The English Option

Now, here's what I learned today.

We American's take other languages and cultures for granted.

The fact is that we often tend to feel that everyone, all across the globe, should be indoctrinated by western culture and the English language. After all, we are the best at pretty much everything...right?

Fact is, there is a whole world out there, chockerbock full of languages, cultures, religions, and modes of being. And, as I believe the more we know about one another, the greater chance we have for survival, I attempted to learn the Korean alphabet today and set up a Korean bank account.

Hangul is an alphabet system comprised of 24 characters and, since it is a phonemic alphabet, it is considerably different from our alpha/numeric system. It took me about an hour before I realized that I had no idea what I was doing and would need to find a Korean tandem exchange partner when I arrive. ( Sounds kinky, doesn't it?)

While setting up my bank account, I forcefully plunked the curser on the English option as the entire website is in, can you imagine, Korean. I even tried opening up another web browser, since Safari is often a bit confused by, well, anything. This was to no avail, and left me sitting in the Indiana University library huffing, " I need the English Option. JUST GIVE ME THE DAMN ENGLISH OPTION!"

I haven't even left the country yet, and I'm already deferring to our language system. Something tells me, I'll be yearning for the English Option quite a bit over the next few months but, if the rumors are true, my city boasts some American Navy men.

Perhaps I'll have options after all.