“The Land of Opportunity”

Corinne 0:01
Alright, shall we get started?

Jay
Okay.

Corinne
So I’m basically gonna pretend like I don’t know you so I’ll be, I’ll just introduce you. Um, so what is your name?

Jay
Haha, Jay Bae.

Corinne
And where are you from?

Jay 0:19
I’m from South Korea.

Corinne 0:21
Alright. Um, so, and I’m Corinne Neaveill. I’m the interviewer. Um, so basically, could you just give me, you could just start off with like a little synopsis of what brought you here, whatever you’re comfortable sharing. I don’t want to like intrude or whatever. But you know, I mean, sort of like your story. And then we can go into it and like, go back to points.

Jay 0:52
Not much. So I came here, and I guess, 1973 So it’s almost 50 years ago. So and I was like, eight years old. Um, When I came here, and basically my parents immigrated here. So basically, the kids just came and followed along. Then I went to school in Baltimore City to Baltimore County, then lived in Howard County then was in the Air Force and then after that, then FAA, so, yeah, pretty much worked for the government most my entire life.

Corinne
That’s cool.

Jay
Yeah, and then had the misfortune of working with your dad for too many years. Otherwise, otherwise it was fine. And then there were a couple of years break between the Air Force and FAA but yeah.

Corinne 1:50
So you grew up until you were like eight years old in South Korea.

Jay
Right.

Corinne
What part of South Korea?

Jay 2:00
It is the southernmost city. It’s uh Pusan. Uh Depending on how they do it they spell it P, U, S, A, N, or B, U, S, A, N, and they’re changing the spelling, but that’s the second largest city in Korea.

Corinne
Oh, wow.

Jay
Seoul is probably the one you’ve heard about, Pusan is the other one. It’s a port city. It’s in the southernmost tip.

Unknown Speaker 2:20
Okay, okay. Oh, that’s interesting.

Unknown Speaker 2:23
Yeah so that means. Yeah, so that means when I was growing up, I didn’t see snow until I was eight years old.

Corinne
Hahaha

Jay
It’s not tropical, but just north of the city there is a mountain range. So all the snow usually gets blocked by the mountain. So when I traveled to Seoul to come to the United States in January, that was the first time we actually saw snow.

Corinne 2:45
You saw it when you were coming over for the first time?

Jay 2:49
Yes. And in Seoul, when we went there to get on the airplane to come the United States. Yeah. It snowed there. So it was like Oh! That’s pretty neat! Haha!

Corinne 2:58
Wow, that’s so cool. I love that. Wow. Not until you’re eight years old? That’s crazy. Um, so why did you come to the US? What was your parents, like, what were the push factors, pull factors?

Jay 3:15
I’m not exactly sure what all their reasoning was. The kind of stuff, the reasoning they gave us was basically, it’s better opportunities here, especially for the kids. For education and stuff like that. But yeah, that was the kind of the impetus for them to come here for uh, I guess the better opportunities for their kids. That’s basically what I was told, because they were kind of, I guess you could call middle income in Korea. So it wasn’t like, they were in economic hardship that they had to come to the United States, but for whatever reason, they had, they thought the United States would be better. But you know, you know how your dad is too like, this could be all slanted to kind of put it in their favor. So they make, they look better.

Corinne 4:09
Right, I know. But that’s so cool, though. But, um, why the US specifically, rather than like any other country? Because I mean, it’s kind of far. Well, I guess not really. But.

Jay 4:21
Back in the 70s, the United States was the land of opportunity at the time for most of the world, right. And also, my father actually, we didn’t just come here, he actually had, you to have a job before you come here. So he had a, he had a job where the employer said, ‘Hey, Mr. Bay has a job’ before his uh, visa came through. So yeah, so that’s why the timing- he didn’t control, he didn’t say he wanted to come here in January. It’s just that this is the time, hey this is your window to come here. And that, that’s how we came

Corinne 4:57
Right. And I know I’ve learned in my class like certain, the US has like certain caps for certain countries for like immigration. Was it just like a matter of time that he could get in with that? So he came over with a visa?

Jay 5:15
Yeah, I don’t know about if if, since that was my parents, I don’t know if they felt they had any problem with the cap about how many South Koreans could immigrate to the United States – that I’m not sure about. But there were, I know, there were requirements that they had to meet to come here. And one of the primary ones that I knew about was that they had have a job. And then South Korea, South Korea also had their own rules about who could immigrate and when you could immigrate and what you could immigrate with.

Corinne 5:48
True. um, that makes sense. Now we’re getting to my dad’s question, did you know people in the US already that um, you could stay with or were your, were your parents like, both your mom and dad just came over together? And they had a job lined up? And you had housing already set? Like, how did that go?

Jay 6:21
Yeah, there is no, there’s no such arrangement. Uh, what they had, is like, most of the immigrant families with, the way they work is, when they come in like that, It’s the immigrants themselves, um they have like a network. And even though they might be strangers, right, they help each other out.

Corinne
Right

Jay
So that’s exactly what happened. So my dad had a job. And when he came here, um, other Korean immigrants who were here before, they kind of helped us out a little bit.

Corinne
Oh, that’s cool.

Jay
And basically, basically, we lived in like, somebody’s living room until we could rent a room or apartment. And then yeah, it moved up, it progressed from there.

Corinne 7:07
Do you have any siblings?

Jay 7:10
I do. I have a older brother and a younger sister.

Corinne 7:13
Okay, so you all came over together then? Right?

Jay
Right.

Corinne
And you were all living in that one living room together?

Jay 7:24
Well that was only for a few days until we could kind of, you could kind of get established. It’s better now then it was back then. And also, I don’t know about all the other countries, but back then in South Korea, like I said, one of the limitations, you know, South Korea i suppose was you couldn’t take money out of the country.

Corinne
Oh.

Jay
So basically, you basically they had to either sell everything or give everything away, except for a few $100. That’s the only money they were allowed to take out of the country. So yeah, yeah, so South Korea, they were US dollar poor at that time, because that’s right after the, like, when the Vietnam War kind of time, stuff like that. So they had a strict limit. At the time, if I remember it was like, $200 for an adult, and $50 for a child.

Corinne
Oh wow.

Jay
So it’s like, yeah, so it was like, like, $550, we could come over to the United States with. That was everything you could, you could all, the money you could bring, you could bring some clothes and stuff like that and other things. But yeah that was pretty much all you could bring.

Corinne 8:40
Wow, that’s wild. I did not know that.

Jay 8:44
Yeah so again, yeah, that’s probably similar in a lot of other countries too. Also like we weren’t, I guess, we weren’t refugee status. So we were able to kind of bring more things over. But the limitation they put on there was money.

Corinne 9:05
That’s so interesting. I wonder why. Because you kind of need that.

Jay 9:16
And even now certain countries, they might have similar laws, where if the country is poor, and they don’t want money leaving their country, so they’re like, you can leave but you can’t take the money out of the country.

Corinne 9:31
Oh, interesting. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Jay 9:35
Yeah so, right now Korea is doing very well, economically. But back then. Yeah, they weren’t. So basically, that’s why the Korean government put- had those kind of rules. And then as things got better than they say, hey, they increase the amount of money you can bring out and now I don’t know if they have a limitation or not. But usually, every country has restrictions about how much money you can take out of the country, even United States I think. If like Elon Musk said I want to take my 100 billion dollars and move, I think there might be some restrictions there.

Corinne 10:05
Right. Right. That makes sense. Um, the next question I had since you came over so young, did you know English when you got here? I’m assuming probably not. Did you have to learn?

Jay 10:20
No, yeah, we didn’t know English. In preparation to come to the United States, they did hire some English tutors and stuff like that. But yeah, no, they’re, the English. We didn’t. They didn’t speak English, when you speak English. And whatever English that we were taught was the British English, the pronunciations would different.

Corinne
Oh Really?

Jay
Yeah. So a lot of the other countries outside the United States. That happens in Korea was that was a big thing. And then, now that there’s more travel there, they’re learning about American instructors from over there and teach American pronunciation, but back then it was all British English.

Corinne 11:03
So you’re like, hello [british accent]. That’s funny. So, um, I guess, like, all these questions is kind of hard, because it’s like your parents were more so like

Jay
Yeah, yeah.

Corinne
in the loop about it. But um, did you took a plane here then, specifically from Korea?

Jay
Right, right.

Corinne
Okay. Um, and your category was legal. You had work visa? Um, as a kid, though, did you? Did you have to? How did you become like a citizen?

Jay 11:43
Uh that’s a citizenship of law is when your parents become US citizens, I think it’s if you’re under the age of 16. You automatically become citizens.

Corinne 11:55
Oh, okay. Oh.

Jay 11:57
So but there’s, you probably don’t know this, but when you become a US citizen, they give you a citizenship paper, and it has a citizenship number on there. So that would mean, since I was not 16 when my parents became citizens, I don’t have US citizenship papers, and I don’t have a citizenship number. Neither does my younger sister. I’m not sure about my brother. I don’t think he does, either.

Corinne
Oh, no way.

Jay
But the way that works is then I have to- I’m under my mother’s number.

Corinne 12:37
Oh, to this day, still?

Jay 12:41
Well, now they don’t ask me because I have my, my own US passports and stuff like that. But like when I joined the military, and they were doing the background investigations, they ask you for proof of citizenship. So I had to tell them which court in Baltimore City my parents got their social from and had to give them my mother social number so they could find evidence that hey, I was a citizen.

Corinne 13:09
How was your experience with like, economic integration? Like did it take you a while to understand and learn how, like, American economy was different from Korean economy? Like, cuz I feel like that’s a hard part to sort of wrap your head around, even as a kid just understanding, you know, how money works here and how the government works here and stuff like that.

Jay 13:33
Yeah, that I can’t answer too well, because like since I was that young when I grew up. I grew up with American system, right. As far as like managing money, I don’t think my parents had too much difficulty navigating the US legal system. But what’s allowed, I mean, especially like the IRS system, stuff like that, that might have been a little more, I suspect that might have been a little more difficult for them to learn. Right.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
Because Korea has even- even the agency names are different and the way they do taxes are different, even to this day, I mean, the programs you get and all that stuff is all different. So I’m sure they had, they had a lot of learning to do and I’m sure they had a lot of I mean, missteps and stuff like that until they actually got it down. But as far as for me, I just I went to elementary school and I kind of grew up here so learning what money is, is pretty much same as Korea except the money looked different and it’s a different denomination that was about it.

Corinne 14:36
Right, right. Um, so how was school like then for you? Was it hard to like, make friends were you like in a sort of classes that like, like special classes that taught you English and like kind of like integrated you at all?

Jay 14:53
Yes. I guess I don’t remember exactly how all the stuff when I was younger, but I do remember yeah it took awhile to kind of – you pick up certain kind of – the younger you are you pick up English faster, right? And when I was in Baltimore City, I don’t think they had the programs for like, ESALT English as a second language classes and stuff like that. But I do remember when I – when we moved to Baltimore County then they kind of placed me in those kind of classes, I think in high school. But actually I don’t know if they placed me in there if I volunteered to go in there. Because it was, it was an easy class to take. But I do remember taking that one time, I think but yeah. And then, as my kids are getting. Yeah, I don’t remember too much. But then my brother I think with a little more because he’s older than I am so he had a little more difficulty transitioning to English and then my younger sister, she, I don’t think she ever experienced that kind of classes because she was so young. She, she started from kindergarten here. So yeah.

Corinne 16:09
was it interesting communicating with your parents? Cuz I’m sure you and your younger sister like picked up English better and faster than your parents and your older brother could. Like, did you still speak Korean with them? Or did you speak English?

Jay 16:27
Yeah, that was uh, yeah. So basically for us like, so my brother. We spoke Korean at the house. So, but my brother could certainly communicate better with my parents. I did okay. My younger sister actually kind of totally forgot Korea for a little bit then. She had a it had to come back. So even now she’s not verbally she’s not very fluent in Korean. But when she actually when she went to college, and she decided she wanted to learn Korean, it came back to her very much more faster because she her Korean all the time in the house. So her ears were atuned to Korean words and stuff like that. But yeah, so, so for between three of us. We had like three different ones like my brothers struggled more with Korean. I kind of picked up – I’m sorry my brother struggled with English more. I kind of transitioned fairly easily into English. But that means my Korean was more poor, my younger sister transitioned to English really well. But then her Korean is worse.

Corinne 17:39
Interesting. It’s cool how it just, it does depend on like, when you are learning it, because it’s a lot harder and like people have a stronger accent I feel like when they like learn English later.

Jay 17:51
Right. And this one I’ll touch on, it might not be part of your questions. It was actually our parent’s choice. So we have people that emigrated to Korea, with a similar times with, with the children also. And basically, as we were growing up, we watched some parents decide to speak Korean and keep the language. Some Korean parents decided they wanted to integrate faster and they only spoke English in the house.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
Then later on, the proved to become a problem for them. Because as the kids matured, and they now had to talk about adult things, they couldn’t communicate to their kids.

Corinne 18:28
For the families who only spoke English in the house or only Korean?

Jay 18:32
Right.

Corinne
Oh English.

Jay
Because usually the the families that are in spoken English in the house, usually the parents do not become fully fluent in English. So they can talk to the kids and say ‘hey did you do your homework?’ ‘did you eat?’ That kind of stuff when they say hey, let’s talk about hey, are you getting married? What kind of problems are you having on work? Those kind of adult vocabulary they did not have and then their communication really had difficult.

Corinne 19:00
Oh so then it’s kind of like you’re withdrawn a bit.

Jay 19:06
Well, right. Not intentionally, but inside the house, you find a language barrier,

Corinne 19:13
right? Oh, that’s difficult. So did you like sense that in your household or because you spoke Korean in household and everyone kind of I mean, I feel like it might be challenging for your younger sisters and she was more so learning English.

Jay 19:31
Right well, so there wasn’t that bad- like my brother did well, and my brother and I both visited Korea when we were in high school and stuff like that. I went there even when I was in college and so kind of refreshed my Korean so it wasn’t that difficult for me to keep on communicating to my parents. My youngest sister, sometimes she might have struggled but then usually either my brother or somebody else that, if she had difficulty with words, and they couldn’t really kind of communicate, we could kind of pitch in. So I don’t think my sister really kind of overall had really a lot of difficulty maybe when they had private conversation with my parents. Maybe she ran into it, but most of the times, I mean, there’s always somebody to kind of, there weren’t too many words, they couldn’t really communicate, but even the, the few they had, there’s always somebody who could help out.

Corinne
Right, right, that makes sense.

Jay
Yeah, if my brothers, my brother and I, all of us couldn’t communicate in Korean, I think that would have been a lot more difficult, my brother and I could. And then even later, when my brother got married, my sister in law speaks fluent Korean, and my wife, you know, she’s Korean, and she speaks Korean better than I do so, and she speaks English. So this kind of stuff really wasn’t too, too difficult in my house.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
So but then, that also meant my parents never really picked up English as well as they could have, if we just spoke English in the house.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
So that was the sacrifice they made. It was it was to their benefit to communicating with the kids, but they never really learned to become fluent in English,

Corinne
Right.

Jay
Because they spoke Korean in the house

Corinne 21:19
That makes sense. Um, what was your experience with like, the perception of people in the US or like how people perceived you? Were they like sort of hostile or like welcoming, or just kind of whatevs?

Jay 21:43
Most of times, I guess I really didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. I mean, every once in a while,
it just, it just reared up and you couldn’t avoid it. But then, yeah, I want to say that it affected majority of my life, but every once in a while, but that could be anywhere, too. So I don’t know if I would just kind of pinpoint it because I was an immigrant or something like that. But certainly, certainly, when even in a school or even at work, when, when there’s a little conflict comes. First thing that comes out is you’re different, you’re immigrant status or – that usually comes out.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
But otherwise, I mean, I don’t know. I think I had a fairly normal childhood other than, yes, there. There was some ugliness, but I don’t know how much of that I put it because of my immigrant status. I would put it more as my Korean status.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
There were some issues about that. But yeah,

Corinne 22:58
yeah. Well, that’s what I mean to like, just like, your background, your ethnicity, like, did you ever face like, just like discrimination from that? Or maybe not even discrimination, but sort of like, backhanded compliments or whatever?

Jay 23:14
Yeah. Yeah, there’s, there’s always that. And as things are improving, it still hasn’t improved all that much. As you know, if you watch the current news, you, you see that. But so what surprised us, so when my kids went to Loudoun Valley [high school], I really didn’t think they experienced that, because this is a very nice community. But all three of my children were born in United States that it taught them. They have stories about how they experienced that, right. But, but I gotta say, there are only very few times it was totally overt, right? Like you said, there’ll be a lot more backhanded comments like that then. So it was fairly easy to kind of say, oh well, just kind of shake it off, walk it off, or this guy’s an ‘a hole’ and what can you do, right?.

Corinne 24:09
Yeah, no, that makes sense. Did you have like, I remember you talked about earlier, like that community when you came over? Did some of those people like stay your friends forever? Or was that just sort of like to help people from South Korea when they first like, migrated over?

Jay 24:32
Yeah, like even nowadays, I mean, both my parents passed, but even most of those people when they first came, that was a community and those community people really stayed tight. Even 30, 40 years later, 50 years later, because there’s a tie. I’ll tell you one of the families that one of the families that my family was close with when I first immigrated to the United States, their niece is my wife.

Corinne
What?! Oh my gosh!

Jay
Yeah, my wife came to the United States like 20 years afterwards, but it’s as a turnout after we got- as we’re doing it- it then turns out she’s actually related to one of the families that, that we were close with in early February.

Corinne 25:29
No way! Oh, that is so cool. So how did you end up meeting her? Through that family?

Jay 25:36
I guess you could say that. It was kind of like, hey, somebody’s friend. Somebody says, Hey, you have a son here, and there’s this girl you like, you want to set them up?

Corinne 25:46
Oh, like a blind date kind of thing.

Jay 25:51
Yeah, that’s kind of pretty, pretty big. In Korea, they actually have a professional commercial business that does that. For us, there wasn’t. But that’s such a common thing. They actually have like marriage brokers that set up people to meet.

Corinne 26:14
Oh, Okay, gotcha. Oh, that’s so cool. That is awesome. Was there any ever like, um, formal services that the US like, offered for when you first got here? At all that you can remember?

Jay 26:35
You mean, like…?

Corinne 26:37
Like, it could be like economic or social?

Jay 26:40
Uh no, I don’t, I don’t think so. Because I think at the time, since since a lot of the people of my, of like my parents generation, they just really wanted to stay under the radar. They want to work and be kind of be left in peace. So even if there were like, programs out there, I don’t think they even wanted to apply for it. I just remember. I just remember they, they worked a lot.

Corinne
Yeah.

Jay
And then like later on, I mean, we learned going to college, we learned about scholarships and things like that. But until then, there really wasn’t. Since we, since we kind of immigrated voluntarily there was no like economic assistance or any other kind of special program that that we qualify for I don’t think.

Corinne 27:39
Right? That makes sense.

Unknown Speaker 27:42
And even if they did, I don’t think they would have really stood up and say helped me because they- that generation of people were really kind of outgoing motor people. They had a lot of pride because otherwise they wouldn’t emigrated because it was a very scary thing. So yeah, they liked doing things on their own.

Corinne 28:01
Yeah, it’s a huge shift. Absolutely.

Jay 28:03
Yeah. Especially think about if you immigrate to Australia. That’s kind of scary. But can you imagine you immigrate to a country that you actually speak no – you can’t speak their language at all?

Corinne 28:17
No, that’s scary. That’s so scary. Um one of my last big questions is what are your ties to South Korea still? Do you visit there still? Do you have family there?

Jay 28:37
Yeah, both my wife and I have – the majority of our family is in Korea. Majority of our immediate family, like our siblings and a lot of or some of our cousins are here. But all my uncles and most of my uncles, aunts and all that kind of stuff, they’re all in Korea. So it’s not something – we don’t go to Korea that often. But yeah, we still go to Korea and it’s been like over 10 years since the last time we went and last time we went I took all our kids there too, so they could meet their relatives.

Corinne
Oh yeah

Jay
And so now that they’re older, we’re trying to – their schedules are difficult, but if we can, we’d like to arrange another family trip to go over there and this time, stay a little bit longer, I guess. But yeah, we still have ties in Korea. We have no economic or financial ties with Korea. But as far as family goes, yeah, we still have a lot of ties there.

Corinne 29:41
Do you still try to use like the customs and sort of like how you were brought up like in your life here and like, pass down those customs to like Jessica and the rest of your kids.

Jay 29:57
Yeah, absolutely. But it’s modified just like – I don’t know if you can kind of get the – I grew up Korean, right? In the United States. But I did not grow up Korean. Like somebody who’s my age who’s lived their entire life in Korea.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
Well, because when we came to the United States our Korean stopped, because as time goes by, things change in Korea, and Korea, just like the United States, the slang the culture, the things they do, it changes. So the only thing when I came here is, I grew up Korean, from what my parents taught me and what they taught me stopped in 1973.

Corinne
Haha, like what?

Jay
So well, when we go to Korea and come visit. And so we pick up more things, but think about like, how they do things, even like some of the traditions about the family memorials, that kind of changes a little bit. And things like the language changes.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
So think about it like, in the United States, the English I spoke in 1970, and English I speak now also changed a lot because there’s a lot, a lot of – once texting came, it changed a lot of languages.

Corinne
Yes

Jay
And now there’s a lot, there’s a lot more where they merged two words together into a new word. So can you imagine being out of the country for 50 years and come the United States? There’s a lot of stuff you might not understand.

Corinne
That’s true

Jay
And that’s exactly what happened. So we do try to raise our kids with the Korean traditions, but it has to be modified, and we understand that. So we blend it to what meets with the American lifestyle. So if you can do this, do this. But if it really doesn’t work, then we have to change it. But yeah, most definitely, we do try to keep some traditions and cultural things. But we’re not. We’re not hardcore, say you must do this or die.

Corinne
Right, right. Is that how it sort of is in Korea?

Jay
Well no, not in Korea. But like there is a lot of other cultures and countries. I mean some people in Korea they might do that too, but who knows. But you’re asking me personally, so from my perspective we don’t. So like, so like our big thing is we have memorial days for like my parents who passed away and stuff like that. So every year we have on the day of the anniversary there’s memorial days and there’s a specific days, or a day of remembrance for all the past relatives. Stuff like that. So and we have like a ritual – we cook food and family gets together and we do bows and stuff like that. So, we taught our kids that, but it’s like hey, if you decide after we pass away that you don’t want to continue it then that’s your choice. It’s not like we need you to write in blood and sign this contract.

Corinne’
Right, yeah, yeah.

Jay 33:40
Right, and, but things like hey when you come to elders you have to bow. Things like hey when you’re at the dining room table, the oldest person has to eat first before everybody else can eat. Like those kinds of traditions we still want to keep. And I’ll teach you a new one though, Corinne. All my kids, when they drink in front of me or my brother or oldests like that, since we’re a generation older, they will all turn their heads to the side.

Corinne
Really?!

Jay
They will not drink looking at us directly.

Corinne
No way. That’s crazy!

Jay
So they’re basically saying, hey this is a sign of respect.

Corinne
Yeah

Jay
So we can drink, but hey we’re not going to do that. And basically. And then the other drinking tradition is like in Korea it’s like hey when you clink glasses, the younger person’s glass can never be higher than the older persons.

Corinne
Oh, interesting, I’ve never heard of that one.

Jay
Yeah and so sometimes that one is very confusing for the kids because what if you’re in a work setting so your boss might be younger than you. Do you still have to follow that?

Corinne
Oh

Jay
So those kinds of nuances you don’t really pick up on until you actually live in Korea but the simple ones like hey this is how you do it in front of your elders, with your uncles, stuff like that and those are easy so they do that.

Corinne
Yeah, respect. Absolutely

Jay
And how you show respect is slightly – most of it is the same in the United States, but some of it is different in Korean culture right. And also you were kind of asking- United States has a lot of difficulty with people not just from Korea but from other countries as well. Because other countries don’t like to look at you directly in the eye. They think that’s a sign of disrespect.

Corinne
Right, it’s like the polar opposite. I know I’m like oh gosh ahaha

Jay
Yeah, yeah and like since you do that I think Korean people have an easier time saying ‘excuse me’ and ‘I’m sorry’ than sometimes – sometimes when we go to public places, even now, like I don’t understand why these people bump you and they think they have the right away. Like how difficult is it just to say hey ‘excuse me’.

Corinne
Yeah it’s just polite.

Jay
Right

Corinne
Wow, that’s interesting. When you first came over was that sorta like a big shift, or well not a big shift, but a bit shift, like making eye contact and like Americans really like that and it’s sort of , it’s respectful.

Jay
Well, I don’t know about that too much but I know on the playground, that caused some issues because the kids are like hey when they’re pushing you and then if you’re not looking them in the eye then they kinda think you’re ignoring them.

Corinne
Right.

Jay
That might bring up a little issues a couple times on the playground but eventually you get past that. And when you get your friends and once they get to know you they don’t care. But it’s just like you at JMU, you had to figure out how to get along with the people in your residence hall and stuff like that.

Corinne
Right, that’s true

Jay
It’s like do I go out there and puff out my chest and show I’m the tough girl? Or do I kind of stick to the wall to walk by.

Corinne
Right, right. Ahaha exactly, exactly.

Jay
But once you get your friends and stuff and you guys start walking around and stuff then who cares, you are with your friends.

Corinne
Right, yeah.

Jay
But there is certainly that kind of adjustment. And I gotta tell you, for a long time I couldn’t figure out why it was but that’s exactly was it is. Is even to this day I still don’t like really looking at people right in the eyes, especially when I meet them the first time. Because everybody – or for us we can take it differently

Corinne
Right

Jay
And also in Korea they don’t like to call you by your name

Corinne
Oh really?

Jay
Unless you’re really really close, they usually call you by your position. If you’re office manager, they call you office manager or they call you by- or they call you Mr. Oui or something like that. You don’t call somebody by their first name until you’re given permission. Or you’re really kinda – It indicates your relationship. It changes with that. But here, when I was here, I’m 50 years old and this 20 year old kid goes ‘hi Jay’ and it’s just like do I know you?

Corinne
I know ahaha!

Jay
But I mean meeting somebody’s family and saying ‘hey this is Jay’, that’s one thing but at work i mean cuz

Corinne
Oh yeah, your trainees

Jay
And also there aren’t too many Korean people. So all the trainees might know me but that doesn’t mean I know all of them

Corinne
Right, right

Jay
So it goes both ways. You get used to it, you get used to knowing what’s going on. So it doesn’t really bother you, unless you decide to let it bother you. But that’s the way it is. That first trainee is not doing anything wrong. Just because it seems wrong to you, that’s because you’re taking it that way.

Corinne
Right, right, that’s true.

Jay
But that’s the culture and tradition differences in the country.

Corinne
Wow, this is so crazy. Thank you so much for letting me interview you too, I really appreciate it.

Jay
Alright, not a problem

Corinne
I don’t have too many more questions. I think you covered them all. I really appreciate it.

Jay
Ok! Not a problem. Well if we’re done then I’ll go back to join the hyenas over there.

Corinne
Yeah I’m sorry for keeping you for so long. But I really appreciate it.

Jay
Oh not a problem!