Parting Words on Giving Back

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Article by Caitlin Jacobs
Photos by Joe Wabe

Lindsay Nash and Whit Altizer are already waiting outside the GIC building, Whit’s index fingers clasped tightly by their toddling son, Finn, who is enthusiastically practicing his new upright mobility skills. Hughie Samson soon joins us, and we wait a little while longer for the photographer. Conversation turns to Lindsay, Whit and Hughie’s impending departures from Korea. “When it’s time to go, you just know,” Hughie says. “It was very clear-cut for me.”

But these three soon-to-be ex-Gwangju residents are hardly running away. They are all leaving behind a lasting legacy in the Gwangju international community – a community that is certainly stronger because of their efforts.
Back in the U.S., Lindsay worked as a journalist and Whit was studying for his Master’s in History. They lived in a small community in North Carolina where they always felt connected to and supported by those around them. Whit mentored at-risk youth. Lindsay volunteered with the Literacy Council. They had often discussed the idea of living abroad, and in 2007, when Whit finished his Master’s degree, they knew it was the right time to make the move.

While Whit had always wanted to live in Asia, Lindsay had her eye on South America. However, throughout all of their research into the job market abroad, Korea just kept popping up. They took jobs at a private elementary school in Gwangju until, one warm summer day, Lindsay had an epiphany outside the Ministop: why not start their own recruiting agency? Thus Say Kimchi Recruiting was born. The couple had diligently kept a successful blog, Kimchi and Cornbread, which fed into the agency. They brought over two people in their first year in business, and have now placed more than 100 people in jobs in Korea.
During their five years in Gwangju, Lindsay and Whit have done much to build the same strong sense of community that they enjoyed back home. One of the couple’s contributions to the Gwangju foreign community is closely tied to their recruiting business: Say Kimchi News is a well-known and highly valued source of news and information for green and seasoned expats alike.

Lindsay also started the popular monthly Korean/Foreigner Dinners to give expats and locals the opportunity to build cross-cultural friendships – an opportunity that can be surprisingly rare due to language and cultural barriers, and sometimes just plain bashfulness. “We’ve met some of our closest friends there,” says Lindsay. “We’d like to think that others have done the same.”
When asked about his biggest community-based accomplishment since coming to Gwangju, Whit’s answer is immediate. About two years ago, he began noticing an increase in the number of foreigners running along the streets in town, but they were almost always running alone. He decided to gather these people around their common interest, so he started the Gwangju Running Club. Their first meeting was at the World Cup Stadium, where, unbeknownst to the group, a marathon was already taking place.

That’s another reason that Whit started the group: so many races were happening in and around Gwangju, but the word just wasn’t getting out in the foreign community. Since that first meeting, about 30 members of the group have run in two different races in Damyang, and the Facebook page has grown to about 180 members. They meet regularly to run together, and then share food and drink afterward and bond over their mutual enthusiasm for healthy living.

“Investing in the community allows people to connect more significantly with each other. When other people invest in community, my life gets better. So if I do it, I can help make other people’s lives a bit better, too.”

Hughie Samson came to Gwangju in 2009 from Nova Scotia, Canada via Winnipeg. Hughie’s professional life has always centered in nonprofit and community-based work, including a developmental disability support group and the international fair trade retailer Ten Thousand Villages. Both are worthy causes, but they didn’t leave his wallet quite as full as his heart, especially with student loans to pay. Upon arriving in Korea, he felt his lifestyle was suddenly “almost luxurious,” with so much more money and free time in supply than he’d had before.

After enjoying these new freedoms for a while, Hughie began to think, “This is ridiculous. I’m pretty privileged as a white, male, middle-class Canadian. Lots of opportunities come my way that other people don’t get.” So he decided to start giving back. “It kind of lessens my guilt at being so fortunate,” he jokes. But he also finds his community involvement much more fulfilling than the more leisurely activities he’d been occupying his time with when he first landed in Korea.
The first volunteer opportunities that Hughie heard about were with local orphanages, but as a teacher constantly surrounded by children during the day, as well as an introvert, the idea seemed a bit more taxing than he could handle. He liked attending the GIC Talks on Saturdays, so he started helping out with set-up and other tasks.

He had also become a frequent user of the GIC library, which was a challenge for the Korean volunteers to keep organized, given the sometimes confusing names, titles and subjects of the many books. Hughie began devoting some of his free time to keeping the library’s inventory easily accessible. In a roundabout way, his role at the library led him to being involved with an orphanage after all, working as a seller of the library’s duplicate books at the Sung Bin Orphanage bake sales.
Hughie has also played a large role Gwangju’s English-language media, including a weekly column on Gwangju Blog about others who contribute to the local community, and two spots on GFN radio: “Special Report”, a segment about Korean domestic affairs on City of Light; and “Read Korea”, a segment about Korean literature on the show Hello Korea.

He’s retained his sense of humility, though, never quite embracing his role as a well-known voice on the local airwaves. “I never listened to myself on the radio. Then one day I was walking past a building playing GFN really loudly, and I looked up and I was like, ‘That’s me!’ ” he says with a laugh.

So why did these three expats get so involved in a community that they always intended to leave eventually? What’s the point of putting in so much time and effort to improve what is only a temporary home for most foreigners?
“So many things are temporary, and it’s easy to not get involved. In some ways, it makes more sense not to,” Hughie says. But he continues: “Investing in the community allows people to connect more significantly with each other. When other people invest in community, my life gets better. So if I do it, I can help make other people’s lives a bit better, too.”

“What he said!” Lindsay jokes, and then adds, “We’re such a like-minded community of people who choose to come here. And it’s so easy to get involved because of Facebook and other social media. Not to connect with others would be a shame.”

Their advice for expats who come to Korea is to be open. Consider joining the kind of group that you wouldn’t have gotten involved with back home or try something new that you’ve never done before. “We weren’t open to that sort of thing back home, and I think we missed out a little bit,” Whit says. Don’t know where to start? “The first day you get here, go to the GIC,” Lindsay advises. “It is such a wonderful resource that the other cities in Korea don’t have. Seoul has a foreigner thing, but it’s nothing like the GIC. Gwangju is the best city for expats in Korea because of it.”
She continues, “I think it’s good sometimes to make yourself feel uncomfortable… You end up making the best friends. What other time in your life can you meet people from six different countries in one place – especially if you’re from North America?”

No matter what you’re interested in, Lindsay points out, you can find it on Facebook here in Gwangju. “At no other time in your life will you have a full-time job that pays well but with no obligations after work. This is the perfect time to do something new.”

Lindsay and Whit will continue to run Say Kimchi Recruiting from the U.S., and both the Korean/Foreigner dinners and the Gwangju Running Club are being passed on to good hands. GFN, Gwangju Blog and all the other wonderful GIC programs will also go on.

More information on the groups mentioned in this article:

Korean/Foreigner dinners:
“Like” the Say Kimchi Recruiting page on Facebook.
The event is posted on their wall every month.

Gwangju Running Club:
Join the Facebook group.

Say Kimchi News:
Visit saykimchirecruiting.com/newsletter

GIC (Gwangju International Center):
Visit www.gic.or.kr – they’re also on Facebook.

GFN:
Visit www.gfn.or.kr or tune in to 98.7 FM.

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 This article also appeared in Gwangju News, February 2012 print version.