“So, you’re a SPANISH major, and you went to
KOREA?!”
 |
| Me
with some of my freshman friends at the Kyeongju Water Palace. |
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that question.
The simple answer?
“YES!”
After spending the
majority of my freshman year with Korean exchange students, I promised them
that I would come visit their country. So I did.
I
didn’t know any Korean, and the curriculum had nothing to do with either of my
majors, and Korean will not likely help me at all in my pursuit of a PhD. But
this experience was far from worthless.
 |
Figure 2 Our suite,
D502, at Sooncheon Traditional Village.
|
Upon
arrival all I knew was that I would be living in a suite with Korean students,
and I would be participating in an internship focused on increasing Korean
students’ fluency in English. I knew that as a blond American I would instantly
stand out everywhere I went. And I knew that I would have difficulty
communicating with everyone I met for 4 months
All of those were indeed true. My suitemates included a
Mexican, a Chinese, and 9 Koreans. The internship consisted of talking, in
English, for 5-10 hours a week. Hoping that my Korean conversation partners
would somehow learn something. And more
talking…with my friends from Korea, Mexico, China, Japan, and Finland, I got to
practice speaking slowly and understanding broken English in many varied
“accents.” Invaluable skills.
 |
| Guinsa
Temple Stay: modeling the required garb in front of one of the Four Guardian Kings found at every Korean Buddhist Temple. |
The university I
attended, Soonchunhyang, sits a couple hours south of Seoul. From there, I was
able to travel with my friends – new and old – to almost every corner of Korea.
I experienced historical graves and temples, a traditional village, the beach
in Busan, an evangelical church and a weekend Buddhist Temple Stay, a
cross-country bus ride, sleepless nights in Seoul hostels, Chuseok and
Christmas, and good old-fashioned Korean home-made hospitality. I met friends
from all over the world, ate an octopus that had been alive 3 minutes ago,
taught a country line dance, learned to make Korean dumplings, introduced
myself in Korean, performed 108 prostrations, attended my Grandfather’s funeral
on Skype, hiked a sacred mountain, broke a board with my hand, wrote epic blog
posts, found out that Swastikas are NOT synonymous with Nazis.
One Spanish major.
One semester in Korea. Do it.
