Stephen's CP Experience #1

I have truly had a great first week of experiences with my conversation partner John. When I first met John he was with his friend Eric from Burkina Faso. Eric told me to stay away from John because he was "CRAZY". What an amazing place CIES must be, that a South Korean and a Burkina Fasoan are such good friends, thousands of miles away from their homes. John is from South Korea and he has one older sister. He is a Christian, and he was very excited when I told him that I was a minister's son. I asked John why he wanted to learn English, and he told me that his mom had prayed with the elders of his church and they had discovered that God wanted him to be a CEO of a company. In order to become a CEO, he had to come to America to learn English.

Out of the three Koreans I met on that "tea party" Friday, all three made the distinction that they were South Korean. North Korea and South Korea are separated by a wall of barbed wire and machine guns. John told me a story about how he had come into contact with North Koreans who had escaped and fled to South Korea. He said that they were not allowed to believe in God and that the escaped North Koreans had friends that had been run over by tanks for expressing their beliefs. I thought that was a pretty powerful story, and it gave me an insight into what it meant to be religious in South Korea. At the end of the hour, I got John's number and e-mail, and I also met his friends: Seongbong, and Young. I invited them to come to my place on Friday.

On Friday, John and friends came over to my apartment. (BTW the only place these CIES students know on campus seems to be the Leach Center, and CIES). First, I helped John find his lost keys at the Leach Center. Then, I had to run all over campus trying to find Seongbong and Youngsong. Sadly their GPS didn't work too well trying to find my apartment. My friends and my brother got to meet all of my Korean friends for the first time and we all went to eat Mexican food at Moes. John really likes spicy food so he loved trying the hottest salsa at Moes. I think everybody had a really good time. I never thought I would be arguing with South Koreans over who was the hottest girl in the korean pop band 소녀시대 Girl's Generation. I think John and friends had the most fun playing in a fuseball tournament at the end of the night. I learned so many things that night about Korean culture. Men are forced to join the military for two years after school. Also, South Koreans know a lot about Hollywood, and watch a lot of Western movies with Korean subtitles.

On Saturday, John and I went to the FSU basketball game VS. Virginia Tech. John thought it was amazing how professional the players were, even though they were in college. After the game we were planning on going to a Jazz club but that plan fell through. Instead we bought pizza from Walmart, a bottle of Cola, some chips, and then went to my apartment and had a pizza party. John asked me how Americans celebrate birthdays. (I think he was asking because it's my birthday on the 22nd). I told him that college students don't ask for gifts on their birthdays from their friends because students don't have any money. Instead I told him that a nice greeting card, like those made by Hallmark, would suffice. John also asked me that night to correct his English when he uses incorrect grammar. I will have to work on really correcting what John says, because before just being able to understand what he meant was good enough.

All in all, it was a really successful week. The next time I see John I'll ask him if he wants me to meet him once a week for tutoring his English skills. I wish I would have started to learn a language like Spanish or Chinese since elementary school like John who has been studying English already for almost 12 years. I think its amazing how you can learn to interact with somebody learning English, and how you can teach yourself how to speak simpler English in order to interact with English learners. :)