Ji Hwan Kim/Page 80/summer 56

Contact, Trust, and confide, all needs for real friendship

 

We all know many people though the activities in the school, university, and company. Everyone who we know well is our friends? No. it has differences between our friends and a person who we know just. Then what is the friendship? If we want to make someone to our friends, we need three things. If we satisfy one of three things, we can make friends. The friendship is Contact with friends, trust our friends and confide with them.

 

First quality of needing for friendship is to keep in touch with friends. For example, though a lecture in university, I become intimate a man. I often study with him in our major class. But when we end our lecture, we greet for each other and don't contact to each other until the next class. I know him and met him several times. So is he my friend? Exactly no. we were just acquaintance, no friend, because we didn't contact with each other. Like this, someone who doesn't keep in touch with us isn't our friend. He or she is just acquaintance. If we want to make friends, we should maintain contact with each other. Friends should be continuous. Contact is basic factor of friendship. Second thing for making friendship is Trust. Friend should be comfortable for each other. If we cannot trust our friends, our hope becomes to fade away when we need to help. We should help our friends when they are in difficult circumstance. If we don't help them, they lost their hope and will not trust us and end the relationship with us. For example in my high school, I experienced hardship because of some of mathematic problems. I couldn't solve them, so I asked them to my friend who was good for mathematic. However, he rejected to help me because he didn't want that my score improved. I was really upset when I knew his reason why he didn't help me and I ended the relationship with him. If we reject to help our friends because of our profits, then we cannot maintain the friendship. Of course, if friend's request is too hard to handle, we cannot help them. When we can believe our friends, the friendship will become more strongly. The last factor of defining friendship is Confide. Confide isn't basic demand of friendship, but it determines how deep our friendship is. For example, when I meet my close friends in university, I greet for them and start talking about my private things such as interesting things, my pet or my orchestra club with them. Then they also confide their private things. Though confiding with each other, we can become closer and trust each other stronger. We often talk about game what we do together, problems of orchestra club and ways to fix problems. However, when I see friends who are not close with me, I just say hello and ask about their lecture. Then they answer like 'yeah, it was good, or bad', 'I'm so tired' etc. Our speaking finish in short time. Like this situation, we can choose someone who is our close friend though confiding. If we keep in touch with friends, can trust them, and confide them, we can ultimately maintain our relationship with friends.

 

When we talk about the friendship without the three things, we cannot understand the friendship. If we maintain contact with friends firstly, and trust and confide with them. Then we can have the real friendship. Someone who do like this, he or she is our real friend, company.

 

 

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Kim, Jusung / P. 80 Ch3 Pt 5 A-4 / 2017 Summer Session, Prose & Paragraphs

Ch3 Pt 5 A-4: Write about, "Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures."

Love Helps and Kills

A Roman philosopher Seneca once said, "Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures." To understand friendship and love better, I compared these notions in the aspects of functions and definition. Friendship and love basically have similar functions. From friends or lovers, we seek and give care, help, support, intimacy, or entertainment. On the other hand, the criteria that decides whether a relationship is a friendship or love is vague. It differs from people to people so there is no absolute touchstone, but it is the order of priority in my opinion. I disagree with considering friendship and love a different notion, and claim that the border between the two is obscure; love is a developed form of friendship, and therefore I agree that friendship always benefits but love sometimes injures.

To deal with how friendships benefit and love injures sometimes, I must prove the premise that love is a developed form of friendship. I believe what we call love is not always a romantic one. For example, my family members always say, "I love you," when we hang up on each other. It feels awkward and embarrassing when I say it in a public transportation, but that is a custom in my family. So, love is not limited to a romantic partner, but a friend, family, and lover can all be loved. I love some of my friends, and that means I care about them dearly. Therefore, love and friendship differs because of order of priority, or by how strong the relationship is.

Friendship and love is similar in functions. In both relationships, we are looking for affection, assist, encouragement, joy, and warmth, while we try to give them back at the same time. For example, some of my friends live alone in Seoul to finish their college. My friend Jeonghoon is one of them and sometimes calls me to drink together. We take burdens and pains from each other. At the same time, that is what the lovers do. They call when they are hurt, and emotionally support each other. Therefore, I insist that friendship and love serves similar functions.

Lastly, love hurts sometimes and friendship always benefits because when you love someone, you care about them and expect more than you would from just a friend. Even between closer friends, they ask and give more than they would to normal people. For incidence, When I first broke up with my girlfriend, I was away from my family and I could not get consolation from them. There were not many friends in Seoul because I am from a small town in southern region of Korea and not many close friends came up to here with me. Fortunately, one of my closest friend came to Seoul with me and was living in Shinchon at that time. So, I called him and talked about my agony. My friend supported and gave some advices to deal with my feelings.

To sum up, friendship develops to be love, and the boundary of them is unclear. Love includes those relationships between lovers, family members, and friends. So, the difference between those two is the degree of intimacy or affection, and they share functions in common. Finally, I support the saying, "Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures," because loved ones are placed deep down the soul and have powerful influence on the person in both positive and negative ways. 

Kim Keunho/ P80 / summer session

1st : Write you own definition of friendship

2nd: Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures. & Compare or contrast friendship and kinship

 

I decided to handle all of the three topics suggested. I'm going to define friendship in my own way first and then, move onto compare friendship and kinship. Lastly, I'll give my analysis about why friendship is more often beneficial than love.

  

    As a person who have few but intimate friends, I firmly believe that friendship is all about understanding each other as he or she is; that is we should not force friends to fit into our standard. By accepting friends as they are, we gradually resemble each other (undergoing a kind of synchronization) and learn how to understand each other better. Think about when we first met our best friends. Did we want to become friends with them on specific purpose? We didn't. We just came to know each other and got closer and close as we got along. If we tried to judge and cut them out according to our own standard, we wouldn't have possibly made any friends at all. Also, by tolerating each other's personality, habits, ideas, and many other things, we're more committed to each other. A former Korean president Roh-Moohyeon once said, "A true friend is the one who stay with you when you're in difficulty". Can we expect something or be committed to our friends, if they have been rejecting "we as we are" and keep showing grievances and discontents for not meeting their values? I doubt we will.

 

Aforementioned is my definition about friendship (accepting each other as they are) and based on the definition, I'm now going to explore the difference of friendship and kinship briefly and answer why friendship is often more beneficial than love[1]. Relatives are people who are tied with blood and family tree. Kinship is mostly based on familiar relationship based on familiar love and responsibilities, but also it is defined and regulated by laws. At the other end of the scale friendship, however, is not something that is regulated or controlled by law or social traditions. Rather, it is a relationship that we voluntarily and naturally decided to get involved. Friendship is therefore, is a relationship which is easy to end (unlike kinship) but when we decided to devote to that relationship, it can be stronger than any other relationship, for it is based on our own autonomous decision and belief.

 

Last but not least, in the similar vein, I firmly believe that friendship is superior to love, just like it is to the kinship. Love is based on self-made decision, too. But often it entails physical relationship and jealousy that is detrimental to both side – a man and a woman[2]. We often find out a case in which one of the lovers get so jealous or tired of its partner and end up with broken relationship. But that kind of situation seldom happen in friendship. True friendship never bores us. It gets stronger as time goes by and it's always refreshing. We don't get jealous about our friends for not always paying attention on each other. We don't envy them for their success and we congratulate them. These are the reason why friendship is more advantageous than love.

 

I've covered three topics so far. In a nutshell, what I wanted to deliver is that friendship is stronger than and superior to other kind of relationships (such as kinship and Eros love) because it is based on our autonomous decisions and ideas. Just like diamonds are forever, so will be true friendship.

---

[1] Love between the two different sexuality; Eros love.

[2] Here, I refer to a general couple with different sexuality. 

Hyunho Jung/p66 -67 ItemD and E/Summer Session

D-3.

Yes, I have. I have a friend who is 16 years older than me and have different nationality. His name is Calvin. He is from Hong Kong, China, and now lives in Korea for his degree. We became friends while taking a same class and having several group discussions in class. He was previously close to my older Korean friends in my department, and thus we knew each other even before we became close. One day he and I happened to be in a same group for the final exam, and we had a lot of academic discussions. After we finished it he said he felt that this was the most meaningful and fruitful discussion that he had ever made in his college life. I was moved by his sayings and thought this man knows how to show respect to the efforts of his teammates. He said why don't we have beer and he shared to me a lot of feelings and cultural difficulties about college life in Korea. Those heartfelt gratitude and sympathy made us a friend, and he still is a polite and a good friend who tries to think me first.

 

E-2.

It seems that friends can be more important than relatives. In the modern society, more people are getting out of their cultural and racial frame and having relationships with people from different backgrounds. They not only can chat with people who live on the other side of the planet, but actually visit wherever they want to meet their friends who live abroad. In this respect, people make their own circle of relatives by their preferences. In other words, friends can be as important to people nowadays as relatives. 

Park So Yeon/ page 66/ Summer Session 56

Page 66, Item D, Q.3

Recently, in a HUFS community website, an anonymous post asked whether two people with different backgrounds, hobbies, taste, and interest could be friends. I think this story answers the question. I believe that people with completely different personalities or backgrounds can become friends as long as they try.

Before coming to HUFS, I had heard a number of times that the friends you meet at university aren't true friends and it's not pure friendship because they all have something they want hidden behind their back. I was frustrated because I wasn't sure if it was right. Thus, I started to keep my distance with other people because it felt as if my classmates were double faced. It was foolish of me and my friend taught me that not all friendships made in universities are like that. She and I grew up in different regions we have different backgrounds and our personalities are poles apart. For instance, she is very straightforward and has a very distinct preference in everything. On the other hand, I tend to beat the bushes when I say something because I don't want to hurt people's feelings. Also, I tend to go with the flow, without having a big preference for things. Like this, we are two completely different people but we are very close and we became best friends.

People say love has no borders and I think the same thing applies in friendship as well. Culture, backgrounds, language, lifestyle, personality, and all the other differences cannot come in the way of two people being friends.

Item E, Q.2

             I have no problem becoming friends with people from another culture because I understand that everyone is different. In every relationship problems exist because we are all different. Among them, culture is just one thing so there is no reason for me to avoid another person just because he/she is different from me. Even if I avoid someone just because we don't share the same culture I will face other problems in other relationships. Of course, it is not easy to understand another person because culture influences us in many ways. It mainly influences our ideologies so finding a way to coexist with another person who has different thoughts with me is no doubt difficult. However, overcoming that adversary is part of becoming close to another person and I think that there is a bright side in becoming friends with a person from a different culture. A person from another culture can broaden my perspective because I can learn about a whole new world. I could also learn tolerance, and learn how to narrow the gap between myself and the person with different ideologies. To sum up, I think differences exist anywhere and culture is just one of them. 

Kim taekmin / Page 66-67 D&E / Summer56

D-1

I had some questions about this writing because of its settings. I'm not saying that the story itself is hard to understand, but it seems awkward to have the entire family as enemies in these times. I think the writer was inspired by Romeo and Juliet, but the setting seems so strange to me.

 

E-2

I think I can be as good friends with people from another culture as with someone from my own culture, because I think personality is more important than culture when making friends. It may be hard to make good friends if the cultures are exactly opposite, but that would be hard to exist. However, I think there would be some person that fits my taste of friends in any culture.

p.66 D-2  

There was a time when I needed a friend desperately. It was in the first few months when I was studying Korean in Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. I felt extremely homesick being far away from my family and friends. I was depressed because I had a difficult time in the process of adjusting to a new environment. However, while I was learning Korean in the language center, I met a Filipino there. I was delighted to meet her because she was the first Filipino I met here in Korea. From that day, we became friends and did many activities together. We watched movies, played sports, and went to the beach together. She also introduced me to some of her international friends and I felt less lonely. My friend helped me overcome my homesickness. I realized that was not so bad living here in Korea as long as I make new friends and memories.

Tsay Miri/p.66-67/summer56

P.66, D

Friend in need is a friend indeed

I think every person needs a friend at some point of his/her life and I am not an exception. My situation is different from author's story but I still can understand feelings of the main heroine. I remember the time when I was at the 2^nd year in university I was overwhelmed with problems. I couldn't catch up with my studies and voluntary activities. I broke up with my boyfriend. My parents had financial problems and it occurred that I couldn't go home for vacations. Adding to this, I was sick, had no time to sleep and barely had money to exist. It seemed that the whole world is against me. I was about to take an academic break and leave Korea. I couldn't think soberly and take any adequate actions. So, I meet my one of my closest friends in Korea and talked to her. I almost cried while talking to her. She listened to me and said: "Don't give up. If you need money I can borrow you. If you want to talk I will listen. But don't give up your studies because you experience some difficulties. It is all going to be OK." After discussing my situation with her, I felt relieved and problems suddenly became so small. I just needed to talk to her and realize that I am not alone. I think her behavior and my reaction demonstrated the true power of our friendship. I don't know what would I do without her but I believe that our friendship saved me from making mistakes.

P.66, E

                                 Friendship without borders

"Birds of a feather flock together" simply means that similar people tend to associate with each other. On the contrary, saying "opposites attracts" means that absolutely different people get on well with each other. In my opinion, both sayings are reasonable and truthful. However, they are right not for everyone. I think that my friendships are more coherent with the first saying. All of my closest friends speak Russian just like me and have the same cultural behaviors. Most of them are students and share my interests and preferences in leisure, food and lifestyle. Of course, I have some foreign friends but we are not that close. It might be easier to make friends among those with similar background because you don't have to teach them how to treat you. They already got to know it through similar experiences.

Nevertheless, there are a lot of people among my acquaintances, whose best friends are from different countries. They also have different professions, lifestyles and speak different languages. The most important thing is that despite difficulties they may face, their friendships are as strong as anyone else's. It proves that friendship depends on people and their character, not their nationality, interest or race. 

--

Best wishes, 

Tsay Miri

Kim, Jusung / Page 66-67 D&E / 2017 Summer Session Prose & Paragraphs

D-1

             The story is beautiful and gives a hope that cultural division would not stop humanity by separating each other through language, race, history and so on. However, I found the story unbelievable and couldn't really understand what the real reason for the hostility is. I know that there was a rift between their families and it was like Montagues and Capulets to talk about the relationship. However, the writing does not really provide specific reason why their families grew against each other. Because of that vagueness in their relationship, the whole story became untrustworthy. Also, it is unlikely for a "Bitter and sworn enemy" to turn the attitude and become friend. I understand that the writing is written in the view of one woman, but it still should have explained the reason why the other woman changed the mind to become a friend saying, "You needed allies."

 

E-2, 3

             I do not think that a culture determines a person to be a good friend. The culture does not really matter when it comes to a friendship. Some might say it does have effect on it, but I think it does not because in 21^st century, we share the norms and general values throughout the world. I agree that I have not experienced all the cultures, and there will be a culture that I may not be able to accept. However, friends from countries other than Korea that I ever met did not bring any resistance in my mind in making friends with them. There are special things about those friends but, those special features came to me as a merit or virtue rather than a flaw or limitation. They inspire me with things very new and it extends the spectrum of thoughts of me. I think I can make friends with people from different culture as good as with the people from a similar culture.

             "Birds of a feather flock together," "Opposites attract" both makes sense in some ways. I think the former is what I have and the latter is what I think. In other words, I think that I am attracted to people who has different perspective from mine. For example, I think having a different view itself is a very interesting situation because it will finally broaden my ability to understand things better. However, when I think about the friends around me, they tend to be similar to me. Of course, they have difference from me, and I find it very helpful to get advices from them because they suggest a totally different idea. But when we hang out and talk about each other, we often say, "Why is there only weirdos around me?" and answer back, "It is because you are a weirdo yourself!" Therefore, I think two sayings both have a point in some way even though it contradicts each other; we are attracted to the opposite, and at the same time, friends find themselves similar to each other.

Kim Chaeha/page 66/summer 56

D-2: Have you ever have been in a situation like the author's, where you really needed a friend?

After the graduation from high school, I had done a part-time job in a big buffet restaurant. There had a lot of part-timers who were in my ages. Some girls were nice to me at first; however, they started to ignore me without any reason. I felt lonely but it did not really matter so much because I was there to earn money, not to make friends. Fortunately, a girl who was one year younger than me came up to me and spoke to me first. We often talked while we worked and ate meals together. Thanks to her, I was not a lonely worker in the restaurant anymore.

E-3: English has two contradictory sayings that can apply to friendship: "Birds of a feather flock together," and "Opposites attract." What do they mean? Which saying describes friendship more accurately in your experience?

I think first saying means friends are people whose hobbies or interests are similar and second saying means people can be friends with those who have different personalities. For example, my friend and I have totally different personalities. She is like a fire; on the other hand, I am like water. What I mean is that she is very passionate but gets angry easier while I am relatively cold and silent. However, we share hobbies and interests together. We both like watching movies, listening to EDM, hanging out at nice restaurants, and so on. Also, we share our thoughts about our future paths or some social issues. Therefore, I think the two sayings about friendship can co-exist and be applied to any friends at the same time.

 

Kim Keunho/ p66 // summer session

D-2 Have you ever have been in a situation like the author's, where you really needed a friend?

  I experienced a similar situation, if not entirely the same. This semester, I was really having a lot of difficulties catching up with the class materials and lessons, because what I thought to be a linguistic class was actually a statistics and programming class about which I had no idea. Every week, the assignments that were hard to deal with were given to me but still, I have no other options but to appealing(?) or searching on internet by my own. At the same time, it required me a basic linguistic knowledge which I also didn't possess, so it was extremely hard for me to create and submit a quality assignment that the professor can accept. One of my friend, who is majoring in statistics and computer programming, recognized that I was having a terrible time, struggling with something that is way beyond my capability and willingly volunteered to give me a help, for the sake of promoting my understanding about the given tasks. I felt a huge relief and gratitude for my friend, who was committed to help me despite his busy schedule in his workplace. Owing greatly to my buddy, I managed to catch up with the class and finally succeeded to pass the course with the good grade.

 

E-1 Relatives can be friends, but friends cannot become relatives. Can they be as important as relatives?

 Friends can't be relatives unless they share the same bloodline and that's a lame story. My answer to this question is 'yes', definitely. I even think that in many circumstances, friends are more meaningful than relatives thesedays. Our society experienced decomposition of the traditional family type and relatives have been peripheralized or alienated in the personal relationship.  On the other hand, friends do mean more than relatives who have no similarities other than genes and family trees. With friends, we share ideas and daily experiences and we come to accumulate intimate and solid relationship based on those. No other relatives would be able to match the status or functions of friends; that will rarely happen. We get a lot of peer pressure and influences while we grow up and committed to each other when faced with difficulties or challenges. That's what friends are for. In conclusion, under modern society, I firmly believe that friends can definitely have more meaning and importance that relatives.

 

Inessa Kim/ page 66/ June 29 summer session

    I'm not that kind of person who always needs somebody's help; I try to be independent and make everything by myself. However, there are some hard times when I feel like I need somebody's help and especially a support from my close friends. 

    Living in Korea is not such an easy and always interesting task; it is my first time living abroad by myself, and my Korean is not that good to communicate well with people. So this are not the only problems that I have living here, but the main ones. These are the problems that made me feel depressive when I first came to Korea, and still make me feel a little bit uncomfortable because I live alone. Nevertheless, I can call myself a lucky person; I found good friends here, who support me and never let me feel crushed when I have some problems. If there were nobody to be on my side and who encouraged me, I would give up and come back to my homeland and never achieve what I have right now.

Seong Ji Lee/Pg 66/Summer Session

D-2 Have you ever have been in a situation like the author's, where you really needed a friend?

             Yes, there was a time when I was in a similar situation like the author's, while I was attending school abroad. At the time, I was the only non-native student in the school, whom didn't know how to speak English. Because I didn't know the food name in English, I couldn't even order meals at school cafeteria. Only thing I could do to was just pointing the food out and adding 'this and this please.' That was the best action I could do, but to the volunteer, who was mother of one of student, my action was somewhat felt rude to her. She thought I was being rebellious to the adult, though I had no such intention, I couldn't advocate myself and explain my situation to her. I was scolded and had to have menu I dlmdidn't like. I felt really ashamed for such an incident and didn't like lunch time. To me meeting the lady was horror. But, thankfully, my friends knew I was having trouble ordering food, so they had helped me by telling me all kinds of food names. Also, they've explained to the lady that I was unfamiliar with English, and had no bad intention to make her angry. After she knew I was just a kid from other country she understood all of my action and apologized for being too harsh on me. I really thank my friends for helping me tell the lady that she was misunderstanding my action.

 

E-1 Relatives can be friends, but friends cannot become relatives. Can they be as important as relatives?

             Yes, I think friends can be as important as relatives or even closer and more important, besides, there is saying in Korea "neighbor is relative." Especially in nowadays, we rarely see our relatives and even our family too, because, many people move to other places to find better jobs and to get better education. So we don't have relatives around us, making us to depend on our close neighbors and friend, when we are in trouble. Even for myself, I would call for my close friends' help rather than my relatives'. And I rarely see them too, maybe once or twice a year, while I see my friends every weekends.

To conclude, nowadays, we rarely see our relatives and moreover, we turn to friends when we are in need of close ones help. Friends are more intimate than relatives and may become more important person to some people. 

Seong ji Lee

Kim Nam Ha/ Page 66 item D, E/ Prose & paragraph 2017 summer season

 

Item D

2. Have you ever have been in a situation like the author's, where you really needed a friend?

I used to have a similar situation like the author's, the moment that friends were so needed. During the spring semester, I used to take a Japanese oral class.  My first major is international sport leisure so not many students that I knew chose Japanese major. I chose Japanese major because although Japan and Korea do not exchange in the sport are a lot, lovely sounded language made me fascinated and wanted me to learn their language. So this spring semester, I registered. 5 classes of Japanese lecture. Oral, listening, writing, grammar, interpreting. I had to eat by myself alone and take classes or do homework with no one else's aid. I had to get myself together and go through the obstacles. I tried really hard to catch up the lectures. Such as recording the lecture or learning vocabs every day, writing diary in Japanese as well. And one day, when I went to the class, there were no one! Only the single announcement from the professor. It was written as "Today class will be held in the café. Attend the class please, thank you". I was so shocked and thought of thousands of café around the campus. I thought of texting class mates but no contact number that I knew. And when I checked the class syllabus, there were no professor's phone contact. So I searched for the places the café that I knew. And when I got there I was late for 40 minutes. I apologized for being late and made excuses. Every student stared at me as if I was prisoner who was sentenced for death penalty. I hated that I had no one to back me up, and I was very embarrassing.

 

Item E

1.     Relatives can be friends, but friends do not usually become relatives. Can friends be as important to you as relatives? Explain.

In my opinion, yes I believe families can be friends and in return friends also can be part of the family. However, friends are not biologically related, friends can be much more closer and rely on each other. Because friends know each other's situation more than others and there are no secret between them.  

2.     Can you be as good friends with someone from another culture as with someone from your own culture? Explain

No I probably will not get along with someone with unfamiliar culture because onetime I had Turkish friend who was my dormitory roommate. We hang a lot together but later it was hard for me to be friends because of the food that he could not handle. For a couple of weeks, we had pizza, hamburger, food that was fast food because he could not handle Korean food. In addition to that , he could not eat pork due to Muslim obligation. For us students, cow meat is very expensive that we hardly eat them in usual. So my roommate always wanted chicken. So almost every meal we had chicken. I got annoyed and refused to eat chicken from that time and I did not hang around with him after that.

 

3.     English has two contradictory sayings that can apply to friendship: "Birds of a feather flock together," and "Opposites attract." What do they mean? Which saying describes friendship more accurately in your experience?

 'Birds of a feather flock together' means friends hang out together who has similar characteristics. 'Opposites attract' means that friends make their relationship even though they do not have same characteristic. I believe I am like 'Birds of a feather flock together', I like drinking and playing games and friends that I hang along loves to play games and drink all night as well.

 

4.      I disagree with the statements that girls can make friends more easily. In my point of view, both of the gender can make friends easily. It is how that person can react to the friends they say. When perspective or hobbies are closely matched, no matter what the genders are, oneself gets interest on that other and wants to know more and be friendly.

 

Dong Heui Kim/Page 66/Summer Writing

Item D #2

When I was a new student after moving to a different place during middle school, I had no one else to talk to. Classmates were interested in seeing a new student, but they all went back to their existing friends. I did have mates to eat lunch and hang out during PE class but felt very left out and uncomfortable. It was my first time transferring school and adapting to new environment was too hard and tough for me. Leaving all of friends behind was the most difficult part I could not endure, seeing all new students belonging to certain group. I really hated going school and always had to struggle getting ready for it and I missed my friends. Then one day, a girl who sits two people away came up to me and asked whether I have interest in reading. She said she saw me reading a lot of books during school. I had no reason to reject so I joined the reading club in the school and we became close friends. Because of her, I was able to enjoy school life again and if she had not come for me, I would still have stayed out of place. Since then, I had no trouble adapting to new school and new people whenever I transferred to new school due to my father's career. She is still one of my best friends and I consider her as my savior.

Item E #1

     Of course friends can be as important as relatives, maybe even more crucial than family. First of all, the concept of relative and friend is very different. It is a different category because relative is blood-related and friends is an abstract, general form of relationship that comforts one another. So friends are bigger category that can entail the idea of relative. When we are young, we get influenced by our family members such as parents and siblings. Yet, when we enter social community like school, we spend much more time with our friends, who contribute as an essential factor that shapes up our identity ad sense of value. During this time, friends' existence is big to each one and sometimes can be more dependent and reliable than family especially in puberty. Even I myself share numerous things with my friends that my family does not know. Family and friends are both reliable, but it is just that sometimes friends give a sense of easiness and less pressure.   

Yun Jung Hwan/ page 66/ summer session 56

D. Helping each other understand

I don't have been in that tough situation like author, but I believe that we can make a friend whatever the characteristic and background is. It doesn't matter to become a friend. I think myself as an introvert person, very timid, but I have a friend who is completely opposite to me. Furthermore, each of my friend has different family background, different interests and values. I also have foreign friend from Zimbabwe, Africa. At first time we met, we only used English to communicate, but since I teach him a Korean language, we use both languages in our talk. I felt little bit awkward at first, but I became closer to him by teaching Korean language. We still have a familiar relationship with each other. So I think excessively bother about differences, such as personal or cultural backgrounds, would made a mental gap to each other.

 E. Critical thinking

2. Can you be as good friends with someone from another culture as with someone from your own culture? 

In my experience, I think sometimes my friends are more familiar than my relatives. When I was a kid, relationship between me and my cousins were very close. However, getting older, we were busy at doing own work and going to school, and relatives moved even farther away from our home. So we only meet at holidays, such as New Year or chuseok. As we see the face at most two times in a year, our relation became no much familiar than before. Of course, we enjoy the time we meeting, but sometimes it feels like somewhat customary affair in family relationship. On the other hand, I meet my friends almost every day, my circle friends. Especially, in this semester, I think spend more time with my friends than my relatives. I feel more comfortable to my friends.  

I perfectly agree to the opinion that friends can be as important as relatives. In fact, relatives support me when I am in trouble. They would understand my problems and worries in the name of family, but I think friends can do so. When we have reliable friends, we disclose our problems to friends and find a better solution. In this case, they can be a great help in difficult situation. Furthermore, friends can easily sympathize to our troubles, because they may share the same circumstances, for example, studying at same school and spending a spare time together. Some people would say "Family do not abandon and betray you in any circumstances." but it isn't true always. This is a kind of prejudice. We often see the news that the family and relatives torn apart by the fight. On the other hand, relationship with congenial friends can be maintained for a long period of time. I think it is prejudice that friendship is weaker than relationship of family, in other words, it is not to say that relations to relatives are more important than friends.