First Week Complete!

So week 1 is complete! The rest of the week at work went by pretty smoothly. We learned about some of the past projects current members had worked on, learned about life at the GSG and talked to alumni that have transitioned into other parts of the business. One interesting element that the team talked to us about was something called a Hoesik, which we should expect to experience this summer. A Hoesik is dinner of co-workes where they go out to eat and drink extensively. The Koreans love drinking - primarily Beer and Soju, a Korean sake. They tend to be pretty serious at work, but the Hoesik allows them to open up and loosen up and get close to their co-workers. They also talked a lot about how people are generally forget or ignore activities that happen during the Hoesik - essentially if you make a fool of yourself its okay the next day at work. This is obviously pretty different than in the US where people generally talk about nights out for days. It also appears that the Hoesik is fairly common, and occurs many nights of the week. Koreans also have some pretty different cultural norms, or traditions. For instance toasts are very important. Additionally it is important not to pour alcohol for yourself, and so its important to look when others' classes are empty. When you pour drinks for elders, its required to pour with two hands with essentially means putting your left hand on your right elbow and pouring with your right hand. I am definitely excited to participate in a Hoesik, as it's a very traditional part of Korean culture.

A few times this week we ate at in the Samsung cafeteria. This place is like a production line. You enter and there is a digital display of all the options they are serving for the day - usually around 8-10 different options. Then you go off in different directions to go to the line with the item you want to get. From there there are different seating areas depending on which item you get, so it makes most sense to get one of 3 things that others are getting with you so you can eat together. The entrees range from typical Korean food, to Western food to other Asian food. It's pretty good and heavily subsidized by Samsung so it costs less than $3 for a huge plate of food. I tried the bibimbap and then had a shrimp fried rice another day. I'm sure I'l end up eating here most days for lunch.

At the end of the week we heard some of the activities they will be hosting for us - baseball games, visiting the Demilitarized Zone at the border of South and North Korea, and a mud festival. Should be a fun summer!  On Friday we ended up getting our project assignments. I'm going to be working on some projects related to their premium mobile PC business. I don't know that much about what I will be doing at this point, but it definitely should be an interesting summer!