Dear Korea,

You are giving me answers to so many questions I never realized I had. I’m connecting pieces of conversations that are helping me understand more about who I am and who I want to be. One of the biggest reasons I came to Korea was to get a sense of what it means to be Korean. Understand the cultural differences that might have changed the way I view the world.

“If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?”

Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics

I’ve been learning the language now for about three weeks. Four days a week, two hours a day I meet with my tutor to practice writing, listening and speaking. The biggest difference from learning Korean versus other languages I’ve learned is the level of politeness in which you speak to others based on their age or social status. This has made me think a lot more about how I speak to others, specifically those older than me or even my boss. It has actually affected my behavior in a good way. In a respectful way. Today I brought this up with a friend of mine. I told her that I thought speaking the language in this way must be a good thing. But then she told me a story that made me think about it differently.

My friend is in her early 20s and she told me that while she was in Norway, she met a woman that was her mother’s age who became a friend. In her eyes, this meant someone you can relate to and see yourself in some way, as equals. Something she mentioned she could never do with Koreans because of the social hierarchy. She would never feel comfortable speaking to a Korean woman of the same age casually; therefore never really being comfortable enough to become friends. My friend told me this was the reason she didn’t think that this cultural difference in the language was necessarily a good thing. That it created these generational gaps which weren’t good for society.

This gave me a whole new perspective and sense of gratitude for my own relationships. My own friendships with those who are older, some even in their 60s. It made me realize how important and special it is to have their stories. Things they have learned. Things they have done. Things they wished they had done. Shared with me, as a friend.