Lifestyle & Culture

Club Spreads Korean Culture

By Serin Koh

Staff writer

“Welcoming, wholesome . . .”

She looked up at the ceiling, sighs, then, laughs as she ponders. “Oh, and fun.”

Christine Kim slammed her hands together in one solitary clap, accentuating her descriptions of the Korean Student Association of NYU.
KSA, as the students refer to it, is part of a network of similar organizations at colleges and universities nationwide.

There are 200 members of that association, founded in 1987 at NYU, where, overall, the Asian students accounted for 16 percent of freshmen entering NYU in fall 2018, which was up from 14.5 percent of fall 2013’s freshmen.

“Before I even joined KSA, I thought it was more of like a club just for, literally, people with Korean interests or people who are Korean,” said Kim, a sophomore. She later found, though, that the KSA was “not only for culture purposes, but also, literally, community.”

A key KSA goal is to inform non-Koreans about Korean culture. It does so by, as examples, hosting dinners at Korean restaurants and game nights similar to those played on “Running Man,” a famous Korean reality show.

Yet, Kim said, there is so much more to KSA than just spreading Korean culture. “Our goal is to create a community within the NYU school. We’re very inclusive,” Kim said, of the group, which includes several non-Korean members.

KSA is founded on a belief in “gajok,” the Korean word for family. KSA’s divides its members into 20 smaller gajoks, each led by one of KSA’s 20 leaders. Those families, if you will, meet once a week, sharing meals or singing at karaoke bars in Koreatown or just studying together.

But NYU’s KSA community expands beyond this university. Black Out is an event held once a semester at a Koreatown club. It draws KSA students from other campuses, and such NYU organizations as the Marketing Club, to party and to network.

“I’ve seen people, like, just from all over the nation just come to this event,” Kim said, listing Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Boston University, among those schools. “When it comes to Black Out, everyone is there.”

Sophomore Katherine Chen, who is a Chinese member of the KSA, said she has enjoyed being part of the group. “At first it was intimidating,” Chen said. “But I felt fine because I made new friends. I ended up enjoying more than I thought I would.”

NYU sophomore Mina Kim, who is not related to Christine, introduced Chen to KSA. Next year, Mina Kim will be KSA’s social media chairperson. “You want to welcome all races to your culture,” Mina said. And that’s one of the biggest lessons she’s learned from KSA, she added.

KSA’s leaders, she said, do “a really good job with branching out and making everyone feel welcome. They’re always, like, ‘yeah, if you have non-Korean friends, make sure you invite them to events’ . . . They really have pride in making everyone feel comfortable and welcome.”