Parting Thoughts: I Drew the Line at Pupa

September 27, 2009
I am leaving today for home. Before I do, I wanted to capture a few parting thoughts. First of all, do you see the owl? It is at the tip of the knitting needle. The next picture above the dollar is the home of the Korean President, known as the "Blue House." I have now been to the White House, the Blue House, and the Pink House, also known as the "Casa Rosada," where Evita lived and where Madonna sang "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" in the movie. Going from middle to top I wanted to show some other exotic food items. I ate fried sesame leaves, as demonstrated by Dr. Cho. I also ate fried ginseng but did not drink the ginseng liqueur shown in the photo. Lastly, I drew the line at the boiled pupa, which were quite a delicacy at the street market we visited. The picture does not really show how larval they looked, and it doesn't capture the funky smell either. Were it not for the smell I might have tried them! A few other random facts: the Korean alphabet has 24 letters, with 10 vowels and 14 consonants. It differs from Chinese and Japanese, which have hundred of "kanji" symbols. Korean is said to be the easiest of the Asian written languages to master. The symbols were invented by one of the emperors and they are based on the shape of the mouth when making that sound. Also, the Korean culture is not a very religious one. There is a tremendous emphasis on education, which follows the principles of Confucianism. Every doctor I met had at least one child in school in the US. Some are as young as 13 years old in boarding school! The down side is that there is less family influence on children but the up side is that advancement in society is based on merit and achievement and not inherited wealth. Despite this, there is a rigid hierarchical structure in social settings. The night of the karaoke dinner all of the male professors sat together, and all of the female professors and the male professors' wives sat together. My "honored guest" status trumped my gender, and I was seated with the older male professors. Interestingly, in all of the "official" conference photos, I was seated in the center, in an even more prestigious location than the male invited speakers. Go figure! I was equally surprised at the conference to see that there was a gender separation in the large ballroom. All of the female doctors sat in the back of the room for the lectures. I have never seen that before in this day and age. Lastly, when taking a photo the Koreans say "kimchi" instead of cheese! My visit was an honor and a privilege, and the Korean hospitality was amazing.