Final Personel Narritive

How Much Different We Are!

“Hwajung, you are so beautiful.” This was what Benjamin said when he held my hand. He was taking a Korean class after he got back from his mission in Korea and we were study buddies. When we met first, he asked me to be his study buddy, and I answered “yes, I will.”

Since it was my first month here at BYU, everything was new and fun for me, and I was glad to have a study buddy to learn how to speak English better. When we had our first study time, he kept saying that “you are so pretty” but I did not believe what he said because it sounded like he was just being nice.

            “What are you doing tonight?” he asked me after our second study meeting was over.

            “I will do my homework” I answered.

He asked me again, “where?”

 I said “in the library.”

He smiled and said “then let’s study together. I want to see you again tonight.”

I was surprised when he said that, but I pretended to be nonchalant. We met again that night and studied together in the library until midnight. While studying together, he often stared at me, so I could not focus on my homework.

“Where do you live?” he questioned me after getting out of the library. I let him know where I lived. He said that he would take me home and I did not refuse his kindness.

It made my heart flutter to walk with him.

When we reached my place, he asked me again, “what is your plan for tomorrow?”

“I will go to my class and study as usual” I said. He laughed and said good night before he left.

The next day, he sent me a message asking where I was. I told him I was in the library. So, he came over and we studied together again. As I guessed, he took me home again, but it was kind of different from yesterday. While we were walking home, he wondered what I thought about getting married to American guys.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about that before,” I replied.

 There was a duck pond on our way home. He asked me to take a walk for a while over there. It made my heart beat to be with him. And all of a sudden, he held my hand and said “Hwajung, you are so beautiful.” It was sweet and I liked what he said. I was shy but I said thank you and we walked holding hands.

He took me home and gave me a big hug before I went to inside. After that, we often had dinner and watched movies together. We enjoyed taking a walk after studying together. Sometimes, we drove to Y Mountain, the representative place of BYU, to see the night view. The night view of Provo was amazing and romantic. I was happy being with him.

            One day, one of my friends told me that she saw Benjamin having dinner with a girl. She said that it looked like a date. She thought that I should ask him about it. I hesitated for a few days because it could have been just a dinner with a friend, not a date. When we went to drive to the Y again, I could not resist the curiosity and questioned him about that dinner. He was kind of embarrassed about my questions and he said “I had dinner with her because I wanted to spend time with her. Is there any problem with that?”

            I was really upset. “Are you cheating on me?” I asked.

 “Hwajung, we are not boyfriend and girlfriend. We are just dating to get to know each other. I can date another girl while dating you.” he answered.

 I was really shocked. I could not say anything at all.

            Not understanding what he meant, I asked him, “but we already held hands and hugged, right? Doesn’t that mean we are boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Upon listening to what I said, he frowned and pondered, and he replied, “We can date several people at the same time before getting into a relationship. I thought you already knew that.”

            I thought that we were a couple because Korean people never hold hands or hug if they are not in a relationship. Holding hands, hugging, and kissing apply to only couples in Korea. Thus, I considered our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend naturally.

I was embarrassed and was surprised by what he said but I could not blame him. It was not my fault or his fault. It was just differences between what we knew.  

That night, we talked about cultural differences between Korea and America for a long time. He tried to enlighten me about American dating style and I tried to understand it. It was hard to understand because it was my first culture shock after I came here to BYU. However, I needed to understand and accept this new culture to live here and get used to this new culture.

“I don’t want to lose you. I want to keep dating you and get to know you better. Do you understand what I am saying?” he asked me with his soft voice.

I could not fully understand why we were not in a relationship but I just accepted the fact that we were not a couple.

“I got it. I also don’t want to lose you. Let’s keep dating and getting to know each other.”

From then on, we got over cultural differences between Korea and America. I could get accustomed to American culture about a lot of the other things as well as dating.

We are still good friends, and he often tells me “sometimes you look more like “Heather” than you do “Hwajung.”