Grace Kim - Assignment 3

There is a saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. I understand there are always stumbling blocks if one is adjusting to a new culture and especially the communication is the biggest problem. However it can’t be always a stumbling for one when you are trying to learn a new language because the language is about one country’s culture and life. If you want to learn a new language, you better learn their culture first or understand it first.
This reading reminds me of the past times I’ve spent in English speaking countries. The first thing I’ve realized was that all of Canadians are so friendly compare to Koreans. It is the “nonverbal signs symbols” Canadians smile all the time at strangers. I was so nervous when I first went to the high school. However, all of them were so nice that I misunderstood that they were overacting. It is such a rare thing if you are smiling at strangers in Korea. As the Japanese student aforementioned in the article, “the person can assume he is either a sexual maniac or an impolite person”. It happens to me sometimes, whenever I’m in S.Korea during the break and I smile at strangers or just have smiling face with me all the time and people might think I’m weird but it’s not be case for me because I got used to it. I’ve became different due to where I live and the people who I lived with. Also when I’m not in Korea I speak about anything in Korean with my friends freely. For example, my friend would say “hey look at her clothe it’s not cute” to me in Korean because I knew that nobody will be able to understand our conversation. I know it’s mean but it’s one of my experiences but it comes to a problem if we do the same thing when we are in Korea by forgetting about the fact we are in Korea. Sadly it happened to us also because we got used to talking about things in Korean in public without caring who are with us in Canada.
The preconceptions and stereotypes were interesting topic. In Korea being polite to elders are extremely important. By one year older difference, you will act differently. You will speak in honorific way and would take orders from them and so on. However, it wouldn’t be the case to Americans. Just like the example in the book, the Korean guy was shocked by how his friend just told me he was busy and wouldn’t let him in even though he visited him or not. It’s almost impossible to treat a person like that in Korea. Because the fact Koreans are very polite, I totally understand how impressed the Korean guy would be. But it’s not a problem for American to even think about because he was just busy and himself is more important than other people’s visiting.
Lastly, the high anxiety is only one can understand whoever really experienced against the communication difficulties. In my case, I never really had Korean friends last 5years because the places I stayed at didn’t really have Koreans so I only stick with non Koreans. At first, I had difficulties catching teen words or slang. So even if I don’t really understand what they were talking about and why they were really laughing, I sometimes pretend I got it. However It’s not the case anymore that I really feel comfortable being with my American friends than my Korean friends. I can say I absorbed more of American life style or has became Americanized. However I have multicultural and it helps me a lot for me to look at two different life style and follow two of them.
Thinking what I am going to say before I say something, feel nervous about being with native speakers, feel embarrassed about the misspeaking and misspelling, frustrated about things I can’t be able to explain in English. All of these past experiences are what non native English speakers been through. Due to these kinds of difficulties, I could become better me right now. Intercultural communication stumbling blocks are the fact the international students have to overcome with and learn from it. However, it is the cultural different that we have to understand when we are in roman. In order to master one different language, these are the situations that we have to experience.