Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

I have a new Korean friend.  His name is Jun Bum.  His English skills are very good.  He loves foreigners. He does not like his life in Korea.  In his next life he says he will be a foreigner.  Jun Bum is starting his first year of high school.  He says he was unlucky because he is starting at a school that his friends will not attend.  The high school placements are a random draw and he says it is not a good school because the students are notoriously bad.

I met Jun Bum after he followed me home from the bus stop.  He said he was very excited to see a foreigner and watched to see where I was going.  He found our apartment because we have a Canadian flag outside.  He rang our doorbell and asked if I would be his tutor.  I told him what I would expect for compensation and he took the figures home for his parents to decide.

A couple of days later he came back with three rolls of Chumchi Gimbap (Chumchi means tuna… gim means seaweed… bap means rice).  He told me that his family could not afford the lessons.  He is already enrolled at a specialty English academy and his brother attends an English academy as well.  His father works in the IT department for Hyundai and his mother works at a small grocery store to put the boys through the academies.  Recently a bigger grocery store opened up nearby and he fears his mother will lose her job.  He asked if we could still talk and I agreed.  We ate the Gimbap and he talked non-stop for nearly two hours.

Today I arranged with Jun Bum to meet me at McDonald’s to buy him a meal to celebrate the beginning of high school.  He was very impressed to eat Westerner food with a Westerner.  He told me it was his first time eating with a foreigner.  His vocabulary is good so it’s easy to talk with him.  He told me that he felt like everyone was staring at him because he was with a foreigner.  I told him they were either just staring at me or jealous because they wished they could speak English as well as he can.  He liked that.

Next time we meet he wants to take me bowling and introduce me to his other friends.  He says they also speak English very well.  I’m sure it will be interesting.  He also wants to teach me how to order food over the phone.  He can’t imagine having to leave the apartment to eat restaurant food – he won’t stand for that.