Chung Ang University Exchange: My Experience: The Dorms

The dorms at Chung Ang are very different from anything I have seen in America and there are strict rules to living in the dorms. The way you get into the dorms, the rules and how the actual rooms look are different from what I was used to in San Francisco.
When I lived in the dorms at San Francisco State University, I lived in like an apartment. We had a key to the mailbox and a key to the apartment/dorm we lived in. At Chung we get a sort of key card. It is a simple blue card. It has your room number and bed space on it. (A is to your left when you walk in and B is to your right). There are two people per room. What may seem kind of weird at first is the guest rule. The guest rule is that there are no guests allowed in any of the rooms. If a guest is caught in a room, both the guest and the host are kicked out. Chung Ang is big on the protection of privacy. However, people in the dorms can visit each other's dorms...if they are the same gender. Men and women are separated by gender. One half of the building is women and on the other end of the building is men which brings me to how you enter the dorms.
The way to enter the dorms is by far the weirdest but most interesting thing I have ever seen. It is a gate that you put your student ID into. Sounds simple enough. The weird part though is that after that, you must put your hand into the machine so that it can read your blood through your skin (it doesn't take any skin or blood samples). If a guy tried to go to the girls' side of the building he wouldn't be recognized on that system.
The rules to the dorm are simple but somewhat strict. We can't cook anything in the microwave that will give off a smell (or ramen). That means no fish, no sweet potatoes, no corn, etc...Curfew is 1am. The doors to the lobby close at 1am and so do other facilities like the laundry room. The penalty for coming back to the dorm after curfew (and before 5am) is a loss of 5 points. There is a point system in the dorms. We are all given 20 points. Once we lose those 20 points, we are kicked out. If we lose some points we can get them back by doing stuff around the building. The one rule that can get you kicked out on the spot is having guests that don't live in the dorms be in your dorm. Theft is another rule that can get you kicked out on the spot. If you are caught stealing from your roommate or another resident, you're done.
The dorms have little shops, 2 cafeterias, vending machines, a ;laundry room, a computer area, study area, a gym, and an area to hang out and watch tv. The international students are also separated from the domestic students (an international student will not be paired with a native Korean as a roommate). International students are paired with roommates from their home countries (in some cases if you are an American you can be paired with a french person who was an international student in America right before arriving at cau, FOR EXAMPLE). We are also not told who we are rooming with until we meet each other in our rooms while unpacking...
Below are pictures of my room when I arrived. The dorms will provide you with a mattress cover and that is it. If you want to buy bed sheets, you can go to the big E-Mart located in Yongsan. It is about 10-15 minutes away by bus (bus 151). The stop will be "Sinyongsan station). My sheets were on sale for $70 (cheapest set i found after 3 hours of searching the mall). The bathroom also does not have a door as you can sort of see in the picture of the shower where I am standing just outside the bathroom (the toilet stall is right next to the shower and the sink is right in the middle. The doors are frosted glass and tinted a very light blue). I went to Daiso near the school and bought a shower rod and curtain and used that as a make shift door for privacy. Buy air freshener as well.
One final and important thing, your room key card powers your room. If it is taken out of the power slot, it turns off all the power in the room. So if one person leaves, the other person should out their key card in the power slot thing so that the power in the room is not turned off. Because with the power off, nothing charges...

Shower in the bathroom. The bathroom is set up more western style and the only bathrooms with doors are the handicap styled rooms (which are also a little bigger)