Initial reflections

I have only been in Seoul for two days, but I want to write down some initial reflections. I went to a class at the church this morning the subject was learning about coffee from around the world; it is a course that my hosts are going to and so they invited me to come along. I learnt a bit, but it was in Korean so it was hard to fully understand it; although my hosts tried to translate some of it. However it was just the experience of meeting other women that interested me. Firstly, a young woman who knew a bit of English, said it was good to meet me and asked me straight away my age. Now I have been told before that this is important in the Korean language to know whether the person you are speaking to is older or younger, but I was still surprised by this. It just goes to show how ingrained cultural assumptions are within me, I was embarrassed to be asked this by someone I had just met. I guess also my host had already said I was a Pastor and they looked quite surprised ; I think they thought I was young, so perhaps it was my own sensitivity to this that made me more embarrassed by the question of my age. Then she was embarrassed when my host explained that this would be quite rude in my culture; so we ended up being both embarrassed! I explained it was ok, my mistake not hers. Perhaps this is something to think about further how much this is cultural embarrassment especially for women, and how much this is my own personal reactions when people ask me my age.

  Secondly the subject matter would not be something I would think about taking a class in. How to make filtered coffee and to understand all about coffee; wouldn't be something I would choose to learn about, yet these women wanted to understand better. They weren't all from the church but it was though the church was acting as a place to go and learn new skills; a bit like a college. I also think they probably wanted to learn with other people; to be part of a community was important to them. Our learning is probably more individualistic, and I like the idea they see the importance of being part of a community and to learn and have fun together.

 Thirdly the women giggled when I spoke a little Korean. Partly it was intonation that seemed funny to them, but according to my host it is more than that, they wouldn't expect me to learn Korean, the expectation would be they learn English. We are seen as the advanced country that Korean's want to emulate and not the other way around. People seem quite surprised that I would want to come and learn about Korean culture and church life. I guess that is one of the legacies that the West has, but I think we have lots to learn from them.

  Tomorrow will be quite different as I will go to the Methodist Theological University and meet students training to be ministers. Looking forward to hearing their perspectives.