James Choi
For the summer of 2023, I was able to travel to my home country, South Korea, by participating in a research project that investigated the opinions of South Korean residents on feline pet ownership. While feline pets were drastically increasing post-covid in Asian countries, I wanted to know whether Korea as a society was ready to compensate for certain concerns such as access to veterinary care, financial costs to owning a pet, and transportation/hygiene issues.
Generating a research project and executing plans was not as easy as I thought. My mentor and I had multiple meetings, zoom calls, and modifications to the project. Although the preparation for the project took a lot of effort, once I got on the plane and stepped into the country, everything changed. The first part of the project was to gain qualitative data. I met up with feline pet owners, veterinarians, and people who work in the veterinary industry to gain their opinions on what they thought about the ongoing situation with feline pet ownership in Korea. The second part of the research project was to gain quantitative data as I created a survey using Qualtrics and distributed it on different platforms to gain further responses from feline pet owners. In total, I was able to gain about 270 responses from diverse people who gave their valuable opinions on the issue and the changes that they hoped to see in the society.
Other than working on my project, I was also able to reconnect with my own culture and appreciate the different values and customs that Korea had compared to the United States. While engaging with some of the local residents, I gained a deeper understanding of the language and social norms. Although I speak professional proficiency in Korean, I realized that there are certain terms and words in Korean that cannot be translated into English and vice versa. And when it does, it doesn’t necessarily translate to the same meaning or tone. Other things I learned were certain etiquette when greeting/eating with an elder person, unique communication styles, and an appreciation for the plethora of diverse foods!
While my Korean was improving drastically day to day by being forced to talk to people on different occasions, I was also able to appreciate the different lifestyles that Koreans had. Public transportation played a crucial part in everyone’s lives, as the subway stations, buses, and taxis were accessible almost 24-hours. Thus, a lot of the different amenities were closely accessible and there was not a place in Korea that you couldn’t go to. Furthermore, due to the high density of population and everything being compact, I could feel that it was easy for the people to come together as a whole, which translated to the atmosphere in festivals, sports games, and cultural events that I attended. Overall, my time in Korea was incredible. I wish I could have stayed longer, and I gained so much experience, cultural awareness, and connections that I will take on for life. I want to thank Global Programs, my mentor Dr. Hart, and the different local people who helped me throughout this project and helped me gain the most out of this opportunity.
