Undergraduate /
I chose to learn Korean for simple and obvious practical reasons; Harvard Supp [8]
It started out as simply a learning experience, something to start and to finish. Because there's a certain sense of madness when you don't know for sure if you can actually finish something you started of your own volition, just because I never bothered to try and understand what I could or could not do. And rightly so, I felt like a ball hanging from a string just waiting for the sensation of a snip, and the force to fall at any moment.
Three years of high school goes by, and I have nothing to show for it, nothing that mattered enough to me to earnestly pursue. I mean, who does that? And when confronted with an entire summer vacation to fill... it was like confronting my own vast, excuseless cowardice. I have to accomplish something, anything.
So in my spare time, I chose to learn Korean for simple and obvious practical reasons.
It was awkward, to say the least, at the very start of navigating an entire language by yourself. Most of the time, I just felt stumbling and stupid; I don't know what I'm doing, I don't even know if I should be doing it. It's true, I ended up on a lot of random websites, learning a lot of linguistics jargon, and buying and subscribing to a lot of useless materials before ever getting to the meat of my studies.
But ironically along the way, I started to learn more about English than Korean, continually dragging those learned subtle connections from source to source. It was a rocky start, but gradually studying alone in my house, answering to no one, became... exhilaratingly enjoyable. Gradually, the world and its secrets apparently opened up to me when I opened up to myself, and Korean became more than just Korean.
And when I thought I was ready, I contacted a few South Korean people through a website, for daily conversations and a mutual desire to learn a foreign language. Truthfully, I didn't expect anything more, other than pure professionalism: you teach me, I teach you.
The first person who responded back was a 39-year old man who lived around Seoul; I was wary, but nonetheless determined. We arranged on a Saturday morning (night for him) to voice chat on Skype, and all seemed normal.
The start up of introductions was as awkward as could be with any stranger. I have to admit, pauses were plenty and blanks were drawn. There wasn't much to talk about... any questions, concerns, rumors about our country, tourist attractions... music... families... personal life... goals... hopes... beliefs...
And before we knew it, we were talking about everything. It's remarkable; he didn't know, but I was shaking and tense in my chair from all the details I just poured out to him. And here he was too, a middle-aged man before all else, telling me all that he aspired for his four-year old daughter, in what inevitably looked to be a bleak, ruthless Korean education system of overworked kids, and how he'd be willing to move to America if only she could have a brighter future... This was why he was learning English in a small two bedroom apartment, to move up in life. And I told him of the fear, violence, pressure around me, of a blinding loneliness in searching amongst a crowded noise of friends and family, cracking and falling. Things rose in intensity until coming to a silent halt.
And after that brief silence, he said, in his warbled but understandable English, "... I'm proud of you David."
...It didn't matter that we lived thousands of miles apart, it didn't matter that we had never met each other before, and it didn't even matter that we were two societies, two cultures, two languages divided. Because when you grow up in destruction every day and can't hear, see, recognize a structure or purpose behind purely antagonistic strangers living just around the corner... you just... don't...
I don't think I yet possess the capability to express in words the feelings, ideas, the faith that jolted me in that one moment, seemingly lasting forever but lapsing after six swift hours talking to a crisp, white screen.
...
Since then, it's truly been an experience in revealing literally a world within my reach, and since then I've talked/argued/matured with people from New Zealand, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, Iran, and most incredibly, even people a few towns away.
I don't see their faces, but I think that's ok. So long as I view them as simply, always, first and foremost, human beings with their own chiseled voices. Even if they don't think they're heard by those around them, it's my absolute highest priority to somehow make sure that they are.
At this point, it's become so much more than just a study of a different language, of linguistics or of different cultures... so, so much more if not for grades or a career, that much I know.
It started out as a learning experience, something to start and to finish.
But... I can't ever finish this.
I just can't.
Because sometimes, there are some things you can't even imagine you'll ever want to stop pursuing. And the only satisfaction I'll ever need is right at home, alone, with the pen in my hand, the thoughts in my head, and the connection to something inexplicably greater than I had ever hoped to become.
