Author: Martin Trinh

As I gazed across the endless rows of tombstones, the nagging thought returned to my head.  For the last week, our group had been learning about the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, a horrific massacre during which Dictator Chun Doo Hwan had sent paratroopers to quell student protests resulting in the murders of over 100 protestors and hundreds of fatal casualties.  Watching Jang Hoon’s A Taxi Driver and visiting the interactive museums in Gwangju, it was made very apparent to me how young most of the protestors were.  Most were my age or younger, fighting valiantly against a corrupt regime, risking their lives to ensure a just system for their countrymen and future generations.  Contrasted to the apathy I saw within my generation of peers, both in the United States and even those in South Korea now, I began to question whether I had ever felt so strongly about anything in my life.

Duke Engage in South Korea immersed me in not only a vibrant and bustling city but the steadily simmering turmoil of the immigrant experience in Seoul.  Every day, surrounded by signs I could not read and the din of conversations I could not understand, I could only imagine how difficult living here would be for a child whose parents were away at work.  Working with these kids began to reinforce what I had experienced my entire life as a child of war refugee parents and as a volunteer who worked with those populations in the states as well.  Working with the middle schoolers made me realize that what I had been doing in this program and in the states (tutoring and teaching English) was not enough. While it’s a step in the right direction towards lingual integration, the alienation of being different and of being neglected by an apathetic society requires more.  This trip has made it abundantly clear to me that I can and need to do more to help alleviate the many obstacles that refugees and their children face, whether in the United States or Korea, and I am sure that continuing to work with the Kenan Refugee Project at Duke will be a step in the right direction.

It’s been exactly a week since I’ve landed back in the U.S. but the last two months rewind through my head everyday.  In the time that I’ve been back, I’ve been asked countless times “How was Korea?”, “Did you like the food?”, “How were the kids?”.  Simple questions that could not come remotely close to encapsulating every moment of laughter, tears, relief, and connection I experienced on this trip.  To be honest, the sum of our collective experiences could not fit into 1000 blog posts.  The sights, scents, tastes of the city and the relationships we forged will stay with me for the rest of my life.

This is not a journey that I could have undertaken alone.  By my every step was program director Professor Kim Haeyoung, site coordinator Kim Eunyoung, and my peers.

To the Kims, thank you so much for, first, allowing me this amazing opportunity and, second, ensuring that I would be able to capitalize on every single second of it.  From ensuring I had a proper diet to answering every single question we all had to introducing us to the food and culture of South Korea, I cannot begin to express my gratitude.  Every excursion and outing was extremely insightful and the worries of Korea, from reunification to politics now run through my mind.

To Daniel, Emily, Erin, Sheyann, Thomas, Leandro, and Nikki, I know it seemed like I joked about how this was the “perfect group” but, for me, it really was. Each of you brought so many different personalities, ideas, and backgrounds to our group, not only sharing all of that with the kids but me as well.  I am humbled to have learned from all of you about Korean, craft beers, video games, and basic hygiene.  This trip would not have been the same without each and every one of you.

To the teachers of Jiguchon and Wooriduel, please never stop.  The work you do is so so necessary.  To help these students persevere against all the adversity they face is a gargantuan task and to watch you come in every single day without fail is truly inspiring.  Thank you for spreading joy and hope to not only the students, but to us as well.

To the kids of Jiguchon and to my young men in Wooriduel… Thank you for allowing me to be a kid again.  From playing datchi, jumping rope, dancing, waging war with our thumbs, and so much more, you accepted an outsider who could not speak your language.  I can barely speak two languages and watching many of you learn English as your third (or even fourth) language blows my mind.  Your drive to learn, even in the atrangest of circumstances, has been impressed on me.  There is so much more I want to say to each of you but I will do so at your graduations ;).

With the knowledge that it was our last week of teaching and a fully fleshed out lesson plan (thanks to the urging of Kim Seungsangnim), the eight of us plunged ourselves into the now familiar, but still hectic, schedule of Wooriduel Hakyo.

Monday

After a week of acclimation to Wooriduel, I had grown close to my two groups of “Young Men” (as Ji-Kang likes to refer to us).  My reading club of three 19 year old (Hee-myung, Ji-San, and Ji-Kang) and two 16 year old  (Im-gon and Jimin) “men” was beginning to open up to me despite my inability to speak Korean or Chinese and their relative inability to speak English.  To begin the week, we opened up with finding each of our hometowns through the magic of Google Earth (something unknown to my kids who had been forced to use Baidu in China).  Then we launched into famous cities in the U.S. that they had heard about such as Miami and New York.  

Following reading club was my subject class with Hyo Ku and Kum Yong (or as I like to refer to him “GOLDEN BRAVERY).  This class has a much better grasp of English so we are able to have extremely stimulating conversations about whatever we want.  Today, Hyo Ku wanted to continue our conversation about the prospects of alien life.  This was a great opportunity to teach probability and large numbers.  The Korean language does very well at naming large numbers so Hyo Ku was able to pick up the English equivalents very quickly.  The next period, we delved into the history of the Earth itself, learning about Pangea and tectonic plates.  Teaching English as a accessory to teaching interesting science proved extremely effective for my class of similarly-aged students. 

Our Alien Board

Monday was also bittersweet as it marked our final session with the Jiguchon middle schoolers.  They surprised us by playing us a farewell song and we reciprocated with thirty minutes of farewell speeches and a cake.  Our six weeks with the middle schoolers was the longest time we spent with any one group and I would not change that for the world.  For this class, we had to learn to be teachers, friends, role models, and mentors, but it was clear that we learned more from them than they learned from us.  Many of these kids travel more than an hour to get to school or work jobs afterwards but were still making the choice to give us their times, and thus their lives, and it was an honor for us to be able to share in their lives.  

Leandro’s and My Middle School Class

Tuesday

With the knowledge that we were going to play table tennis today for P.E., I decided to teach my reading club about ping pong terminology such as styles, techniques, and my favorite player Zhang Jike.  The boys really enjoyed this topic as the top four players in the world are all Chinese and they were able to see their own playing styles in the videos we watched.  This carried over very well into our playing period as the boys were able to recall what “backhand” and “topspin” meant and were able to incorporate this in to their playing styles.

Our Ping Pong Board

Although this day only had one subject class, it was quite the momentous one as the North Koreans finally returned from their college interview applications.  I took advantage of this to open up the topic of Korean reunification and ask the North Koreans their thoughts on the likelihood.  Of course, they all welcomed and longed for the idea of reunification but it quickly became apparent that they did not consider the same outcomes that we had been taught at the Reunification Education Institute.  Instead, they spoke of a pride in the North Korean nuclear arsenal as well as rumblings of a North Korean civil war.  This talk was extremely enlightening for me as I learned extremely rare and firsthand perspectives and I can only hope I was able to impart some of my knowledge of the American perspective to them.

Our Reunification Discussion Board

Wednesday

Coming in Wednesday morning, we were thrown for a loop when scheduling was redone at the last second.  As a result of miscommunication, Thomas and I were quickly shifted towards the Korean learning class whom I had never interacted with.  We decided to take it back to basics and focus on introductions.  It was extremely refreshing to meet the faces that I had been seeing around the school.  Our younger demographic allowed us to play games like Two Truths and a Lie as well as Never Have I Ever, allowing us to learn more about the students and for them to learn more about us. 

Thursday

For Thursday, I found my reading club to be so successful that I decided to reuse the same lesson with my subject class.  Although it was on a much more elementary level for the reading club, we were able to get very creative with how we learned each other’s favorite foods in various cuisines such as Korean, Chinese, and American (most kids only knew what hamburgers were).  What was particularly impressive was when we went over the five tastes.  I have been asking them to tell me the Korean and Chinese translations of any English word I teach them, in order to show I am also learning and this has been extremely effective.  But, for the tastes, I asked them to pantomime their reactions to the taste or describe foods that induced this taste.  I received some extremely creative answers with my favorites being bitter as “chocolate with no sugar” and salty as “the ocean water”.

For my subject class, we were able to add layers of complexity as I further delved into food culture.  The students were extremely interested in learning the history of Budae Jigae and its Korean War origins.  We also discussed how the olfactory senses were linked to memory, using a clip from the movie Ratatouille and some pictures of the North Korean Perfume exhibit at the DMZ to relay this message.  I was also able to learn that both Myeong Nam and Hyo Ku’s mothers were experts at making potato dishes and Myeong Nam would make potatoes whenever he missed home.

Our Food Board

The Exhibit

To conclude the day, we discussed the topic of Artificial Intelligence and how rapidly it has advanced through the years.  Discussing how AI has been able to finally conquer the game of Go (Pajun in Korean) allowed us to review large numbers again as the permutations and possibilities of a Go game are almost infinite.  This led into discussion about the future as all three of us will be on the job hunt soon.  Perhaps the most interesting exercise I have partaken in this entire trip was when I discussed the past, present, and future with them and found out all three of us focus on different time periods the most, ie. Hyo-Ku regrets his past, I worry constantly about my future, while Myeong Nam strives to ensure that he is living life to its fullest now.  This allowed me to teach one of my favorite sayings “The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift.  That is why they call it the present”

Our Math Lesson Board

Friday

Our bittersweet end came with two very abbreviated and hastily put together periods.  As we had previously not anticipated teaching today, I decided to have a period of surveys and farewells.  The feedback was very elementary “I like you, teacher” or “I like watching videos”.  The latter half of the class was extremely difficult as I asked the boys about how they envisioned life after Jiguchon.  Many told me they thought post-secondary education was a waste of time and they could earn money faster washing cars.  I did not quite know how to impress on them that I thought otherwise and could not find the words to not patronize them.  Instead, I just expressed my hope and belief that they would continue to do well in any endeavor they undertook.  It was very heartbreaking when they concluded class with not a “Goodbye” or a “Zaijian” as we had been saying all week, but rather a “See you again”. 

My goodbye to Hyo Ku ended on a similar note as I surveyed him and asked his future plans.  More of a pragmatist, he simply stated he did not know what he planned to do.  My personal classroom with Hyo Ku ended up forming my closest friendship of the trip and I could not be more grateful for my time at Wooriduel.  The perseverance and dedication that these students exhibit is truly admirable and the work done at Wooriduel Hakyo is extremely important.