Gwangju as an Exchange Student – Expectations Versus Reality

That is what I came looking for in Gwangju: the traditions and culture that South Korea is currently evolving from. Gwangju is not the increasingly global society of Seoul; a foreigner here can still get the experience of alterity that should go with any real travel. People can still be surprised here with your altogether “otherness,” be it the way you dress, the way you talk, or the color of your eyes. One Korean friend, in fact, told me that the blue or green color of the eyes of some of his Occidental acquaintances was what struck him the most when meeting them.

The Language Barrier

What does it mean to pack up and come to a country without having to know the language? Distance from a community is never part of a plan. Perhaps it is the adventure of it all that wins in the end; the desire to radically transform our realities into something new and exciting, something that might be uncomfortable but promises growth in the end.