Strangers in a Room Full of People

So, this is just a short bit of humor for all those who have been in foreign country and felt lost in a crowd.

I may not have written this before, but my wife is not a native speaker of English.  She is ethnically Korean but is Chinese by birth; think of Mexican-American but replace it with Korean-Chinese.  As such, she is fluent in both Korean and Chinese.  Occasionally she has her Chinese friends over for a meal or just to visit.  Naturally, they converse in Chinese rather than English.  However, the other night she invited a very dear Korean friend to join us for a big dinner with some of her Chinese friends and me.  I am sort of used to the conversation being predominantly in Chinese and just sit quietly or try to engage someone in English.  However, I noticed that our Korean friend was sitting quietly and not talking much.  It hit me that she also did not speak Chinese.  I was guilty of just lumping her in with our Chinese guests and assuming she spoke Chinese.  I felt badly for her and for my assumption, so I quickly engaged her in a very pleasant conversation; first with my very limited Korean vocabulary and then in English, of course.  I was rewarded with a big smile and a look of relief at not being the only outsider in the crowd

We are truly living in a multi-cultural world and it may be the other person who is lost in a foreign culture and not always you.  You just never know and it speaks to the need for any professional language instructor to try and pick up a few words in every language they can to help someone who may be that lost person.