It was that music class in China that totally changed my perspective and attitude toward my country, Korea. Before that class, I was just a small young boy that did not have any personal thoughts or feelings about my country at all.
When I was in third grade, my family moved to China because of my father's workplace alternation. In there, I attended an international school, and I was able to face lots of opportunities to undergo various experiences, getting along with a number of people from all around the world. One day, there was a music class about traditional musical instruments of different countries. After our teacher explained general information about it, she gave us opportunity to introduce the instruments of own countries. Most of my classmates proudly presented their countries' traditional instruments one by one, but I could not think of any of them of Korea. Frankly speaking, not only Korean instruments, but I had no interests also to Korea-related aspects at all. Eventually, what I had to do was just staying quiet and saying nothing, getting attention from twenty people with weird faces.
It was definitely one of the most ashamed and shocking moments in my whole life. My face instantly turned red, and my self-respect crashed down to bottom as my classmates kept ridiculed me after the class. However, as time passed, I realized that it is truly indispensable to know fundamental aspects that I should have known, both tangible and intangible ones, and find my identity as Korean. Therefore, I started to invest some time on doing research about Korean culture, and asking questions to my parents and other people about attitude and thoughts that I must possess. As a result, I became a lot more interested in my country, and be sympathetic to challenges and difficulties that my country is facing, such as current history distortion conducted by China and Japan. In other words, nowadays, I am capable of feeling true patriotism and admiration toward my country, which was not available before the music class.
To sum up, even if the music class in China humiliated me for short moment, it obviously assisted me to establish concrete identity as Korean in long-term. Without that experience, I might have lived meaninglessly without profound solidarity to my country, which I regard the most crucial one on these days.
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understanding all that makes us the people we are is the goal of a KMLA education. Good luck sorting it out