no.142 130919 Thank you for the interesting passerby

Francis the little fox. I love children's book, especially the cute little illustrations.

I enjoy meeting new people. Although I'm not the most outgoing person, I like to engage in a conversation with strangers. Well, they're not totally random strangers who you meet on the street or on the subway, but in a setting where it allows you to easily start off a conversation with someone. For example, I do this a lot when I volunteer at the Japanese cultural centre. I volunteer as a gallery assistant and one of my duties is to greet the visitors. Some volunteers just welcome them with a hello and usually that is the end of their conversation. But others, including myself, like to question them and get to know them a bit more. Yes, you might never see them again but that really shouldn't stop you from interacting with them.

I got to speak to a few people when I volunteered today, and got to meet an interesting person. He's a third gen Japanese in Brazil. I thought that was very special because I've never met anyone with that kind of background. As there weren't that many visitors at the gallery, we were able to chat for a bit. Talking to him made me realize that I should study Korean history. Both him and I agreed that we should know our culture and history better. When I asked him if he knew Japanese, he said he doesn't know any. I'm a 1.5 gen, so I can read, write and speak Korean fluently. I have some 2nd gen friends around me and I'd say half of them can speak Korean pretty fluently, but the other half are pretty bad at speaking (I won't say names), but they do understand.

I thought about my children in the future. I definitely want to keep and teach Korean culture and heritage to my children. I'm guessing it would be a less of a challenge for a 1.5 gen to raise the children to know the Korean language and the culture than a 2nd gen. I wonder what my children would do and how they would feel about teaching their kids about Korean heritage. I wonder if they will even appreciate it. I mean, I'm pretty sure that as generations pass, it will be more difficult to preserve the heritage. I can't expect them to love Korea as much as I do (although I'm not that patriotic myself), but I want my children, and their children to know that they are Korean and that they would be proud to call themselves Korean.

I'm thankful to meet this passerby. It made me think about a lot of things that I never really thought about before.