Conversation Numero Dos

Shinhye loves to text me. At least once a day I have a conversation with her via text. She’s really quite thoughtful. All week she asked if I was getting rest and taking care of myself.

We met again this Monday. I was perkier this time but also still extremely sick. She must think I am a sickly, fragile person. She is really convinced that I don’t get enough rest even though I told her I had slept 10-12 hours every night the previous week thanks to the snow days.

This time, she came prepared. She brought me a paragraph she had written on the importance of learning about a culture as you learn the corresponding language. She wanted to spend some of our time reading through it so that I could correct her grammar mistakes. I’ve noticed from my limited study of other languages that lots of other languages don’t have articles. That was her biggest problem. She left out a number of a’s, an’s, and the’s. I did my best to really correct her and show her what a native speaker would’ve written. But at the same time I didn’t want to discourage her by marking up her paper so I really hyped up her flawless sentences.

Shortly after we finished looking over her paper, her brother, Joseph, came to meet us. I had told her he was welcome to come “hang out” with us because he did not have a language partner. I hoped that more people would mean less awkward silences. I was right to an extent. I talked with her brother about how he wants to study fashion and design. His goal is to finish learning English at TCU, then move to New York City and attend Parsons. That’s a lofty goal. I told him I had been to New York City and promptly pulled my computer out to show him all the pictures. I tried to ask them if they had ever been to a big city like Tokoyo but I’m still not completely clear on their answer to that one. They constantly smile and say yes so it can be very misleading and confusing.

The conversation still felt contrived. We all shared our birthdays and interestingly enough, Shinhye and I share a birthday. The exact same day and year: August 29, 1991. Now that was quite the coincidence.

Finally things began to flow more naturally. We talked about marriage. My sister is 21 and married with two kids so Shinhye asked if I too wanted to marry young. I replied that it depended on her definition of young. I can’t really see myself getting married before I’m out of college and she agreed with my stance. Apparently in South Korea most people don’t get married until they are 29 or 30. I’m not sure about her brother’s answer. He said something about only having five years in the USA and immigration. Maybe he wants to marry so he can stay here? I have no clue.

Once again, as we said goodbye, Shinhye hugged me awkwardly with one arm and told me to get rest and take vitamins. As always, I assured her I would and went home to nap.