From Dec. 1 to the 10, SDA played host to a group of 20 exchange students from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a first for the school.  

“We’ve never had students from North Korea come here before, so I think it’s a nice change of pace from the exchange students we usually get,” said Principal Pat Riotic. “And they seem much tamer and more dejected than those Austrian ones.”

Students acting as “host families” were just as excited about their foreign housemates. “We were so ready for our North Korean friends,” sophomore Libby Tee said. “We had food put out and everything, because he was pretty hungry after living in North Korea.”

The purpose of the exchange program was to familiarize both countries’ students with different cultures other than their own. “It was pretty difficult getting our North Korean accustomed to our culture,” said senior host Bahl Deagle. “For some reason, she kept asking if we were truly free and liberated. It was kind of weird, but I guess it’s just part of the North Korean culture and I shouldn’t judge.”

Even though they were thousands of miles from their mother land, the North Korean students did not seem too homesick.  Said one North Korean student, Ae Sook, “너무 무료 여기에 기분! 제발 날 떠나게 만들어하지 않습니다.”