All my closest friends in Korea are leaving in the next two weeks or have already left. Ashley, my BFF and I have made dream plans of how easy it will be to get together once we are back home -- despite her living in Oklahoma/Texas. My other BFF, Ben, is from Ohio...I've been a little more realistic with that one. Many people are also taking this time after classes to travel around. One of my favorite French people, Florian, had his parents come and then they are going to visit Japan. It has been really weird to witness the dorm this quiet...also to have to mentally filter through my cell phone to figure out who is still here and who isn't.
A quick note that I found odd: when I first arrived, I didn't really hang out with many Americans. I was mostly with Europeans. But as the semester unfolded, I found that I was actually evolving to spend most of my time with Americans. I ended the semester split with my group of friends being half-Americans and half-Japanese. It was really interesting to filter into the community that I did. I really wanted to spend more time in the Korean circle, but they study so hard and rarely live near the University. Most commute between 20 minutes and 2 hours each way to attend Ewha. That coupled with 12 hours of daily studying means it is harder to spend in Korean circles than international.
As stated in my previous post, I've been spending my time after finals trying to see as many people as I could before they left. Literally, I've had a couple days that go from lunch with one friend, to coffee with another, to dinner with another, to bars with a larger group that had several people leaving. Even with all my efforts, I've missed a handful of people.
Below are pictures from the last couple weeks. I've had fading batteries for a while (I really wish my camera used lithium ion...) so I've been taking less of them. One of the Americans told me he has taken over 3000 pictures (he also takes them of nearly every meal). I nearly have 400 pictures taken...it makes me feel like I need to work harder.
The Office of Global Affairs gave us a graduation party, complete with certificates in a velvet holder. It was really cool. In the back left is Ben, mentioned earlier in this post. In front of him is Ashley, also discussed above. In the middle is Yu from Japan, proudly holding his certificate. Yu is really fun to confuse because he says "huh?" a lot. The really short woman in front of me is Maki, from Japan. Maki looks really scary when she glares at people, she has ran up to me and "meowed" before and then ran away, and she playfully beats her boyfriend. For the record, I told everyone that they weren't allowed to leave...but nobody listened or is listening to me.
This is a picture of me and Aya. Aya is from Japan and was in my Korean class. Some mornings, it would just drag on for hours and hours so I would need entertainment. I would usually turn and glare at Aya until she noticed. The first couple weeks, she looked surprised and uncomfortable, even breaking the traditional Japanese socialization and asking me why I glared at her. But eventually it became mutual and that became the way we communicated boredom. Aya was also the best student in the class and she didn't miss a day until the final weeks. When the teacher asked us where she was, I made an educated guess and said she might have been kidnapped. After that, if she missed a day or was a few minutes late, I would send her several text messages making sure she wasn't kidnapped. The thing we are doing with our hands was taught by our Hong Kong friend who said it meant embarrassment or frustration. It is supposed to look like a sweat drop. I think I said something really awkward before this picture so we could try to get in the embarrassed mood.
For my Religions in Korea class, we went to a Buddhist temple and toured with a guide that spoke English. This is called a "water fish" in English despite the fact it is a dragon. If I remember right, this fish is hit with a wooden stick to symbolize the enlightenment of all swimming creatures. To the right of this picture is a giant drum that is banged for all living things on the ground to gain enlightenment. To the far right is a giant gong that was for all flying beings to gain enlightenment.
These 3 Buddha statutes were probably 12-15 feet tall and about 6 feet across. If I remember right, the one in the middle is the first historical Buddha, Siddhartha. To the left is Amida (I am probably misspelling that) Buddha. I've forgotten the name of the one to the right. The only difference between them is their hand gestures. In Buddhism, a Buddha is simply someone who has achieved Enlightenment, making for thousands of Buddhas. A good analogy to Christianity is to consider a Buddha as a Saint and not equivalent to a central figure.
My professor is also unable to distinguish by simply using hand-gestures as a guide. If a temple were to put Amida Buddha in the middle, then the sect would be Pure-Land Buddhism. This is also the case with any other Buddha in the middle. Pure-Land Buddhism would also likely put Siddhartha on the right. These temples also have a lot of food and rice at the alter in front of the Buddha statues and also on the left and right walls. Therefore, there are tons of birds inside eating all the food. One of the women with us was scared of birds and would gasp whenever one flew by. I thought it was funny.
This is a good place to take note of this, but birds fly lower in Korea. Never back home did I feel like the bird flying at me might actually run into me. But here, I duck because they fly directly at my head and then pull up like a foot ahead of me. When I told one of my American friends, she said it was because I look like a tree.
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