“The more I learn about Korea, the more I fall in love with this country.”

Yew Mei Zhen started with that statement when she met with Korea.net on May 26. She is one of our readers from Singapore, and is now the forth guest to visit our offices for lunch.

Years of studying the Korean language and traveling across the region has given her a closer connection with Korea, a country that, she believes, abounds with things interesting.

It was two years ago that she decided to venture out to study in Korea after quitting her job as a Chinese teacher.

Why Korea? "To be honest, I was weighing two countries, Korea and Japan. Then I made up my mind to choose the former, as I believe it is a country more influenced by Confucianism than the latter, in which I’ve also really been interested, and also it's a country full of interesting things,” she said.

Yew took classes at the Korean language school at Kyung Hee University for over a year. She also travelled by herself here and there across the peninsula. For her, traveling throughout the country is like a treasure hunt, finding one treasure after another. Knowing the many colors of Korea, the Singaporean guest came back again and again.

“This is my two-week journey and I reunited with some friends I met at school. Last weekend, I even went down to Tongyeong in Gyeongsangbuk-do (South Gyeongsang Province), where I enjoyed again the culinary delight of mixing rice in a crab shell,” she said with a smile across her face.

She also seemed surprised to see how far the Korean movie industry has come, as she said, “I prefer watching Korean movies in a quiet theater to hitting such hustle-and-bustle shopping districts as Myeong-dong or Dongdaemun. I am always astounded at how striking Korean movies are.”

“Korean films today come out with novel, sound storylines and their production techniques have come such a long way over the years,” she added.


Unlike other guests who are usually on the receiving end of being asked questions, Yew seemed to have a lot of questions herself to ask the Korea.net team. She was curious about a variety of social issues, from Korea’s multiple cultures and the status of women here, all the way through to corporate culture and what it's like to have a female president for the first time.

It is through Korea.net and Korea Clickers, its official Facebook page, that this curious reader can get some answers to questions she might have about Korea. “While surfing the Internet, wanting to know more about this country, I stumbled upon Korea.net and its Facebook page. Now I can get useful information about Korea with these tools.”

The more she gets to know Korea, the stronger her belief that this is an amazing country, offering much to the global traveler.

By Paik Hyun, Sohn JiAe
Korea.net Staff Writers
jiae5853@korea.kr