Alex Taylor, Plus3: South Korea Summer 2024
What stood out to me the most on my academic Plus 3 program in Seoul, South Korea was how quiet the city was and the economic market that takes place there. I have grown up in the Pittsburgh area and have also lived in the city for a year for my freshman year as a student at the University of Pittsburgh. I have been accustomed to the noise of the city from cars honking to people laughing as they walk down the street. I was surprised that when I arrived in Seoul, a city of 12 million people, how quiet and peaceful the city was. Pedestrians on the street were not speaking to each other, no one was making a phone call, and most notable of all was the fact that street noise was at a minimum. I have to admit, this was an odd and almost eerie experience. I was so used to a noisy commute down the streets of Pittsburgh that this really stood out. As I learned throughout the trip, part of Korean culture is to remain silent in public areas and during the work commuting times. This is because of traditional norms revolving around respect for one another in public areas, respect for your elders, and working hard for the state. These factors have developed into this silence because there is work to be done and there is no time to talk as it distracts from the task at hand. As a result, my trips outside on the street and subway were more silent than what I’m used to.
Additionally, the economic market surprised me as well from what I know from Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh, there are not too many small businesses that exist due to competition from larger companies. In Korea that is not the case. On every street and neighborhood I visited in Seoul there were multiple small businesses of restaurants and shops. This surprised me not because these businesses can coexist with some of the larger brand name companies in Korea but also because these businesses are very competitive for each other. I walked down a street the one day and in a fifty meter path there were three different restaurants that each competed against each other and sold the same food of mandu. I guess these economic conditions and policies that Korea has are favorable for starting a small business and making money for your family. The government fifty years ago was struggling to stay afloat and needed rapid economic growth. As a result, it was favorable to own a small business and easy to make money from it. With large amounts of tourism, competition is also not a huge issue as each of those three restaurants were full of both tourists and the locals.
Overall, the academic Plus 3 program in Korea opened my eyes to new and unfamiliar experiences. I never realized how different the common way of life can be from mine here in Pittsburgh.
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