Sierra Tseng, '20, Korea Institute Scholarship to attend SNU International Summer Institute (SNU ISI), Summer 2018

          I happened upon Korea by chance, filling my last class spot of fall semester with a sociology class on modern Korea just as course registration was due. This sparked an interest in a country I only ever heard about in news headlines or from my Korean American friends, and caused me to follow-up my sociology class with a Korea history class during spring semester. This resulted in a year-long adventure through Korean history and culture. My conceptualized belief of Korea is one of consumerism and modernization, illuminated by the bright lights of Seoul. Even more intriguing, however, is the simultaneous existence of a patriarchal Chosǒn society, devastating destruction following the Korean War, Park Chung Hee’s Economy First policy at the expense of human rights, and a shaky and uncertain rise towards modernization. My classes allowed me to witness Korea as it was thrown to and fro, first from the constant waves of imperialistic Western powers while Korea remained focused on China as a tributary state, to the hands of Japanese colonizers, to being at the mercy of the United Nations and caught in the middle of the power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.

         My time in Seoul as a participant of Seoul National University’s International Summer Institute allowed all of the things that I learned about in lecture to become larger than life. I was only a visitor, but the moment my plane’s wheels hit the runway at Incheon, I was immediately immersed in a culture and a country and a history that I had spent the past year studying. To say that my time in Korea was an adventure is an understatement. My classes in Korean language, ceramics, and peace-building between North and South Korea left me eagerly sounding out the hangul on street signs, thinking about the history of Korean art-making, and delving into the complexities of international relations played out in the real world as the impacts of the recent summits with North Korea continue to rock the global community.

         Outside of class, I was left to peel back layer after layer of the city of Seoul at my own whim. The modern clashed with the history that time has infused into the streets and seeped into the pores of the city. The sociological and historical viewpoints I acquired over the past year in my Harvard classes came face to face with my time in Korea and were contextualized by the things I learned there, intermingling and dispersing into my personal experiences in Seoul. I ate it all up. My adventures took me from Gyeongbokgung and Seoulleung Tombs to Insa-dong, Tapgol Park where the March First Movement was ignited, the DMZ to the War Memorial of Korea, Jogyesa Temple to Seodaemun Prison Museum, Namdaemun and Gwangjang Markets to the Blue House among other locations - both planned and unplanned. I would get off at one subway station and wander the streets until the sun went down, stumbling upon majestic UNESCO historical sites along one street and adorable coffee shops around the next corner. I sampled 비빔밥, 호떡, 붕어빵, and drank green tea with a Buddhist monk. I bartered with shopkeepers and took the wrong bus a few times. I got soaked by the rain of Korean monsoon season. I made friends with other students from the Philippines, London, Korea, and Singapore. I witnessed the sunrise from the top of the mountains behind my dorm. I watched the sunset over the Han River while feasting on fried chicken. Each day of adventuring left me with sore feet, a full stomach, and an even fuller heart.

         My time in Korea allowed me to contextualize everything that I read on paper, and to fully experience the culture that I had spent the past year soaking in through my classes at Harvard. More importantly, however, my time in Seoul allowed me to discover a little bit more about myself and made my world that much bigger.