Land of the Han ...

At first it was just one feeling ... relief ... the feeling of great satisfaction at the fact that the flight was over and we had finally landed in Incheon after what seemed to be eternity since we had taken off from Singapore! As with Changi (Singapore), Incheon was far better an airport that any European airport I have ever been to. The flight service had been excellent but I was in no mood to enjoy it - the fever, awful headache and the lack of rest for almost a month and a half (since Berlin) made the journey an ordeal. I was overjoyed to get back on land and off the flight. Things went on quite smoothly after that - 2 of my seniors were waiting for me at the arrival gate and there was a chauffeur driven sedan waiting to take me to the University accommodation. This lifted my spirits and I felt much better. The sight of the excellent highway and the car racing along it towards Seoul at more than 100kmph, wiped away the headache.
I was then taken to the University Guest house where I shared the room with Xing (the GSP student from China). The rest of the day was quite uneventful, as was the next day. Xing was from a university in Shanghai but his hometown was Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan) which was in news recently because of the devastating earthquake. The university is situated in the Southern part of Seoul, in a district was Gwanak-Gu. The name is derived from the Gwanaksan (mountains) where the actual university campus is situated. The next day I met the other GSP students, all of whom were from Russia - Alexei, Nikolai, Ivan, Stephan and Dimitry. We were taken to the apartment where we will stay for the semester (the university dormitory was being renovated) and after that went to Pizza Hut for dinner - the menu being suitably adapted for Korea and the pizza toppings were more Korean than Italian (thats the universal norm - consider full Punjabi toppings at Pizza Huts in India!)
Being unaware of the language made everything around me appear the same. But since I hardly interacted with outsiders, it was not a problem. And apart from that, Marina and Kim (from the EECS Dept office) helped us move to our new accommodation, and since they spoke very good English, communication never surfaced as a difficulty. The first 2 days passed on really fast and I was eager to get started with orientation process. I didn't know how fast the rest of the week will pass! The GSP orientation was scheduled to start from Tuesday at Samsung Electronics headquarters in Suwon (about 1 hr south of Seoul). I didn't have an alarm clock with me, so I braced myself for a night out as we were to be taken to Suwon at 8am the next morning. This was the 2nd night out in 3 days (the first one was during my flight to Seoul - I can't sleep on flights and then there was that awful headache ... how on earth can you sleep with that?) but as my seniors had told me that the Orientation was just roaming around the Suwon campus and getting to know a few details about Samsung's operations, I was not bothered about the lack of sleep - you don't need to be well rested to just walk around the campus. Well, I was not aware of the change in policy decision and the elaborate arrangements that were in store for us! Naturally, I fell asleep in the bus. But that was maybe for just a few minutes and soon we reached Suwon - Samsung Global HQ, dominated by the twin towers that were the Advanced Research Centers (came to know about them on the 2nd day). We got down from he bus and were whisked away to the building called Samsung Electronics university. The seminar room where the GSP orientation was to take place was called Oceania and our places were marked. Each of us were given a thick folder containing the orientation plan. A single look through the endless pages was enough to give me a few sleepless nights (literally!). What was described as "roaming around the campus" consisted of a plethora of lectures, assignments, presentations, team activities and a trip to Seoul with some particular mission (more of a reality show than orientation in a company).
The proceedings started at 9:30am with a team game illustrating Culture Shock and ways of dealing with it. This was followed by making posters, presentations, doing assignments and listening to lectures. During the day, I was in some kind of trance - I had no conscious control of what I did and said. The traces of the headache returned and it was just coffee (Mocha) that kept me from falling down. The only high point of the day was the prize that I got for winning a card game during the Culture Shock Illustration experiment. Our coordinator was Mr Ki-Hwahn Yang, who appeared to be younger than us but turned out to be 30 plus. Its really difficult to guess the age of Korean people! The other coordinator was Ms Mock Mi-Hye - she was on internship with SEC and that was her last week before she returned to her University. She was from Yeowha Women's University, about which we were to learn a lot more a few days later! Mr Ki-Hwahn took to lunch and dinner at one of the numerous cafeterias on the Suwon campus and taught he basics of Korean table manner and some introduction to Korean food. The day supposed to be over at 8pm but Mr Ki-Hwahn informed us that we should complete the presentations for next day within an hour and submit it to him before 9:00. Now I was really pissed off - I had barely slept for the last 3 days and this day already stretched for 12 hours and now they expect us to make a presentation. The Mocha magic was wearing thin and keeping my eyes open was a Herculean task. There was a buzz in my head and I could no longer think logically. I had no idea what I prepared for the presentation and after submitting the ppt file, I somehow dragged myself to the room that was reserved for me and collapsed on the bed.
For the next 3 days, the schedule was the same - getting up at 7 in morning, assemble at the seminar room by 8:15am (after a hurried breakfast), more presentations, assignments, tours, lectures and more Mocha to fight of the sleep. The trickiest times were the lectures - Alexei fell asleep when Mr Park, the VP of Corporate Tech was lecturing on the future strategies of SEC. Because there were just 7 of us, it was difficult to avoid attention and I wished I could staple my eye lids to my brows! It was a 14 hours day followed by preparing for presentations the next day when we came back to our rooms. We met a lot of people from Samsung and outside - but amongst them Kim and June deserved special mention. We had to make a presentation on an issue concerning Korea before them (and Mr Rod Rothwell, an Australian professor teaching at the KAIST business school). Ivan and I talked about dog meat. Kim and June ( I still don't which one is Kim and which one is June - I just remember them as a pair) were students of Yeowha Women's University, Mi-Hye's batchmates studying Politics and Chemistry (again I don't remember who is studying what!). Impeccably dressed, speaking perfect English and with perfect manners, they impressed all of us. I don't know about other Korean girls, but students of YWU seemed to be extremely fashion conscious (manifested in the frequent flashing out of mirror and make-up kits from their designer bags and in the taste of their clothing) and rather graceful in the way they carry themselves around.
The missions in Seoul were designed to get us familiarised with the people, communicating with them and the Seoul subway, and off course a nice dinner (consisting of salad, steak, beer and dessert) where we used knives and forks after a loooong time! During the missions, we had to navigate through the streets of the Myong Dong shopping district, enquire about a particular camera model at the Lotte Department store (many floors of which are dedicated to Gucci, Dior, Armani etc), take pictures with Korean people and finally take the subway to the COEX Mall in the other end of the city. It was fun and I was enjoying myself for the first time since beginning of the orientation process. The orientation was over on Friday evening and I felt a distinct sense of achievement and relief at the end of it. At least now I didn't have to wake up early in the morning and rush to Oceania for a 14 hour day. Though the orientation was rather hectic (well, lets be honest - it was horribly hectic!) but we learnt a lot from it. The most important thing was the confidence that it gave me. Though I didn't know the language, I knew that I was no longer afraid of going out to streets alone. This was a big achievement and I think all the toil of the last few days were completely worth it. We returned to Seoul on Friday evening with high hopes and the promise of unhindered sleep that night!