Newsletter

The Start of “Donghaerang, Dokdorang, Urirang”

Last May, at the end of spring and the beginning of early summer, five students and one teacher gathered to voluntarily form a club called "Donghaerang, Dokdorang, Urirang." The words "start" and "beginning" are always accompanied by anxiety and worry. We started our club activities because of one concern: what efforts should we, ordinary people, make to inform the world about Dokdo, the land of the Republic of Korea? In retrospect, we were successful in achieving great results because we were together, united.

We spent the unusually sweltering summer of 2018 together. Amid the deafening sound from the buzzing cicadas and in the searing heat, we went about Seoul carrying our homemade picket signs conducting publicity campaigns in order to spread awareness about Dokdo. We were tired, exhausted and thirsty, going long distances by subway and walking short distances by foot. But the encouragement we received from the public gave us the energy we needed to wrap up our publicity campaigns in Seoul with vigor.

Afterwards, we painted Dokdo murals for as long as 9 hours, from early morning until night, and even on the weekends. The murals, which we painted while listening to fun and exciting music, came out wonderfully and we would end the days covered in paint. In addition, we decorated the stairway at the main entrance of our school with "Dokdo stair sashes," on which the history of Dokdo and our names were written. We stood back and watched as our sashes glittered in the blueness of the Dokdo murals and we felt a sense of pride and accomplishment.

After our second round of exams, a Dokdo emblem contest was held for the students of our school and two excellent works were selected by sticker voting. The winners' glass painting emblems' were exhibited on the glass of the central entrance, with the hope of prompting passerby students to restore their interests in Dokdo. We were also able to wrap up our "Campaign to Deliver Messages to Dokdo" smoothly and magnificently, thanks to the participation of countless teachers and students. We designed, produced and distributed Dokdo water bottles and finished our 100-day activities with the "Dokdo Golden Bell Contest," at which we tested students' knowledge on Dokdo by posing questions that we came up with ourselves.

With our strong passion for Dokdo, we beat the sweltering heat and finished all of our activities successfully in a somewhat short, somewhat long period of time.  Our 100 days were dazzling and beautiful. We were proud to make it to the finals in this competition, which was open to only 15 clubs across the country.

Promotion of "Dokdo is Our Land"

In the early morning of October 26, we embarked on our journey to Seoul to go to the contest finals. We left the school to go to Jeongeup Station, where we boarded the SRT (Super Rapid Train). We arrived at Suseo station after traveling an hour and a half by train, and from there we took the subway to Olympic Park, where the competition was being held.

The students from the 15 schools who passed the preliminaries slowly began to gather. Realizing that we were all gathered for just the one subject of “Dokdo," we really felt the heat of competition. To begin, each team was given the mission of creating signs for the promotion of Dokdo. We were given only 100 minutes. Though the time limit added a lot of pressure, we worked with busy minds but in a calm and orderly way. We considered the fact that everyone knows that Dokdo is our land, but we also realized that there are not many opportunities to remind the citizens of this fact, and many people think that it is difficult to protect Dokdo. Therefore, we thought that it would be best to carry out our campaign activities together with the citizens. In order to spark peoples' interest in Dokdo, we created the first sign with content promoting, "Dokdo is Our Land," in three different languages. Our second sign had a Dokdo button that transferred energy to Dokdo if pressed.

After finishing the signs within the given time limit, we went to the Seoul Baekjae Museum to begin our publicity activities for the citizens of Seoul. We took pictures and spoke to foreigners in broken English, and though our communication was not perfect, we still felt a great sense of accomplishment after being able to convey our message in three different languages. We were also able to perform our activities with happy hearts despite the cold weather, encouraged by several family visitors who also participated in the campaign.

After successfully finishing our publicity activities, we arrived to the venue earlier than the students from the other schools in order to prepare for our presentation. We came to learn that the other schools came prepared with PowerPoint presentations but we had not been informed of this prior to the competition, and we were greatly embarrassed. However, we got over our anxiety and did our best to prepare a PowerPoint presentation and other materials during the remaining time. We sorted and compiled data from our past club activities, and thanks to our club members' knowledge of Dokdo, we were able to finish our preparations well. When we first began our presentation, we made a few mistakes due to nervousness and anxiety. However, as our club members comforted each other, we were able to relax and finish our presentation. Once the presentations were over, we had time to interact with the other schools and around 11 p.m. the extremely special day came to an end.

The Long-Awaited Awards Ceremony and Peace Prize

The next morning, we took a bus to Gwanghwamun Gate, the starting point of our field trip. The Northeast Asian History Foundation prepared the field trip, which involved the exploration of Seoul to foster the learning of the city's history. Each of the five schools divided up to choose one of the three historical site courses in Seoul. We chose the first course. We were worried that we were not going to have fun because it was raining up until we got on the bus. But as soon as we got off the bus, the rain slowed down and eventually stopped. We visited several sites including Hwanggungu Pavilion, Daehanmun Gate, Deoksugung Palace (Gyeongungung Palace), Paichaihakdang Academy, Chungdong First Methodist Church, Jungmyeongjeon Hall and Gyeonggyojang House while we listened carefully to the guides' history lessons.

After the tour, we went to the Northeast Asian History Foundation where the awards ceremony was to take place. We joined hands and calmed our fluttering hearts while we awaited the awards ceremony that would end the two-day long event. As the honorable Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Education awarded the Peace Prize to Yeongseon Middle School, we all shouted "Donghaerang, Dokdorang, Urirang," with joy. The award of being number one in the nation, which was merely a dream when we first began, was given to us. Tears welled up in our eyes and we were dumbfounded. The "Peace Prize," which was given to us for our outstanding unity, was more valuable than anything else. We all became one under the topic of "Dokdo" and we were happy just because we all did our best.

In hindsight, we cannot say that the activities we did during those 100 days were perfect, but we can definitely say that we did our best and enjoyed each and every moment. Though our participation in the presentation competition ended the 100-day long event, our "Donghaerang, Dokdorang, Urirang" club will continue its efforts to publicize the fact that the East Sea and Dokdo are our territories. The hot summer of 2018, then fall arrived. I was extremely fortunate to be able to be with "Donghaerang, Dokdorang, Urirang" during these splendid and precious times. This experience will be preserved as an unforgettable and precious memory from my teaching career that I will not easily forget.