Desirable attitude foreign students should have here

Being a guest in Korea

During my childhood, whenever I went to my friend’s house, my mother always reminded me to be polite and behave properly at his home while being attentive to whatever his parents teach me, even if I didn’t like it. My mom made it clear that visiting a friend’s house was a privilege for me because the friend’s mother had to set aside a lot of time to take care of me, so I should take it seriously. “Keep in mind that you’re a guest,” my mom used to emphasize.

Now, I am studying in Korea like many other international students and we are guests here. Even so, we often find people belittle Korea when they encounter things that do not suit them. It’s inevitable that we face problems while living in an unfamiliar country. However, one thing we should remember is that Korea didn’t invite us here to hear our complains.
Even though we are free to say something inconvenient here, it’s our free will to choose this country to study. That kind of manner is not desirable especially as guests.

Korean history teaches us that people have been residing in this peninsula for more than thousands of years. People here have  inherited the best of their traditions from generation to generation. Everytime I attend the class at school,  it often crossed my mind that the Korean students sitting around me are all descendents of those who were born and have lived in this nation. They did not invite us to teach them how to survive here since they have already maintained their families, and society for a long time, long before they knew about us. In the past few decades, Korea’s prosperity has become very apparent.

Korea is experiencing a great period of development and this is why we decided to come and study here. Korea also provides many opportunities for education that we can help us to fulfill our dreams. The number of international students continues to rise during the recent decade. We come here and start by learning the language and getting to know the culture, and as time goes by, we also should accept the culture to be able to better enjoy life here.

Korea goes through trouble to make our lives comfortable and pleasant while keeping us informed and giving us opportunities we would otherwise not have. In sum, an easy way to keep positive while studying abroad is to have a grateful heart, for we are guests.