Blog Post 5 - Friendships

Friendship is a complex entity. Rarely linear, it has a lot of exceptionalities, and is a continual roller coaster of learning, understanding, and working towards growing more connected with another individual. On a stay like this one-month program there is certainly enough time to lay the foundation for life-long friendships and connections, both here in Korea and back in countries of UIP Programme members. Friendship in my experience thus far has had two clear roads of cultural normalcy: the path of friendship with westerners – which tends to be more like back in the United States and is the mode I am far more familiar with; and the path of friendship with Koreans – which has been successful, but a lot more personal commitment because of the construction of social interaction as it relates to friendships.

I have built several strong friendships with a few friends who have joined several of us with similar sense of humor, academic pursuits, and general concern for other people. The two strongest friendships have been with Chinese-born American Eric (Jun Yan) Xiao and Texan Pete Ortega. As the program has continued the friendships that we all share have flourished even to the point that all six of us (Jennifer, Lacy, Giau, Eric, Pete, and Myself) may decide to have a friend reunion in Dallas at some point to reminisce over our Korean and friendship-building experiences.

I have made far more Korean friends than I had initially expected I would, now ranging at around six or so friends beyond the UIP staff in Ulsan and Seoul. Two or three I have encountered because they approached me with an interesting bettering language skills where we exchanged Kakao talks and later met in mixed company with other friends to practice English skills. Some of my Korean friends bonded more strongly than others with meals as the central focus of social interaction in which friendships have been built. These friendships were more arduous to construct, but in many cases are far stronger and more founded in innate loyalty than western relationships. I have found that taking time to hang out, even if just for a meal, or keeping in close contact via social media is essential to maintaining the friendship without seeming duplicitous, dishonest, or disloyal.