International students

A few days ago I was eating lunch in a student dining area and overheard a group of young Westerners speaking Spanish at the next table. So I asked where they were from and got into a little conversation. They were undergrad exchange students from Mexico who had just arrived a couple of weeks ago. The couple of young women sitting closest to me said they were loving being here and wished they could stay for more than one semester. They had so much energy and enthusiasm.

There was an older Korean man sitting with them, and I assumed he was a professor. He told me he'd studied at CUNY. Unfortunately, one side of his mouth was slack, as if he'd had a stroke, so understanding him (a Korean speaking Spanish in a noisy lunchroom) was hard.

The international student community here is interesting. I've met students from Cameroon, Uzbekistan, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, China, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. I'm probably forgetting a few other places. We have teaching assistants in our classes, and their main job is to speak English with the students. That's how I've met people from these various countries.



It's a pretty small community, as far as I can tell. For instance, last week I was waiting for the bus to Seoul and got into a conversation with a young man from Pakistan. (I strike up conversations with strangers at bus stops here more often than at home just because I'm excited to hear someone speaking English!). It turns out he's friends with a couple of my T.A.s from Nepal and India.