Evan CP#6

 Jihye and I met again after a brief hiatus. I have a class immediately before our meeting, and if not for that our meeting would be my only obligation on campus, on a Friday. Class was canceled, I think you can do the math. After this break however, we met again as usual, though this time, slightly different. Typically she is rather quiet, but very attentive. This time, she had a question for me, what the States think of (in her case) South Koreans. This was a tough question, she was explicitly asking after stereotypes, which I try to avoid in principle. For another, the history of South Korea is young, incredibly young. Korean history itself goes back into ancient antiquities,  but the modern state known as South Korea only really came into existence as a result of Russia/U.S proxy wars. They have yet to truly be international actors as well. I commented on their lack of wars with America as well, typically our propaganda is a source of these pervasive stereotypes. I truly could not answer her question. I told her some typical stereotypes about Asian culture, the minimal pair with "L" and "R", but neither did I really satisfy her answer nor feel good about myself in doing so. Either way we continued on talking about some minor things in South Korean culture, a little about their history. All in all it was a very interesting conversation.

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