Working 9-5… Even if there’s nothing to do.
The work culture in Korea is definitely not what I’m used to. We start work at 9am every morning. Then, everyone just sits around drinking coffee, checking emails or surfing the web. At around 10am, we might think about doing some work. Then, we all go to the cafeteria to eat lunch at 11.30. I can’t work out why they eat lunch so early here. One possible reason that I can think of is that the elevators only work for specific times during the day: from 8.30 to 9,30, 12 to 1.20, and 4.30 to 6. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? It’s part of a cost-cutting drive, as the Institute is mainly funded by the South Korean government, and with the recession hitting South Korea just as much as other countries, it has to appear to be spending money as wisely as possible. How much money is being saved by limiting elevator use is debatable, but at least it’s a start.
Then, after lunch we’re expected to be in work until 6pm. Most people stay in the lab longer than that, even if they’re not doing anything. It’ s just part of the mentality that you *have* to be seen at work, and presumably no-one cares what you’re doing, just as long as you can be seen. Apparently Korea has one of the longest average workweeks and overtime hours in the world.
At any given point during the day, I can be sure that of the 6 people in our lab, at least one of them will be head-down on their desk fast asleep. But hey, at least they’re in work!
Lunch time is also a weird affair. We go to the canteen on the Institute’s campus where we can choose from one of two different menus, and then go help ourselves buffet style. Both menus are the same price, so I’m not too sure why you’re restricted to only choosing food from one. Once you’ve got you’re food, you then have to eat really fast. I’m sure that’s fine for my Korean colleagues, but eating noodle soup with chopsticks isn’t an easy task when you’ve only lived in Asia for a week. Then, when the last person has put the last morsel of food into their mouths, everyone stands up, takes their trays to the hatch and leaves. Koreans don’t even drink anything with their meals, perhaps as it’s wasting valuable desk snoozing time…
First Impressions
My first post from Korea!
After a long journey from London, I finally made it to Daejeon yesterday evening. I was greeted by my boss and the PhD student from the group and we went out for some food. Luckily we went to a place that had some English on the menu, and I had some rice and prawn thing with an egg on top. After that, I went to my dorm. Seems like I’m sharing with someone, though I haven’t seen him yet…
After a loooong sleep, I woke up this afternoon and went for a wander into town to try and find some bed sheets. Found a place called Home Plus (which has almost God-like status amongst the ex-pats here. It’s more or less Wal-Mart, though when I went in, it seems like it’s owned by Tesco. Same style labels, and their own-brand products are sometimes actually Tesco stuff). Didn’t have any luck finding bed sheets, but at least I knew where it was.
Had got in touch with some of the other placement students, and agreed to meet them at KRIBB (my workplace). Easy enough, I thought. Except when I left the campus where I’m staying, I turned the wrong way. Took me an hour to find KRIBB, by which point, the students had given up and gone back. Frantically Facebooked them on my phone (dread to think how much it cost), and luckily they were still about. Oh, how great it was to finally talk to people who could speak English. We got some food, which is *really* cheap out here. And yummy. There are some dubious things in the food, and I’m going to try as much as possible to eat non-meat things. I think it might be somewhat tricky though. Sofie taught me the word for “meat” in Korean, so hopefully I’ll be ok.
We went back to Home Plus after meeting up with some other ex-pats in an ex-pat bar. Somewhere I think I’ll be spending a lot of time downing soju and whatever else is drunk here.
Anyway, some first impressions.
It’s like America. Only everything is in Korean. It really is. There’s so much choice. A lot of people drive big cars. They have most American chains you could think of (Dunkin’ Donuts…). They have coffee shops that claim to have the best coffee in the world. Food is cheap. It’s very green. It’s not as hot as I’d been led to believe, though of course that might change.
Starting work tomorrow, so going to get an earlyish night now…
For Good
So much shit on YouTube, so it’s nice when you stumble upon something as beautiful as this.
Eurovision Flash Mob
Eurovision was last night. Germany took it seriously and won. In fairness, it was a good song. Especially her cute accent…
And the UK‘s dreadful entry came last. *sigh*
But! By FAR the best bit of the show (for me anyway) was that awesome flash mob across Europe! Seriously, fantastic. Even though it was pre-recorded.
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
– Winston Churchill
In Praise of… the Radio
Flickr / Katchooo
I love radio. It’s so understated. It’s been around since 1922 and according to the latest Rajar figures, it’s popularity is at one of the highest points it’s ever been at. Yet people never really talk about it. You nearly always hear people going on about who has been kicked off Over the Rainbow, or what happened last night on Eastenders, but never anything about the radio.
There’s something much more personal about the radio, something I don’t seem to get from watching television. I wake up in the mornings to the Today Show and it’s almost like they’re talking to me. Just me. It’s much less about appearances, obviously, and so conversations and interviews sound so much more frank, more direct, more honest. I’m sure that’s not the case, yet it seems so comforting.
Paradoxically, my radio listening has increased much more because of the internet, and more specifically, podcasts. Podcasts allow me to listen to radio shows that previously geography would have prevented me from doing. Cases in point, some of the wonderful content produced by National Public Radio in the US, such as RadioLab, and Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.
Finally, the power of radio to elicit emotion and response from me is much greater than that of television or film. When I can’t sleep at night, I’ll often put in my earphone and listen to an hour of some of the finest radio broadcasting I’ve ever come across: This American Life. A typical episode of This American Life consists of a mixture of essay, field recordings, memoirs or short fiction based around a single theme. The quality of this show is second to none, from the moment I put my earphones in and hit play I’m enthralled for an hour and yearn for a new episodes to appear in my iTunes every Monday.
Long live the radio.
Happenings
Hello blog! I haven’t written a proper update in a while, so I thought I’d come back and see if anyone is still reading this. So, what’s been happening I hear you cry. Well, truth be told, not a lot. Which is mainly why I’ve not been blogging. The last few weeks have been coming up to the end of this year, which meant that I had a heckuva lot of work to do. Firstly, I had to finish off my thesis. Luckily, the bulk of it was the actual research, which I’ve been in doing in the lab since September so writing it all up wasn’t too much of a pain. The trickiest part was trying to write it all in science lingo, which I’ve never had to do. It was easy enough once I was in the mindset of it though. After submitting that a few weeks ago, I’ve been mainly concentrating on exams. I’ve got 2 exams at the end of the month, and then at the beginning of June I’ve got my viva for my thesis. I’m hoping that should be straightforward enough – a 10 minute presentation on my results followed by a 5 minute grilling by a panel.
Anyway, enough of that. Some exciting stuff has happened in the last few months. I got accepted onto a PhD at Queen’s so, provided I get a 2.1, I’m in Belfast for another 3 years. I’m really excited as it’s in the same group as I did my research project in, and I loved every minute of it. I’ve also been accepted to do a placement in Korea this summer. I’m going in less than 2 months, and it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’ve no idea what to expect. I know very little about Korea, very little about the customs and what’s expected of me, and I certainly can’t speak any Korean. From what I’ve read, English isn’t particularly widely spoken there. Could be a steep learning curve! I did learn how to write my name though (릴리 조엘) and I’m getting to grips with learning the alphabet. When I’m out there I’ll be living in Daejeon and working for the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology.
So, yeh… Korea should give me some interesting stuff to blog about – something there’s been a distinct lack of in the past few months. Sorry about that…
