Gabe - CP #5 (Dojun)

     Since Dojun lives in South Korea, I met him via zoom. We first started talking about how he learned English and what he does for a living. He told me that in Korea, when he was a kid, that learning English is mandatory and that he took six years of it during middle and high school, as well as taking a business English class at university. Apparently nowadays kids begin learning English in elementary school, for a total of 12 years including middle and high school. He majored in Aviation and works as an air traffic controller. He says he that in school, he learned how to read and write well but that his conversation and listening skills need improving, which is why he wants to have conversations. 

    We spent a lot of time talking about the Covid-19 situation and how differently it's viewed and handled between Korea and the U.S. In Korea, everyone wears masks - it's required, but hardly anyone complains - whereas over here, masks are optional in most places, and many outright refuse to wear them. We talked a lot about how contentious the mask debate has gotten here. When I mentioned that many people refuse to wear masks, even at funerals or in hospitals, he asked me if it was mandated to wear masks or not. I told him that it wasn't mandated and that in fact, when schools and other businesses tried to mandate it in Florida, our own governor sued them and threatened to withhold funding, which he found shocking. I contrasted this with how when I went to Costa Rica, masks were required everywhere and they even had sinks outside of every building and you had to wash your hands in order to enter, and the only people who complained about this were American tourists. 

    He told me that the only people who really complained about Covid restrictions in Korea were small business owners, whose businesses were hurt by the pandemic, but that everyone else understood that the restrictions were necessary in order to help stop the spread. On the topic of vaccines, he said that they didn't start getting vaccines in Korea until about May, and people were very critical of the government for not getting them sooner, but once they got them, most everyone was willing and wanted to get vaccinated. He then told me that he heard that so many people in the U.S. have refused vaccines and that we have so many here that we've had to throw some out due to lack of demand and I told him that this was unfortunately true. 

    On a lighter note, we talked about some holidays in Korea and America. I first mentioned Thanksgiving and how it was coming up and I asked if he had heard about this and if there was something similar in Korea. He said he had heard of Thanksgiving and told me it was a lot like Chuseok in Korea. We spent around the last 15 minutes or so of the conversation talking about the similarities and differences between these holidays. The main differences were the dates (Chuseok is celebrated in September and Thanksgiving in November) and the foods (Korean vs American food, duh). The biggest similarities were the fact that there is much traffic caused by everyone traveling to meet up with their families and that the foods served are traditional to the holiday (you can usually expect the same food every year).