I took a trip to South Korea & China in the summer of 2019 with the FIU Study Abroad program. Beginning in South Korea, we landed in a moment in History. President Trump crossed into North Korea durign our visit there. Our first day we arrived, we went on a city tour to visit popular historical sites and temples. A group of us was seperated and went to visit the DMV. It so happened to be that at the moment this was happening, Kim Jong Un and president Trump were meeting and preparing for President Trump to cross into North Korea (becoming the first US president to do so). When he crossed we watched on a television on the tour bus only a few feet away from the site. From there on every day we visited a different company. Some of these companies were not known in the US but were very well known in Korea. We learned how the demographic affects the method of marketing how competitive the Korean market is. Also, I learned how to comunicate with the locals through other means instead of just spoken language.
In China, we were emersed into a new government form, a communist country. Being from the states, I was not used to limited internet. In China the internet is monitered and websites commonly used in the US are blocked. It was much harder to get around and comunicate here becuase so little poeple spoke english. China was more intersting in the sense of how similar to the states is was. There were many cultural locations we went to, but in out area it was more city structured with many american store companies. The culture still showed. At night people gathered to dance is large groups, all wearinf similar clothing and such. In the day we went to historical sites where we learned the history and culture.
I found this trip more connected to my career because I was able to experience the culture more stringly compared to India&Dubai because I was able to venture on my own more safely. They were also in the center of worlds politics because of all the events that were occuring: South Koreas fight with North Korea and China’s fight with Hong Kong and its police brutality.
KathleenLunasGlobalCitizenship 