▶ Topic : A Foreigner's Life A Foreigner’s Life I had not been in a minority group before I came to the United States. Fortunately, I do not have any physical disabilities and I am not in one-parent families or low-income households. I am not sexual minorities or do not believe a religion that is held by a minority of the population as well. Moreover, I do not have any exceptional talent that is likely to be in a biography of a great man such as a sense of perfect pitch that Mozart had. I am literally an ordinary person. I am also a person who tends to conceal difference with others in order to fit in. Even if my opinion is different with a decision which is decided by the principle of majority rule, I tend to comply it without any complaint because I am reluctant to stand out from the crowd and I am afraid of being different with others. I am such an introvert person so that I have had a hard time in the United States, living as a stranger. I am different with people who have different languages, appearances, and cultures. Since I am not fluent in English, I have a handful of friends who are native Americans. It is difficult to continue a conversation after introducing oneself since there are no sharing interests. Even though the conversation was often continued with regarded subjects of studies or today’s weather, it is still hard to share my innermost feelings due to my poor English skill in speaking. That’s why most of my friends are international students. They do not speak extremely fast and they can relate to difficulties I have suffered from. Language has sometimes required an understanding of nuance, historical background, the country’s custom, so on. There are substantially many abbreviations, idioms, homonyms, and adages in each language. There are sad anecdotes I experienced when I have lived in the United States as a foreigner. When I had time to form a group for a group project in the Hospitality class, no one was willing to be the same team with me. I believe they judged that being the same team with me would be disadvantageous to their team since I am a foreigner. With the help of the professor, Dr. Collen Engle, I was assigned to a group which has the fewest team members. I was able to feel that they were reluctant to me. I can rationally understand their mind that they did not want to be the same team with me since their academic performance as students is a sensitive part. However, I was still disappointed. Their nonverbal expressions such as stiff look, gesture, and a way of speaking make me in order that I do not say anything more. Nevertheless, I did my best on the group project to avoid disadvantages to their grade as well as my grade. When a professor, Dr. Allen, said jokes in another class, I just laughed along with my classmates in order to pretend that I understood what he meant. When I face the language barrier, I feel like I am in a different world. Not just from a language, many of inconveniences also come from a different lifestyle as what I had lived in my country, South Korea. No one told me about “Summertime” which is a social system for the efficient use of daylight hours in last Spring. I just knew I had to simply replace batteries in my desk clock because there was an hour difference between my cell phone time and table clock. It took place after a spring break. I was totally confused what time I had to go a class, not determining which clock I should trust on. Eventually, I got to know what is summertime through internet searching and realized my cell phone was automatically changed time by Google. In South Korea, it was implemented in the 1960s before I was born, but it disappeared because it was uncomfortable. That’s why I got to know at that time. Another inconvenience is that units used to measure certain objects are different. America uses a unit of measure; lb, inch, mile, Fahrenheit, so on. In contrast, South Korea uses a unit of measure; kg, cm, km, Celsius so on. I had no idea how much the measured value is when I needed to order shoes or find the distance of till a destination on the Google map. I am still unfamiliar the units America uses. The most inconvenience in the United States is the life without a car. America is extremely wide so that it is hard to go somewhere if you do not have a car. It usually takes six hours to go from Oneonta to New York City through a Trailways bus. It usually takes more than twenty minutes to go to Oneonta downtown through an Oneonta OPT bus as well. Even though I have a driver’s license, I do not have a car because I am not good at diving. When I came back to school after last summer vacation, I had to come back to the campus with two carriers. I arrived the downtown at 9 pm but I was not able to call a taxi because my cell phone ran out of battery. Each carrier was 71 lbs so that I needed a car to load them. I had to ask riding to people who passed by the main street. Fortunately, I was able to meet Chinese middle-aged couple who have a daughter who is a SUNY Oneonta student, Danyi. At the time, I met her for the first time since she was a transfer student. They are a family who immigrated to New York. As such, there were many dramatic incidents. It was difficult to come to the United States, Nevertheless, I wanted to give up and go back to South Korea because I had a hard time in a long time. I spent a lot of time alone and did by myself. I was not mature enough to enjoy the time. I know It will help me to grow up and mature. However, it is a growing pain that I do not want to go through it again. |