My Experience-Sharing as Exchange Student to My School Magazine

以下是我为我中学（圣禄中学）所写的留韩分享文，是在四小时内以即兴的方式快速写完的，诸多语法错误还请见谅！

           Early of this year, I had joined student exchange program to Korea for four months. I would like to share my experience. 


            First thing you probably concern the most: is it difficult to get into student exchange program? My answer will be: easier than you think. When I was at Korea, I met a lot of students from Malaysia and from other Asian countries too. There are more and more universities especially Korea universities become partnerships with local universities for the student exchange program such as University of Malaya, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and Multimedia University (MMU). In my host university, University of Malaya, you have no need to get very excellent or very top academic performance to get into the program. You just need to be confident enough to go to apply it and show your determination and good attitude. However, sometimes the course you take does matter. Some courses such as medicine program and law program have progressive teaching and it is troubling for the students to drop out temporarily from the learning program.

            About the fee, if you are sent abroad by local university, most of your expense probably will be sponsored by host university or abroad university or both. If you have very good academic performance and are lucky enough, you might even get a scholarship for the program which can cover all of your expense. Averagely, most of the local students that went to Korea had spent RM6000 – RM10000 including the flight ticket, meal fee and shopping fee. Don’t panic, this amount haven’t minus the sponsorship yet.

            I gained a lot of fresh new experience at Korea such as experiencing the changing of seasons from winter to spring, enjoying the cherry blossoms, living in an environment that people speaks the language you don’t understand. Malaysia is a multiracial society, Malaysians consist of Malays, Ibans, Chinese, Indian and many other races. We speak many different languages and have many different cultures. Unlike us, Koreans are just Koreans. They are just consisted of only one ethnic and they speak only one language.

            According to study, Malaysia has highest English language proficiency level in Asia. However, Japan and Korea are well-known for their poor English language level. Before I went to Korea, I used to doubt that why people in such well-developed countries (Japan and Korea) do not learn English well? Don’t they know English is one of the most spoken languages in the world and is very important to learn? However, after I went to Korea, I finally understand why. It’s their unitary languages that unite them to become such the strong and well-developed countries.

            When I studied at Korea, I noticed that most Koreans have very poor English level even for the young generations (except for those who majoring in English-based courses and having study abroad experience). They speak Korea language only in their daily life since they are born, they study in Korea language only in school even in university too, and most of their work environments are in Korea language only too. Therefore, there is actually no point for them to learn how to speak English, they can feed themselves and develop well without knowing any English. And they are proved to be among the best countries that are most well-developed in Asia!

            Well, don’t get me wrong. I am not promoting that using sole language is best for country development. I am just trying to say how amazing are the unite Koreans’ national spirit from the point of view of the language they use. Everything has its good and special sides. Thanks for our multiracial society, we get the opportunity to learn many types of languages and cultures. This has made us broader mentality compared to the others. We learned to respect, to tolerate and to love each other since we are young. And that’s made us who we are, a beautiful Malaysia. Embrace our uniqueness as Malaysians. J

Chong Peck Sing

31 August 2015