DukeEngage South Korea 2015: Aiming for Mutual Transformation

Source: DESK 2014 blog
Last year, I was fortunate to be able to sit down with Professor Nayoung Aimee Kwon, program director for DukeEngage South Korea (DESK) 2014, and have a chat about the program’s inaugural year. We discussed the challenges associated with setting up the program and making it a sustainable fixture of the DukeEngage menu. Now, the conversation has shifted as Professor Hwansoo Kim, who will be directing the program this year alongside returning site coordinator Professor Eunyoung Kim, joins Professor Kwon and me. Together, we discuss not only the trials and successes of last year but also the new features of an evolved DESK 2015.

DESK 2014: an emotional legacy

The DESK 2014 cohort conducted their service work at the Kumkang School for North Korean Settlers, a Seoul-based boarding school for North Korean children. While traveling in South Korea in June 2014, I was fortunate to be able to join the DESK members as they held a reflection session about their first few days in the program. Over Korean snacks, they discussed the emotional attachments that were already forming between them and the students at the school, even affectionately pegging some students as troublemakers and others as teachers’ pets.

According to Professor Kwon, the emotional attachments only grew stronger, and several of the DESK members were surprised by how intense the final departure was. In particular, there was a group of refugees who had just arrived from China and, being unable to attend regular schools, spent most of their day at the Kumkang School with DESK. These students, struggling with a language barrier and generally feeling unable to fit in, were often the “problem kids,” but they were also the ones who developed the strongest bonds with the DESK members. Some continue to keep in touch with the DESK members, several on the South Korean texting application KakaoTalk.

Members of DESK 2014 are sharing their experiences as well as leading discussion on important background information in a house course titled “North Korean Settlers & Multiculturalism in South Korea” in Spring 2015, mandatory for the DESK 2015 cohort but also open to other interested students.

Visit the DESK 2014 blog. Also, check out DESK 2014 in the South Korean documentary series “Dreaming of One Korea”  (31:15 - 32:33).

Expanding focus

With a myriad of changes and updates in the program’s new incarnation, some features have remained constant, including an educational stint at the Institute for Unification Education as well as a strong focus on North Korean refugees in South Korea. However, as Professor Kim notes, the number of North Korean defectors has been decreasing in recent years, calling into question the sustainability of a program that lends its sole focus to the North Korean refugee issue. Therefore, this year, the architects of DESK decided to split focus between North Korean refugees and multiethnic/multicultural children in South Korea.

Professors Kwon and Kim clarify, however, that the two focuses are not mutually exclusive; we may perhaps think of the program’s focus as being broadened. Some North Korean refugees with whom the DESK students will be working were born in China, so they too can be considered individuals with multicultural backgrounds. The misunderstanding of North Koreans as essentially Korean regardless of their personal history has led to identity struggles in a population that largely already wrestles with discrimination, lower socioeconomic status, and other issues commonly associated with ethnic minorities. Speaking to the larger themes of the program, Professor Kwon also emphasizes that particularizing the North Korea issue could entangle the program in a “national history story” rather than the broader sociocultural issues at play.

Shifting hosts

While Professor Kwon admits that she had hoped the Kumkang School would be a sustainable host to DESK for several years to come, DESK will be transitioning to two new host institutions this year. However, this shift is not necessarily a bad thing. As noted above, the DESK 2014 cohort continues to maintain personal, unofficial contact with its students, so the transition does not constitute a total break. Additionally, the challenges associated with the program’s first year were invaluable learning experiences for Professor Kwon as a program director.

As Professor Kwon mentioned in our interview last year, the potential hosts that DESK approached were not all schools waiting with open arms ready to accept the program’s impositions; rather, they were complex institutions that had their own ecosystems. DESK’s experience with the Kumkang School reinforced this notion, as there were misunderstandings and issues regarding scheduling, logistics, lack of resources, and expectations. However, whatever the issues were, Professor Kwon considers DESK 2014 a huge success, especially when considering the close connections DESK was able to foster with its students.

DESK 2015 will be hosted by the Chiguch’on School for multiethnic/multicultural children in Seoul and the Mulmangch’o School for North Korean settlers in Yoju. Professors Kwon and Kim express satisfaction with not only their selection of the schools themselves but also with the diverse experiences the DESK 2015 members will be able to have in the metropolitan Seoul and the more rural Yoju (located 60 miles south of Seoul). While Yoju may not be able to compete with Seoul’s world-famous nightlife, Professor Kim recommends alternative nighttime activities, including “stars” and the “sound of frogs.”

Mutual transformation

When asked for a tagline for the program, Professor Kwon responded with DESK 2014’s blurb “Sharing knowledge and sharing dreams,” and Professor Kim tacked on DESK 2015’s addendum “Mutually transformative.” Having heard the host of renovations DESK has undergone, I cannot help but think Professor Kim’s add-on is all too appropriate: as DESK members and their students transform each other every summer, it will be interesting to see how the program itself changes and evolves as well.
Pramodh Ganapathy graduated from Duke University in 2014.