Aenyong Haseo...

..means "hello," and it's what you say when you meet someone for the first time. I said it a lot on Tuesday, because I met every single one of Bae, Kim and Lee's 140 lawyers. We interns worked our way down nine floors, saying hello to every lawer (it took about an hour and a half). I've got the little bow of greeting one does down pat.

The lawyers here are very nice, and seem very collegial. The lawyers on each floor have lunch together every day, and they've been taking us out to eat with them. Most speak at least some English, and about half speak perfectly (it looks like about 15% did their JD and/or undergrad in the U.S., and a whole bunch more have American LLM degrees), so we talk about law school, life in Korea etc. Almost all the lawyers are men, and I have yet to see any of the few female lawyers out at lunch. By contrast, ALL the secretaries are women. They are friendly too, and all giggle whenever I say pretty much anything. So in that respect it's just like home.

The internship coordinator is a very friendly woman named Eunsook, who is embarassed about her English but speaks very well. She laughs uproriously at my daily cultural miscues. She walks with this wobbly, mincing gate that makes it appear as though she could tip over at any minute. Most of the women walk this way, with very quick small steps. The men also walk very quickly, in sort of a herky-jerky motion. Walking around the office I've been very conscious of

my rather elongated American strides. Also of the fact that I have no idea what anyone around me is saying.

One other thing--all the lawyers have these little flip-flops that they wear while they're in the office. I think this is incredibly cool.