Growing relationships

For me the prospects and benefits that come with growing relation ships with Koreans was very exciting when I was anticipating this trip. When I arrived I found Koreans to be a very friendly people who are great hosts. I had studied many aspects of Korean culture before I came as part of several different classes and projects In preparation for this trip, but there were a few things that I was still unprepared for. One such thing was level of volume Koreans use when speaking. Never before have I been so aware of how loudly I spoke in comparison to the people around me and had to try to avoid being known as a loud mouth!  Now another thing that has I come up with a lot between our Korean friends and many of the male participants has been varying degrees of and jokes about homophobia. Going to club for the first time in Ulsan was a unique experience as many of the men and women never dance together but the guys do, and being westerners we had a large group of very friendly guys dancing and shouting with us all night. This was something that took cultural insight to understand that these guys were not hitting on us, but rather building male friendships and this was Korean "bro-ness" in action. In variable many of the German students cracked some jokes, which at times let to rather red faces from the Korean staff members, but it was alla in light hearted fun and I fact lead  to a lot of bond building between us.