My conversation partner is great. If you asked me to describe her in five words: Has. Only. Experienced. South. Korea. Her name is Yenyoung. She is extremely enthusiastic about learning the English language and about American culture. I met her in the first floor of the BLUU, feeling like I was on a blind date because we exchanged information about our clothing color (I felt like I should have been holding a rose), I notice her stop talking to someone midsentence to come greet me. She insisted on buying me coffee, and I insisted otherwise. After an awkward pause, because she didn’t understand why I wouldn’t want someone to buy me something, we sat down and began to introduce ourselves.
She is married and has a family consisting of a fifth and seventh grader. They reside in Keller, TX, and will be there for a total of two years for her husband’s job transfer. She shops at the Asian market three times a month to stalk up. Her kids love spaghetti, but she doesn’t understand it. Americans like bread. Her two kids, who’s names I can’t pronounce, are assimilating to America very well and have a lot of friends here. She was an elementary school teacher back home.
It is so much fun talking to her because even though she still isn’t super strong in the language, she is so confident in herself and anxious to learn. She fired questions at me: about school here, about the variety of cultures the US has in different regions, about the large portions of food served at restaurants, how to cook food, and if I had a boyfriend (not trying to stereotype, but she sounded exactly like Anjelah Johnson’s impersonation of “nail salon” lady on YouTube – it was awesome). She was incredibly personable and excited to talk more.
When leaving our first meeting, we were setting up a place to meet next time and she offered to pay me to bring friends, because she wanted to meet more people. I told her I would love to bring friends, but there was no need to pay. She still didn’t seem to understand that, and insisted she pay at least four more times. Finally plans were made, but the one problem was I couldn’t understand where she wanted to meet next time. It sounded like she was saying “Ace-staynce“ to me, and despite her repeating it three times, I couldn’t figure it out. I told her to text me the name and address, and I would make it there. Today she texted me saying, “see you at Einstein’s on University”. See you tomorrow Yenyoung!
Hi Caitlin, thanks for the good post. I am glad that you have had your first conversation, and it sounds as thought it went well. Yenyoung seems like a good conversation partner, since she has so many questions and such excitement. I hope all of your meetings go as well as this one did. dw
ReplyDelete