What Fulbright Means to Me: Part I

As I’ve mentioned a few times in my blog, I once held a Fulbright grant to South Korea. Inspired by my experiences in Korea, I’ve previously written about some significant dates in Korean history. I’ve also written about one of the lifelong learning experiences I had in Korea, which was learning to play the gayageum, a Korean stringed instrument. I’ve also written about my ongoing practice with the Korean language, these days using Duolingo, and my enjoyment of Korean literature.

One thing I haven’t written about when it comes to the year I spent in Korea as a Fulbrighter is what Fulbright means to me, so I thought I’d make that the subject of this blog post. Before I go too far, though, I want to acknowledge that some people criticize the Fulbright program. I’d like to address those criticisms first.

Propaganda and Fulbright

Some people say the Fulbright Program amounts to nothing more than government-sponsored propaganda. These people say that the US Department of State, which sponsors the Fulbright program, coerces American awardees to put a positive spin on the United States while living abroad. They also say the program aims to show foreign awardees to the United States a tightly controlled version of America in which everything is always positive.

In my experiences both as a Fulbrighter abroad and through my interactions with foreign Fulbrighters to the US, the only nugget of truth to these claims is that the Fulbright program does fall under the auspices of the US Department of State. Otherwise, the rest of the claims do not ring true to me. Yes, during my US Department of State orientation to Korea, when my cohort visited the US Embassy in Seoul, we received a briefing from a US diplomat. But his message had nothing to do with propaganda. Instead, he impressed upon us the importance of trying our best not to enact the stereotypical “ugly American” persona when interacting with Korean people. By this, I remember him explaining, he meant we should try to keep open minds when encountering ideas and practices that might seem unusual to us rather than instantly comparing them to what we knew from the United States and assuming that American ways of thinking and acting are automatically better.

And, when it comes to trying to control what foreign Fulbrighters to the US experience, again, those criticisms do not ring true to me. The Fulbrighters visiting the US with whom I’ve interacted have heard and seen plenty to not like about the US while they’ve been here, including living in cramped quarters and experiencing race-based taunting or teasing to name just a few. Not only that, but while living in the US, their access to media reports about current events was in no way filtered or controlled, so they were free to see both the good and the bad aspects of life in America.

A Racist and Biased Past

Another criticism of the program, as acknowledged by the US Department of State in its official overview of the program, is that Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas who sponsored the legislation that was eventually made into law in 1946 to establish these international educational exchanges in no way embodied the program’s ideal of promoting mutual understanding across cultures. Some critics claim that because of Senator Fulbright’s anti-Civil Rights and pro-segregationist voting record, the entire Fulbright Program is tainted. I respectfully disagree.

I certainly stand in negative judgment of Senator Fulbright’s stance against racial integration and the actions he took in his lifetime to prevent equal rights for all. I also acknowledge that at the time of its founding and for many years later, those selected to be Fulbrighters from the United States were certainly not chosen from pools of candidates of diverse races, classes, genders, or other groups of people who today are protected from discrimination by law. This was wrong.

That said, despite its past history, I also note the good that has come from the program in promoting peaceful understanding between those from different parts of the world. I hesitate to dismiss all of that good because of Senator Fulbright’s and the program’s questionable past when it comes to racial or other equality. I guess for me the history of the Fulbright program is complicated, as so many histories are, and I want to be able to acknowledge the good as well as acknowledge the bad, not just throw out the good because of the bad.

With that said, I’d like to turn to the positive impacts the Fulbright experience has had on my life, both while I held the grant and in the years since. One thing I didn’t expect when I was awarded my grant was that it would continue to resonate with me throughout my lifetime, but it has. That’s what I’d like to reflect on in this post.

One Example of Mutual Understanding in Korea

As the official US State Department overview of the Fulbright Program explains, the main tenet of the Fulbright Program is the promotion of mutual understanding across cultures. As the overview notes, today the program is a collaboration between the United States and 160 other countries. Those awarded a Fulbright either from the United States or from one of the 160 other countries embark on a mission of not only sharing knowledge with people in their host country but also learning from people in their host country. Their aim is to make personal and/or institutional connections across intercultural differences.

For me, the connections I made during my Fulbright year were personal. I was not an official representative of any institution, so instead I aimed to forge mutual understandings with the people I came into contact with. I was not always successful, but that’s ok. I think part of understanding how we are alike requires understanding how we are not alike, so for me, any failed mutual understandings served a purpose.

During my time in Korea, I lived with several host families. My first two, unfortunately, were less than ideal. Both of these families would have been considered well-off financially. However, the emotional connection I had hoped for with both just never developed. In the first case, I was left literally homeless when the family moved out of the apartment we lived in while I was away on a vacation. When I returned to find the empty apartment, I made my way in tears to the school where I taught and sought out the principal for help. My host mother was summoned, and she hastily made arrangements for me to live with another host family.

This second host family situation did not last long. One condition of my living with these host families was that I should try to help them learn and practice English. In this family, after only a few weeks of my living there, my host mother expressed her disappointment that their youngest daughter, who spoke no English when I arrived, was not yet fluent in English. Soon thereafter, my host father came to my room in the unheated attic, woke me from a sleep, and asked me to sit with him while he enjoyed an after work drink. While he was drinking, he shared with me the news that sometimes he had to hit his wife to make her listen to him.

The next morning, I again made my way in tears to the school where I taught. A fellow English teacher took pity on me and offered me a place to live with her family. This family would not have been considered wealthy. They were three people living in a two bedroom apartment. Their young daughter, aged about 4, was moved from her own bedroom into her parents’ room so I could have a bedroom to myself. Inside this room, there was no bed for me, as the daughter took the bed with her to her parents’ room. Instead, I slept on traditional Korean bedding on the floor.

There was also no water pressure to speak of in the apartment, making bathing a challenge. This caused me to get a pixie style haircut instead of keeping the long hair below my shoulder blades that I sported when I moved in, making it easier to wash. Also, the elevator in the building sometimes didn’t work, and we lived on the 15th floor. But I didn’t mind any of these physical challenges. Why? Because little Yaeseul, the 4 year old daughter, called me Karen Imo, meaning Aunt Karen in English.

Karen Imo and Yaeseul in Kyungju, Korea. (Personal collection/Karen P. Peirce)

During the time I lived with her family, it seemed to me that Yaeseul and I formed a mutual understanding. I was older than her, so she needed to speak to me in an honorific form of Korean. But, my Korean language skills were still developing, so she also needed to speak down to me at times, explaining things to me that most adults would not need explaining. She also needed to be willing to accept directions from an adult who was not a fluent speaker of her language. If I made a linguistic mistake, she needed to overlook this mistake and take my instruction anyway.

Was this the kind of understanding that the Fulbright program had in mind when it awarded me the grant? The kind of understanding that results from a 4 year old girl learning how to speak and listen to an adult in her life who was not fluent in her language? Or the kind of understanding that results from an adult learning to accept a child’s instruction while also learning to convey teaching to that child in a language that was still new to her? All while navigating a personal relationship based in family-like love?

Likely not. But it resulted in what to me felt like a special bond. She and I embraced often, laughing and giggling together, and I felt sorry for her when she was scolded for not finishing her meal or other typical childhood errors. Today, I carry a bittersweet memory of her with me. Sweet for the bond we forged, bitter for the short duration that it lasted.

Other Examples of Mutual Understandings in Korea

The experience I had with Yaeseul was just one example of how I developed mutual understandings while living in Korea. I made friendships with several Korean people, some of whom I met by attending a TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) workshop. One of them lived in the same city where I was living, and she hosted a radio program focused on the study of English. She asked me to be a guest on her program, which was the first and only time I’ve been the featured guest of a broadcaster. She and I became true friends, meeting for coffee regularly, talking about the ups and downs of life, and sharing many laughs. I think it’s safe to say we developed a mutual understanding between us, as we thought of each other just as friends, not as representatives of our respective nations.

I also became friends with several of the teachers I worked with. One of them instigated my study of the gayageum, and we went together each week for private lessons with a local teacher. One evening, as we headed to our class, she became just one of many of my Korean friends who said, “You seem more Korean than American!” I took this as a sign that I was breaking down stereotypes and helping others see that people are people no matter where they live and that they don’t have to be completely defined by their nationalities.

I have other similar examples, but if I wrote about all of them, this post would go on forever! Let me highlight just one more. It’s a story I recently submitted to the Fulbright Association as part of its 75th Anniversary Celebration of the Fulbright Program, which is happening this year. Rather than re-tell the story, I’ll just provide a link to it and mention that it has to do with a special connection I made with a non-verbal student in one of the classes I taught. I’ll be curious to know what you think of it or any of the other stories you find on the site!

In my next post, I’ll reflect on what Fulbight has meant to me after my grant year ended. Stay tuned for more!