Secondary students gathered in the presentation hall for an evening of collaborative learning and discussion on Jan. 29. Hosted by Students Organizing Against Racism (SOAR) in collaboration with the National Chinese Honor Society (NCHS), students engaged in thought-provoking discussions and interactive activities that expanded their awareness of global issues.
The discussion stemmed from a year-long ongoing collaboration between the officer members. “SOAR and NCHS decided to collaborate last year, but we moved the event to this year because there wasn’t enough time at the end of the year. I think Leanne reached out to Yujun and the idea came out. Then, Selina, Yujun, Leewen, Leanne and the officers worked together to organize the event,” said NCHS advisor Mr. Zhao.
Specifically, the afternoon centered on reflecting upon social perceptions and challenges faced by Chinese ethnic groups in Korea. “The soaring discussion looked at the kinds of Korean racist sentiments towards different Chinese ethnic groups that live in Korea or have come back to Korea at some point,” said SOAR advisor Ms. Nagy.
SOAR and NCHS members kicked off the discussion with clarifications of commonly misunderstood terms, and addressed the root misconceptions that often shape public discourse. “There’s something I heard and some negative news that happened in the media, and we noticed especially in this area, that’s kind of the base of the conservative party. So it feels more negative in the media,” said Mr. Zhao.
From this foundation, the session moved into guided conversations that unpacked the true identity of Joseon-joks and Hwagyos alike. “It’s really easy for Koreans to have negative and ungrounded sentiments because it’s structurally really easy so I think it’s important that rather than just accept that atmosphere we should find out the root and decide for ourselves what opinions we hold,” said Yujun Piao, NCHS president.
In addition to the small group discussions, student leaders led cooperative activities such as background matching, fact or myth, and Drag the Government versus Drag the people. “My favorite activity was the Myth or Fact activity. The activity was about them showing the question, a statement, and we had to choose true or false. And then after we had discussed the topic with our own team the answer was revealed, we got shocked because it was not true. We found out that there were some stereotypes that we had,” said senior Jasmine Lee.
With its diverse cultural backgrounds, the DIS community continues to prioritize inclusion as a core value. “I think it is important to discuss Chinese discrimination because there are a lot of Chinese students in this school including me and outside of DIS too there are a lot of Chinese people who live in Korea,” said Piao. The discussion underscored that cultural and geographical proximity makes awareness and understanding increasingly more important within an international community.
The discussion also placed these social dynamics within a broader demographic context and addressed recent government data on the increasing of foreign resident population in Korea, with ethnic Koreans of Chinese nationality being a significant portion of that growth. In response to these trends, SOAR and NCHS encouraged students to connect these trends to the heightened visibility of Joseon-jok communities.
As the evening drew to a close, the focus shifted from awareness to action. “Change starts small and the people we talked together with in the discussion and the things we shared there, the change starts from there,” said Mr. Zhao. Through inspiring questions, the discussion helped participants become more aware and share a sense of responsibility to engage more thoughtfully with cultural differences.
