journeys

Ok, I have to fess up: this was not written on August 8, but it happened then, so let's leave it at that.

On Saturday morning I received the call from Jang with instructions on how to meet him. I walked to the subway station, got on the blue line as he instructed, used my beginning hangul-reading skills to figure out which station was the transfer station to a brand new subway line and, as per his instructions, changed lines and met him at a station that had only opened two days before, near his house. I felt quite proud of myself--managed to read the signs, get to another part of town and not get lost a single time.

This last week has been full of great stuff. Work has been an interesting experience on its own level: I'm a 24-year old software trainer teaching 8 people, and the youngest person in the group is probably 6 years older than I am. It caught the director of the group highly by surprise: while Korea has changed a lot over the last three years, particularly after the economic crisis of 1997, this is a society that still has fairly strong Confucian traditions, at least in the business world.

An update from the foreign correspondent's desk:

I had never really felt like "just another white guy" until yesterday. Most of those who know me well will snicker at this, but it's amazing what feeling like a total outsider can do.