Living Seoulfully: Unexpected Delight

"I think you never know where life is taking you. The unexpected and the expected, it's all for the good," were some of the first sage words HyoEun, a 19-year-old international student, offered our shared space today. The last time I saw this former student of mine, we were at her high school graduation. Six months ago, we were both in Shenzhen, China. It was dripping outside, not with rain, but with beads of sweat, rolling off of every resident's back and arms and nose. I had posed with HyoEun, dressed in her black graduation gown, her dark chestnut hair flowing down her back and over her shoulders, in the air-conditioned, broad open space of G&G Creative Community. HyoEun's graduating class had been one of those special bunches where the energy between the students is such that the spaces they enter buzz with laughter and camaraderie, singing and dancing -- I am not trying to paint perfect picture here; I am writing the reality of this funny and fun-loving crew.

As a teacher -- like a parent, I imagine -- I do not want to say that I have favorites. Teachers and parents, we seek to support and connect with all of our children. We reflect on how to meet the needs of the diverse and unique souls before us, and we love each of them for the special things they bring into our lives and into our classrooms.

Some connections just hit differently, though. I suppose I saw some of myself in HyoEun from the beginning, from the first day that we began to share space in the classroom, lit by the sun coming in through the window that looked out onto the South China Sea. HyoEun's junior year was her first year at Shekou International School. She was quite quiet and reserved, though I could see the wheels of her thoughts as she listened to her classmates' opinions and insights on topics such as racism and feminism and various global issues.

Over time, HyoEun bloomed, having been watered by the rains of praise in the form of feedback, having offered herself the sunlight of self-compassion, she unfolded like a peony in the springtime. Her contributions to class were thoughtful and reflective, measured and deep.

I was lost in thought for a moment, thinking back to the two years I taught HyoEun when she continued speaking again. "You know, the world is much more beautiful than I had expected," she reflected as our conversation continued over a vegan breakfast at a tiny, sweet restaurant near her university campus. "We spent so much time talking about global issues in high school that I hadn't expected so much beauty too. I mean, we need to know about issues. When I was in San Francisco, I spent part of the weekend serving food at a homeless shelter. And it might seem that people just want food, but they want human connection. That is what we are all craving. And so we connected. We had conversations. I also had picnics with my friends on weekends" she said, painting a picture for me of her diverse group of friends.

Here our conversation turned to a discussion of privilege -- we have both been afforded great privilege in this life, two of them being to travel widely and to learn by attending wonderful educational institutions. I noted the way that HyoEun has been able to embrace life's pleasures, and to use her privilege to bring more beauty to the communities surrounding her. This too is the way that I was raised, and recently I have felt a renewed appreciation for the lessons surrounding power and privilege that my parents taught me through their own gracious modeling.

HyoEun attends Minerva University, a program that has her and her 200 cohort-mates moving to a new country each semester. Her cohort is comprised of students from all over the world, from Nigeria and Bulgaria, from the Philippines to South Korea, which is HyoEun's passport country. As Minerva offers scholarships on a sliding scale, the students in HyoEun's program are culturally and economically diverse. Regardless of country context, Minerva does not provide a cafeteria for the students. "This is a good thing," HyoEun explains, "because this way we get to be a little more independent and also share our favorite dishes from back home."

As HyoEun shared with me more about her university experience so far, I was delighted to hear that her time at SIS had prepared her to move into seminar discussions with confidence and openness to new ideas and insights. "The topics we discussed in your class, they have come up many times in my university classes. We have even talked about We Should All Be Feminists" HyoEun says with a smile. This, of course, delights me to no end, that I must be doing something right in the classroom if the conversations we have and the texts we read help to shape young women such as HyoEun, and to help my students to feel ready to engage in such discourse.

Interested in where HyoEun might take her degree in the future, I inquired if she still wanted to be a dentist, as she had previously mentioned. "Hmmm, I am still asking that myself," she replied with a smile. "I have always been a science person, but now it's the social sciences that are really engaging me, and so I am not sure what exactly I will do following university. It is possible to apply to dental school, but I could also enter into a social science field right after I finish university. And you know what," HyoEun continued as her smile broadened a bit, "it doesn't even stress me out to not know ... to not have the answers."

I nodded and smiled back at her. "That's pretty cool," I said. "I think a lot of university students, a lot of humans, feel pressured to know, but if we can maintain our openness, we land where we are supposed to land."

As we continued to eat our meal slowly, sliding tofu and broccoli and warm rice onto our forks, we talked about the circumstances that had brought us to share these moments outside of the classroom, and outside of China, catching up with each other. HyoEun had not planned on attending Minerva, and I had not planned on moving to Seoul, but a certain openness that we both have allowed life to lead us here.

In Korea, HyoEun has reconnected with parts of her family and is, ironically, learning about Seoul through adventures led by her Armenian friend. In Korea, I have connected with a wonderful man, and I am learning about the city, not so ironically, through adventures and excursions led by him, and by new friends.

You really don't know where life is taking you, I continue to think this evening, now sipping an aromatic grassy green tea that my beau has recently gifted me. I do time and again find, though, that it takes you to the places where you need to be, in just the right time. Today, the place I needed to be was catching up with HyoEun, feeling the life force that runs through her. It was lovely to hear that the work we did together in the classroom fed her intellect and spirit well. Today, HyoEun's wisdom and spirit fed me.