Above is a pretty striking example of a cultural or at least organizational difference between Korea and America. I first noticed it while exploring the part of Asan closest to our campus, trying to find what sort of shops and dining establishments were close by. As I did so there were two or three incidences of multiple piles of filled garbage bags out on the street. Just sitting there. At first glance it seemed pretty unsanitary - and this in a place where the plumbing can't handle toilet paper going through the pipes.

Then I stopped and thought, ultimately coming to understand that it's not a bad thing just because of how different it is from what I see in the States. Later I was able to see why these little mountains of trash were just left out on the street like that. A garbage truck came by later in the day, and when I checked outside the dorm afterwards, all the trash was gone. What I'd thought was just maybe poor santiation was actually a convenient way for places with lots of trash to leave it all out for disposal pickup. There aren't nearly as many garbage cans on campus as you might find at an American school, and Korea has a pretty thorough recycling program from what I've heard. So the moral of this observation was that things are different, not worse. I'd thought I knew better than that, but it took garbage to show me otherwise.

When I first arrived on campus, I'd already seen a lot of new buildings going up all along the way from Incheon airport. There's even a parking structure/apartment building still under construction next to our campus. These are all signs of the rapid rebuilding the country has undergone since the devastation of the Korean War. As Judith Sachs, one of our coordinators put it, "They've come from the devastation of that war in 60 years to become the 12th largest economy in the world. It's really a miracle." In so many places I look now, I see this resurgence still going on in all the apartment buildings that are being built. Even in Myeongdong, a center for fashion and discount (often, seemingly, illegal) name brand goods, there was a building undergoing rennovation.

On the SoonChunHyang Campus, this drive for construction has been most visible in a long flight of stairs that were under construction when we arrived. You can see the the fountain at their top, still under construction itself, above. They were, I assume, built to grant an alternative to the narrow wooden plank staircase that's the only other way down in that part of the campus. All throughout the day there were a couple of people working on it, but I was sure it'd take a little while longer to complete. Therefore I was astonished to find they'd been completed, including the fountain, within just 3 days of arriving on campus. While they were certainly under construction longer than those 3 days, it was still an impressive feat all the same. Similarly, buildings that are under construction seem to be completed at a more rapid rate than would be seen in America.

Something that I'm starting to find out while abroad is that you have to just give in to whims of inspiration sometimes. It'll start just as something little you notice or read about. The more you think about it the more you want to go and see it, find out what it's really like rather than just seeing the pictures. The only way to really satisfy your mind afterwards is to make the effort to go and see what it is that caught your attention in person.

This was the case when I noticed flyers posted around the SCH campus for a production of Chicago. Mildly curious at first, the more I thought about it, the more I really wanted to see the show. Korea as I understand it has been a fairly conservative culture, based on the foundations of Confucianism and its emphasis on filial piety. So a show in which the chorus girls are dressed in the manner of flappers and dancers seemed like an intriguing choice of material.

As for the show itself, I found it to be well directed and acted. Even though I couldn't understand most of what was being said or sung, the hard work put in to the production was obvious. The cast performed with much energy and charisma, especially the leads, and it was a lot of fun to watch. Despite only having been here one week, I think this will be one of the better memories of my time in Korea. Something both familiar and alien - an American play performed in Korean - was someting I'd never imagined finding here. Yet when I did, it was that random inspiration that drove me to investigate further, and ultimately get quite a bit of enjoyment out of it.