On Saturday, January 19th from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., I Skyped with Dojun. We mainly talked about politics, economic issues, and religion in the United States and South Korea. Dojun explained to me that there are two major political parties in South Korea, the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party. The current president is part of the Progressive Party and is concerned about the welfare of the people regarding wealth inequality as well as relations between North Korea and South Korea. He also told me that that many young Koreans are unable to afford to buy a house and that the economy is not the best right now. I then shared with him some of the issues that many people throughout the United States face such as child poverty, emergency management, and wealth inequality. Towards the end of the session, we talked about religion in South Korea and the United States. He shared with me that most people are Christian and that Buddhism is the second largest religion in South Korea. He said that religion is typically not an issue over there and that people from different religious groups get along. Throughout the session, I would correct any words he would misuse or mispronounce.
My third conversation partner meeting was with Josue, my conversation partner from Paris, France. He suggested that we go to a restaurant for this meeting, and recommended the Colombian restaurant on Tennessee St. called "Super Perros". I had never been to this restaurant before, so it was interesting to not only converse with someone from outside of my culture but also at a cultural restaurant with an atmosphere and menu different than what I am used to. Most of the menu was in Spanish, so we were able to bond over trying to figure out what the menu was saying, and ended up sharing a lot of laughs over it. During our meeting, we caught up on how he was doing at CIES, what he's involved in in Tallahasee, and discussed deeper topics such as the current political affairs going on in France. This led to a grander discussion about American politics, and it turned out we had similar views. It was interesting to connect our ideas across border lines, realizing we all want the ...
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