Ingenuity and Koreans travelling abroad and the USA
Ingenuity and Koreans
I was also impressed quite early on, with the ingenuity of Korean people. One young student told me the story of her quest to learn English. She was lucky enough to be able to travel to California, USA and backpack around for a month. Travelling alone, aged 23 and not really knowing anyone, she started attending the local church on Sundays despite having no 
interest in religion. Knowing that people in church are usually quite friendly and open to conversation, she used this opportunity to get free English conversation. Morally it may or may not be right, but it is a creative idea. Another one of my Korean students told me of how whilst travelling the U.S., she naturally said that she was Korean when the subject of nationality came up. But, if she accidentally upset someone or got into an embarrassing situation due to her lack of understanding of Western culture, she would say she was Japanese.
I found Koreans to be very open from the very start. Some Koreans told me you should not talk about certain things i.e. politics, but it was my own personal experience from the start, that students often enjoyed and wanted as much as possible to know the views from a Western perspective. The same students were also often more than willing to share their own thoughts; thoughts which were always interesting and often different to my own.
