UP Media and Public Relations Office posted: " The last time I visited Europe, in 2019, was on a personal trip with my family. But this year, returning to Europe for the first time after the pandemic, I felt like a first-time traveller. Given that I am not the type who enjoys unlimited inflight fi" University of the Philippines
Dr. Kyung Min Bae at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. Contributed photo.
The last time I visited Europe, in 2019, was on a personal trip with my family. But this year, returning to Europe for the first time after the pandemic, I felt like a first-time traveller. Given that I am not the type who enjoys unlimited inflight film watching, crossing different time zones, and waking up multiple times only to realize that the plane is still hours away from its destination, I had to prepare my body and mind for the long flight from the Philippines to Germany.
However, even with all the hassles of international travel, I believed it would be a great opportunity for UP Korea Research Center (UP KRC) to promote ourselves, as well as to learn from those in other Korean Studies institutions in Europe with whom we rarely get the opportunity to interact. I was scheduled to present, this November, a paper titled "Return Migration to Where I was Not Born: Two Korean-Filipino Youth's Experience" at the 6th Social Sciences Korean Studies European Network (SoKEN) conference.
The event was held at Goethe University Frankfurt in Frankfurt am Main, which has a thriving Korean Studies program headed by Dr. Yonson Ahn. Although I was given the choice to join online, and admittedly seriously considered that option, I believed it was time for real human connections again. It was only right to go in person.
Apart from the conference, I was lucky enough to visit two other institutions: the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Copenhagen. Dr. Eun-jung Lee, Director of the Institute of Korean Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, generously invited me to be part of the 6th Berlin Forum on Korea organized by the Graduate School of East Asian Studies (GEAS). I served as a discussant to share some insights on the importance of right approaches to Korean studies by both Korea-based and overseas institutions.
In UP KRC, our main goal is to train home-grown Filipino scholars who will study Korea in their respective disciplines and through their own lens, rather than imposing a unidirectional way of understanding Korea. I noted the importance of contextualizing what Korean Studies could mean in different countries and institutions, as each has a distinctive socio-historical background that should be considered. At the University of Copenhagen, through Dr. Barbara Wall, I observed Korean Studies classes under the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, and also gave an overview on UP KRC's activities and Korean studies in the Philippines.
Dr. Kyung Min Bae (second from right) with students and faculty members at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Contributed photo.
It was such a great opportunity for me to directly observe how local and Korean scholars are building a community of Korean Studies together in diverse disciplines and training the next generations of cademics and professionals. In Copenhagen, their first- and second-year curriculum is pretty intensive: each week, 12-hour Korean language courses are taken, aside from other content courses.
I also learned that every single Korean Studies student goes to Korea as an exchange student as part of the curriculum, so that everyone gets to experience applying their knowledge as well as using the real-world language. I wished this could be possible with our students who are taking Plan C Korean under the Department of Linguistics so that their actual living experiences in Korea will benefit them by making them more competent in understanding language and culture by the time they graduate. UP has existing partnerships with Korean universities, and it is time to maximise our opportunities to activate outbound exchange student programs, particularly given that both countries' HEIs are seriously pushing internationalization. I hope the long-term planning to strengthen partnerships through exchanges can be made possible.
In Germany, one of the most impressive things about their institutions was that it was not just locals, Germans, who are studying in the program; a relatively large number of Koreans and students of other nationalities are taking their doctoral or postdoctoral degree programs because of particular geopolitical or historical contexts in Germany (e.g., unification, refugee policy, migration, etc.), and their dissertations indeed focus on the Korean peninsula, political refugee issues in Korea.
This is what UP KRC has also sought to implement, starting last year. We connected Filipino Koreanists with international scholars and Korean informants to conduct research on several comparative studies on migration policies, cultural industry, and foreign policy, to name a few. I believe in this way, scholars' views are expanded by interacting with other scholars from different socio-cultural backgrounds outside the Philippines and gaining more knowledge that cannot be learned locally.
With the mission "to contribute to a greater understanding of Korea in the Philippines," UP KRC supports the research and networking of Filipino Koreanists. One of the ultimate goals of the UP KRC is to be a Korean Studies hub locally in the Philippines, as well as globally. To achieve this goal, we have networked with local state and private universities, ASEAN partners, and diplomatic sectors. This trip was initially conceived to promote UP KRC, but I am personally glad that European institutions and their students were equally delighted to know about us, especially as we are from the Global South where the Korean Studies experience is somewhat different from their own.
A copy of the poster of the event hosted by the Korean Studies of the Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany. Contributed photo.
The whole trip required me to jump from one city to another, each time getting used to harsh winds. But it was rewarding and fruitful to finally meet the leading Korean Studies professors in three European universities, witnessing the hard work of training the next generations of scholars and enhancing their strengths in teaching and research, which is exactly what UP KRC also aims to do.
Leaving the Philippines, traveling to another continent, seeing how Korean Studies is evolving around the world, and considering how best to position it as an academic discipline in different contexts—all this helped me recognize both our strengths and areas for improvement at UP KRC. As young as our Center is, we understand how crucial it is to equip young generations with diverse resources and balanced views and knowledge on Korea. We will continue to develop; and whatever our weaknesses are, such as how to engage more Korean and international scholars into Korean Studies dialogues in the Philippines, we could strategically benchmark these and improve, based on what I observed outside the Philippines. One sure way for academic institutions to grow and improve is to engage with other related institutions for benchmarking and networking, and I am glad that UP KRC took the initiative to visit Europe, not only for publicity, but to share with and learn from our colleagues around the world.
Kyung Min Bae, Ph.D., Director of the UP Korea Research Center, is Assistant Professorial Fellow at the UP Department of Linguistics where she has been teaching since 2010. She obtained her Ph.D. at the UP College of Education in July 2020, with her dissertation, "Professional Identity of Non-native Teachers of Korean as a Foreign Language as Basis for a KFL Teacher Education Program Framework". [1]
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