You might want to reconsider becoming an exchange student in the United States.
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You might want to reconsider becoming an exchange student in the United States.
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10 Comments
Reminds me when I was in college and I was living with my Japanese girlfriend at the time. Being a polite exchange student she got roped into some bible study social one night. She could not get out of it, and so wanted me to come along for some support.
The first thing that struck me was how many of the exchange students were female, and how many of the “bible study” members were male. Somehow me and my girl got seperated, and I eventualy got cornered by one of the “bible study” guys. He quized me about the relationship with her. Wanting to be polite about it all, I tried to be cagey. However he eventualy hit my buttons:
“So how do you know her?” He said.
“Oh I just rent a room at her place and help her out with stuff here in a foreign land at all.” I try to brush it off.
“So you two are like ‘friendship partners’” He suggested.
Now at this point for some reason the touchy-feely platonic sounding “friendship partner” set me off. I do not know why. So I looked him straight in the eyes and said “No, I am fucking her.”
At the mention of the four letter word, he turned white as a sheet and then red as an baboon’s ass. He darted off into the crowd, and NOBODY, save my girl, talked to me the entire night.
Best thing for her, she never got roped into another “bible study” again.
Nice story. Reminds me of an acquaintance of mine. He and his sister are Korean adoptees living in America. Their adoption occurred after their mother was butchered with a carving knife by the vestrymen of their father’s church in Seoul in the course of an exorcism. The children were locked in a sideroom of the church for the ceremony, but S. saw his mother killed by peering through the keyhole. As minister, their father was convicted and imprisoned for a bit and, as the extended families didn’t feel capable of taking care of them, the kids were shipped off. I had the uncomfortable task of accompanying S. while on his “Roots” trip back to Korea he went to look up his father, who had gotten out of prison and was leading an evangelical christian cult organization out in the boonies in Gangwondo, and making sure nothing awful happened.
My good friend is a Hong Kong student who is about 3 years younger than the average age in such a school. He’ll hit 21 this year and he’s the only one who didn’t reach 21 yet.
Anyway, he had a positive host family exchange student experience, which is how he came to the US, initially.
Goes back to his religious host family at least once a year all the time. I think they were Christians in Missouri.
Sperwer,
That’s a messed up story. There are some of these ‘churches’ near my home, mostly hovels with a bright orange led tubing cross that can be seen from the road at night.
Personally, I would never travel to a foreign country and live with a ‘host family’. To me, that just sounds too creepy and uncomfortable to ever consider seriously. But Koreans, who love to choose the most creepy and most uncomfortable, do it all the time.
I hope that they will be safe, but they probably aren’t.
So why aren’t these situations the subject of multi-million dollar lawsuits by the exchanges students and their families, against the placement organizations? Putting careless placement organizations out of business would seem to be the best solution, since (unlike State Department compliance officers) we have no shortage of lawyers in the USA.
A good placement organization would at least recognize the possibility of their having made a mistake, and carefully (and privately, unknown to the host family) provide emergency “whom to contact and where to go” instructions for the exchange student. Also, in the event of a “situation” arising, the pre-designated use of a innocuous “code word” in a weekly phone conversation back to the family in the home country would seem to be a routine precaution to take by such a careful and conscientious placement organization.
It’s not like these kids are pre-teen orphans with no place to turn. If some family I was staying with had tried to take me to a snake worshiping ceremony at the age of 14, I would have made my escape as soon as I was alone and unsupervised and gotten myself to the nearest police officer or station. And presumably a 14 year old with enough gumption and smarts to apply for long-term study and residence in a friendly foreign country can be taught readily about how to contact their country’s nearest embassy or consulate, for help in “getting out”.
SomeGuy:
Yeah it was/is. And your note reminded me that the place was enormously creepy - basically a collection of chicken houses and felt-enshrouded quonset-style metal framed structures. We had to spend the night, but after we were bedded down I slipped out and “stood watch” from a nearby hide until morning, then got us the hell outta there.
“But Koreans, who love to choose the most creepy and most uncomfortable, do it all the time.”
Mateomiguel, aside from the fact that this was published in the Seoul Times….HOW did you bring Koreans specifically into this…and in an insulting way at that? Amazing…..
Parents who place their children with families approved by homestay organizations may naively assume that since the families were approved, there is no need for coded signals or escape plans.
Yesterday a colleague happened to share a story about two foreign teenagers who lived with a host family of educators. The mother was a school administrator and the regional representative for the host family organization. She commuted to a faraway school district and left the children alone with her husband during the week. He fed them hot dogs from General Dollar and once tricked the Muslim girl into eating pepperoni pizza. My colleague, who was a teacher at the girls’ school, nearly lost her job after she smuggled food to the girls. She was warned not to make trouble because of the mother’s power as school administrator and homestay organization representative.
Please remember that these foreign exchange students are young teenagers in a foreign country alone. They are not savvy, worldly adults like us.
Probably the same way that wjk manages to bring Japan into a discussion of which the topic is an anti-semitic idiot author in Korea. Yes, amazing indeed!