South Korea
Fall 2019 - Study Abroad
I decided to study abroad in South Korea in order to complete the requirements for my Asian Studies minor. While I was abroad, I signed up to take courses on Traditional Korean Society and Modernization, Korean Popular Music and History, and Intensive Korean Language. I joined the Yonsei English Society in order to meet local Korean students and other international students, which regularly held events around Seoul. I not only befriended other members, but I also explored parts of Seoul that I would have never have discovered if not for this organization. I dedicated my free time to improve my Korean by signing up for their Mentorship Program where we were grouped up with one Korean mentor and two other foreigners. We met up each time at a different café and tried out what was on the menu, spending the rest of the time talking.
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I immersed myself in the local culture and was completely taken aback by how foreign I felt. Korea is a homogenous society, and I could feel eyes on me at all times and could understand enough Korean to know when a group of locals was talking about me. Growing up in America, I was always surrounded by people of different ethnicities and backgrounds and never thought twice about it. But for the first time in my life, I felt extremely aware that I was different and in a completely new environment.
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I had to quickly learn how to use chopsticks and get used to having a completely different diet, which was hard to adapt to at first. I had to learn how to adapt quickly and needed to maintain my sense of confidence in new situations and becoming self-reliant without help from my Korean friends. I tended to rely on them when we interacted with locals, but I quickly realized that I needed to take the initiative if I ever wanted to improve my speaking skills and be independent. I became increasingly willing to take the metro alone, to ask strangers for directions, and even order food solely in Korean. When I went out to eat, the servers would overlook me and take my order from my Korean companions. They went out of their way to avoid speaking to me and I felt discouraged from practicing. However, I quickly realized that I needed to take that first step and speak first. While I wasn’t fluent, I knew enough Korean to order and pay. So every time I went out with my Korean friends, I would speak first to order for my whole group or just for myself at times. The servers looked at me with eyes widened in surprise, but they didn’t ignore me. I realized that if I wanted to get something done, I would need the confidence to make that initial change and develop my own speaking skills.
Japan
Winter 2019 - Fieldtrip
While I was studying abroad in South Korea, I had the opportunity to travel to Japan for the weekend. Japan is very close to South Korea, and it ended up taking less than two hours to get there. I’ve always wanted to travel to Japan and held a lot of expectations of what Tokyo would be like. However, after living in South Korea for the past four months, I was acclimated to that lifestyle and was completely taken aback in Japan. I had always pictured it as a city of lights, with bustling crosswalks and packed metro cars.
Instead, we had booked our Airbnb in the more traditional part of the city, near Asakusa which had a temple and a traditional Shinto shrine. We were a bit far from the central part of the city but decided to make the best of it and discover more about the area. And to my own surprise, I completely fell in love. I would describe myself as a city girl, but I have a deep admiration for the history and traditional structures. In Seoul, the palaces and temples are in the midst of the city, centered around skyscrapers and busy intersections. But in Tokyo, the temple was set completely apart from the rest of the city, seemingly the rest of the world.
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I wanted to immerse myself in the traditional local culture, so we went to a kimono shop nearby. I was warmly greeted and assisted in picking out the perfect kimono and accessories. The workers’ eyes sparkled as they told me the history of kimonos, who would wear them, and what they meant to them as individuals. They brought me into a private room and began the process of dressing me. Putting on the kimono was a ceremony in and of itself. The attendant was extremely precise in positioning each layer of the kimono - which there were several. The attendant took great pride in her craft and enthusiastically explained why she arranged the fabric in the manner she chose. It was an hour-long process to get dressed, have my hair styled, and accessorized. I even wore the traditional sandals. However, I was caught up in the moment and couldn’t even tell that much time had passed. Listening to this attendant describe the traditional dress with such pride and beauty, I realized how we keep aspects of our culture and tradition alive not just in the building architecture, but also in the clothes we wear.
Colombia
Spring 2020 - Heritage Trip
I visited Colombia for the first time in the Spring of 2020. My mother was born and raised there but had immigrated to the United States during the peak of the drug wars. She and my family had suffered so much during this time that she was too afraid to bring her children there and teach them about their heritage, including myself. I felt disconnected to that side of my family and rejected that part of my identity for years because I had never been to my mother’s homeland, nor did I speak the language.
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However, that all changed when I enrolled in university. I met people from all over the world, including Colombia, that made me realize that I shouldn’t disconnect from my identity because I felt rejected, but I should actively seek out what it meant to be Colombian-American. So that’s what I did. I began taking Spanish classes and connected with Colombian students who encouraged me rather than shame me.
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I studied cultural anthropology, yet I never took the time to research my own heritage. I gained a clearer notion of what I wanted to do with my life and my priority switched to strengthening my own cultural connection and reconnecting with family members in Colombia. I decided to travel to Colombia to explore the country and study what the current situation was alongside my mother, who had traveled here for the first time in years.
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Once I returned from Colombia, I was tasked to study the psychiatry of a Latin country. I decided on Colombia and focused my research on how years of unrest have affected the mental health of Colombians. You can view my project below.