Learning I had become a foreigner

Before arriving in Korea, I had not given much meaning at all to the word, ‘foreigner’. I had heard a few people back home mention the word, ‘foreigners’, a few times in their sentences. I had not really thought much of it. In fact, it sounded rather strange to me to hear the word, as though foreigners had never really existed in Canada or anywhere for that matter. When I had started to learn, slowly realize, that I was a foreigner in Korea, I was at first surprised and taken back by it. “Why am I a foreigner?” “What does it mean?” I had no real idea what the word meant to people, little lone myself. Once a friend, relatively new to Korea at the time, informed is very British mother that he was a feigner in Korea. Interestingly, with her very posh English accent, she informed him that he was not and said, “No you are not, you are an English Min,” Min as in man. Yes, many of us ‘Westerners’ may have felt this similar attitude in other countries, but assure you, you are still a foreigner in the eyes of many or most locals. I ask the question, ‘what does the word, 'foreigner', mean to you?”

From Jacob