Joon Hyuk Paik (1993), 2nd year in Hanyoung Foreign Language High School

Although I am currently studying German in High School I rarely had chance to meet people from Germany except for Mr. Shultz, my German teacher. At the end of the summer 2010 I met one of the German youth ambassadors who visited Korea sponsored by Asia Circle. My guest was Maximilian Brückner who is a gifted student in several foreign languages and has a great interest in Korea. After I figured out that I was picked for one of the representatives of Korean youth and I need to give them good impressions about Korea because they are looking forward to having a new experiences and getting to know about Korea, I felt a strong sense of responsibility.

During the first meeting at Hanyoung Foreign Language High School we discussed several topics related social, political and economical relationships between Korea and German. I was impressed that German students were very interested in our society and their questions about Korea were very specific. We visited Invest KOREA(IK), Korea’s national investment promotion agency, and had a meeting with Mr. Hank Ahn, the commissioner of Invest KOREA. He explained about the history of relationship between Korea and Germany in terms of the trading and we could learn that the first three export items were hairs (wigs), blood (soldiers) and tears (nurses and miners in Germany). It was touching to listen to the old Korean story in the year of 2010 with German youth ambassadors who visited an unprecedentedly developed country, Korea. We were also invited to the Grand opening of MCM in Hotel Lotte and there Korean student had a chance to introduce a pop culture to German students. Although we could not spend much time at home my parents were very pleased to have Max as a guest and mentioned that he is very polite and sincere. We also played sports together to make the bond tighter.

I was very impressed to see that German students were trying hard to learn about Korea. I really enjoyed meeting with Max and the other German students and hopefully if such a great opportunity be allowed to me I’d definitely like to visit Germany and experience German cultures and learn about German. And finally I appreciate Asia-Circle for providing this wonderful opportunity.