Modern Korean Society with professor Steve Garrigues

Even though writing is not my thing I managed to write few posts, but I wrote nothing about the university and that's why I got a chance to come Korea. So I decided to do something about it and write briefly about one class I particularly enjoyed. 

At Kyungpook National University I had 4 courses, twice a week, but there was one that I enjoyed especially and always tried my best not to miss the class - it means if I was in Daegu on monday or friday I always went to that class. It was Modern Korean Society with professor Steve Garrigues, an anthropologist from States, living in Korea for over 30 years. Mr Garrigues used to live in many places all over the world including Japan, Tonga and India if I remember correctly and his knowledge is impressively broad.

In the first class when he told us some of his stories, including the one, when he got from States to India by van (boarding a ferry in Chicago - I didn't know you can do that), and when I learnt that he used to live in Tonga, I already knew it was gonna be interesting.

And I wasn't wrong. Every week we were discussing different aspect of Korean culture, which was super helpful to understand certain behaviors. The funny thing, but actually quite natural is that Mr. Garrigues has far broader knowledge about Korean culture than great majority of Koreans. It's understandable of course, because paradoxically we often know very little about our own cultures compared to someone who looks at it more 'scientifically' and looks from a different  perspective.

It was often very frustrating when I asked my Korean friends about certain things and in response I got answers like, 'I don't know', 'ooh it's not important', 'you're a foreigner, it doesn't apply to you' or some made up stories - urban legends.

That's why Modern Korean Society was a very useful class. I got to know why Koreans behave like they do in certain situation, how to eat properly in Korea, how to tell Korean chopsticks from Japanese or Chinese, who is that fat smiling guy that we like to call Buddha in Europe, how to draw a Korean flag, what all those symbols in temples mean, and many many more. 

The thing is that you can live in that country and stay completely ignorant about those little details, but I believe it's awesome to dig a little deeper and try to understand 

why things are the way they are in certain cultures. So if you ever happen to be at Kyungpook National University, make sure you take this class, it's really worth it.