Alyssa B - CP #4 - Jiwan

Conversation Session 04

Date: July 20, 2017
Time: 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Area: Starbucks
Conversation Partner: Jiwan

To be honest, I don’t think any of my conversation partners or tutees like me. I don’t know why, exactly, but I sort of feel that way. I suppose maybe because I’m not a good tutor, and perhaps because I don’t have much to talk about during conversation…? (I actually told Dasom that I didn’t think that Jiwan liked me that much, and she said Jiwan hadn’t mentioned me.)

              Either way, today Jiwan and I talked about a lot of Korean culture. She told me about how manicures in Korea are much more elaborate than what you can get in America, and showed me pictures. They were super cute!!! One of the styles was having your nails painted to look like M&Ms, so I really want that!

              She also told me about how in Korea, you ALWAYS dress up to go out, no matter where you’re going. To the grocery store? Dress up. You could never wear yoga pants or T-shirts over there in public—I guess it’s seen as trashy. Dasom has to go back to Korea in October, so Jiwan told me that Dasom was a bit nervous going back since she has to start dressing up again and can no longer wear comfy clothes!

              We also talked about stereotypes. We didn’t get into it as seriously as Shuaihua did, but I feel like the Chinese students are much more serious in that respect, haha. Again, the older generations of Korea don’t like the Japanese. They don’t think Americans are lazy, per se, but we don’t work long enough. ^^;

              Jiwan told me about how even though it’s easy for her to tell Asian races apart, it’s hard for her to tell European races apart—like how Americans have a difficult time telling Asians apart. When I asked her how exactly she could tell them apart, she said, “The Japanese just have a certain air about them, and if we can’t tell straight away if a person is Korean or Chinese, they’re Chinese.” This made me laugh a lot.

              Apparently, that day the Korean students also made Korean noodles in the CIES building for lunch. When I went there, I thought it smelled delicious!!! She told me they hadn’t expected it to smell so strongly, and had gotten a bit worried about it, haha.

              Well, there was more, but that was the gist of it!