# growing up in Kenya

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuOLw3k7UrQ

[00:00] Everywhere I go, people would notice the bracelet that I'm wearing, which looks like this.
[00:06] Okay, can you see it?
[00:08] And they would be like, "That's a pretty bracelet, where did you get that from?"
[00:12] And that's when I get the chance to say I actually grew up in Kenya.
[00:15] And then the conversation would carry on asking questions about Kenya and, um, how I got to live there, what it's like living there.
[00:22] And that's kind of like a flex to me because not many people really get to live in Kenya as a Korean.
[00:28] And it's an experience that shaped me in ways that I didn't really expect.
[00:32] So I went to Kenya when I was in fifth grade in elementary school and grew up in Nairobi until my senior year in high school.
[00:37] And I came back to Korea to go to university here.
[00:39] Kenya is so far from Korea, right?
[00:42] To go there, it takes like at least 17 to 18 hours because you stop by Dubai or, um, Qatar.
[00:47] You have like a layover there for 2 to 3 hours and then you get to Kenya.
[00:53] It almost takes a whole day to get there.
[00:54] It's a place that's very far from here, very different, um, different cultures, different.
[01:01] Languages, different ethnicity, race, and at first when I went there it felt like I was in a movie or something, right?
[01:07] Being so young, I wasn't really used to speaking different languages.
[01:11] But the thing that I missed the most about living in Kenya was my home.
[01:12] I missed my friends, I missed seeing my family, and um, I missed everything about being in Korea.
[01:20] So I really wanted to come back the first year.
[01:21] But I went to this American International School where people from more than 50 countries came to the school and were educated together.
[01:30] It was very cool growing up there and I really liked playing sports.
[01:31] I was like this guy who would try every sport that's available in school, but soccer was my favorite sport, so I thrived on that.
[01:41] I played a lot, and because I liked playing soccer, I made friends more easily because I guess that's how it is everywhere.
[01:46] You play sports, you make friends really quick because you sweat together, you work hard together, and then in that process you meet new people and build memories.
[01:56] I think one of the main challenges that I had growing up was this identity crisis that I had, I think.
[02:02] It's called the third culture kid thing where I'm Korean and I'm living in Kenya going to American school, so I didn't know who I really was.
[02:12] I really felt like I'm this mixture of this um person who didn't really have like a fixed identity.
[02:17] Although I was born in Korea, spending a lot of time in Kenya going to school, coming back home and speaking Korean again, that whole dynamic felt like I didn't really belong anywhere.
[02:28] Even though I was fully Korean, I always felt that personally, uh, the family stuff and the things that were going on at home really stressed me out.
[02:38] So my only getaway was school, getting away from where I lived, the people that I lived with.
[02:42] And I found peace by hanging out with my friends.
[02:44] Going to school, being in that environment felt more comfortable.
[02:49] Kenya itself is very rich in culture, right?
[02:51] There are many tribes; I think there are more than 40 tribes at least, different languages.
[02:55] And this whole thing that you get when you're learning a different language, you get to this point where you're not really good at speaking this language, but you're not really.
[03:03] Great at speaking the other language as well, so you're just in between.
[03:06] You become this person who can't speak both languages fluently, so you're kind of like stuck in the middle.
[03:12] But I think at that time I really thought I was that guy.
[03:14] I think I was so insecure of who I really was, so I constantly compared myself to other people that are living in Korea.
[03:20] And I was like, well, I'm special because I lived in Kenya, which isn't really rational.
[03:26] I always thought like that.
[03:28] I was like, okay, I'm special because I know how to speak English way better than the people that are in Korea, which wasn't even the case, you know what I mean?
[03:34] I thought I was so good at everything, but I wasn't.
[03:37] So my time in Kenya was very confusing.
[03:39] I think for the first few years I had a very hard time missing home, missing people that I love, uh, and just hanging out in the very familiar environment that I was always used to, that I grew up in.
[03:50] But then later on I started adapting to where I lived.
[03:53] Actively participated in school events, all the other sporting events like soccer.
[03:58] I got to play basketball.
[04:00] I learned how to play tennis, which got me into many different teams.
[04:05] Um, I had a lot of matches together with people from different schools.
[04:09] Honestly, that was like very eye-opening and made me really open-minded because you just get to see so many people growing up that are from different cultures, right?
[04:16] Like, physically they look different too.
[04:19] I didn't really realize how big, um, that exposure was to me at the time, but looking back at it, that whole experience of interacting with people from different cultures, um, speaking in different languages, learning another language, really shaped me to be this person who's open to different cultures, who always wants to be there for people that are struggling, um, overseas.
[04:41] Because I know the pain as well.
[04:43] As a foreigner in Kenya, I always missed home and I always wanted someone to just approach me and be my friend because I didn't have the courage to do so.
[04:51] Struggling there mentally and overcoming those challenges when I was young growing up in Kenya really helped me to be more resilient and they changed me a lot.
[04:59] It changed my values, how I think about other people.
[05:02] In school, we would go to these like cultural field studies.
[05:05] Where you go to these countryside of Kenya, it could be an orphanage, it could be like the whole local community that you go to, and then you visit different schools in that local area, help them paint the school floors or walls, basically just doing all those works for charity, right?
[05:19] Helping people out, meeting different people.
[05:21] One of my favorite things to do was just to bring a football there, like a soccer ball, make the goal post with the rocks, get the whole boys around the local area to play football, and we just played together.
[05:32] And the coolest thing was we didn't even know how to speak to each other.
[05:34] Some of them didn't even know how to speak English, so there was no language that was connecting us.
[05:40] We knew how to play football, so by playing those games, we would laugh together.
[05:46] We would just kind of run around this whole grand field together.
[05:50] That whole experience was very eye-opening because, compared to the things I have to the things that they have, the difference is very drastic, right?
[05:59] Even though they don't have all those things that I have, they're still happy and they're still, um, joyful by the.
[06:06] Fact that we're helping them out, we're building friendships with them, to seeing how happy the kids are in that area, I really kind of looked back at myself and started appreciating the small things that I have around me, like the small details, the things that I took for granted.
[06:20] The comfortable bed that I had, the food that I got to eat every day, the snacks, the ability to learn in such, um, high quality environment, the hot water that I get from the shower.
[06:29] Cuz when you go on those field trips you don't really get any hot shower, so you use buckets and you save up water.
[06:36] It really changed how I view life.
[06:38] We're all the same people, but we live so differently.
[06:42] Another thing about living in Kenya was the bond with the nature, right, the relationship that we have with the nature.
[06:47] I became more aware of, like, the responsibility that we should all have in using resources, plastics, wasting.
[06:55] You could just see a lot of trash and garbages in the street in Kenya, and that really made me become more aware of the environmental effects and be really caring about the nature instead of just having this mindset where, oh, I mean, I'm.
[07:07] Not going to make any difference in the world.
[07:08] Instead of thinking like that, I started thinking maybe my contribution, even though it's very small, can still make a big difference.
[07:14] It was a beautiful experience.
[07:16] I was a naive kid who thought he knew everything about the world, that he would be able to get through anything without any difficulties.
[07:23] But then I came out to the real world and realized that there was so much more to life than what I was thinking.
[07:29] Faced many challenges, had many setbacks, and failed a lot of times.
[07:33] That really made me more humble about how I approach life and how I think about myself.
[07:39] Even though I was still confident of who I was, I still wanted to maintain my humility everywhere I go.
[07:43] And especially after the military experience, I think I became a little bit more mature than when I was in Kenya.
[07:50] It was a fun time; I really miss it.
[07:53] What I miss are the people that I met there, the friends that I still keep in touch with.
[07:57] They're all like around the world.
[07:59] The friend group that I was in, we were all from different countries.
[08:00] Like, I was from South Korea, another friend of mine was from the Netherlands, one was from America, one was from the UK, one was.
[08:08] From Nigeria, one was from Madagascar.
[08:12] It's it was crazy; we have this reunion every once in a while which really heals this part of me that I can't really explain.
[08:19] You know that feeling when you have this reunion or hang out with these people that are so dear to you and they know your past?
[08:25] They grew up together in school; it's like a feeling that you can't really explain even though you're not really doing anything.
[08:33] They know a lot of the things about you because you share similar past experiences with them.
[08:36] You just understand them; you don't have to say much.
[08:38] That's the feeling that I really get whenever I go back to Kenya.
[08:41] And last year I had one of my best friends from Kenya getting married in the states, so we all got to see each other again, go on these little trips.
[08:49] And honestly, I'm so thankful that I grew up in places like that because now I have these lifelong friends that are all over the world.
[08:55] Even though it's pretty sad that I can't really get to see them every day, I can't really hang out with them whenever I want, we still keep in touch.
[09:01] And we have this belief that each of us will just do well wherever we are.
[09:05] So it was a beautiful experience, I think, getting those experiences at an.
[09:10] Early age helps you to become more resilient in ways that you don't really notice because when you come out to the real world you're always like met with these unfamiliar circumstances.
[09:20] You sometimes end up in these environments where you're not familiar with and you get to just navigate yourself well in those situations.
[09:24] You're like, "Oh, I've been here before, I've been lost a lot of times in life, and I feel like I can get through all these difficulties without being lost all the time."
[09:33] I think that's one of the things that I got from living in Kenya.
[09:36] I got this confidence that wherever I go I'll be able to adapt really well that I had a really unique experience that's not common anywhere.
[09:45] So yeah, I miss everything about it, you know.
[09:47] The weather, the people, the places, the memories, the snacks that I ate in the bus ride when we were going to different schools for um soccer matches, the friends that I made there, the stupid jokes that we made all the time.
[10:02] So many stars that you get to see in the night sky when you go on these cultural field studies, being in the School Musical, participating in a band where I play different instruments, joining choir.
[10:12] Where I get to sing different songs with people, it was a really, really fun, um, and memorable experience that I will always cherish wherever I go.
[10:21] And it's part of me; it's part of who I am.
[10:23] It was an experience that helped me to see life in a more humbling way, helping me find joy in small things, revering nature, respecting the environment that I live in, contributing even a small amount, even though it doesn't really seem like it's making any difference.
[10:36] So yeah, it helped me to really be this person that's open-minded and confident.
[10:40] Yeah, like the small things that you would wonder when you go to school: do you see like wild animals, like do you see lions, giraffes, or stuff like that?
[10:49] I'm like, no, I live in the city.
[10:52] When you live in Nairobi, it's pretty similar to all the other places that you go to, like all the other cities that you go to.
[10:58] It's very developed.
[11:00] You don't see like those wild animals out of nowhere.
[11:02] I mean, sometimes maybe you get to see eagles, sometimes or impalas when you're walking in the forest or something.
[11:08] But other than that, no, you don't see those things unless you go to.
[11:13] Those areas like in Masa Mara where you can actually go on this game drive to see many wild animals and the thing about the weather it's so good they only have two seasons right so summer winter.
[11:24] But even the winter season it's not really that cold because you don't get snow in there it doesn't go below the zero de C it's not humid so you don't really feel sticky all the time.
[11:33] Yeah it's it's a beautiful place Kenya has a high altitude compared to Korea.
[11:38] I thought I was built different so like I thought my lungs were developed in a different way so whenever I came to Korea I always pretended like I wasn't tired after running even though I was like super tired.
[11:48] I would just pretend like I wasn't tired I would just breathe normally even though I was dying inside.
[11:52] I would tell my friends yeah I mean living in there I'm so like used to the thin air that I get that when I run in Korea I don't get tired which is absolute nonsense and my friends believe me.
[12:03] And the perks that I got from living in Kenya it's like everyone treated me a little bit differently they thought I was like this whole foreign person who didn't know anything about the Korean.
[12:14] Culture, I didn't know that much about Korean culture because I wasn't growing up in Korea when I hit my puberty.
[12:20] But I still, you know, like I still understood a lot of the cultural norms.
[12:24] Um, but everyone just treated me a little bit differently, like I'm this foreign who doesn't really know anything.
[12:30] So even though I made a lot of mistakes, they would just think that, oh, I mean, he doesn't really know about Korean culture, so it's understandable.
[12:37] So they always forgave me for that.
[12:39] So I got this foreign card pass where I would make mistakes or I would do something differently that could potentially make people angry.
[12:45] But it didn't have the same effect as other Korean people because they would think that I just plainly don't know the culture.
[12:51] I always have this bracelet with me that's like that has a Kenyan flag.
[12:57] A lot of the times people would be like, "That's a very pretty bracelet."
[12:58] I would be like, "Yeah, I mean, I lived in Kenya," so and then the conversation carries on.
[13:02] Kenya is a place that I call home as well, even though I have some traumas and uh really, really bad memories living in Kenya personally, the things that I went through my family.
[13:15] Stuff the people that I lived with, I don't always have the best memories in there.
[13:18] But looking back at all those experiences, those events and struggles really help me to be more cautious of the people that I meet, the things that I share, and I don't know, just generally the way I conduct myself outside.
[13:33] So I think it helped me a lot.
[13:34] Even though I didn't live there my whole life, part of me is always there.
[13:36] I always cherish the memories and friends and just everything that I did in Kenya dearly in my heart.
[13:44] Yeah, that's how I grew up in Kenya, going to American International School, meeting friends from different countries, um, having reunions every once in a while, playing football.
[13:55] I love Nairobi, man.
[13:56] It's, I love it so much that it hurts.
[13:59] All the bad and good memories that I have from there, it really shaped me into the person that I am right now.
[14:05] It really helped me to prepare for life later on by making me more open to other people, open to new cultures.
[14:13] I hope you guys are having a great time wherever you are if you grew up in a place that.
[14:16] Shaped you very deeply, feel free to share your experiences in the comments because I read every single one of them and I love hearing your stories and your opinions and your feedbacks.
[14:25] The fact that I'm almost at 10,000 subscribers really baffles me.
[14:27] I just want to let you guys know that I do not take it for granted.
[14:31] Thank you for watching the video and I hope you guys are having a great day doing whatever you love wherever you are.
[14:39] I support you, I trust in you, I'll see you guys next time, peace.