My first encounter with the cultural gulf between the sunny haven of Sheffield, England and Cheongju City took place on my very first day, when I was pitched headfirst into the alien world of Confucianism. This is taught in schools and is the foundation of Korean society. It is centred on respect for ones elders. I have always believed that respect is something to be earned and should be based on an individual's behaviour and attitude. In Korea, age brings respect regardless of conduct, and one has to abide by certain formalities in order to express the appropriate level of deference.

Minding my manners

There were four of us seated around a low wooded table. My director, the two recruitment agents who had collected me from the airport, and myself. My director was busy chatting to the Korean half of the agency leaving the English contingent to tell me about his Korean wife and newborn baby. I was interested in neither but was instead looking blankly at the vast array of bowls and plates that were being loaded around me. The only food I recognised were the strips of pork sizzling on a coal-heated brazier set into the middle of the table, and a dish filled with raw garlic cloves.

Despite the obscurity of my dinner I was ravenous. I picked up my chopsticks and feebly tried to snap up a heap of green vegetable matter. After dropping it twice, the English recruitment agent whispered for me to halt. In order to show respect I was meant to wait for my director to start eating. I was hungry enough to eat my director and he was engrossed in his conversation. Impatiently I poured myself a glass of beer and downed it. Time for another lesson in Korean table manners: I wasn't supposed to drink head on to my elders, I had to turn my head to the side.

I could see the food but I couldn't eat it. I could drink, but only at a funny angle. My head started to spin and I began to feel faint. At last my director looked at me and asked if I wanted to sample a rice spirit called soju. Deciding that being drunk was infinitely preferable to being tired and hungry, I accepted and reached out with my glass accidentally insulting him again. I was told that when receiving anything from an older person one must use two hands or have one hand placed on the wrist or heart. This I later found out applies to anything given or received.

It was at this point that I became so confused that I forgot all about being hungry. All my attention was focused on trying not to offend anyone. My basic understandings had been turned on their head and I was nervous about making mistakes that might lead to a slight. I had seen videos of what happens if you offend people in this part of the world, and it had involved swords, honour and blood.

Someone would offer me a drink, or pass me some food. I would reach over, remember the two-hand rule, then get tied up trying to manoeuvre my chopsticks, my glass and my hands into the correct position. As a result I was flicking bits of food hither and thither, not being very adept with chopsticks. When we came to leave the restaurant, my place at the table was covered with food. There were little bits of pork and rice on the floor and my trousers were sporting a variety of different coloured stains. I didn't realise eating could be so stressful. I was experiencing culture shock first hand.

Window shopping

I would walk down the street looking for anything that my mind could latch onto and understand. However as I looked at shop sign after shop sign I couldn’t even begin to hazard a guess as to what I'd find inside. I couldn’t even find a shop that sold phone cards so I could call home and tell my family I had arrived safely. My luggage had been misplaced at the airport and in order to find a shop that sold underpants I had to peer in at the windows. Even when I located a department store and tried to buy some socks the overly polite sales assistant wanted to sell me tights!