When we arrived we all took a picture and then went in for a short presentation by the vice principal. They gave us an English pamphlet of the school (also, free pens!) and on the way up to the presentation hall we went up the five stories by the winding staircase-without-stairs in the middle of the school. This fancy staircase conveniently passes by all of the trophies that the sports teams have earned, but if I remember correctly, they were mostly baseball trophies. Apparently this school has an extremely talented baseball team!
After the presentation they sprung on us that we would be going ALONE into a classroom accompanied by some tour guides (who also acted like translators) to ask and answer questions and basically have some cultural exchange for about twenty minutes.
Of course we all got a little nervous- most of us were females, didn't speak any Korean, weren't prepared for this, and basically had no idea what to expect. Thank goodness me and my friend got to go together- we just held hands and stressed "together? Together? 같이?" When the principal was sorting us into groups. We got paired with three tour guides who were my age, and they spoke PERFECT English, like, so perfect it made me feel inadequate about every language I've ever studied haha. They also translated while we were in the classroom, which is extremely impressive because translating to and from a non native language in an intelligible way is really difficult.
Anyways, they showed us around the school a little bit and then took us into the classroom. The classroom we got was full of older students so they were a bit more mature than the other classes that some nsliy students were taken into. Honestly, we were really lucky because we actually had a pretty good time. Not gonna lie though, walking into the classroom was pretty terrifying. It didn't help that all of the boys did the collective Korean "ooooohhhh~" when we walked in. We were foreign girls walking into an all boys school. What did we expect, haha. The questions were slow at first but try started asking a lot more once our tour guides threatened to take us away if they weren't going to ask anything serious. Since these were older students, after we talked a little about ourselves, our states, and our school life, they asked us a lot of questions about college in the US (since all of these students are like geniuses I assume many want to study abroad/attend college in the US). They asked about the application process, what it takes to get into ivy leagues, and interestingly enough, whether the "name" or prestige of a college matters when getting a job in the US. The difference between the US and Korea is that it is extremely difficult to get a high paying job if you did not go to the SKY universities- Seoul university, Korea University, and Yonsei university. In the US you can definitely "work your way up" and go from a two year college and transfer to a four year and then go to a top tier school for grad school if you work hard enough. In Korea, your success in the workplace (if you wish to go into a business job, etc) is basically determined by your high school years- if you don't do well on your Korean SAT then you can't get into a top tier Uni, if you don't get into a top tier Uni, you might not get your "dream job" simply because the name of the school really matters. There is a lot of pressure on students here- that's why our tour guides said that students there stayed at school until ten or eleven o'clock doing self study after classes have ended. The students in our class were extremely surprised when we talked about how the prestige of the school could matter in some cases, but mostly it is disregarded as long as you are qualified for the job. Also we talked about college tuition- they thought their tuition was high LOL.
But of course we also got some strange questions (these are high school boys, after all)- why don't we like justin beiber? Are they as tall as American high school students (omg yes they were all so tall) Also, if it was the end of the world, which tour guide would you choose? The last question we chose not to answer haha.
Also, we asked them what their favorite American music was and one guy said the Star-Spangled Banner LOL.
Also, a strange tanslation issue- they asked what American high school students do after school and we said participate in clubs. All of the guys in the class were like OOOOHHHHH and we were like WAIT NOT THAT TYPE OF CLUB OMG. We took a group picture too, haha.
After that, our tour guides took us around the campus a little more and showed us a traditional Korean house that was built there a few years ago.
After the tour we went into the school cafeteria and had lunch, possibly the best cafeteria ever served ever. Then again, this was a private school so I don't know how good of a representation of Korean school lunches it was, but it was still REALLY GOOD!
Then we went to class and all of that fun stuff. The river view in the subway was especially amazing yesterday, and then when I got home from school me and the fam went out for Korean BBQ. The meat I had was soooooo delicious oh my gosh, like so perfect and awesome and I ate more meat than I've ever eaten in my entire life. It was some kind of pork with a rib still attached so you could flip it over on the grill, but all I know was that it was the best. Then we got ice cream and I basically came home and fell asleep in a food coma.
But anyways, someone got the professionally photographed pictures from the Han river and they are ao adorable, I thought I'd put them on here.
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