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Jonas Budkiewitz works as a German teacher in the South Korean city of Busan When he started out the job seriously put his German educational ideals to the test German Democratic Republic When I was younger I went on high school exchange programs to Paris Romania and Israel and later on I spent se mesters abroad in Iceland and Krakow But starting a life in South Korea was harder than in any of those places I wasn t automatically part of a network of exchange students I had to build my own network I started going to climbing gyms which are usu ally built into the upper floors of office buildings here I found restaurants where I can eat vegetarian meals with out me having to explain why I don t eat meat I also play soccer with my students I hope I can inspire curiosity in my students If I can then my time here won t have been in vain The university offers projects that involve the students traveling to Germany I helped the students prepare and make contacts They then went to Hamburg where they stayed with my parents and their neighbors I think these sorts of cross cultural interactions are wonderful including the fact that my parents got to know my friends and acquaintances from Korea Please Ask Questions The first projects I attempted outside of the German classes I was teaching also came to nothing At one point I wanted to start a student newspaper and another time I thought a work shop for cultural exchange would be a good idea Korea is a highly homo geneous society the people don t have much experience with cultural differ ences Different groups Korean students Chinese students don t mix on campus and I wanted to address that But hardly anyone signed up Obviously that was a bit of a disap pointment Since then I ve been asking myself how I can get the students interested in projects where the focus is on personal experiences rather than professional qualifications I still don t feel like I ve wrapped my head around everything here and that s what makes it so exciting At the moment I ve teamed up with a few other professors to set up a center for German Korean cultural exchange and recently there was an artists ex change between Hamburg and Busan I just love other cultures may be I get that from my father He was a sailor during the period of the former I am the first Bosch German lecturer at the University of Busan and at the beginning I felt like I d been thrown in at the deep end And it wasn t just me my students felt the same way Here s a good example of what I mean I was teaching a class and we were doing group work Initially the students were working in pairs and it was going well But when I wanted to dis cuss results with the whole group no one moved In my typically direct German way I asked them flat out What s the problem Do you need help I asked and asked but the silence stretched on for minutes all the stu dents kept their eyes firmly fixed on the floor It was obvious that there were major cultural differences at play here The students would never tell me if they didn t understand something and they would definitely never dream of contradicting me Having someone stand at the front of the classroom and tell them to ask questions was a huge change for them I showed up with my give and take German approach to education and I hit a brick wall right away 25 Years of the Lectureship Program With the Lectureship Program the Robert Bosch µÚÒ»³Ô¹ÏÍø supports university graduates from Germany Austria and Switzerland and college employees in China Indonesia South Korea Thailand and Vietnam who teach German as a foreign language and implement educational projects The Lectureship Program is organized in partnership with MitOst e V MitOst was founded in 1996 by former lecturers as a platform for more extensive networking Today it supports numerous projects as well as the involve ment of members and alumni from more than 40 countries The Lectureship Program is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2018 2019 Beginnings 9THE MAGAZINE 3 18 Te xt R eg in a M en ni g    P ho to M ic ha el K oh ls

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