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Every year, thousands of host families will welcome international students from all over the world. In America, many of these students will come from South Korea. If you\u2019ll be hosting one in the near future, it will help if you have a better understanding of their culture.<\/p>\n
They Tend to Study a Lot More Than Our Students<\/strong><\/p>\n While it\u2019s tough to generalize, if you look at the average workweek in both countries, Koreans are much harder workers. Even though Americans have one of the longest workweeks in the Western world, South Koreans work 14% more.<\/p>\n This is reflected in their students, too. People who host South Korean international students sometimes worry that they\u2019re only studying so much as an excuse not to socialize because they\u2019re shy.<\/p>\n While your student might be shy at the beginning \u2013 understandably so \u2013 know that they are also accustomed to studying a lot more than their American counterparts. Be mindful of that, but it\u2019s also okay to try to get them to put down their books and have some fun, too.<\/p>\n Free Time Can Be a Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n As we just touched on, South Korean international students often need some encouragement to relax and have fun. In their country, school starts earlier and they take roughly 13 classes, so between that and studying, they don\u2019t have too much time to themselves.<\/p>\n Not being accustomed to this new schedule and being somewhere new will make it easy for your student to stick to their habits \u2013 mainly studying \u2013 so try to get them interested in a sport or some other activity that will get them out of the house and socializing.<\/p>\n Kimchi Is Served with Every Meal<\/strong><\/p>\n A staple of the South Korean diet is kimchi, a collection of various fermented vegetables. It\u2019s eaten with almost every meal, so if you want to make your student feel a bit more at home, make sure you keep some on hand.<\/p>\n While Americans haven\u2019t taken to kimchi nearly as much, it\u2019s become popular enough in this country that you shouldn\u2019t have a hard time finding it. The good news is that kimchi is an amazing source of probiotics, so your student is doing you a huge favor by making introductions.<\/p>\n You also won\u2019t go wrong with serving them plenty of rice. South Koreans eat it every single day. At the same time, they\u2019ll appreciate trying American cuisine, too.<\/p>\n Cut Your Flavoring<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking of food, South Koreans definitely like spicy dishes, but the sweetness and saltiness of many of ours will be too much for your student. If you\u2019re making cookies, for example, use half the sugar you normally would and see how they like them.<\/p>\n Formal Relationships<\/strong><\/p>\n South Koreans tend to treat friendship with a lot more formality than we do. It\u2019s not that they\u2019re not friendly people; you\u2019ll find that South Korean international students are some of the friendliest people you ever meet.<\/p>\n However, even calling you by your first name will seem awkward to them. Their country\u2019s culture embraces a respect for people older than you. They may even prefer to call you \u201cMr.\/Mrs. [Your last name].\u201d<\/p>\n Questions Don\u2019t Begin with a Negatives<\/p>\n In America, we begin questions with \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d and \u201cwon\u2019t\u201d all the time.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you want to come with?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWon\u2019t you get cold?\u201d<\/p>\n This is a major difference between the two languages: the way questions can be asked. Even though your South Korean student will most likely have a strong command of the language, this will probably be new to them. It\u2019s far from an insurmountable problem, of course, but just anticipate a some confused looks the first few times you use that kind of phrasing when talking to them.<\/p>\n South Koreans are a great people with a fascinating history. You\u2019ll love hosting their international students and keeping the above in mind will make it much easier to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every year, thousands of host families will welcome international students from all over the world. In America, many of these students will come from South Korea. If you\u2019ll be hosting one in the near future, it will help if you have a better understanding of their culture. They Tend to Study a Lot More Than Our Students While it\u2019s tough to generalize, if you look at the average workweek in both countries, Koreans are much harder workers. Even though Americans…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1054,"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions\/1054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ushhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}