최종수정일 / 2008년 11월 13일
I would like to recommend a program which I participated in summer vacation in 2006. It is the buddy program hosted by the Office of International relations & education. In short, this program is designed to assist foreign students, who attend universities that are affiliated with Dong-A to experience life in Busan. I was in charge of helping them. There were many foreign students, who came from different countries. Students who participated come from the USA, Germany, Canada, Belgium, Ireland and Singapore.
There were two Irish girls, who were my partners. One was from Cork, and the other I can’t remember where she was from. Their names were Christina and Catherine, respectively. Christina had light brown hair and was pretty. Catherine had deep brown hair and was a little fat but was nice. I was very nervous because I am not good at speaking English.
I went to Kimhae International Airport to pick them up with my friend, but the airplane was delayed due to bad weather, so we had to wait for them for about three hours. Finally they arrived and we welcomed them. We took them to the dormitory in our university.
The next day, we held a reception for them and they participated in a Taekwondo class. Jeremy from the USA and Kris from Belgium liked Taekwondo very much. I had my picture taken with Moon Dae-sung, who won a gold medal at the Athens Olympics. Christina, Catherine and Natalia liked him very much and said that he was very sexy. After class, we visited Nampo-dong where we ate Bibimbab and Korean traditional soup.
On the third day, we visited Gyeongju where we looked around Bulguksa Temple, Seokguram and Gyeongju National Museum. We played the 3/6/9 game in the car and everybody loved it.
On the fourth day, we drank beer at a bar near our university. Kris was a very funny guy because he was drunk and made a lot of funny expressions, so everybody enjoyed it.
On the weekends, there was a ‘Home stay’ program. I wanted to do it in my house but there were some problems, so we did it in my best friend’s house. We chatted while watching ‘Sex and the City’. At first, they slept on the floor, but they were very uncomfortable, so they moved to a bed. I wanted them to experience Korean culture but, culture is culture and discomfort is discomfort.
After the first week, there was an event in which they put on ‘Korea-Traditional clothes.’ They looked very nice and we took a picture ogether. In the afternoon, we made pottery at Guduk campus. We played with clay. Everyone looked funny because they had clay on their faces.
On the twelfth evening, we visited Gwanganree and walked on the beach, and looked at Gwangan Bridge. We danced together at a club near Kyungsung University. Catherine was very good at dancing and she said that she had worked at a pub.
The day before they left, there was a farewell party in Namtaepyungyang Hotel. Everyone talked about his or her impressions of Korea and all of us cried. I exchanged letters and presents with Christina and Catherine. They gave me some blush, a bag and a pair of earrings. I gave them an earring and necklace set. A funny thing is I could not understand what they wrote to me because of their handwriting.
On the final day, they left Korea early in the morning. I was very sad, but we visited each other’s homepages through the web, ‘Bebo’, to keep in touch.
All of my friends, who took part in this program, will remain in my heart forever.
By Kim Yeon-jeong
maldives@donga.ac.kr
