Physical Comparison between Soju and Panama beer.
Taking into consideration these similarities, for someone like my Korean friend from the restaurant, who have lived in Korea for most of her life, making the assumption that Panama beer and Korean Soju are the same, is an understandable mistake.
Adding more sense to my experience, Dr. Gregory Ashby, a psychology professor at the University of California, considers that experiences are able to create vivid concepts in people’s minds. Following this thought, my Korean friend has lived most part of her life in Korea, and even more, she relates herself with other Korean customers who seek for the flavor of her autochthonous cuisine. For this reason, we can tell that my Korean friend haven’t had enough contact with the Panamanian culture in order to know how a Panamanian beer tastes or looks like. Besides, in Korea people do not tend to drink beer, but rather other alcoholic drinks, such as Makgeolli (rice wine), Maesil Jul (plum wine), and Soju (Liu). On top of that, Korea has about 1.6 million alcoholics and its citizens drink an average of 14 shots of hard liquor a week (Killalea). With this numbers, Korea’s alcohol consumption doubles the amount of alcohol a Russian adult consumes in that same week (Killalea). With this said, I can deduct that my Korean friend must know about liquor, but she may not know that much about …show more content…
In addition, because of this same discrepancy in perceptions, we both acquire, thanks to social experiences, different concepts of what a beer is. The fact that in Korea people prefer drinking hard alcoholic drinks rather than beer is perhaps one of the key elements that enabled this misunderstanding. Therefore, if we add the fact that both drinks come bottled in containers with similar physical characteristics, it’s understandable for a Korean foreigner to think they are both the same. Another key factor can be the faulty translation performed by my Korean friend by which she may have thought that in Panama people know Soju under the name of beer. But despite the experienced misunderstanding, I was able to taste something new. At the same time, this experience motivated me to research about such a fascinating culture like the one Korea has. Indeed, I must say that I highly enjoyed this exotic drink, and moreover, with the warm welcome of my cheerful Korean