Critical Language Scholarship Wonju, South Korea

As the countdown for when I leave for South Korea continues, I find myself becoming increasingly anxious with each passing day. What excites me about South Korea is experiencing culture in its raw form, the history, the food, the beauty of the countryside, the rekindled friendships, and also undiscovered friendships. As much as I love the city of Memphis, I can never really see myself confined to one location for too long. I think I have my dad to thank for this, because it’s always been his life long dream to travel to all the corners of the world.

Since classes have ended I’ve been keeping myself occupied by spending time with good friends, working at Rhodes in the Bonner Center for Faith and Service, and have been independently studying Korean. I don’t know what it is about languages, but whenever I begin studying Chinese or Korean, I become so immersed it’s as if I’m reading an addicting book. By the time I lift my head and return to the real world I always discover that day has become night and hours have passed in what feels like minutes. I don’t what it is, but there’s just something about languages that’s always intrigued me. Whatever it may be, I couldn’t be happier knowing that I’m studying what I love.  

Recently, friends and family have been asking what the Critical Language Scholarship is and what I will be doing in South Korea. I’ll try my best to thoroughly explain what the CLS entails and what I hope to accomplish. Since I’m still in the U.S., most of what I’ll be saying is what I’ve been told by the U.S. Department of East Asian Languages and Literature and mostly speculation on my part.

The Critical Language Scholarships for Intensive Summer Institutes is a program of the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The CLS is the U.S. government’s initiative to increase the number of Americans studying and mastering critical languages. Students are expected to continue their studies beyond the program, and later are expected to integrate their languages studies into their professional career.

In 24 days I’ll be leaving to study at Yonsei University in Wonju. Wonju is a rural city located in the Gangwon Province, roughly 60 miles east of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The campus is supposedly located near the base of a mountain, along the side of a lake, and within a forest. If you ask me, this place sounds quite beautiful. The Wonju Campus is one of four campuses in the Yonsei university system. This campus is noted for their Medical College, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry & Medical Chemistry, Modern Korean Literature, and Poverty Alleviation Studies.

Since it’s going to be the summer time, I really hope a lot of students will still be around for me to meet. No matter what, I want to foster as many friendships as I can. Even though I only have 8 weeks, I will make the most of this time. Two years ago my friend and mentor, Anthony Siracusa, taught me a quote from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” When I first heard these words I really didn’t understand the weight behind them, that was until I was overseas saying goodbye to friends I made while I was working in Shenyang, before I left to study in Nanjing. With these few words always imbedded in the back of my mind, I learned to cherish as many memories as I could, no matter how short they may be.

I leave for South Korea on June 14. Before I leave, though, I have to attend a pre-departure orientation in Washington D.C. from June 12-14. During the orientation I’ll meet all of my classmates and leave with them on the same flight. I’ll arrive at the Incheon International Airport in Seoul, and shortly after I’ll travel to Wonju. The program will last from June 17-August 10. On August 11 I’ll leave for the U.S. Here is a quick view of the dates for the program:

When I first arrive in Wonju, I’ll be introduced to the host institute staff and a Korean host family. A unique component to the CLS program in South Korea is that students will be living with a host family for the first week. Students are not allowed to speak English and must try their best to get acquainted with cultural behaviors. This is all the more reason for me to begin studying before I leave. I’m really excited to live with a different family for an entire week. It may be a shotgun version of culture shock, but I can’t wait to see what I’ll learn! Luckily, I think growing up in a Korean household and prepared me well for this component of the program. After the first week, students will then move into the university dorm halls, where we will also meet our Korean roommates. For the duration of our studies, we will have a native roommate that will help us in our progression and will also help us in immersing ourselves into Korean culture. I’m really excited about having a Korean roommate, because past experience has taught me how helpful having native roommates and friends can be.

We're all expect to take the program as serious as we can.  Every week students will have four hours of language classes each day, five hours of culture class, four hours of peer tutoring per week,  four hours of internship/community involvement per week,  and weekly cultural excursions to museums, theaters, and local events. Along with this, we are also expected to take a language pledge. In my opinion, anyone who wants to learn a foreign language should look for a program that has a strict language pledge. While I was in China I learned that following a language pledge was one of the most beneficial factors towards my language progression. So when I heard that we would have to take a language pledge for the CLS, I was pretty excited.

Right now all I can really do is continue to study the best I can and make the most of my summer. Words cannot begin to explain how excited I am to be in South Korea this summer, but I'll say that it's going to come and go faster than I can ever imagine.

The Past, the Present, and the Future

It was about a year ago around this time when I was sitting in my dorm room telling myself, "You're really doing this, Brian. You're going to go to China and start a new chapter in your life." If I was told that a year later I was going to be telling myself, "You're really doing this, Brian. You're going to go to South Korea and start another chapter in your life," I would have never believed it.

As a first generation Korean-American, I never thought I would be given a prime opportunity to learn how to speak Korean. I can only read, write, and understand it more or less. But let's be honest, a lot more on the less. Also, as a college student, I've convinced myself a while ago that I had to give up on this part of my heritage because there was no way I could balance my academic load with learning another language. "But wait, aren't you learning Chinese?" is what you may ask. Well, yes, yes I am. I decided to learn Mandarin for academic reasons. I wanted to incorporate Mandarin in my career choice of Accounting, but along the way I discovered that Korean was too important to me to give up. So what was it that encouraged me to try and learn Korean? It was actually my love for the Chinese language and culture that inspired me.

Last year I spent six months of my life living and traveling throughout China. It was actually seventeen cities in six months. Throughout my travels in China I fell in love with just about every place I went, but as I was traveling I was always asked the same question, "你是中国人吗？(Are you Chinese?)." I wasn't asked whether I was Korean or Japanese, it was always whether I was Chinese or not. Before I left for China, this question had never bothered me. As months went by I realized that this question began to trouble me more than usual.

While I lived in Nanjing, I quickly realized that half of my friends were from South Korea. The friendships I established were quite incredible. Some of the students I met could speak English and were studying Mandarin, and the others could only communicate with me using Mandarin. Although I did not make dozens on dozens of Chinese friends, I learned to exercise what I learned in the classroom on a daily basis by communicating with my Korean friends using Mandarin. It's incredible to think that it was Mandarin, not English, that bridged the gap between my American identity and Korean heritage.

As I became more immersed in Chinese culture, I equally found myself immersing into Korean culture as well. It wasn't long before I was sitting on the steps of the Zeng Xianzi Building with one of my friends explaining to her that I was ashamed and somewhat embarrassed that I knew more about Chinese culture and could speak Mandarin better than Korean. This didn't make me want to focus on China any less though. Actually, I was amazed by how uniquely rich Chinese culture is, and this made me want to discover how wonderful South Korea could be. At this point I decided to begin embracing my heritage more.

I remembered that earlier in my travels in China, while I was working at the U.S. Consulate for the Commercial Service in Shenyang, I met two impressive people who encouraged me to apply for a Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) provided by the U.S. Department of State. One of the individuals told me that he was a recipient of the CLS for two years. What impressed me most was that he was fluent in Chinese, but if you asked him if he was he would deny it. The other individual was a recipient of the CLS for South Korea. Shortly after, he joined the Navy to become a a translator in South Korea for four years. It was really amazing to see how impressive these two were and they encouraged me to apply for the CLS in order to further my language progression in Mandarin.

Well, it turns out I decided to apply for the CLS, but it was for Korean, not Mandarin. It took me a while to make the decision to apply for the CLS. At one point I decided not to because I felt as if I was giving up on years of progression in Mandarin. Except as the semester continued to move on I was consistently reminded of how ashamed I was of not knowing Korean. I guess what deterred me the most was that I was worried that I could not handle the academic load. I was afraid that I couldn't balance learning two languages while pursing a CPA. In the midst of all this confusion I remembered that most of the people I worked with in the U.S. Consulate could speak more than four languages. What was I so worried about? Then again...the people I worked with were brilliant people. I shouldn't compare myself to them! Yeah it's going to be hard work, but I also remembered that I love learning Mandarin and that I also loved studying Korean in my free time.

It was back in November 2012 when I applied for the CLS. Luckily, I had my best friend there to help me edit my papers and give me endless criticism on my essays. As I turned in my application I sat there looking at my screen saying to myself, "Now I just have to wait...." I don't know if any of you are like me, but waiting to hear whether I won or not was driving me insane. I remembered last year when I applied for the Gilman Scholarship, I had to sit around for about four months to hear whether I would get funding for my trip to China. At the end of the four months I had already turned in my acceptance letter and had my flight booked. I was just waiting to see if I had to eat bowls of rice for the next six months or not... After the long wait I was awarded the Gilman Scholarship for $5,000. This is where I give my shout out the the U.S. Department of State for giving me such a life changing opportunity. Because of this I was capable of traveling all around China and experiencing culture to its fullest. Okay, back to South Korea. This is in fact my blog for South Korea, not China. Right?

Okay, so, I was talking about the wait. Unfortunately, since I decided to apply for the CLS, I had to put progression of my career on hold. I had to turn down all internship opportunities and leverage my hopes on gaining the CLS. Ideally, I would prefer to apply for a couple internships as backup. Well, I could take this option, because if I was awarded both the CLS and an internship, I would have to chose between the two. If I was faced with this choice I would definitely select the CLS. Unfortunately, it would look relatively unprofessional to turn down an internship, so I was banking everything on winning. Of course, this put a lot of stress on my mind. If I was awarded the CLS I would be ecstatic, but if I was not awarded, I would have thrown away great opportunities for the summer.

My sister used to always tell me, "Good things come to those who wait," and wait I did, but as usual my sister never steers me wrong. On March 22 I was informed that I was selected as a recipient of the CLS to study in Wonju, South Korea at Yonsei University. After hearing this news I was in complete shock! I just couldn't believe it. I'm going to South Korea this summer to study Korean!