open or push it open... it all depends on what you want to do.

It is also interesting to walk around Daegu because there is not too much diversity here... with most of the people being Korean. So being a white American, people tend to stop and look at you or watch you as you walk around the city... in some cases, people look shocked to see a white person walking around. Having said that, there is no problem with that and people are all very kind and often say hello, nod, or smile at you as you walk around.

Korean also has really cheap cigarettes, to the tune of 2500 won, or roughly $2.50usd... and lots of people smoke here. Gasoline is sold in liters and not gallons (making it very expensive compared to the U.S.) and they have very interesting water fountains... you do not drink the tap water here, so the fountains have a regular mouth piece, but also include a hot and cold "tap" (like a sink) which you can fill things like water bottles up with.



Other things that are different is that construction here goes really quickly, mostly because they work 7 days a week, and its not uncommon to see people working on buildings at 4am or at 10pm.

Also, unlike most of the U.S., Korea relies a lot on mass transit. So its easy to take buses or cabs anywhere. We took a 30min cab ride downtown and it cost only $10.

I could go on and on about the differences, but I think everyone gets the point. The one obvious thing is that we are no longer in the States, so its important for us to respect the Korean culture and way of life -- if you do that, then people will respect you for it here.