My mom was born and raised in Seoul and immigrated to the US in the 60s/70s.
I can also speak Korean and together we have had no problem understanding anything anyone has said to us.
Unfortunately, the same is not true in reverse.
We tried to check into the hotel and the clerk started speaking English. My mom told her in Korean, “I am Korean, we speak Korean.” The clerk responds in Korean “wow, your Korean is so good!” and then kept speaking really bad English anyway.
We went to the museum underground near the statue of Sejong and admiral Yi Sun Shin. There was an employee sitting at a desk with a guestbook, so my mom asked him in Korean what it was and he replied in Korean that we could write anything we wanted. We barely finished writing “우” before he remarked “Wow! Your Korean is so good!” I thought to myself ??? no shit??? but brushed it off. We turned the corner and there was a girl helping people do calligraphy. She asked us in Korean, “what is your name?”
My mom gives her a 100% authentic, normal Korean name. Think something like 박민수, idfk.
I’m exaggerating, but this is what it was like:
“봭만푸?“ “박민수.” “볏횐치?” “박민수.” “팥빙수?” “박민수.” “바약부?”
We gave up and wrote it on the paper. She looked at the Korean name “박민수” written in Hangul and still didn’t understand it and then started speaking in English again. What the actual fuck.
We go to a store to buy glasses. My mother asks the Korean guy in fluent Korean to help her purchase some glasses and asks him in Korean how they handle complex eyeglass prescriptions.
His face turns into a shocked expression and he says in English “she will help you, she also speaks English” as he pointed to a Korean woman. Turns out she was busy, so the guy had to help us anyway.
My mom continued answering his Korean questions in Korean. After some time, he asks for her name and she gives him her Korean name. He has the audacity to look her dead in the eye and say in English “I can also speak in English or Chinese if that’s more comfortable for you.”
CHINESE???
It keeps happening over, and over, and over again. It doesn’t even make sense. We will have an entire 10 minute conversation in fluent Korean and then I’ll ask something like “얼마예요?“ and they go “우아~!!!” as if they have amnesia and are only just now realizing we were speaking Korean.
Anyway, I just needed to vent. Thanks for coming to my TED talk 😭
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