Q1. Please give a brief introduction of yourself!
Hello. I am Bang Ji-hyeon, and I joined MAP this second half through KOICA YP. For seven months (until the end of February 2024), I will be a MAP staff member working five days a week. Nice to meet you all~!
Q2. Please tell us about your motivation for joining MAP and the work you do.
I grew up in Korea and lived abroad for a short time after becoming an adult. Perhaps because I had not lived abroad since childhood, I had a lot of difficulty understanding the systems and the culture. I often thought, “I chose to come here, so why are there so many hard things? I must have taken life abroad too lightly.” This naturally led me to think about the lives of migrants, and also about refugees who came to another country without having any choice.
While studying sociology at university, I attended a documentary film festival, where I realized that these thoughts could become a career. Before that, being an “activist” had not seemed like a profession to me, but through documentaries I learned that anyone can become an activist, and this seems to have had a large influence on how I explored my career path.
I had kept thinking about how Korean culture is extremely conscious of foreigners (mainly from the white establishment) while discrimination against and disregard for foreigners from countries with weaker economies than Korea is also extremely severe, which is a strange pattern. So I came to want to work for migrants and refugees in Korea rather than for an overseas organization. That is how I became interested in the small number of refugee support organizations in Korea, and I ended up at MAP. Hehe I think I have told you my motivation with far too much TMI, but I wrote in great detail because I am curious about what motivations others have for being with MAP.
My work at MAP is the Korean language school and case consultation. I started with the Korean language school from my very first day at work (?), and I am still preparing for the consultation cases with a fluttering heart.
Q4. What do you think our society needs most right now to become a better society?
I think we need to become a society where people can have more room to breathe. I often think that many of the problems in our society today (hatred, taking sides, polarization and so on) arise because people’s lives have too little room. If we became a society with more room, I wonder whether people could take more interest in how others live, but it seems really difficult.
Q5. What gives you your own small but certain happiness?
I like watching movies. I am very picky about movies, so besides new releases, I especially like watching ones I have already seen again and again. Rather than watching at home, I really enjoy the thrill of going to the theater when a film is re-released. It is hard to pick favorite movies because there are so many, but I really like The Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Knight and The Lord of the Rings series.
Q10. Lastly, what kind of “change” do you want to bring about through your work at MAP?
I want to bring about change so that refugees are not lumped into the single category of “refugee,” but are recognized and respected for their individual characteristics and called by their names. Because much of the work I will be responsible for involves contacting the people concerned, I think this is an attitude I must keep in mind, and I will work hard! 😊
