Emily CP #6

On Thursday, April 18^th, at 9 am, I had my last conversation partner session with Dojun. He seemed a little tired since his work has been a bit busy recently due to issues regarding the new Boeing aircraft. I started the session off by mentioning the idea of critical incidents and explained the concept, as well as gave an example. He had some trouble thinking of a particular incident, but he did remember one. He mentioned that about a decade ago he visited the United States. He and his friend were staying at a villa hotel in Seattle and there was a Costco somewhat nearby as a place to go get food. He and his friend walked all the way there and gathered many groceries, then they went to the cashier to pay. The cashier there was Asian-American and had a fairly thick accent that was unfamiliar to him, so communication was a bit difficult. The cashier kept saying, “you need your card,” and they did not know why she wouldn’t accept the cash that they gave her. They argued back and forth a bit, and then they finally gave up and left. It was only when they got back to the hotel that they learned that they needed a Costco membership card in order to buy anything, and the card was available at the front desk. It’s fairly common knowledge in America, for the most part, that Costco is a place where you need a membership in order to shop. Because he was from Korea and at that time there wasn’t a Costco in Korea, he had no idea. In addition, we also talked about differences in hotels, motels, and hostels in America and South Korea. I have really enjoyed my experience talking with Dojun, as I have learned a lot about South Korea and was able to listen to a different point of view. He was also a good communicator in English, even if there were some minor grammatical errors. He was able to communicate many complicated ideas without much confusion. I will miss talking with him!