\u201cWhat?! You guys already have your driver\u2019s license?\u201d I could never imagine my 16-year-old friends behind a steering wheel. The thought made me feel sick to my stomach. They can\u2019t even walk straight on the sidewalk. How can they drive?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean I have to pay an additional $5 for tipping?\u201d My first few meals at Hokkaido and Tapas Barcelona ended with a frantic search for extra cash.<\/p>\n
My four weeks at the cherubs were a crash course in American culture shock. As an international student from South Korea, I was constantly baffled \u2014 what was the big deal about tipping and why were people so friendly?<\/p>\n
It turns out, I wasn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople here like to compliment others,\u201d said Shirley Xiao of Shenzhen, China. \u201cAt first, I wasn\u2019t really used to these compliments. I felt like I did something very wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Shirley, I was often overwhelmed by the friendly and outgoing nature of my peers. From endless questions to fruitful discussions starting with \u201con that same vein,\u201d I was amazed by the amount of student participation in lectures during the program. At my international school in Korea, teachers would be lucky to get even one remark from a student. Here, every lecture felt like a lively debate.<\/p>\n
While I exercised my extroversion full-time during the first few days at the cherubs, I quickly found friends who helped me navigate American quirks. To my surprise, even cherubs from the U.S. were experiencing culture shock.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no seat covers in the restrooms here! It makes me feel very unsanitary,\u201d said Grace McCloskey of Arcadia, California. \u201cI have to rip toilet paper and make a makeshift toilet seat cover. Whoever runs this state needs to get on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite being 10,485 km (or 6,534 miles) away from Evanston, I\u2019ll always remember to look out for cars when crossing the street, and sometimes, a compliment is just a compliment. Through cherubs, I can confidently say that I know one thing: Always carry around an extra $5 and maybe some toilet seat covers, just in case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From tipping to toilet seat covers, cherubs experienced culture shocks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":5526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[300],"class_list":["post-4360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experiences"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":300,"user_id":116,"is_guest":0,"slug":"inachoe","display_name":"Ina Choe","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e245c357e6a62a9d9c4ef1d0dc636c20acd3290bf895898eed4c77b1a3bd8974?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Choe","first_name":"Ina","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4360"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6772,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360\/revisions\/6772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4360"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}