This month, I was able to spotlight Sophia Kim, a fourth year TPSer and an MK of nine years. Sophia’s class schedule includes AP French, AP English Lit, AP Macro Microeconomics, AP Calculus AB, and Physics. She has reached the “venerable age of seventeen” and is a Korean-American who lives in Mali, Africa. Some of her hobbies include writing poetry, watching Korean dramas, working out, and playing video games.
America, France, and Mali have all been home to Sophia. However, she says that America and Mali feel the most familiar to her, albeit in different ways. In America, it feels like home to Sophia because the people around her all speak the same language as her. She also shares the same culture, more or less. Whereas in Mali, Sophia feels comfortable in the fact that she knows the culture, the people, and the country well, having lived there for most of her life as an MK.
Through Sophia’s time as an MK, she’s picked up several languages! The ones she’s the most fluent in are English and French. She can speak some Korean and is slowly making progress in learning the language. In addition, she knows a little bit of Bambara, the native language of Mali.
Despite French being Mali’s “official language,” many Malians are not fluent in it and speak more Bambara. Because of that, Sophia has trouble communicating with the people, specifically the neighborhood kids. She says that other than that, the language barrier isn’t too difficult for her as Malian people are incredibly friendly and warm.
On the topic of forming friendships despite different cultures, Sophia states that she feels comfortable with the people. It’s easy to laugh and crack jokes with them since Malians are all very welcoming. Unfortunately, the majority of her relationships feel surface level. Not sharing the same culture and not being fluent in Bambara makes it hard to form deep friendships or connections.
When asked about a memorable experience with her friends, Sophia shared that she and her brother once befriended two Malian boys. Together, they would go outside and hunt lizards, using their trusty slingshots. Their friends also taught them how to eat mangos before they grew ripe. Since Sophia lived right next to a plentiful mango grove, they were able to pluck mangoes off of a random tree and snack on them. In Sophia’s opinion, Mali boasts the most delicious and sweetest mangoes ever!
One thing which Sophia has learned from the many different cultures of the world is that each one holds their own values. For example, Malian culture tends to value social interaction and the community over other things. In Mali, everyone spends most of their time outdoors, talking to their friends or neighbors. If you see someone you know in the street, you’ll stop to greet them. The people will also leave their courtyard doors open as a sign that they welcome anyone who wants to visit. According to Sophia, returning to America is always a shock because it feels so quiet and empty in comparison to Mali.
Sophia confides that being an MK means you have to say goodbye to plenty of people. Living overseas has caused Sophia to slowly fall out of touch with some of her old friends in America. Additionally, in the missions field, missionaries frequently come and go. This used to be extremely tough for Sophia–from falling out of touch with old friends in America to watching her missionary friends come and go. Yet over time, Sophia’s realized that the most important relationship you could ever have is with God. She’s happy to say that she’s grown confident in that whatever place God takes her to next, He’ll be there for her and will provide good people in her life.
Thank you so much, Sophia, for sparing me your time to interview you! I hope all of the readers were able to learn more about you through this article.