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87 making an impacT sTronger T ogeTher One individual making an impact is Brazilian Lena Sull, who came to Seoul 26 years ago after having met and married a Korean busi- nessman in New York. She is currently busy volunteering in the capital for Planting Love, a charity supporting unmarried women and their children. She also helps out at the Seoul Met- ropolitan Children’s Welfare Center. One of her other passions is improving links between her native and adopted countries as head of the Korea-Brazil Cultural Alliance. The “Girl from Ipanema” ringtone on her cell phone shows that she is still fond of her Latin Ameri - can roots, although she is happy with her life in Seoul and has no plans to return to Brazil with her family. “I grew up in many different coun - tries, not just Brazil,” she recalls. “I do not really miss anything. I grew up like that.” Sull had previously lived in Italy and the U.S., but knew very little about Korea before she ar - rived. “All I saw in the news were the student demonstrations,” she said. “I did not have any preconceptions. I was used to seeing different countries. I was not surprised.” But when she finally arrived in Seoul at the age of 30, the city was very different from today’s bustling metropolis. There was also a smaller but more cohesive Latin American Back at Som os, the dancing and laughter continue among the happy crowd enjoying this tiny corner of Latin America in the middle of Seoul. Those from the Latin American commu- nity as well as from other parts of the world can relax knowing that they are not isolated in this big city far from home, something that they share with the Koreans chatting, drinking and dancing along with them. For 49-year-old Puerto Rican musician and salsa teacher Juan Riviera, Somos lives up to its meaning of “we are,” for himself, his Latin counterparts and Koreans alike. “This is not our country and Koreans are in- terested in Latin culture,” he said after finally returning to the bar from the dance floor. “It’s very important for the Hispanic culture in Ko- rea. This is my life.” ‘In Korea, the values that we share are really dIfferent. for example, we enjoy lIfe and socIalIzIng and beIng frIendly and open. In Korea It’s a lIttle bIt the opposIte.’ mIquel gonzalez, somos community in those days. Many had moved to Seoul because of their partners’ work, some of whom formed a society for the newly arrived expats. She feels that the Latin American pop- ulation, though larger, is now less business-ori- ented and made up of people pursuing more individual goals. “Everybody kind of went their own way,” she says. She feels that this is partly due to the grow- ing interest in Korea, and believes that Latinos coming to Seoul today will find Korean attitudes different to those she experienced when she arrived in early 1988. “Korea changed after the (2002) World Cup,” she says. “They could compete with the world. They lost that shyness. They were much more open.” MorE INfo j Somos www.somos.co.kr www.facebook.com/SOMOS.co.kr www.meetup.com/_SOMOS_ Latin American Center of Korea www.facebook.com/latincenter www.nunezcristina.com