My First Foreign Interface

Mr. Patalinghug is never a tiresome instructor. He is not the typical instructor, because he is unpredictable. In spite of his quite challenging tasks, we are able to acquire knowledge and skills on his subject. He makes his class full of learning.

One unexpected morning, he announced to us that we are going to interview Korean Engineering students as part of our blog making. I felt so excited. I prepared my possible questions for them. But before we met them we are with our partners. My partner interviewee was Angelicon.

It was an advantage on my part because I was already expose in talking with foreigners. When I was a waitress before, we had a lot of foreign costumers. I also worked as a cashier at the same time beauty consultant in Korean cosmetics store in SM Cebu. Most of our customers are purely Koreans. I need to speak English if there are foreign customers to have a better communication with them. It was a nice experience that one of them initiated friendship with me. Her name was Goim Choi. She was a volunteer in MV Doulos (a ship which goes around the world to sell quality books). I could remember when she shopped; she wants me to assist her. We had a fluent conversation. She was really nice to me as I was with her. She was one of my exceptional acquaintances, I cannot forget her.

Well, in this subject it was different from my experience before though they have the same nationality.  We met Oh So Yeon or Andi , 24. He was an Engineering student in Chungyang University. He was the first to ask some of our personal information. Our conversation was a formal because, what he asks is what we directly answered. Then he writes what we were exactly said. As what I have observed, he was shy to us; and I think it is usually happening in a situation like what we had on that morning. I tried to break the barrier between of us three when it is our time to ask him anything under the sun. The question I had prepared was about Korean television programs, “As another side of the student life, are you also interested on television dramas or series?” I think I was successful on throwing him a question like that. He replied positively.  I was so delighted that we were alike, he also watched “Helena’s Promise”. Another thing that pleased us was when I asked him “what can you say about Cebuanas?” he said that Cebuanas are beautiful. It sounds flattering right?  We proudly introduced to him our Sinulog Festival, but I think he doesn’t know it yet. He also plays soccer, he remember it when he looked at our soccer field. Angelicon and I heard from another group talking about their facebook account, so we asked him if he had also. He had in Korean, actually he gave his fb-phone number to us just as time had ended. However, our meetings with them did not end there. Mr. Patalinghug said we are going to see them for three or four meetings. I am so intimidated.

Both old and new experiences realize me that both parties should know common language to create a relationship. It is hard to do a process when there is a wall between the two. One of the two must adjust to the level of the other. Thus, those unforgettable experiences gave me an another way of learning language and communication.