2nd Meeting with Hana Jang

Today, I met with Hana again after her class, but this time she brought a friend from class with her.  Her friend’s name is Oliver, and she is also from South Korea.  Oliver lives in Keller, Texas at the time, and she has 2 daughters, one 14 and one 12.  It was interesting to me that she was willing to come all the way to Texas to learn English, especially having two children.  I guess that shows how dedicated she is to learning a new language that will help her achieve her goal of becoming a teacher. 

We all ate together at Union Grounds.  They got sushi, and I got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  They were surprised at my sandwich and said they had never had one before.  That was shocking to me, since most American kids live on them at one point or another.  They were also shocked that I didn’t like sushi or fish.  They looked at each other and laughed when I told them I didn’t like it.  They were in disbelief and kept trying to get me to try some of it.

I asked Oliver about how school is in Korea, and she told me that in college the normal weekly hours are 18-21.  I thought that was interesting because we only see 12 hours as being full time, with most people taking 15 hours on average.  It made me think that our cultural differences might not be just language or food.  I think that as Americans we take education seriously but not as seriously as many other countries around the world.

Another cultural difference I realized is that we address people differently in American culture than they do in Korea.  Hana told me that since Oliver is an older woman, she greets her with a bowing of the head instead of a simple “hey.”  I never noticed that we don’t really have different ways of addressing one another according to age, unless we are writing a letter with either Miss or Mrs.  It never would have occurred to me that they would have specific ways to greet each other according to their age. 

I feel like I’m learning a lot of things from Hana, and it was good to meet with her friend Oliver and get another perspective.  Overall, they are just like any other college student.  Both of them told me that they hate to wake up early, and they like to hang out with friends and go out on the weekends just like everyone else.  I’m realizing that we have some strong similarities, but we also have some really cool differences that are fun to find out about.