Finding Home:
An International Student’s Perspective on The Pandemic While Abroad Words by Ellena Hyeji Joo
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hen I first started writing this article, I was surprised by how therapeutic it felt. Given how messy 2020 has been, I’m thankful for things that are black and white – like typing coherent sentences into a blank Google Doc. Writing gives me a respite from the incomplete and aimless thoughts swarming my mind, thoughts that are doing wonders for my mental health. To sum things up in a single, run-on sentence, 2020 has been like a paragraph that started off intriguingly (hey, what’s COVID-19?), then snowballed alarmingly (COVID-19 declared a global pandemic!), consumed my life entirely (get on that flight immediately! Then get on that one! And another one!), and now this ferocious paragraph has taken a life of its own where what was supposed to be a single marker in the document is now a rambling paragraph in the form of a single sentence that doesn’t seem to want to end, while thoughts continue to pile on and on…. Whoo – let’s take a breath. What in the world are you talking about? You may ask. Well, everyone has a story about how COVID-19 changed their life. Here’s my crazy story about how the pandemic affected my life as an international student. In a lot of ways, it’s just as messy as that paragraph. But I believe my story on how I navigated the 89
pandemic offers a unique outlook on what it means to be human in this time, such as the struggle to belong or the meaning of home. I also believe my experience may not be too different from your own, if you were a student or traveler during the pandemic. First, let me clarify: I’m a South Korean who is currently a rising senior at a university in Washington, D.C., dependent on the F-1 visa to allow me long-term stay in the United States. Now, to make matters a little more complicated, I consider “home” Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where I have lived with my family for the past ten years. However, I’m a South Korean citizen and do not hold a Vietnamese passport. To make matters even more complex, when the pandemic hit, I was in Denmark on a “semester abroad” program for American college students. Talk about complicated! On March 12, I was notified that the Danish government had shut down all public gatherings, including my study abroad program. On the same night, the American government introduced a new guideline restricting travel from Europe to the U.S. When the news hit us, my roommates, who were all American students, huddled in our living room to book tickets immediately to fly back home. I joined them armed with my laptop, my phone, and a redbull.
