Meet my Korean Buddy

Nicole

If you had read in my previous blog post, I was selected to be one of the buddies of the Korean exchange students from Gyeongju University. They will be staying here in the Philippines up to the first week of December to attend English courses.This will already be their second week of stay in the country but I just met my buddy today since I was pretty preoccupied with our thesis defense. My buddy's English name is Nicole.

I met her again after her class and had dinner together with her other Korean friends. One thing I've noticed among them is that they are a conversational bunch of people, they just don't leave people out. I mean, as much as possible, they talk and include you in their conversations. They told me how they liked the chicken in Mang Inasal and how they liked pancit. They also asked me about the taste of balut which was quite funny on my part since I had hesitance on how I would actually describe the taste. They also asked about the different places in the Philippines such as Palawan, Boracay, Cebu, and Bohol but I wasn't really that confident answering since I've never been in those places. Nakakahiya naman di ko alam mga lugar sa sariling bansa ko.

Anyway, here's what I learned from them today:

1. Noona - a term of respect to the older sister. This is equivalent to our "Ate".

Since the Korean students were older than me, most of them aged 20-21, I would call them "noona". In my case, I could address my buddy as Nicole Noona. (not noona Nicole)

2. There is such a thing called as "Korean Age". My buddy is 20 years old in Philippine age but is already 22 in Korean age. This is because they believe that as a child is born, he is already a year old after staying inside the womb of the mother. Then one day after the birth date, this will be considered as another year. So that explains the additional two years. The age would then progress normally every year during their birthday.

3. Their English names are either chosen by them either because it's the one closest to their original names or because they just fancy the name, period. Isn't that cool?