Korean Job Discussion Forums

Young FRANKenstein · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:30 am Post subject: city vs. country

Anyone else notice many students confuse the two? A lot?

Just finished grading an assignment on comparatives and superlatives, and I must have seen "Seoul is the largest country in Korea" (and similar variations) on at least half the papers. What gives? It's not like it's a translation error. And these are uni students.

Satin · Joined: 26 Oct 2006 Location: Texas

Alot of students (any age), have a problem with geography in Korea. They know there are other places in the world, but can't seem to grasp the common terms for use nor the relation, relative to where they are.

If you ask a Korean how far it is from Seoul and what direction it is to Busan, they will usually say very far, two hours by train, or, about four hours by bus. Rarely will they give you the distance or the direction. Many times, if you ask where a small city or village is, they can't give an answer.

Some of this probably stems from the excellent transportation system they have in Korea. Reading maps is not common for travel. Their news media doesn't have the best methods of reporting international events either.

Now ---- why did the students put Seoul as a country? When was the last time you heard someone mention Korea, without mentioning Seoul? Seoul must be a country of importance or they wouldn't hear so much about it!!

Young FRANKenstein · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:57 pm Post subject:

pest2 · Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Location: Vancouver, Canada

I took a ferry from Jeju to Busan and then drove from Busan all the way north to the N. Korean border...

One thing I notice about Korea is that distance really isnt as important as time with respect to measuring travel.
Jeju is on an island but its still Korea; that means that even though it sits on a completely different geographic body that takes a significant time to travel to and from, it still has Emart, 김 치, and grumpy old men in every bike shop... in short, the same stuff as the rest of Korea. Korea is not only homogenous with respect to national identity and race, but also insofar as infrastructure type, appearance, and architecture... its all the same Korea. (whereas the Southern USA looks alot different than the north or California, etc...)
Driving along, you realize that some stretches of highway go by very fast; up north, you can cruise along at 80km/h or faster with no problems. But down south, you're only going maybe 50 and you always have to stop every few minutes for another light.. so a distance in the south equal to one in the north can equate to alot more time... and that is what really matters because time is money, so to speak...