“Snoqualmie is so beautiful,” Haeun Kim said. “The environment and local culture are just perfect.”
“I think America is a very huge country,” Suin Oh said. She confessed that, before coming, “I was scared,” but after meeting other people her age, she began enjoying herself.
“Everything is cool,” Oh said. “I love America. I’m sure I will come back here.”
During their stay, the South Korean students met their host families and students around the Snoqualmie Valley. Senior Bethany Frieler said Hyeon Ju Kim taught her and other students in an art class how to write their names in Korean.
Regardless of age, all of the South Korean students took five general ninth-grade classes and an elective.
Here's an article from when the delegation of Gangjin dignitaries arrived. An excerpt:
To show his gratitude to the Snoqualmie host families, Mayor Hwang invited them all to visit Gangjin, and even offered to pay for their travel expenses. This drew a cheer from the host families.
“Why don’t you stop by to see Gangjin,” Hwang told the host families.
The host families responded with gentle instruction on making suggestions that don't use "why don't." Also some coverage, in Korean, from the Gangjin Shinmun here and here. The students are on their winter vacation, hence the free time, and picked that particular town because it is a newly-designated friendship city with Gangjin.
2 comments:
I'd be curious to know the process to decide which city will be one city's friendship city. Darts on a map? Ouija Board?
I don't know if there's a significant difference between a friendship city and a sister city, but I do have some knowledge of how the latter is accomplished in Washington State. When my hometown was going about the process it first took submissions from interested parties. After that a judging panel narrowed the selections down to cities that had a similar population size to our own - which left just three options. From there they were put to a vote of anyone who showed up.
It's interesting to note that the three cities that made it to the vote were located in Japan, Korea, and Poland. Our part of Washington has a lot of immigrants from Japan and Korea. (The nearby army base is where soldiers depart and arrive for duty in Korea.) The event organizer came from a Polish family and his/her grandparents immigrated from there. And who was the winner? The city in Poland.
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