I went for a trip to South Korea last year with my friends and got to experience Korean culture first hand. My first impression of Koreans when i touched down is: wow, Koreans sure are rude! Whenever there's a crowd and when people are trying to pass by you, you will feel this incessant nudging from behind. There's no "excuse me"; not even a word from the person who's trying to pass by you. At first, I thought it's just a few isolated cases, but soon when everybody else starts to do this, I realise that this is actually the norm in Korea! I was quite annoyed at first but got used it anyway. In Singapore, usually people will avoid body contact as much as possible in crowds but apparently not in Korea.
The second interesting intercultural encounter is at China when I went there for summer term. Initially we thought the Chinese were extremely helpful when a group of friends and us asked for directions. They always seem to know where's the place. However, when we asked a different person for directions to the same place, the second person pointed in a completely different direction! It happened a few times and we concluded that the Chinese will never admit that they don't know the directions to a place because they don't wish to embarrass themselves in front of strangers. Maybe my Chinese friends in the class can help me verify if this is true? haha.
