By Contributing writer Hongjin Kim

 

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I am the adviser to the International Student Organization (ISO) here at KAIST. Our organization will provide as much help to you guys by interacting and helping you adjust to campus life." 

 

I delivered this speech at the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester in front of roughly 100 international students. I have been a member of ISO since my "rookie" semester in the fall of 2009. As a member, I have met more than 200 exchange students from whom I benefited by both practicing English conversation and learning about new cultures. It was not, however, only international students that I have met here; I also met fellow Korean friends who helped me adjust to Korea. For this reason ISO has been an important aspect of my life at KAIST, and with them I have spent countless nights planning trips and preparing events. 

 

In September 2009, I was both excited and nervous to meet KAIST's exchange students. Excitement overcome by anxiety, I approached a German exchange student named Carl and asked, "Hello, how may I help you?" When he replied back, I thought he could not speak English; his reply was, "Annyonghaseyo." Just as I was realizing that he had spoken Korean, he laughed and said, "It's not the first time." From that simple greeting, I came to realize that exchange students were very interested in learning about Korea as a country. They were interested in learning a lot more than one would expect of visiting foreigners: the manners when talking to an elder person rather than just the language, and the way to use chopsticks rather than just the traditional dishes. Throughout the years I met a lot of exchange students - the nice and the cranky, the respectful and the rude. But no matter what their personalities were, I benefited from them because I could nonetheless learn about their different lifestyles and cultures. I must admit that enrolling in ISO was one of the most outstanding decisions I made as freshman.

 

As a freshman, I felt like an international student as I lived in Latin America for over ten years and had difficulty understanding some of the Korean ways. Language, especially pronunciation, was the hardest. The biggest difficulty was pronouncing words that have an "l" sound. While the English language contains both "l" and "r" sounds, Korean does not have the latter. Naturally, holding back the "r" sound was hard since I had been using it for over ten years. However, my good friends in ISO made an effort to help me out and now I am much improved. Besides being my pronunciation tutors, they taught me a number of "Korean-ways." For instance, they taught me how to successfully ask for extra service in a restaurant (it is quite easy; you just have to be polite). In addition, they introduced me to a working environment where staying up very late to complete jobs was not uncommon. Spending time together naturally tightened our bonds and looking back, my ISO friends helped me greatly in adjusting to life at KAIST.

 

Being an ISO member for the past two years was challenging at times but also memorable. Going back to the 2011 Fall Welcoming Party, I met four Mexican friends. Delighted, I began talking in Spanish. After a while, an ISO friend joined in on our conversation and although Spanish was her third language, she enjoyed the rare occasion presented to her. Listening to their jokes - somewhat different from the Korean ones - having a good time under the chilly breeze of a summer night and cherishing the night's memory, I came to realize that working on positive lines for this precious social club tightened bonds with both international and Korean students. Most importantly, I began to appreciate the opportunities that I seized and would never forget in the KAIST chapter of my life.