A blonde-haired and blue-eyed girl in a school uniform chats with her Korean friends in Korean. Looking neat and tidy, Emily Debacker is the only full-time foreign student - not an exchange student - at Daeil Foreign Language High School in Seoul. She is a senior studying as hard as any other Korean high school senior. Debacker has a lot of fascinating stories to tell about hilarious episodes of her middle school and high school days in Korea and her dreams and passions.

Her family came to Korea in September 2002. The first place her family chose to live in Korea was Gochang in North Jeolla Province, a rural area where rice fields are spread endlessly and it's common to see small one-story houses.

One might wonder why not in Seoul but in a rural village where foreigners rarely live or even visit. "Seoul is an international city so it's hard to find a true Korean way of life there," says Emily's mother, Robin Debacker. "And we wanted to experience the real Korea so we decided to live in a rural village." Emily, born in 1988 in Omaha, Nebraska, to a Belgian father and an American mother, has lived in several countries including the United States and Portugal. Her father moves from place to place due to his work for the International Inter-religious Federation for World Peace, an NGO group in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Emily went to Gochang Girls' Middle School after taking Korean lessons for a year. Imagine a Western girl going to a middle school in a rural area: things must have been crazy for Emily.

"I felt like I understood how Hollywood stars feel," said Emily recalling her middle school days. "Some of the girls once asked me if they can touch my eyelashes," she said.

Spending three years in the school, she became so attached to school life that she cried on graduation day with her friends. Then her father was transferred to Seoul and she became a regular student at Daeil Foreign Language High School.

Having learnt Korean for six years, Emily takes classes such as Korean literature, mathematics and Korean geography in Korean and gets good grades. "My math teacher always tells us that even Emily can solve the math problems, how come you guys can't do it," said Rho Hye-won, one of Emily's school friends. "Most of all she works hard."

How has she mastered Korean? She practiced, practiced and practiced. "I hear a Korean word and ask the meaning of the word to friends and use it in a certain situation," she said. "You've got to know when to use it."

During an interview at her school, some junior students passing Emily say "hello" and bow slightly. "I feel a little uncomfortable when students younger than me say hi to me with a bow," said Emily, adding the hierarchical structure in school is sometimes helpful when students work together.

"And Korean girls like to pair up: they go wherever together," Emily said, "but I would like to have many friends around me." She doesn't confine who she hangs out with although she has a few close friends with whom she shares her worries and thoughts.

To Emily, 24 hours a day is not enough. She has a full schedule ahead of her: volunteer work; National Forensic League, a speech and debate competition in Texas; a summer internship in New York; and applying for college in the fall. She is especially looking forward to the upcoming debate competition in Texas. Three senior students from Daeil - Emily, Rho Hye-won and Ahn Jae-hyung - are participating in the American speech and debate competition June 18-23. It was Emily who came up with the idea of joining the debate competition.

"Emily is very active and has a great leadership," said Kim Hee-sun, director of the International Exchange Department at Daeil. He said Emily had looked for the information about debate competitions and other activities and told her friends to do it together.

Besides all the hectic schoolwork and extracurricular activities, she has been volunteering for IIFWP, the group her father works for. How does she manage her school work, extracurricular activities and volunteer work? "I encourage all high school students to look outside," Emily replied.

She said Korean high school students only study for university entrance. However, only on entering university do many students come to think of what they really want to do in the future. "I think the goal should go beyond the university," said Emily, "and university is just a step."

She plans to study international relations in college, hopefully at Harvard University.

(wylee@heraldm.com)
By Lee Woo-young

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