By gwrobinkim
In my original post, I defined myself in my own words: a third-culture Korean American. After reviewing and reflecting on what I wrote in that post, I’ve realized how much has changed in the three months of being here. I still stand by what I said before, I still identify as a third-culture Korean American.
However, my time here has made me learn a lot about both my identity and community back home. And by “back home,” I mean that figuratively. Like most people, I have several groups of people that come to mind when I think about my community: my family, my university friends, my high school friends, and my middle school friends. Looking at this, my community isn’t centered in one area.
- My family is split between Virginia, Hawaii, and Seoul.
- My university friends are people I met in DC but who come from all over the country (e.g. New Jersey, Colorado, etc.)
- My high school friends are from my Virginia hometown but now go to university all over the state and even out-of-state.
- My middle school friends are people I met during my time in Seoul and for the most part, still live there, but go to university all over the world (e.g. United States - Pennsylvania, California; Australia, Canada, Japan, etc.)
So my current community is pretty international as it is. And now, I have my study abroad community. These are people that I have somehow and in someway crossed paths with here in this large city of Seoul. And after this semester ends, who knows when I will see them next?
I don’t know if I can pinpoint the hardest part of leaving this new part of my community. Mostly because it hasn’t really hit me that my time abroad is coming to an end. It’s comforting knowing that these friends have genuinely expressed their desires in visiting me and a few others in the DC area. Granted, it’s easier said than done. But I’m not too worried. Physically leaving a community is something I’ve been doing all my life, and so I’ve come to learn that just because you’re physically not present does not mean you’re no longer apart of that community.
And with our technology this day in age, especially having spent the last 3 months in South Korea (the country with the fastest average internet connection in the world), I don’t see any problems in keeping contact with my international community.