Of Korean Dorm Life

Up until now, I realize I've never said anything about my living conditions while in Korea. They're homely, for sure. Although without the kind of wall decorations I have at 'SC to make it my true home away from home, it actually feels a bit more like an apartment in need of artistry. (Grey skies as of late don't help matters in that regard.)

Anyway, my dorm room itself is, if it weren't crooked, laid out in a similar way to my old dorm room my freshman year at 'SC. Even so, it's pretty similar, as you can see here, although note the glass door in the back leads to a small balcony (please excuse the mess my roommate and I have left in our exhausted wakes):



Also, we have something most of the dorms at 'SC don't have in our room: CENTRAL A/C! The problem (for me, anyway) is that my desk is positioned so that I'm conveniently situated directly under the vent, so whenever it's on I'm always the first to freeze. At least I know it works!

Unlike the dorms at 'SC, where communal bathrooms are common, we have our own, individual bathroom in the dorm room itself. It doesn't look like much, but it's convenient...



You'll notice there's a random shower head snaking out from the sink--this entire space also doubles as our shower stall. Hao-Hua was concerned about privacy, even though the glass wall is tempered to the point where it covers up *just enough*. Problem is, with our (read: his) relatively tall height, we can see over the top of the tempered part and into the back mirror (depending on how close to the glass we are). On the bright side, if we're showering, it usually fogs up the back mirror enough where it doesn't matter. Still...design fail? Perhaps.

Another thing that's a bother (but could lead to possible comedic gold): you turn the sink on, then pull up on a small button to activate the shower. There is, however, a design flaw in the way the shower is laid out. Most of the time, you turn the water off, the shower goes off with it. But if you're not careful, the next time you turn on the sink and expect water to come out the faucet, you might get blasted by the shower head instead. (I'm speaking from experience, can you tell?)

I will say the door locks gave us fits when we first moved in. We were given a four-digit combination to open our door. Problem is, when we got to the door, there was no keypad in sight! It took us about five minutes to figure out that you had to go from this...



...to this...



...punch in the combination, then shut the cover again for the door to open. And then on the other side of the door, it looks a bit like this:



The rectangular silver button just above the green switch unlocks the door. While you could just turn the dial at the bottom, pressing the button just makes it seem even cooler, like something out of a sci-fi movie. Makes lock technology in the dorms at 'SC seem pretty lame.

What is rather counter-intuitive, however, is the keycard access to get into the building. While I can understand scanning the card to get in, you also need to scan the card to get out. Which begs the question, why would you need your card to get out when they know you're already in the system? Wouldn't that be how you got into the building in the first place?

And then there's the visitor policy, which makes 'SC seem completely unregulated in that regard (probably because it is). They have a system of demerit points in the building that you can accrue to infractions in and around your hall. Got more than 10 demerits? You are the weakest link, goodbye. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

And you can get halfway there--5 points--simply by bringing a visitor to see your dorm (even if they're family). They didn't say anything about students visiting other students, thankfully--I can only assume that's okay. If they use any part of the dorm property, that's 10 points. If they stay overnight--significant other or not--you're gone. On the bright side, this would also mean that there's very little chance of locking your roommate out of your room whenever you and the significant other want a little "time to yourself." (I mean, it could happen, but given that the walls are pretty thin, you probably wouldn't want to chance it...) Although given that there don't appear to be what we would call RAs on the hall, I can only assume that the system is enforced by what essentially amounts to tattling on the offender(s).

Ladies and gentlemen, Korean dorm life.