Korea’s Youth: A Very Bright Future

[성김 대사]

An engaging town hall with students and faculty at Keimyung University

Many people say that youth are our most valuable asset.  As the father of two teenagers, I could not agree more.  That is why I recently took the opportunity to visit two excellent Korean universities and open my ears to what their very bright students had to say.

First up was a trip to Daegu, where I celebrated a very important anniversary – the 30^th year of Keimyung University’s American Studies degree program.  With the oldest and most comprehensive program of its kind in Korea, Keimyung is an important example of the enduring strength of the U.S.-Korea alliance, which is also celebrating an important anniversary this year.

Supporting American Studies programs is a meaningful goal for me as the U.S. Ambassador to Korea, which is why I wanted to take the opportunity to meet 500 Keimyung students at a town hall meeting.  What better way for our two countries to understand each other more deeply than for our young people to spend time learning about our history, economy, politics, culture and language?  For this reason, I would also like to see Korean Studies flourish as an academic program in the United States.

While many Korean universities teach American culture or literature, there are only a few universities that offer an interdisciplinary degree program like the one at Keimyung.  It was an honor to congratulate the university and meet its intelligent, thoughtful students.  A group of American Studies students even sang a song for me – “Somebody to Love” by Queen.  Anyone who is familiar with the piece knows it is quite a difficult song to perform, but the students performed it beautifully.  

Terrific Performance!

I ended my day at Keimyung’s lush green campus by planting a tree to commemorate 30 years of American Studies at the university and our two country’s 60 years partnership and shared prosperity.  Imagine where we will be in the next 30 years!

Planting a Crape Myrtle with President Synn Il-hi of Keimyung University

A week later, I headed over to Ewha Womans University in Seoul.  Now, Ewha has special significance to me: More than 50 of its alumnae work at U.S. Embassy Seoul, and it is my wife’s alma mater!  I suppose this makes me a sort of “son-in-law” of Ewha.

At Ewha, I was able to hold another town hall meeting where I met more than 200 undergraduate students and faculty. 

With some of the participants at Ewha Town Hall

I was impressed by the students’ smart questions and insightful comments.  Topics ranged from the recent U.S.-Korea summit to North Korea to my life as the first Korean-American Ambassador to Korea.  One student commented that the huge banner at the U.S. Embassy proclaiming “60 Years of Partnership and Shared Prosperity” made her think hard about U.S.-Korea relations, especially the “shared” aspect of the special partnership between the two countries.  It was a diverse crowd, too; I spotted a number of international and male students in the audience.

Taking one of many great questions

After the town hall, Ewha President Kim Sun-Uk invited me to Aryeongdang, a stunning hanok building on campus.  As I sat on the porch enjoying the breeze, I reflected on Ewha’s history, which is intertwined with the United States.  In fact, Ewha began 127 years ago, when American missionary, Mary Scranton, started teaching one young Korean woman.  From this humble beginning, Ewha has developed into the world’s largest women’s university, and one of the most renowned.   

On the porch of “Aryeongdang” with Ewha President Kim and faculty members

Education is one of many important values that the U.S. and Korea share, and I am grateful to have met such a wide-ranging group of students.  I have no doubt some of these Keimyung and Ewha students I met will become Korea’s future leaders!  I felt the same way when I visited Yonsei University just a few weeks earlier.  In fact, I have been impressed by students at all of the Korean universities I have visited.  Having now visited over a dozen universities, I can also tell you that engaging young Koreans is one of my favorite activities as Ambassador, and I very much look forward to meeting even more of you this coming year.