Mine, Yours, Ours.

My journey of learning Korean started when the ever so lovely Mrs. Lee wanted to learn Chinese, so we'd get together and "exchange" our languages.

Now, it has evolved into a way I bond with my Korean friends, a way that I hangout with them, a way of building friendship, a way to share the Jesus in me with them.

I've always been interested in language-learning and have been quite good at picking up language. Korean is the first Asian language that I'm trying to learn from the very basic and pick up... not so easy. Part of it, I think, is age... being 25 and 15 is just NOT the same... it takes me longer to remember things (although my teachers still tell me that I'm doing better than average people... hmmm, really?!); another reason is because of the difference in ways of pronunciation, different from other languages I know, so it's taking my tongue a bit longer to get it.

Here's something I've observed from my Korean-leaning.

Koreans are known for being "clicky" at times. They really like to stick together among themselves, even more than people from other Asian backgrounds. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing, at least, not always. However, it's cause some getting-used-to for me as I hangout with them. 

Why?

Here's a conversation I've had with a friend, you'll see why...

Friend:"우리엄마 said..."

Me:""우리"엄마!??"

(Well, just incase your computer doesn't really display Korean, it basically says:
Friend: "Our mom said..."
Me:""Our" mom!??")

Right, you see why I'm confused, right?
Whose mom? yours or mine?

I personally think that this reflects the collectivism of the Korean culture. Everything's "우리", "ours."

우리 food, 우리 class, 우리 house, 우리 car, 우리 mom/dad/brother/sister, etc.

I asked my friend, "so... do you also say 우리 wife?"

He laughed and said, "I'm not sure, I don't have a wife yet, but I guess it could possibly slip out!"

He later explained that in Korean culture, "우리 mom" makes sense because one would address his/her friend's mother as "어머니", which means "mother."

"If you meet my mom, you'd call her "어머니", too!" he said.

Ah ha, got it!

So now, on top of the "when in doubt, just bow" rule, there's another rule: "everything's better when it's ours!" Well, the more the merrier, right!?

ps. in Taiwanese culture, one would address a friend's mom as : "family name + mom ("mama" in Chinese)."

For example, my friends call my mom : "Chiu Mama."