Racial discrimination and refugee hatred are worldwide challenges today. In South Korea, the admission of the Afghan evacuees’ children faced a big resistance from some parents. Experiencing this lack of understanding about others and growing xenophobia, we tried to show how a diverse group of children is learning to live together, regardless of all the differences. This film is the first attempt to show what goes on at Hanam Jungang elementary, a public school near the industrial complex in Gwangju, South Korea. For the past 8 years, the ratio of students from multicultural or foreign families in this school has increased from 5 to 46 percent as more immigrant workers moved to this area. The school has started to run Korean classes for the children whose mother tongue is not Korean. In the canteen, they provide an alternative lunch menu for Muslims who do not eat pork. This is somewhat special to ordinary Korean schools, which are rooted in homogenous culture with longtime mono-ethnicity. Children are still adapting to these changes and sometimes struggle to cope with each other, but they say ‘no problem’. Despite different appearances and cultural backgrounds, they are growing up altogether as ‘Korean kids’ learning to respect and embrace diversity.
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