SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY (SKKU), SEOUL, KOREA
Aktorgin Vibekova (Age 20), a senior at Kazakh University of International Relations & World Languages, shouted out with joy. On November 28th she received the gold prize for winning the '7th Central Asian Sungkyun Korean Essay Contest' held at the Grand Mir Hotel in Uzbekistan's capital city, Tashkent. Sixty participants recommended by twenty univer-sities were gathered from four central Asian countries for the contest. The winners were given gold, silver, and bronze prizes and were awarded graduate scholarships for two years which will be provided by Sungkyunkwan University.
This year's essay topic was 'Trust'. Ms. Vibekova received high scores from all four judges with a personal story about her father who was unable to care for the family due to his failure in business. The head of the judging panel, SKKU Prof. Kim Ho in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature said, "Despite the difficult topic, there were a number of outstanding works which showed excellent comprehension and writing style."
Jahongir Rahmachoda (Age 17), who won the silver prize, had a look of disbelief on his face when he found out that has dream to study in Korea came true after only one year of Korean language education. Rahmachoda, a high school senior, went to Sejong Hakdang a year ago to follow his two elder brothers who are studying in Korea. In order to participate in the contest he took a taxi for thirteen hours from Tajikistan. He received a favorable review of his emotional story about farewell and reunion with a homeless dog he met when he was a child. Rahmachoda said, "After hearing the stories my brother told me about Korea, I began to dream of studying there. Right until the contest started, for several days, I hardly slept at all to prepare for it."
Vice President of International Affairs at SKKU, Prof. Lee Suke Kyu asserted, "As the contest progresses, the students are going beyond simple imitation of words and seem to be have been training to think in Korean." There are also 'love calls' from Korean companies that are localized to some contestants. Thanks to this, learning Korean is recognized by many local students as a unique opportunity to change their lives.
On this day while the judging was being conducted, a special lecture by the Institute for the Translation of Korean Classics (ITKC) was given to the participants, teachers, and others.
