It was the summer before my junior year of high school when my parents announced to my family that we would be moving to Seoul, South Korea. It was early July when I found out we would be going in a month and that my years at Seoul Foreign School were to begin on August 10th. I was in quite a shock, as you can probably imagine. My last month consisted of me working up in Maine, then driving back home to New Jersey the week before moving to pack up and say goodbye to my best friends and home.
My parents, little sister, and I were the only ones in my family to move, due to the fact that my two older sisters were either in college, or old enough to make a living on their own. The first month and a half we stayed in a very small hotel apartment with three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. This place was essentially made for any x-pats that needed a place to temporarily stay. X-pat is the term used to describe someone living overseas as a foreigner. Luckily, we later moved to a beautiful, old-fashioned Korean house. This house was called a Hanok, where everything was made of wood and the doors between each room were lined with hanji paper (the very thin paper used for things like lanterns). Over the next few months, we filled the Hanok with furniture and other necessities to finally make it feel like a home for the four of us.
The school my little sister and I attended, Seoul Foreign School, was one of the most difficult parts of living in Korea. I originally had the impression that my peers were going to be foreigners like my family, and I would not have the trouble fitting in. To my surprise, the school consisted of about 85% Korean-Americans, and the foreign community was the minority. In order to get into my school, the student or at least one of their parents, had to own a foreign passport. So, in theory, there would be a larger foreign student body than Korean. On the contrary, most Korean families had dual citizenship and barely had lived in another country. And those who did not have any form of a foreign passport simply paid the school to be accepted because it was one of the best educations for sending Koreans to American universities. Therefore, students ended up speaking Korean very often, so I eventually found my “foreigner” group of friends to settle comfortably into the school. I joined the soccer team in the spring, which made it easier to get to know other people and feel more a part of the community. I also began taking Korean in school, which helped me when navigating the city with or without my family.
During the week, my days normally consisted of simply going to school, practice, and then coming home to do work. On the weekends, I would either go out and explore different parts of the city with my family, or hang out with friends. At night, I was able to go out with my friends, considering we were of age in Korea. The night life in the city was super fun and it was nice to meet new people outside of school. Seoul is also an incredibly safe city, so we never felt in danger whether it was at night or during the day.
During our breaks, my family and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel outside of Korea. I was able to visit multiple other Asian countries that I never would have gotten to before moving. We visited mainland China, Honk Kong, Japan, Australia, Vietnam, and Myanmar. My school also gave me the opportunity to visit Laos through a community service trip, and two different cities in China for my team’s soccer tournament. Being able to travel to places I knew little about beforehand was an incredible experience that I’ll always cherish throughout the rest of my life. I could go on about my favorite things to do in the city and what one should see when visiting, but I wanted to focus on my personal experience and the aspects of it that shaped my life while being there. Although living abroad for my last two years of high school was really difficult, I learned so much. I became more of an independent person, learned what it’s like to live in a different country and culture, gained an outside perspective of the United States and the atmosphere I had grown up in my whole entire life, and so much more that has shaped me into the person I am today. My little sister now goes to boarding school and I am attending college, but my parents are currently on their fourth year living in Korea. I still visit them during some of my breaks, but they also come back to our home in New Jersey. I know they are still having an amazing time abroad, continuing to be adventurous and gain as much knowledge about Asian culture as they can, and I look up to them for that every day. I would definitely recommend spending a year or semester abroad if you get the opportunity! It has positively changed me and my family’s lives and I will forever use everything I’ve learned from the experience, throughout my lifetime.