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Whats up, my identify is Jeong Hun-do, and I’m right here to talk as one of many judges. With the addition of the brand new college scholar class, all of us on the judging panel approached our work with nice care.
However for me, as a fellow college scholar, the method felt particularly private. I felt the load of evaluating folks my very own age — and even these with extra expertise — and the accountability that comes with being a younger decide who can extra deeply hearken to and empathize with their tales.
As I learn by the purposes and resumes, what I felt — whatever the analysis — was admiration and respect. Every kind represented a life far too huge to suit on a number of sheets of paper. From elementary faculty college students to college college students, each applicant was chasing a dream and striving to show themselves inside their very own technology. And this sense was shared by each decide.
Though each decide evaluated the candidates pretty and objectively, we might all sense the quiet encouragement that surfaced every time a scholar’s identify was referred to as.
Irrespective of whose identify got here up, we discovered ourselves empathizing with their journey, admiring their efforts, and discussing their tales as if we have been sharing impressions after studying a novel.
At the moment, you stand right here as representatives of a technology of youngsters from immigrant households — however what we judged was by no means your background. It was the life every of you has constructed.
I’m reminded of once I obtained this very award on the age of 19. I had grown up in a low-income family, and due to the assistance and assist of many individuals, I used to be in a position to enter Seoul Nationwide College.
Inspired by that achievement, I utilized for this award, hoping to current myself as a mannequin instance of a kid from an immigrant-background household. Years later, I used to be instructed by members of the organizing committee that what moved the judges was not the “mannequin picture” I attempted to point out, however the willpower and willpower behind myself.
They instructed me my story was like a lotus flower blooming within the mud. In that second, I felt not solely pleasure for the way laborious I had labored, but in addition heat and gratitude in realizing that the world had been watching and understanding me.
My recommender wrote concerning the components of my life that might by no means match neatly on paper, and the judges learn them. The heat and message I obtained on that winter day in 2017 are what I hope to move on to all of you now, in 2025, as I stand right here as a decide.
Earlier than the rest, as a fellow second-generation Korean from an immigrant household, there’s something I wish to let you know. Korea is progressively changing into extra accepting of multicultural backgrounds, however I do know that every of you has confronted prejudice in some unspecified time in the future in your lives.
Even so, I hope you’ll select to not stay your lives making an attempt to “show” yourselves within the face of prejudice or due to your background.
I hope you’ll stay for the longer term you dream of. I hope you’ll by no means really feel pressured to determine whether or not your identification is Korean or one thing else. Your identification is the life you may have constructed with your personal fingers.
And that identification holds entrepreneurial spirit. It holds take care of North Korean defector communities. It holds scholar council work, tutorial effort and a love of studying.
It holds nursing, area people management, exceptional linguistic capability, canoeing, erhu music, operating, pungmul nori (conventional Korean farmer’s music), dancing, singing — even trot music.
Your identities are far too shiny, too diversified, too extraordinary to ever be confined by labels like “immigrant background” or “Korean.”
So on an evening when the early daybreak is deepening, or on an extended stroll residence after a tiring day, or in a second when you end up confronting prejudice once more — I hope this award and the which means behind it return to you.
It’s the reminder that many individuals in our society are watching over your lives, cheering for you at all times, and hoping that you will discover happiness as you pursue your goals.
The phrase “World Korea” in the end means this: that our neighborhood is just not restricted by area or nationality, however contains everybody who has put down roots on the Korean peninsula.
You, too, are individuals who have put down your roots on this land, and because the identify of this award suggests, I shall be cheering for you as you proceed to satisfy others with out prejudice, snigger and cry with folks from all walks of life and stay out your personal life.
Thanks.
Jeong Hun-do, a senior within the Division of Agricultural Economics and Rural Growth at Seoul Nationwide College, is a decide of the World Korea Awards. He was a winner of the Excellent Excessive College College students Award in 2017.
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