Korea Institute Undergraduate Summer Language Study Grant to Ewha, Summer 2016
I applied to the KI Summer Language Study Grant with the hope of improving my Korean language skills, after having completed one year of Korean at Harvard. I would describe my summer in Korea to be the most exciting and culture-rich experience I’ve had during my time at Harvard. The chance to meet and befriend Korean students is a large part of what made the immersion into a completely different culture not only easier but a hundred times more enjoyable. The Ewha summer school has a buddy programme, in which everyone is paired up with an Ewha student. My first full day in Korea was spent with my PEACE buddy who took a group of us for the traditional Korean dessert bing-soo and continued to introduce us to different Korean foods and popular activities over the course of 5 weeks.
Within the first few days of arriving in Korea I was very aware of the support system I had in place, that being comprised of all those involved at the Korea Institute as well as the program directors at the Ewha Summer Programme. Through the Korea Institute we were given the chance to meet students from SNU, have dinner with Harvard faculty members and other Harvard students in Korea. During my time in Korea I took classes in Korean language and traditional Korean painting. The language classes were at once intense and incredibly engaging and the painting classes meant a daily period of relaxation in an otherwise hectic schedule.
My spare time was spent exploring Seoul. I visited Hong-dae, Insadong, Gangnam and many other areas. The Ewha Summer Programme offered field trips every week covering everything from amusement parks to more historical locations. My favourite trip being our trip to the DMZ (de-militarised zone), the border between North and South Korea. It was a very surreal experience - I learned so much about the relationship between the North and South and gained first-hand a better understanding of the South Korean people’s opinions in relation to these issues. Another field trip which I found particularly humbling was our visit to the House of Sharing - the home of the living Korean women who were forced into being ‘comfort’ women during World War II. It was a privilege to meet these women and listen to their experiences. Their incredible resilience and courage and the fortitude with which they continue to protest and fight for their cause is something I can never forget. In coming to Korea I was ready to be blown away by the food, the architecture and I was excited to meet new people and form new friendships but I did not expect to be affected so profoundly by history, of which I seemed to learn so much in such a short period of time.