The more than 6,000 miles that separate them means nothing to Dong-Joon Lee, junior vocal performance major, and Sun Suk Lee, 2009 Emporia State graduate. They plan to get married and live in the U.S.

“We got engaged so we are going to get married soon,” Dong-Joon said. “It’s a lot. But it’s OK. Sometimes I really miss her. Distance does not matter. It can’t be an excuse.”

But until then, Dong-Joon will not make the nearly 20 hour flight to see Sun Suk in their home country of South Korea. He said that it’s hard, but it’s only for this semester.

“We cannot see each other,” Dong-Joon said. “That’s the only part (that’s hard). Everything else is fine.”

While Andrew Thomas, senior economics major, is only a little over an hour away from his girlfriend, Megan Litchkowski, senior elementary education major, it is still hard. But not as difficult as when he studied abroad last semester in The Netherlands.

“Obviously (the biggest change) was not being able to see each other or talk to each other,” Thomas said. “Before I left, we lived together and we saw each other all day, every day.”

Dong-Joon and Sun Suk have been dating for over a year and they met here at ESU. With this being their first semester apart, Dong-Joon and Sun Suk utilize modern technologies to keep in touch.

“We have phone and email and an internet phone,” Dong-Joon said. “(It’s like Skype) but it’s a system only for Koreans. It works anywhere in the world and it’s totally free. We communicate a lot.”

Thomas said that the use of Skype also made things a lot easier to deal with for him.

“I used Skype for everything,” Thomas said. “Every once in a while I used an international cell phone, but it’s just so expensive.”

And as the saying goes, distance makes the heart grow fonder.

“We miss each other a lot,” Dong-Joon said. “That makes us keep up communication. I don’t usually express (my feelings) to her. Now I express (myself) more than before due to the distance.”

Relationships between international students usually break up when one person involved leaves, Dong-Joon said.

“Most (international relationships) break up,” Dong-Joon said. “There are barriers between students from other countries. They like hanging out with students from their own country. After finishing their degree, they go back to their country and it’s easy to break up.”

Back in Korea, Dong-Joon’s family lives in Seoul. Sun Suk is currently about an hour to the south in Uiwang.

“It’s not that far, not that close,” Dong-Joon said. “I’ve been there once last summer to meet her parents.”

Now that Thomas is back in the U.S., Litchkowski has moved to Olathe to student teach.

“Now we see each other every weekend,” Thomas said. “It’s a lot easier than it was.”

Thomas said that with two and a half years already under their belt, the decision to continue the relationship, through the distance, was an easy one.

“The only reason that it really worked in our situation was because we had already been dating so long,” Thomas said. “We had enough trust in each other that we were able to make it work.”

Dong-Joon advised persons considering a long distance relationship to think about the decision.

“They should think about it,” Dong-Joon said, “because (they need to know) one thing for sure – if they really love each other. You hear it a lot ‘out of sight out of mind.’ But if you really love each other, it should be ‘out of sight into the mind.’”

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