Letter from Bruce & Carol Benson
January 10, 2005
Dear Parents,
One more letter. One last letter.
Perhaps I should begin by reminding you, as I have reminded the students (and myself), of the need for some patience right now. In spite of the fact that we know we will all feel sad when the last day of Global arrives, they(we) are still finding it difficult not to think ahead to home and family and second semester. And you, I suspect, don't really want one more Global letter about your son or daughter right now; you want your actual son or daughter home again. I don't blame you. When our daughter was on Global six years ago, we were anxious for her return all during January. And I'm sure the news about the devastating tsunami that killed thousands of people, many of them in two countries where we have just been (India and Thailand), has reminded you of how vulnerable we all are and how precarious life can be even when we think we are perfectly safe. We are coming home; but you (and we) will have to be patient for another couple weeks.
I must say that the course here at Yonsei University helps us keep some focus on where we are: Korea. Our professor was born in North Korea, and fled to the South as a refugee when he was 14 years old. He became an American citizen, earned a US PhD, and is now living and teaching again in Seoul. He started the course by dealing with the subject of how Korea came to be two countries instead of one. For Carol and me, this is history from our own lifetime; for the students it is history from their own century; and after months of learning about ancient civilizations and visiting centuries-old palaces and temples, hearing instead about a significant world political issue from a professor who experienced it himself has been just what we've needed to keep us attentive.
That is certainly not to suggest that we were bored with the glories of old China or unimpressed with the technology of new China. The modern skyline of downtown Shanghai is quite stunning even for people accustomed to American cities. And The Wall -- ah, The Great Wall -- for all its simplicity and signs of disrepair it remains as magnificent as ever. We know it cost lives to build, more lives to rebuild, lives to defend and lives to attack, but it is remarkable and memorable; a human achievement worth honoring. We walked along that great wall on a very windy and icy New Year's Eve Day, then went directly to a warm restaurant to enjoy another wonderful human achievement: A Beijing Duck Dinner.
Part of what we begin to do here in Korea is prepare for "re-entry", as St. Olaf calls it, into the lives and worlds we left last summer. One can't have this Global experience and then simply slip right back into the old life and fit right in. We've changed in many ways, people at home have changed in other ways; we need to prepare ourselves for that. I asked in one of our classes last week, "Has Global changed your thoughts or values about the world?" "It has made the world more meaningful to me," said one student. The group nodded in agreement. That is about as good an answer as St. Olaf could hope for from its international study programs.
· It means that students have found meaning, not just adventure.
· It means that they have been willing to recognize and honor meaning in cultures, religions, art where they might never have seen it before.
· It means that they are willing to care for the world, for who cares about what is meaningless? We care only about what is meaningful to us.
· It means they understand more as well, for, once again, what we understand we find more meaningful than what confuses or merely entertains us.
· To say that Global has made the world more meaningful is to say that I see more, I understand more, I care more - I would say about the students, "They love more."
OK, enough sermonizing.
If we had been able to survive the transition from steamy Thailand to balmy Hong Kong to freezing China without catching nasty, cough-cough-sneeze colds, we would now all be enjoying the cold weather of Korea more than we are. But no; it is pretty much Global tradition to catch colds in China or Korea, and we have kept that tradition. Two out-of-the-city trips are still ahead of us, one to the de-militarized zone on the border with North Korea, then, back to you.
Till then, we send our love,
Bruce and Carol
