An Outsider's Guide to the South Korean Election

2012 is a unique year – for the first time since 1992, both the US and South Korea are holding presidential elections in the same year.  By virtue of having been in California on business during US election day last month, I am also in the unique position to get to watch both elections first-hand once I witness Korean election day on December 19th.

The candidates pictures. Park Geun-Hye (박근혜) is #1, followed by Moon Jae-In (문재인) as #2

Bear in mind that what I am about to write only reflects my somewhat limited view of the Korean election based mostly on what I read in English-language media.  I don't have a vote and I certainly don't have a dog in the fight.

So everyone in the world now knows that Barack Obama has been confirmed for a second term as President of the USA.  Far fewer have probably been following the goings-on of this peninsula of 50 million people.  Let me fill you in.

Oddly-dressed "get out the vote" parade in Insadong

South Korea elects a new president every 5 years and said president cannot serve a second term.  Hence, we know for certain that current president Lee Myung-Bak is a lame duck.  Presidential advertising banners showing the candidates can be found all over Seoul now, and though Korea has a multi-party system the country only has two candidates with any legitimate shot of winning: Park Geun-Hye of the governing Saenuri Party and Moon Jae-In of the opposition Democratic United Party (DUP).  The stories behind these candidates I find fascinating and the candidates appear to represent distinctly different choices, much like we had in the Obama/Romney election in the US.

Ms. Park represents the conservative, pro-business, pro-American ruling Saenuri Party.  Much like the Republican party in the US, the Saenuri seem to poll well with older and rural voters.  Ms. Park is the daughter of the former dictator Park Chung-Hee, a man that ruled South Korea with an iron fist for two decades as he oversaw Korea's economic miracle, transforming the country from one of the poorest nations on Earth to an Asian "tiger".  Under dictator Park's rule, the chaebol business conglomerate system took hold and behemoths such as Samsung, Hyundai, and LG emerged as manufacturing dynamos in the new economy.  The methods by which dictator Park enforced the rule of law were harsh and Ms. Park has been forced to apologize for the abuses of his police state during her campaign.

Mr. Moon represents the liberal DUP, certainly less business-friendly than the Saneuri and more likely to try to engage with North Korea diplomatically.  This party seems more like the Democratic party in the US – labor-friendly with more urban support.  Moon has campaigned to break up the chaebol and limit the power of the family oligarchs that control them.  Chaebol seem to hold a place in Korean politics similar to "too big to fail" banks in the US – attacked easily and relentlessly by populist rhetoric but very difficult to change in practice.  A human-rights lawyer, Moon was thrown in jail by Park's father following a university protest.  Moon served as the chief of staff for former liberal president Roh Moo Hyun, who committed suicide after leaving office in a corruption scandal.  So both candidates have skeletons in their closets.

I watched the first debate but didn't understand much. If only I knew sign language!  (see bottom-right corner)

The campaign has dominated Korean news since I arrived in August, but interestingly I haven't seen any campaign ads on Korean TV.  I watched the first televised debate last week, which made very little sense as I understood almost none of what was said.  It did seem civil, though the words may have indicated differently.  My ears perked up when I heard one candidate say "Samsung...chaebol...<unintelligible Korean>", which I'm assuming was a discussion about business policy.  At another point I heard, "...Meguk...Ilbon...Chunguk..." which I'm assuming was a foreign policy discussion since the Korean names of the USA, Japan, and China were mentioned. Interestingly, the Koreans invited a third party candidate, whose name I don't even know, and said candidate received equal air time.  The debate mostly consisted of the candidates getting to ask questions to each other.  So Ms. Park was able to ask a question to Mr. Moon, and then vice versa.  I think this format could really spice up American presidential debates! 

Like Obama in the US election, Ms. Park has held a small but steady lead over Mr. Moon in the polls throughout the campaign, so odds are that she will win this election. There is an X-Factor, however, in the form of Ahn Cheol-Soo, a self-made business tycoon who flirted with a campaign for a couple months before dropping out.  Like Ross Perot in 1992, Ahn wanted to shake up the political establishment by running as an outsider, but just as Perot split votes amongst the anti-Clinton camp in 1992 Ahn was about to split the anti-Park crowd, handing Park an easy victory. Some behind-the-scenes drama to unite the Ahn and Moon campaigns failed as the political insider Moon refused to step aside, and Ahn reluctantly ended his campaign only a couple weeks ago. The charismatic Ahn could play kingmaker here but he has only given lukewarm support to Moon thus far, and a large number of Ahn's supporters (many of them disillusioned but flaky younger voters) may not vote at all.

If Park does manage to hold on to her lead and win the presidency, it could represent a watershed moment for women's rights in South Korea. In the latest World Economic Forum Gender Gap report, South Korea ranks 108th out of 135 countries surveyed, only slightly above most Middle East countries and worst in the OECD.  A Park victory would deeply challenge the long-entrenched patriarchy dominating Korean society, a legacy that may well prove more fruitful than any policies which she enacts.


--------
Further reading for the interested:
Bloomberg
The Economist

Delightful Sunday in Insadong

Today was a delightfully mild day for December in Seoul, about 7 degrees C with a light wind and sunny.  I needed to do some Christmas shopping, so fortunately my Korean friend Sangok agreed to guide me through the gift shops of Samcheongdong and Insadong.

Samsung Galaxy 3 failed on the lighting, but at least you can see the food

Samcheongdong is a charming area with many cafes, restaurants, and art galleries.  I started my afternoon by downing a delicious breaded pork cutlet filled with kimchi and cheese in a cozy diner. We then navigated to a couple shops – I don't want to give away what we found lest I give away to my family what gifts I will be bringing home in my suitcase!

We stopped for coffee, then walked south to nearby Insadong, a more popular pedestrian mall full of small art galleries, craft shops, and tasty restaurants. This is by far the best place in Seoul to go hunting for Korean souvenirs and I had an easy time finding good presents inside the many shops. Again, I won't give away what I purchased, but I did find traditional Korean wrapping paper to place all my gifts in!

With Sangok at the Insadong pedestrian area

Insadong was lively today. We saw a musical "get out the vote" parade (the Korean presidential election is December 19th) as well as a traditional performance of the Samul Nori performed by a group of college students.  I wished I had my real camera as my Samsung Galaxy S3 could barely capture the action.

My future visitors to Seoul will certainly receive a tour of this area!

Samul Nori : a drum and gong performance

American Thanksgiving in Korea

While most of my American friends were home with their families on November 22nd to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, I was working at Samsung, as this isn't a holiday in Korea!  I did miss not being home that day but certainly the US was too far to travel from Seoul for a 4-day weekend, especially as I'm already taking time off to go back for Christmas.

However, I work with many Americans in my group who also felt home gripping at their emotions, so a group got together to celebrate the holiday at my colleague's apartment in the Hannam-dong neighborhood.  We invited our non-American friends as well to make this the most international Thanksgiving ever.  My colleagues were able to find a store that would cater a cooked turkey for us, along with mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and more.  We even had the taped Thanksgiving day football games playing in the background to create a true American ambiance.

Though we celebrated on a Saturday and not a Thursday, I still heartily stretched the limits of my stomach.  The feast was delightful and almost felt like home.  I even went back for leftovers this afternoon, in true Thanksgiving tradition.

Having friends to celebrate this adventure we're having in Korea...something to be quite thankful for this year!

Dear South Korea, sorry that we held your flag upside-down!!

Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)

Those who follow this little journal regularly (I admire those that do!) will notice that I haven't written anything in quite some time. Well, the fact is that I have been away from Seoul for quite some time!

Near the end of October, Samsung flew me away back to my home country for a three-week business trip to Northern California. After only 2.5 months in Korea (with excursions to China and Japan mixed in this fall) I wasn't really craving to go back to the US so quickly, but I did look forward to sneaking in some time with friends in San Francisco in between busy work days.

I actually found myself a little anxious as I packed for my first trip east across the Pacific. What sorts of reverse culture shock would I experience? How has Korea changed me thus far, if at all? What would I miss most about the US, and would the familiarity of home terrain make me long to stay?

Reverse culture shock -- seeing a whole row of deodorant at CVS!

Traveling "back in time" to reach San Francisco on a Sunday (due to crossing the date line) I was happy to have an extended weekend. Jet lag didn't hit me too badly on the first day, and I had some time to settle into San Jose and observe for things that felt a little unnatural. Like American football on TV. Or lots of obese people. A whole row of deodorant on sale at CVS (which, strangely is difficult to find in Korea). Being able to communicate freely in my own language again. Americans mispronouncing the name of the song "Gangnam Style". And the ethnic/cultural mosaic that is much more diverse in California than in Seoul – seeing Hispanics, South Asians, and black people again was actually somewhat refreshing. But not all that much felt unusual. I guess I haven't been in Korea for very long.

There were definitely things I missed about not being in the US. Chipotle burritos are still delicious. Streaming Pandora is a musical genius (available in Korea with a VPN connection, but that's just too complicated). Being able to buy cold medicine without needing to explain my condition to a pharmacist. Inexpensive cheese and wine. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, curly-haired's – basically anything besides straight black hair!

Best part of going back to America, without question: seeing old friends

But living out of dull San Jose, with its boring strip malls and sterile technology office parks, left me yearning for life in Seoul. I didn't expect to be longing for Korea on my trip, but by the end of my time in the US I couldn't wait to board the plane to go back to my new city. As a foreigner, Seoul will be a difficult place to ever call "home", but being away made me realize that we actually have pretty good lives there. I missed being able to walk everywhere (or utilize the ubiquitous taxis and public transit). I missed super-fast Internet and mobile phone networks (T-Mobile is awful in the Bay Area, BTW). I love Korean BBQ and drinking cheap beer with friends. I can't wait to go hiking again and explore Korea's abundant natural beauty.

Going to China and Japan this fall also reinforced some of the better characteristics of Korea. I was overwhelmed in China by the pollution and the masses of people pushing to get everywhere. China also made clear how well-put-together the citizens of Seoul are – Chinese fashion sense could be much improved, and the average Beijinger doesn't take nearly as good care of her appearance as in Korea.  I liked Tokyo a lot, but missed the group spirit there that is so central to Korean culture. One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." Before moving to Asia, I would not have been tell you many things which distinguish the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures, but now I have a much clearer perspective.

 My first time back since the "Gangnam Style" craze

Of course, the one thing I will always be missing from America are all the great friends I have from there. Not that we're out of touch. One of my American friends, who has lived extensively abroad, tells me that in the age of email and Skype she actually felt she stayed in better touch with some people far away during her last stint in Asia. Another friend of mine hypothesizes that Facebook has made it much easier to maintain "loose" connections. I think both my wise friends are  right. Being far away has reinforced the importance of checking in with people in America. Communication has never been cheaper and easier. But all this electronic media cannot fully substitute for face-to-face contact. I already skipped a wedding of a close friend this fall, and I can no longer hop on a plane for a quick weekend trip to see someone in a different American city. This I do miss greatly.

That said, it's good to be back in Korea, though the weather is much chillier now than when I left (California weather was nice). I don't know how long I will stay here in Seoul, but a small part of me already feels natural eating kimchi every day with chopsticks and amusing shopkeepers with my broken bits of Korean language. "Home" may still not be Korea, but perhaps now this hard-to-define place exists for me a couple hundred miles west of the California coast.

Hiking, Korea Style

Some days here, I have my mind blown.  Today was one of those days.

This panorama was shot from one of the gates in Bukhansan National Park.  Difficult to capture on film how breathtaking a view this was.

I woke up early on a mild October morning today to go hiking with one of my colleagues in this park just north of Seoul.  One of the great things about living in Korea is that you're surrounded by mountains, and a pastime of Korean life is to go climb them.  One of the best parts of going to Darden and living in Charlottesville for me was the proximity to the outdoors, and quite surprisingly it's not hard to get into nature in Seoul either.  Seoul has excellent public transit, and we were able to get from the Hannam-dong neighborhood (where we both live) to the foot of the mountain in about an hour by subway and bus.

Summer's heat was thankfully swept away several weeks ago and autumn's chill has slowly started to creep in here, though the temps are still comfortable.  The days are mostly dry now and it's a wonderful time to visit Korea.  We saw more than a few glimpses of the fall foliage in full display today.

The Bukhansan park is massive and there are hundreds of trails meandering every which way through it.  The park has lots of Buddhist temples — Buddhists fled to the mountains when they were persecuted during the Joseon dynasty — so you can get your spiritual fix in more ways than one.  There are also a series of old defense gates and you can make a good hike out of walking from one gate to the next.

But be warned — the mountains here are not for amateur hikers!  The trail started simply enough, and I was mocking the Koreans for getting all geared up.  Most were carrying hiking sticks and were decked out in everything that REI offers.  But once we climbed towards the peaks, my nonchalance quickly turned to anxiety.  There were some serious rock scrambles up there!  Sadly, I was unprepared.  I own proper hiking boots but I had never needed them on the relatively tame peaks around Charlottesville, so of course I thought my low traction running shoes would suit me just fine.

My buddy De and I were getting tired but we were loving the hike, and we thought we had plotted a good way to get down and out of the park.  But we reached a peak we couldn't ascend, so we thought we could find a path around.  Big mistake.  We started following a group of middle-aged Koreans who were bouncing down but they clearly weren't on a path, and they were far more prepared for offroading than we were.  After a couple slips the Koreans saw our plight and adopted us into their group, scolding us repeatedly for not wearing the right boots (they didn't like my t-shirt and shorts, either).  This was possibly the most intense, macho group of 50-year-old hikers I have ever encountered.  I saw one guy in the group literally climb a boulder with no hands, just to show off.  I don't even know if they sell boots in the US with the grippy material on his soles, but I need to find some!

De did not come prepared for these rock scrambles

Though these macho Korean hikers spoke only about as much English as I speak of Korean (not much!), they were helpful in guiding us down.  We even stopped with them for snack time, and they graciously offered us their scallion pancakes, pickled anchovies, and soju.  That's right, soju...Korean vodka!  I never thought drinking and hiking mixed, but I wasn't able to let down a group of Koreans who already thought we were pathetic foreigners with our shabby footwear.  So I downed about four shots!

Despite the alcohol making our already slippery balance even worse, De and I managed to make it down the rest of the mountain and back to the bus stop for the return journey to Seoul.  Though exhausted from a day of intense hiking, we came away with a unique cultural experience and memories we will never forget.  And we had quite the appetite for dinner — Korean barbeque was especially delicious this evening!

What Price Beauty?

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss, that fadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass, that's broken presently:
     A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
     Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.
William Shakespeare, "The Passionate Pilgrim"

One cannot travel anywhere on public transport around Seoul without being confronted with the latest fad: young Koreans obsession with plastic surgery. You wouldn't believe it until you see it — advertisements everywhere, on the subway and on buses, showing before and after photos of enhanced faces and altered bodies. Walk around Gangnam and you see signs plastered on building exteriors for plastic surgery clinics. I haven't yet figured out where I would need to go if I had the flu and needed to see a doctor, but I would have no problem finding a place for a face lift. It's shocking!

Imagine going down a subway escalator and seeing this ad

In general, the fixation with looks goes beyond anywhere else I have traveled in the world. Walk around anywhere in public on a typical day, and you'll see a Korean woman in an idle moment with her hand mirror out, examining her face. In this week's news, I read that South Korea is the world's biggest market for male cosmetics — a country of 50 million people makes up 21% of global skincare sales! That's a lot of fancy moisturizer being used by a metrosexual bunch. My newsfeed also pulled up an announcement of 15% off tour packages to Korea this month for cosmetic procedures. And recently one of my colleagues suggested I watch the Korean film "Cinderella", a horror flick showing poor teenage girls scraping each other's faces.

Having done a little reading on Korean culture before arriving in August, I knew that plastic surgery was becoming a thing here. I had read the New York Times piece last November documenting the dramatic rise in cosmetic procedures. The article quoted a 2009 survey, which found that one in five Seoul women between 19 and 49 admitted to having undergone plastic surgery. It said that the double eyelid fold procedure, designed to make the eyes look larger and rounder, was "so common here that most women on Seoul streets seem to have a double fold, though only one in five Koreans is born with one."

This woman looks happier "After".  Shocking...

What's the look that Korean women are going for? You'd be surprised. Says a plastic surgeon quoted by NYT: “Koreans agree on what constitutes a pretty face...The consensus, now, is a smaller, more sharply defined youthful face — a more or less Westernized look."

So this explains the obsession with the bigger eyes. And bigger busts. Rhinoplasty to create a more defined nose bridge. Contouring the chin and cheeks. Even (I kid you not) calf reduction surgery!

But why the obsession with the Western look? And why throw tens of thousands of dollars into getting it? Partly it could be due to the popularity of Western media, American movies and the like. Koreans do very much like things they perceive as European or American, which connote a sense of wealth and prestige. Hence the love of Starbucks Coffee. And golf. And BMW cars. But the tentacles of Western media creep far and wide in this world. And in most other countries, women don't feel compelled to take scalpels to their faces to show their love of Hollywood.

I think the reason for the surgery boom is the hyper-competitiveness of the Korean culture. I recently finished the book "Korea Unmasked" by Won-Bok Rhie, a cartoonist who tries to explain the idiosyncrasies of being Korean, especially what makes it different than being from China or Japan. One of the themes which came out of the book for me was the predominant group culture here. Koreans feel very drawn to groups with which they share things in common, and therefore feel a desire to keep pace with the group. In America, we have an idiom for social benchmarking called "Keeping up with the Joneses" — in Korea you could translate this into "Keeping up with the Kims". In Korean society, this trend manifests itself in the education system, where students work morning to night to study to keep pace with their classmates. It manifests itself in Korea's recklessness with credit card debt — the average household debt burden exceeds that of the US before the global financial crisis! And now, I think, you see this trend with plastic surgery. If your neighbor gets her cheeks tweaked and her nose fixed, then finds a husband or gets hired for a good job, you'll probably do the same.

The label for this beverage says (in English) "I'm on a Diet. Look at me!"

As a foreigner from a country where beauty is certainly important but an obsession with which is seen as undesirable vanity, the whole surgery trend strikes me somewhat as a country gone mad. Don't get me wrong — I certainly appreciate a women who is well-put-together, eats right, exercises. And I understand that the genetic lottery has given some people more fortunate appearances than others. But in all this cutting and scraping for the ideal look, there must be something lost in Korea. As a trained economist, certainly I see an economic loss from throwing all this money into the rather unproductive plastic surgery industry. As a human*, I wonder why the elements of uniqueness and diversity, which are also beautiful, are so undervalued here. In a region of the world already mocked for having everyone looking the same, these elements are badly needed, but Koreans seem to be going down the path towards external conformity, sadly.



* (which, perhaps, is the opposite of being an economist!)

Gyeongju

My two weeks of Samsung orientation wrapped up on Friday; now the real work begins! Clearly, the highlight of the week was an overnight trip to Gyeongju in southeastern Korea, the capital of the ancient Shilla dynasty. Though little of the ancient city remains, the area is home to a couple large Buddhist temples up high on lush green mountains. The whole area was beautiful. On our way there we visited the Samsung factory where the Samsung Galaxy S3 phone is assembled (all-female workforce!) and had a fancy welcoming party at a lovely resort in Gyeongju. We cut loose with our Korean staff over drinks, dancing, and karaoke (what the Koreans call "noraebang") – the Koreans can really sing!

Pond at the Bulguksa Temple

The new Samsung GSG class at Bulguksa Temple

New Job, New Home

Whew! What a week! Not only did I have my first week on the Samsung payroll, I also moved into a new residence. While I catch my breath I'll recount how things went.

First, I returned to full-time workforce after a 28-month hiatus on Monday, ironically celebrated as "Labor Day" in my home country. I slapped the alarm clock, suited up, wolfed down breakfast, and arrived at 7:50AM at the office. It was like a return to first year of business school, albeit dressier. Our first two weeks at Samsung are an orientation period, so we're not "working" per se, though keeping similar hours. Thankfully we had been up early the week before to attend Korean language classes, so it wasn't a complete jolt to the system to be up that early, though certainly the realization that I no longer live in B-school la-la land has set in.

A light photo moment on workday #1

On Monday morning, the 42 new hires boarded a bus in Seoul and traveled to the Samsung HR Development Center (HRDC) in the exurbs of the Seoul metro area.  The HRDC was quite nice and immense...even had dormitories for overnight stays. Felt like "Camp Samsung" to me. Our group stayed for two days, spending the night sleeping on the "Wassily Kandinsky" floor (meant to inspire our creativity we were told). At the HRDC we listened to lectures on the Korean culture and succeeding at Samsung.

Wednesday felt less like work as we completed a "challenge course" designed to promote teamwork. No trust falls at Samsung, though we did climb ladders built from logs and learned how to communicate with one another while blindfolded. On Thursday, we toured Samsung Electronics facilities in the nearby city of Suwon, listening to more introductory lectures and viewing the assembly of semiconductors. On Friday, we stayed in the new office in Seoul and learned about some of Samsung's lesser-known business divisions: construction, green energy, and insurance.

One of several group photos taken last week of the entering Samsung GSG class

The weekend left no time for rest as my moving day was Saturday. It felt disorienting to be leaving my hotel in Gangnam – after a month there that neighborhood had become the center of my Korean universe. My new apartment is in Hannam-dong, a neighborhood just north of the Han River that has many of Seoul's foreign embassies. I seem to be in the ASEAN area – the embassies of Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand all stand within two blocks of me. The neighborhood feels far more residential than Gangnam and is popular with colleagues in my group due to its proximity to the bustling Itaewon nightlife as well as the office (a 25-minute commute by bus).

The moving company arrived promptly Saturday morning at 9AM and got to work very quickly. So much more manpower on the Korean side of the move – I had three Americans packing my stuff in Charlottesville, and eight Koreans packed into my apartment to unload! Not surprisingly, the Koreans worked very quickly and I frantically tried to direct them. After living out of suitcases for almost three months, I started to wonder why I owned so much stuff! Thankfully almost everything arrived intact.

New Seoul residence: Rosemary Villa in Hannam-dong

The new apartment has a lot of space and a lot of windows. I also have a guest bedroom, so any visitors to Seoul have a place to stay!

After living like a vagabond since school graduation, it feels great to finally have a place to finally settle into. There's a lot more to be done to make Seoul feel more like home, but having a full-time residence is a milestone.

Getting the new guest bedroom set up. Open for visitors!

Getting My Sport On

I experienced several more firsts in the week that just flew by. Visited my first Korean palace (Gyeongbokgung). Hailed my first taxi in Seoul and unsuccessfully tried to navigate the driver to my destination (though I was able to at least get him to take me to the correct neighborhood). Saw my first film in a Korean cinema (R2B: Return To Base), a Top Gun-like thriller, with English subtitles. Watched live television from my new Samsung Galaxy S3 phone...on the subway!! Took my first Korean language classes. And visited my new office at Samsung, on the 26th floor of the Samsung Electronics building in Gangnam, for the first time.

On Wednesday I went with several of my new colleagues to our first Korean baseball game. Baseball is very popular in Korea...along with golf and soccer it's one of the favorite sports here. Every night this time of year is baseball night in Korea -- you flip channels on TV and you can see three games being broadcast simultaneously. The Korean professional league has 8 teams and we bought tickets to see two of the Seoul teams go head-to-head...the LG Twins vs. the Doosan Bears (all of the teams are named after their corporate sponsors).

Lots of LG Twins fans with "thunder sticks"

All we could say was...WOW!! Though the game on the field was identical to that found in the USA, almost everything else about the viewing experience was completely different. You walk off the subway at the Sports Complex station (very convenient to reach from the Samsung office) and are surrounded by tables set up by food vendors. You can buy super-cheap servings of kimbap (seaweed-rice rolls typically wrapped with vegetables and crabmeat), dried squid, kimchi pancakes, delicious fried chicken. You can also purchase inexpensive Korean beers and soju to wash it all down. Thankfully, Korean baseball stadiums let you bring food and drink into the seats, unlike American stadiums which then extort you into buying from outrageously priced concession stands. Korean baseball games are delightfully cheap to attend – 10,000 won (about $9) for a lower grandstand ticket – and the aforementioned cheap food. Definitely a sport for the common man...we didn't see any luxury boxes in the stadium.

Once inside the stadium with our food and beer, we saw the stadium neatly segregated into two cheering sections...LG fans along the third base side, Doosan fans on the first base side. Most fans carried "thunder sticks", cylindrical plastic balloons that make a loud clapping noise when struck together. A lot of female fans at the game, too...a higher proportion than you would see at an American baseball game.

Korean baseball cheerleaders

And CHEERLEADERS!!! Oh my gosh. Amazing. Built into each side was a concrete platform where the female cheerleaders would trot out in their skirts and pump up the fans with their dance moves. Then a man, who I would call an "M.C.", would walk on the platform, microphone in hand, and lead the team's fans (along with a drum master) in a long series of rhythmic chants and songs. Simply unlike anything you see at an American baseball game. More like a college football atmosphere. Fans going nuts from the first pitch. Batter hits a single, fans go berserk! The Korean baseball players that make the MLB must find American fans to be so passive. The rhythms are very catchy – by about the 4th inning I found myself loving the LG Twins...and I'm about to start working for Samsung. And there was a beer-chugging contest between innings, I kid you not!

But the strange thing about the cheering was when it stopped. There was simply...silence.  The fans would go nuts when the M.C. would tell them to beat their thunder sticks together, then would just sit there. In American baseball games, the fans sit for most of the game, then rise for the big moments. You expect a crescendo of cheers before a big pitch late in the game. But at the Korean baseball game, fans who had been going nuts for three hours were silent in the 9th inning, two outs, two strikes in a close game. Very strange. As my colleague next to me put it, "Koreans really enjoy playing Follow The Leader". I didn't expect cultural realizations at a baseball game, and had just found one.

I also got back into the soccer groove this week, playing my first game in 4 months! Samsung GSG has a team which plays about one a month against other Samsung companies, and on Saturday morning had a game scheduled with Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance. Crazy start time – 6AM!! In 25 years of playing I had never been on a field so early. We played on a turf field surrounded by a cage next to a freeway in the 'burbs. Felt like something straight out of Germany. Seemed like several members of my team (myself included) were feeling the after effects of a late night out, but other than that I found myself quite in my element on a soccer pitch again. The game was right at my level – decent technical skills, mediocre fitness, and players not taking the game too seriously. Despite the hit to my sleep schedule, I look forward to continuing playing.

My new job at Samsung starts tomorrow morning. I will be wearing a suit for the first time in awhile!

Gyeongbokgung Palace was pretty nice, too

Typhoon, Screen Golf, and 30th Birthday...

I have experienced several firsts in Korea thus far. I walked into a two-story, 120-seat Dunkin Donuts. I watched Starcraft played on television, with announcers. I used an electronic bidet. And now I can add living through a typhoon, what they call a hurricane in the Western Pacific, to my list.

Looked as if it might be fierce, but wasn't

Once a category 4 hurricane, Typhoon Bolaven lashed Okinawa with 150 km/h winds and buckets of rain, then looked poised to take near direct aim on Seoul today. Flights were cancelled, schools were closed, and the U.S. Embassy shut down. My Korean language classes were cancelled for the day as well, so I set up a view of the storm from my 18th floor room at the hotel in which I am staying.

And...a whole lot of nothing, really. Not a ton of rain so far, it seems. Definitely windy but besides a stray plastic bag I haven't seen anything flying around. I won't taunt Mother Nature as I'm sure this storm could have been much worse, but I was disappointed with the intensity of this storm given all the buildup. Well, I won't have much time to bask in the glory of surviving my first typhoon experience as typhoon #2 (Tembin) is already approaching later this week!

Scott is "stuck" in a bunker

Had another first this week – screen golf! Golf is super popular in South Korea – there are two golf channels on TV here (one for men and one for women) – but given the constraints on land in this country (50 million people living in a place about the size of the US state of Indiana), playing golf on an actual course is expensive. On average, it costs $295 to play a round of golf here! Hence, the booming popularity of screen golf, which cost us about 1/10th of that. The game is sort of like Wii Golf, except you play with actual clubs and real balls. You can play a wide variety of famous courses...we tried Pebble Beach...and as you slam a ball from a driving range mat into a screen a computer measures the speed and direction of your club face to determine where the ball should fly in the game. It's not wholly realistic – you can't really simulate a bunker shot well – but my typical late-round slice off the tee kicked in, and also just like real golf I became quite frustrated by about the 16th hole! Plus with no heat stroke or sunburn to worry about, no lost golf balls, and an attendant who continually brought us drinks and snacks, I think my screen golf experience was a big win!

Getting after it in our own private karaoke lounge

Finally, I celebrated my 30th birthday on Saturday. Celebrating a birthday in a new place can be hard as you aren't able to ring in the special day with many of your old friends. That said, I had a delightful evening with many of my new Samsung colleagues. We went "Gangnam Style", partying in the now-famous Gangnam district in Seoul. Though we ate Turkish food for dinner and strangely did not guzzle any soju, we were able to introduce some Korean flair to the festivities with a late-night visit to a karaoke room! (노래방, or norebang in Korean) With all the new experiences of the past three weeks the gravity of the end of my 20's hasn't really sunk in, but being a little older may work to my advantage in Korea, a place still heavily influenced by Confucian principles.

Finding My Way Around

It has been two weeks now since I landed in Seoul, and the wildly unfamiliar here is slowly starting to become familiar. Everyday activities like riding public transit, ordering food in a restaurant, and using my hotel gym are becoming easier. Now that (fingers-crossed) I'm done with my apartment search, I've had a little time to study the Korean character set, which I can almost fully read by now, although at about a two-year-old's pace! Still, it's nice being able to go into a restaurant without an English menu and know the difference between 불고기 (bulgogi) and 김치 (kimchi). I still don't know most of the Korean food names, though.

With my newfound free time, I've tried to take the opportunity to explore Seoul. The August weather here, unfortunately, has decided not to cooperate – rain has fallen almost every day for the last week or so. This was not totally unexpected...over half of Seoul's annual precipitation falls in July and August...but still frustrating. I have been getting a little stir-crazy on days when I'm waiting for the rain to clear, and the umbrella I brought to Korea has already broken from overuse. The umbrella survived two years in Charlottesville, but not two weeks in summertime Seoul!

Lots of old tanks and planes sit outside the War Memorial of Korea

Museums have been a good use of rainy afternoons. The War Memorial of Korea was particularly interesting...I learned about the history of the Korean War on a guided tour from an elderly man who was a refugee during that war and then later fought alongside the US forces in Vietnam. The National Museum of Korea is immense and details the entire history of people on the Korean Peninsula, all the way back to the Stone Age.

Gwanghwamun Square

I also have enjoyed walking around neighborhoods in between rain showers. My favorite areas now are in the older part of Seoul north of the Han River. The Insadong area is a lovely pedestrian mall full of small art galleries, craft shops, and tasty restaurants. Myeongdong is a packed shopping district. The Cheonggyecheon is a neat urban stream reconstructed recently through the center of the city. This leads to Gwanghwamun Square, Seoul's equivalent of DC's national mall, with a magnificent statue of King Sejong the Great leading to the Blue House (Korea's presidential residence) and the grand Gyeongbokgung Palace. And I love the Hongdae nightlife...a university area with outdoor performances from Korean indie bands and good cheap food.

South of the Han River is more modern, less touristy and more glitzy. Apgujeongdong has all the finest luxury brands I probably never will buy (Hermes, Louis Vuitton, etc.) and nice little boutiques off the main strip. The massive COEX mall is all underground and feels like a casino – no windows, no clocks, no clear way out. The Gangnam Station area, where Samsung Electronics headquarters is located, brings to life the frenetic, neon-glow image that many have of East Asia.

I've met some of my new Samsung colleagues thus far but still have many more to see. Next week, I will be taking intense afternoon Korean language classes, which should help to solve some of my difficulties with the basic language and introduce me to more of my new coworkers. I'm ready to get started.

First Week Reflections

Happy Korean Liberation Day to you all!  (Gwangbokjeol  they call it here)  The day celebrates the end of the Japanese colonial period in 1945.  Unfortunately the weather is pouring rain on this holiday, making it a good day to catch up on my blog-posting!

It's hard to believe that today only marks day 7 of my journey in Seoul...I feel like I have been here much longer. Every day has been mesmerizing for the senses, taking in the sights, sounds, and tastes of a new country. The first week in Korea has often been bewildering as I try to navigate language and culture barriers. Emotionally the week has oscillated between exciting highs and brief moments of exhaustion.

Enjoying my first dak galbi  dinner with my colleague Dave & his wife Mor,

I dove headfirst into the apartment search from the first day I arrived. Four realtors took me on a whirlwind tour of 33 apartments within commuting distance of my office, the Samsung Electronics building in the bustling Gangnam district of Seoul. The process felt a bit like when I rushed fraternities at MIT 12 years ago, which happened almost the moment I arrived in Boston. Pledging a fraternity with imperfect information is a poor idea and signing a two-year apartment lease in a brand new city seems like a poor idea as well, but I had no choice on the latter as I needed housing, so I tried to be as thorough as I could.

The quality of apartments that my Samsung housing budget could buy me varied widely, from tiny cheap-feeling units in high rises lacking appliances to spacious "villa" style units in smaller walk-up buildings. With many new Samsung expat employees flooding the rental market all at once, I was in competition with many of my future coworkers for apartments, forcing me to decide rather expediently. Thankfully I now have a hold on a nice apartment in the posh Hannam-dong neighborhood, which I should be able to move into in a few weeks!

This K-Pop girl band is pretty popular here

Though apartment hunting has consumed much of my time here thus far, I have had some time to get out and acclimate myself with my new city.  I've mostly explored the area around the office and my hotel, the bright glitzy neighborhood surrounding Gangnam Station.  It's a little like Times Square with all its bright lights, restaurants and shops. Gangnam is an affluent and trendy area, perhaps the heart of new Seoul.

The best part about being here so far, without question, has been the food. I will refrain from starting a Seoul food blog as I don't have a refined food palate, but I'm a big fan of Korean food so far. Anyone who loves grilled meats, soups, noodles, and (of course) kimchi is in heaven here. With a generous bounty of vegetable side dishes at almost every meal (complimentary in many restaurants), the Korean diet feels very healthy and I don't think I'm gaining any weight despite all the food I've been eating. Warning to my American friends: Much Korean food is spicy!! I definitely need to adjust my spice tolerance over the next few months.

Another delicious Korean dinner: pork with garlic, mushrooms, kimchi, and a plethora of side dishes

On the other hand, communicating has been a major challenge. I don't yet speak the Korean language or read the characters, and spoken English proficiency varies considerably here. Even those who you might expect to have strong English skills sometimes disappoint. Given the amount of American and British media permeating the airwaves and the fact that English teachers probably outnumber English-speaking tourists, I was expecting less difficulty, but it is what it is. In some cases I'm just getting by with smiling a lot, bowing my head, and uttering the few words that I have learned so far ("hello" and "thank you"). There's a silver lining to all this: more motivation for me to learn Korean!

There has also been a natural amount of cultural confusion. Sometimes I forget to take my shoes off before entering a room, sometimes I'm watching others to learn the proper way to eat the food at a Korean restaurant. Doing laundry has been interesting -- I have a Korean washer/dryer unit in my hotel and a clothes drying rack that I haven't figured out how to set up yet. Many of my clothes came out all wrinkled and my attempt to rectify this with an iron and a tiny Korean ironing board didn't work so well. At times I feel like a Conehead, coming from another planet and trying to figure out how to do the little things in everyday life.

France! We come from France!

But all of these challenges are part of the fun of throwing myself into a foreign land. There will be more slip-up's and faux pas's for sure along the way, but I don't think there's any way that I can mess up too badly. Seoul is safe and clean, the internet is fast, the power stays on and the trains run on time. I'm staying patient and trying to observe and absorb as much as I can. Though life here may often be unclear, everything will be just fine.

I'm Landed

I landed on the ground for the first time in Seoul this evening. Such a surreal feeling to be here. It's been a very long day flying here from San Francisco, a 12-hour flight across the Pacific spent chasing the sun. But the flight passed rather quickly as I read through an edition of The Economist, devoured the Moon guide "Living Abroad in South Korea", watched several episodes of the Kimchi Chronicles downloaded to my new iPad, as well as several episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" (needed a little fix of American culture).  I had an unexpectedly difficult time getting through passport control – the Korean immigration official gave me the staredown once I handed her my visa and said a bunch of (to me) unintelligible Korean, but after being sent to the immigration office I was able to enter without incident.  Totally unclear what happened there...

Korean thermostat control

Without knowing the Korean language my first few hours here have been bewildering. My hotel room has an air conditioner with controls entirely in Korean, but thankfully I was able to figure this out as the summertime heat and humidity is everpresent this time of year. The toilet has one of these fancy Japanese style bidets with electronic controls but thankfully an English translation of what the buttons do – will need to play with that at some point. I took a walk around the hotel this evening, set right in the Gangnam Station area of south Seoul next to Samsung's offices. I did about a 5 city block square loop and was the only Caucasian person on the street, a strange but awesome feeling. I'm definitely in Korea now!

Alright, I'm done fighting jetlag for one evening as the beginning of the Seoul real estate tour is tomorrow morning. I'll leave you with my favorite Korean music video of the moment, a really catchy tune and dance moves that I need to master!  (it looks sort of like a big Korean dude riding a horse...)

Korea Bound!

It's hard to believe but the day has finally come. Tomorrow I board a flight in San Francisco, Singapore Air flight 15. Destination: Seoul, Korea.

My decision to go was sealed long ago, all the way back in December 2011, when I accepted a job offer to work at Samsung's Global Strategy Group after graduating with my MBA from the University of Virginia. The decision was not easy but I'm convinced now that it was the right one. I laid out the long thought process in my old MBA blog, and my reasons for going can be summarized as follows:

• A desire to "globalize" myself as a business leader
• The chance to work at a well-respected, rapidly growing technology company
• An immense learning opportunity, both in business and culturally
• Right time of life for me to go – I'm young and single
• The potential regret factor: If I don't take this opportunity now, would I regret in 20 years?

The eight months since I made my decision have flown by, and I have felt the natural emotional highs and lows as the anticipation for leaving grew. Some days I felt like pinching myself as if I believed I was in a sleeping dream of good fortune. Other days I was wracked with separation anxiety as I considered all the close family and friends that I would be leaving behind. But pretty much every day of late I have felt resoundingly positive about my departure, and am now almost giddy with excitement!

Saying goodbye to good friends...

This summer has been a whirlwind for me. I've spent the three months since the end of business school classes on a rapid tour of the USA, visiting old friends in scattered places around the country (with a little party time in Scandanavia thrown in). I went to North Carolina, the Virgin Islands, Alabama, Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Washington DC, and have spent the last week in California. In between I sold my car, packed most of my possessions onto a shipping container bound on a trans-Pacific voyage, and moved out of Virginia, my home state for the last eight years.

Everywhere I traveled I was asked the same question – Why are you doing this? – and after eight months of explaining my future life path to folks I, frankly, grew a little tired of repeating my story. I yearned for the day when I wouldn't be simply talking about leaving my home country, preparing to move abroad, reading about Korean customs, business etiquette, and cuisine. I wanted to start living it.

...and family

But all the patient waiting to the eventual departure day and the endless discussions I had with friends and colleagues have sharpened my resolve to go abroad. I am thoroughly convinced that this is the right decision for me, and that this is an incredible opportunity. I have been blessed that I have had the time before leaving to say "Goodbye for now" to so many wonderful people in my life.

As for what awaits me, here's what I know...I fly out at 2PM tomorrow from San Francisco and land 12.5 hours later in Seoul, 6:30PM Wednesday. I will spend the first month in a hotel as I look for a permanent place to call home in that capital city. My work at Samsung begins September 3rd, and I will be in daily Korean language classes soon after my arrival (though my group's language is English). I will be an internal consultant at Samsung for the next two years, working on solutions to high-level business issues across the company's many business units and geographies. Over 40 MBA graduates from top schools in the US and Europe will be starting with me.

Summer was a whirlwind tour of reconnecting with old friends and colleagues. Great to see everyone!

What don't I know? Almost everything else!! How will I acclimate in such a different culture? How will I get around in a country where I don't yet speak the language? What will I miss most about America? What will I be doing in two years?

For all this ambiguity, I'm surprisingly comfortable with not knowing the answers to these questions at this point. The next two years will be an exciting journey where I discover the Samsung company and the nation of South Korea. After two years of "trusting the process" during my Darden MBA experience, I'm confident that I will discover the answers to many of these unsolved questions and that my life will work itself out.

This blog will document my journey of self-discovery in a foreign land. I will try to bring to life the sights, sounds, and feelings from my everyday experiences. I want to introduce readers to South Korea, a rapidly developing country that most Americans know little about. And I hope to inspire others considering similar international adventures.