LETTER FROM THE EDITOR - VOL. 16
KCCNYC Monthly - September 2025
By Eun Byoul Oh
In Starter Class, we practice accurate sounds of Korean consonants and vowels. We also learn the reading and spelling rules of Korean.
September can be an exciting month here in the U.S. as students go back to school to start their new semester. In Korea, students are now starting their second semester as Korea starts their school year in the Spring. Either way, in September we think about a new start – or a return. I want to encourage everyone in school, including teachers, to take a deep breath, and paddle on. Parents, congratulations on getting your time back from your kids!
With that said, we want to extend a very special welcome to KCCNYC’s new students this semester. It is our honor to meet you and learn with you. We are truly excited to see the newcomers and those who return who motivate KCCNYC to continue growing. We are currently in our 4th week going into the 5th week of our Late Summer Session. We already made it half way there to the end, and I cannot believe how much we have accomplished in classes thus far.
Our Starters are done with their alphabets and starting to learn the reading rules, and Basic I will soon go into numbers, dates, time—all so fun and essential for communicating in Korean. I just want to give a quick shout out to our Starter and Basic I students. You are so awesome as a class, and I am impressed at how you are reading so quickly. Basic II has been fun talking about different conjugations, different concepts of tenses compared to that of English. I always joke about it in class, but I really think Korean conjugations are much neater than that of English.
As for our students in Basic 3/4, Intermediate and Advanced levels, thank you for your continued support and love of our community. We are who we are because you are with us – not only learning, but sharing yourself in the classes. I feel we have truly built a bond over time and friendships in our classes. The KCCNYC team truly appreciates the time that you spend with us. As an instructor, I always go into my classes with the attitude that I am not only teaching the classes, but also learning from everyone who is in our community.
I look back on my 10 years at the organization and realize how I’ve learned so much from our students and community members. We try our best to be an organization that includes everyone, and in order to do that, we, as a community, have had to learn many things. The learning has not stopped yet and I know that it will never stop.
I have a firm belief that learning a language grows compassion for people. In order to really understand how people in other cultures think and process language, we all have to put ourselves in others’ shoes—what we call 역지사지 (易地思之) in Korean. 역 means “reverse or the opposite”; 지 means “land”; and 사 means “to think”. In short, 역지사지 means “to think on another person’s ground.”
As a polyglot myself, I have always wanted to learn the culture of others when I learned the language, because I always think that we have to learn language in context of culture. Thus, I always try to bring in history, culture, food talks, and current events to our classes on top of the language component, to give students a deeper understanding of who Koreans are and why we behave the way that we do as a culture. KCCNYC Monthly, the very newsletter that you are reading, is also a team effort from our community to curate Korean culture so that it comes closer to everyone.
In this world full of conflicts, I think of how the experience of language learning may be a key to building bridges across the community. The effort to understand how others think may be the key that we all need to work on. KCCNYC will continue to strive as a community that can grow together.
On that note, I want to remind you all that the September book club is coming up, and we are reading The Disaster Tourist, a novel by Yun Ko Eun. The book touches on various social and current issues in Korea through the voice of a travel agent, who sells disasters as travel destinations. We hope to hear your thoughts about the book and your voices. Let’s be in a safe space where we can build our friendship and bond as a community. You can literally join from anywhere – we’ve had our members coming in from Italy, Albania and Canada. The September book club meeting will be held on September 21, 2025. RSVP Link.
And KCCNYC is currently arranging to participate in the NYC Korea Festival on October 4, so stay tuned for our next email blast!
Lastly, I want to thank everyone in our community, our students and staff, and those who make KCCNYC monthly and Dosan Hakdang possible. We are lucky to have you.
With much gratitude and love,
Eun Byoul Oh
