In this blog post, I reflect on how being bullied while studying abroad in Canada as a child affected my emotions, relationships, and maturity.
When I was in third grade, I went to school in Canada for a year. Life in Korea had always been familiar and comfortable, so when I first heard that I was going to Canada, I was excited but also very worried. Would I be able to adapt to a new environment? I didn’t speak English very well, so would I be able to make friends? These worries never left my mind. I had never moved in Korea, so I had never needed to make new friends, and I always had many friends, so I had never had the opportunity to make friends in a new environment. Therefore, I was very worried about whether I would be able to make new friends and do well in school.
Contrary to my worries, after a few days, I was able to make a few friends, and I could understand what my teachers were saying, so I was able to follow the lessons. On my first day of school, Angela, a girl from Taiwan who sat next to me, spoke to me first, and we became friends. Angela ate lunch with me and introduced me to her friends. Spending time with Angela helped me get along well with other students, and I enjoyed school life very much. It was also interesting to learn about the differences between Canadian school culture and Korean school culture. For example, I was impressed by the atmosphere in which students freely expressed their opinions and engaged in discussions. In Korea, classes were mostly one-sided lectures by the teacher, so it was refreshing to see students actively participating in class in Canada.
Angela told me about how difficult it was when she first came to school. She came to Canada one semester before me, and she said that she couldn’t speak a word of English when she came to study abroad, so she couldn’t make any friends. She said that she was bullied for a semester, but when the new school year started, she made friends. I had never heard of bullying before, so I was very shocked by Angela’s story.
Around that time, a new Taiwanese friend named Caroline arrived. Caroline also transferred to the school without knowing a word of English, so Angela, who was also from Taiwan, had to translate for her. However, for some reason, Angela started to bully Caroline, and all the girls in the class joined in. I didn’t have any ill feelings toward Caroline, but I joined in the bullying. We would gather for lunch without her and wouldn’t let her play with us during recess. We would tease her with ridiculous complaints and call her stupid. Caroline couldn’t speak English, so she couldn’t say a word back, and all she could do was tell Angela in Chinese to stop. One day, while we were continuing to bully Caroline, we hid her clothes during gym class. The teacher noticed and found Caroline’s clothes in the locker room. She scolded us, saying, “There are less than 10 girls in the class, so why are you bullying your friend for not being able to speak English?” However, we did not reflect on our actions, and the bullying continued. A few months later, Caroline was able to communicate in English, and the bullying stopped naturally.
Looking back, it was really childish of Angela and the other girls in the class to bully Caroline. I also think I was immature for joining in. When I first entered elementary school in Canada, I was worried about making new friends because I couldn’t speak English well, and Caroline had also been bullied because she couldn’t speak English, but we still bullied her. We understood how she felt better than anyone else because we had been in the same position just a semester or two before, so we shouldn’t have acted that way. But I took the lead in bullying her, and if I see Caroline again, I want to apologize for what I did. It was clearly wrong to bully a classmate because she couldn’t communicate with us. Now, I would try to help my classmates who don’t speak English.
On one hand, I wonder how young girls could do such a thing to their friend, but on the other hand, I can understand it. I think that people who bully others do so to avoid being bullied themselves. Also, people who have been bullied tend to want to get back at others. That’s why Angela wanted to get back at Caroline, who couldn’t speak English at all, for the bullying she had suffered, and I did those bad things to avoid being bullied myself by joining in the bullying. I was very shocked to hear that Angela had been bullied, and I think I thought, “I could have been bullied too.” And when all the kids in my class were bullying one kid, I was afraid that if I played with that kid alone, I would be bullied too. Girls that age tend to form cliques, so once the bullying starts, I think it takes a long time to reverse the situation.
Fortunately, Caroline was able to get along well with her classmates after a few months, but I feel really sorry when I think about the emotional pain she must have gone through. Since then, I have never taken the initiative to exclude a classmate or participated in bullying. Even at the age of 10, I knew that bullying her was wrong, and I realized that bullying was bad when I saw how much she was suffering. Looking back now, I am really ashamed of my behavior, and I would never do such a thing now, but that one experience taught me a lot about friendship and helped me build a foundation for getting along well with my friends in the future.
There are probably very few people who have never been bullied or bullied others in their childhood. In some cases, it may remain just an experience, but I like myself because I was able to honestly confess my embarrassing past experience in an essay, because I learned something from that experience and am now getting along well with my friends, and because I was able to use my past experience as a stepping stone for growth.
