uring my recent MUN experience in Seoul we stayed at a guest house, which was administrated by foreigners. As I looked at them I was awestruck because they seemed to be so fluid in the Korean universe, but yet spoke and appeared to be from a completely different place. This made me wonder how my own culture and my change of environment had affected who I am.

I often feel as if I don’t have a place that I can call home; I don’t feel blue about it. I know that I’m Ecuadorian in identity, but I feel like since I’ve lived my most important experiences here in Korea I don’t really have a preferred country to adopt as my home. In spite of it, there are no negative feelings about it because I feel that through this I have become a much more global individual that I would have been had I remained in Ecuador. Coming to Korea was, in my opinion, the best decision my parents have ever made for me because I am now able to understand a variety of cultures in multiple aspects such as food, customs and traditions, etc. I think this has molded me in ways that I have only recently been able to perceive.

As I returned to my ‘home’ land during the Summer Break, I realized the extent to which my metamorphosis had gone till. I noticed that I kept cocking my head downwards whenever I purchased anything from a store keeper or a salesman. I put considerably more Tabasco sauce on all my dishes and I had the feeling that the relaxed and phlegmatic lifestyle and social system in Ecuador was not fit for me as I was used to a quicker and more hectic way of undergoing daily activities.

Another thing that I noticed was that I seemed to have come to understand more about my faith and who I am spiritually. I don’t know if this could entirely be attributed to the change in culture or the fact that I feel like I come to understand things more as I age. When coming to Korea for my first time I felt that spiritually I was being a good follower of my faith. Nevertheless, as I encountered home-sickness peppered with culture shock, I realized how weak my faith truly was as I begun to succumb to the challenges of a new environment. I later discovered that, as time went by, I began to rely less and less on faith to aid me in my ordeals and more on my self-dependence. It has only been recently that I have realized that it is fine to have a wavering faith, as long as by seeking strength in God one can actually recover and push forward. I am currently on a road of recovery where I am trying to ‘patch things up’ with my Creator and discovering more about developing a relationship with Him. However I feel that I needed this cultural change and the challenges that came with it in order to realize who I truly was.