I decided to blog more about the cultural experiences that I had while in Korea, especially my stay in A’s home.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of his home or its surroundings. I guess I was too overwhelmed with EVERYTHING; the fact that I was meeting his parents, the fact that his house IS actually located in the mountains (he told me before but I thought he was kidding), the fact that I’d be intruding his home for a week, the fact that everyone was speaking satoori, the fact that… oh I shall continue this later.
So in an effort to allow people, who has been asking me how his house/area looks like, to imagine how his place is like… I found some photos on the internet which look kind of similar to his home area.
His house is located at quite a mountainous area like this:
Unlike the houses in this photo, his house is located relatively deeper in the mountains (can’t be seen from the main roads to the city) and if I’m not wrong it sits on the middle of a mountain. There are other houses around where some of his relatives reside and neighbours around pretty much know each other. They know each other so well, they just let themselves into each other’s house anytime they want!
Although we do see that in dramas but it still freaked me out the first time someone came in without knocking/pressing the bell (if they actually DO have one). They do not have to lock their doors and cars! I’m actually kind of sceptical about not locking the doors/cars (well maybe it’s my culture or sth), I don’t feel safe, PLUS it was in a rural area which made me feel even more UNsafe (something about the wilderness…). But everyone’s part of the “village” so they trust each other, in a way as neighbours they also look out for each other. Even so, sometimes I wonder what if a criminal (not part of the village) appears out of the blue?? He may be a psychotic killer, or a thief??? ^^;;; Just scaring myself with these scary thoughts.
But I felt pretty safe during my stay there. Probably because it’s his house and he was around so there was nothing to worry about.
People from Daegu, Busan and the Kyeong-Sang province speak similar satoori… Click! What is a satoori?
Luckily A’s family do not speak heavy satoori which would be very different from the standard Korean. But it was still difficult to understand what they were saying, especially when my Korean is still not good, it makes things even worse! ^^;;;;;; Although I can’t really understand most of the satoori, once I know what it meant, I found it quite funny when I compared satoori to the standard Korean I’m learning. Hehe. I learnt a little satoori from A and I can’t stop laughing whenever I spoke them myself!! It’s just so funny and interesting!
Staying at A’s home and “exploring” the surrounding areas were eye-opening for me. I even got to ride on a tractor while going to his family’s farm!! So exciting, just like a mini-roller coaster ride! His family owns a cow farm selling milk and, boy there are sooooooo many cows there! It would be nice milking a cow with one’s hands, experiencing a REAL farmer’s life but they don’t do that anymore because it would dirty the milk.
The good thing was, A’s house is modernized so the rooms, kitchen, toilets are similar to Singapore. So even though his house was located in a rural area, it was modernized inside. Come to think of it, it’s pretty nice to live in a nice house among nature! The air is fresher there and the surroundings itself encourages a healthy lifestyle… climbing mountains and taking a stroll around the village. As long as one has a car there, the city is just 30mins away.
