Two years has passed since the day I came to the University of Cincinnati, and also it also has been the first two years of my new life here in the United States. I have met many new people here with different backgrounds, nationalities and ethnics. Usually, when first meeting someone, I will make some assumptions about that person based on how they look, what they wear and how they talk. These ideas will not be one hundred percent accurate, and sometimes, it gives me the completely wrong thinking about someone. One of these situations that I had the wrong idea of someone is with my best friend, David Jung.
David was a freshman from Korean when I first met him in my first year. Because we both major in business, we have many similar classes that we take together. My first assumption about him is that he was cold and distant. Although we lived in the same dorm building and sat next to each other in our classes, it was hard for me to get to know him because he rarely talked to me although I usually was the one who started the conversation to break the ice. In addition, when talking about this with my other friends, they told me that Korean people do not like to talk to other people from “not-so-developed” countries like Vietnam or China because Korean thinks that they have better culture and quality of life. After knowing this, I made an assumption about David that he was a racist guy who considers himself better than me just because I am not Korean like him.
However, things changed when it was the end of the first fall semester. I missed a few classes due to having a cold. After coming back, I was having troubles with studying due to lack of note that I was supposed to take in class. Knowing that I was struggling, David offered to help me and spent his free time to catch me up with our class. It was a surprise to me that someone like him would help me like that. In the end, I knew that the reason he did not talk to me a lot was that he had poor English speaking skills. Although he could listen or write well, speaking was hard for him because of the Korean accent that makes other people hard to understand what he said. Because of that, he became shy and did not want to communicate a lot by using English. After knowing this, I felt embarrassed of myself because of the quick judgment I made on someone I just met that makes me treat them differently from what I should have done. However, I returned his favor by practicing English with him every day and from that moment; we became good friend of each other. This situation teaches me a good lesson about how to judge people when I first meet them by knowing two sides of them, not just from my side.
David was a freshman from Korean when I first met him in my first year. Because we both major in business, we have many similar classes that we take together. My first assumption about him is that he was cold and distant. Although we lived in the same dorm building and sat next to each other in our classes, it was hard for me to get to know him because he rarely talked to me although I usually was the one who started the conversation to break the ice. In addition, when talking about this with my other friends, they told me that Korean people do not like to talk to other people from “not-so-developed” countries like Vietnam or China because Korean thinks that they have better culture and quality of life. After knowing this, I made an assumption about David that he was a racist guy who considers himself better than me just because I am not Korean like him.
However, things changed when it was the end of the first fall semester. I missed a few classes due to having a cold. After coming back, I was having troubles with studying due to lack of note that I was supposed to take in class. Knowing that I was struggling, David offered to help me and spent his free time to catch me up with our class. It was a surprise to me that someone like him would help me like that. In the end, I knew that the reason he did not talk to me a lot was that he had poor English speaking skills. Although he could listen or write well, speaking was hard for him because of the Korean accent that makes other people hard to understand what he said. Because of that, he became shy and did not want to communicate a lot by using English. After knowing this, I felt embarrassed of myself because of the quick judgment I made on someone I just met that makes me treat them differently from what I should have done. However, I returned his favor by practicing English with him every day and from that moment; we became good friend of each other. This situation teaches me a good lesson about how to judge people when I first meet them by knowing two sides of them, not just from my side.