Beautiful Performances from Chanoknun and Tachaporn The two women who gave the beautiful performance are part of the cast on a television show where women from different countries talk about cultural issues. They are Chanoknun Suriya Mongkol (Underwood International College, Economics major, 21) and Tachaporn Wajasath (Ewha Womans University, Media Studies, 21). They explained the dance they performed as one praying for happiness. When asked about the religious significance of the dance, they replied, “Well, 99 percent of the Thai people are Buddhist, so there probably is some Buddhist meaning to the dance.” The two women had learned the dances in dance schools during their childhood and also in high school. Chanoknun and Tachaporn had never studied Korean before. Chanoknun attended one semester of college in Thailand before coming to Korea, and Tachaporn came to Korea right after high school. They both received scholarships for international students and are enjoying life in Korea. Chanoknun is currently a student at Yonsei’s Underwood International College (UIC). She does not have much opportunity to speak Korea, since all of the courses at UIC are conducted in English. Even so, her Korean was quite impressive. Tachaphon, who has passed the second level of the Korean Language Proficiency exam, said, “For me, taking classes in English is harder, although Korean is still difficult.” There are currently three Thai students at the Yonsei Graduate School. The number of exchange students and Language Institute students is larger. Chanoknun and Tachaporn meet every one or two weeks at Sinchon with other students from Thailand. “We did not know each other before we came to Korea,” Chanoknun said. “When I came to Korea, there weren’t many students from Thailand, but now there are quite a few. Students from Thailand now meet often since last semester.”