Foreigners don't always want to be friends.

Although we come from a variety of different backgrounds, we are one in Korea.  We are waegook saram's... We are the foreigners.  And while we are held in polite curiousity by the Koreans, it is abundantly clear that we are gooky.  Most of us are poor at using chopsticks, all of us speak with funny accents or in different languages, we don't understand their customs, we live in the gook-jay, we go to class in a segregated building, and we hang out in the global lounge.  Being a foreigner is somewhat like being an animal in a zoo.  They are quite friendly, treat us kindly, but we are just "the weirdest things" they've ever come across.  It's a strange concept, but completely understandable.  I would look at people back home with a polite curiousity too if they looked as funny and foreign as we do sometimes.  (I'll admit, I typically cannot get the food on my chopsticks to reach my mouth with much success).  However, what strikes me as odd, is that within the international students there is a hierarchy.  There are the English speakers, the sort-of English speakers, the Chinese speakers, the Japanese Speakers, and the people that speak something very different or not at all.  I didn't think it was a big deal to "consort" with the almost-speakers until I began getting funny looks and questions... The whole thing made me laugh.  How does anyone have time to worry about cliques when I barely have enough friends to make a whole one?  There are approximately 20 native English speaking students in the entire building, and a handful more that can understand mostly what you say if you cut it down to the basics and use signing and people are still worried about who they're seen with?!  What a silly thought. 

On another silly tangeant...  This school hands out a handful of scholarships specific to the area that you came from.  For instance, my scholarship is for American students but there is another scholarship exactly like it for African and Middle Eastern students under a different name.  The American kids were all given single rooms with fridges and televsions while the other kids on scholarship were either placed into two or three people rooms without the luxuries.   I didn't realize until someone started asking me about what I like to watch on television and what sort of shows there were.  It actually  made me feel really, really bad.  It's no wonder people are getting so cliquey..

Well, anyways, if you'll excuse me I need to go back to consorting with the non-native English speakers.  They're less judgmental.  I think.  Or maybe I just don't understand what they're saying.  Either way, a delightful sort.