Hello! And welcome to my first text ever published in English. Since those I am with all day every day don’t speak German, but the occasional „Danke!“, I decided to publish at least a few articles in English – the most important ones – which will be those about the people I meet.
What would an exchange year be without all the friends you make? The friends that come from all over the world, that make you think once again about the country you grew up in, the language you’re speaking, and the behaviour you are used to so much so that other‘s behaviour might seem a little off. That’s why I want you to get to know the people I hang out with. The first person is the one and only Vivi!
How I met Vivi
I first met Vivi at Gwangjang Market. My Yonsei friends and I were looking for some delicious dumplings (mandu) and found a small place not far from all the fried food. After ordering two plates of mixed dumplings we began to wonder why so many foreigners were sitting together at this point. One of us said “Maybe they were on TV or something?” And that was it! The first sentence Vivi said to us
“That’s the woman of Street Food. It’s a series on Netflix!”
I’m not sure if my memories are making it up, but I remember her head coming out from behind Joann’s shoulder, who was sitting in front of her. She seemed so nice that we simply asked her to join our group for the rest of the day. After that we had some potato pancakes and a cup of coffee. I ordered a sweet potato latte, expecting some sweet potato milk with espresso in it. But all I got was warm sweet potato milk… Pretty devastating when you’re really really tired! So Vivi made fun of me and my little cup of warm milk. Since then it’s been an ongoing joke about me and the misery of coffee. (:
Why Vivi is special
Unfortunately for us, Vivi wasn’t doing an exchange year at Yonsei. Studying medicine, she was doing an internship at Korea University Hospital and therefor lived more than
30 minutes away from us. Nevertheless, we spent most of her Korean weekends together – having loads of fruit inside a fridge (: (yet another fancy hipster coffee shop), comparing passports (German passports are so ugly compared to others, especially the Swedish passport – it’s gorgeous!), demonstrating at Seoul’s Global Strike, watching fans freak out at our first K-Pop concert and taking pictures in front of orange cosmos flowers at the Olympic Park.
Vivi is 24 years old and grew up in beautiful Sweden. Her parents came from South Vietnam and are teaching Vietnamese. But other than our parents coming from the same country we don’t really have a lot in common. Vivi is tall, gorgeous, patient af, doesn’t annoy people with loudness at all and always seems well-prepared. So exactly the opposite of who I am, but maybe a little of who I want to be. Also, I always loved her sense for style and colours. Most importantly though, we could laugh together. We all laughed together a lot.
Time went by so fast and before we knew it Vivi was leaving Seoul. Even though we were all keeping count of the days that were left to spend together, when the time came to say goodbye, we were unprepared – we had no card, no present, not even a picture of us all together. Only after a quick goodbye did it hit us. And we felt terrible! But here it is, at least a tiny bit of it: Vivi, it was a pleasure (for all of us) to meet you! It’s a delight to have had you in our girl crew! And I keep thinking about you every time I see a sweet potato (: Wish you all the best, back in Sweden. We will surely meet again.
