My Personal Positive Experience with Contact Zones between Cultures

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I would have never realized what kind of experience I had back in 2002 if it wasn't for my current class in 2013 at the University of Texas at Dallas. Reading and Writing Texts was a class that I didn't really know what I was getting into till a week or two had already passed. By then I realized I enjoyed it quite a bit despite my lack of writing skills when it came to essays. It was when we began to read the stories by Hoffman, Pratt, Anzaldua, Rodriguez, Damrosch, Valery, Thuesen, and Liu that I realized I had a similar experience that these writers talked about. Though most of them talked about negative experiences with contact zones between cultures I would like to talk about a positive personal experience of my own. To understand how this all came about we have to know a bit of history behind it.
Back in the 1950's during the Korean War my Grandfather went over seas with the army, during that time his unit came across a young Korean boy who was digging through the trash in search of anything useful to his family that could help them survive, and they gave him a job working in the kitchen. After a little while my Grandfather's Sargent came to him asking if he could teach this boy, who they nick named Cricket, English being he wanted to learn, and my Grandfather accepted. At the time all my Grandfather had for teaching materials was his own personal Bible, so that was what he used to help Cricket learn to read, and write.
As time passed the two became close friends, helping each other a few things, and Cricket eventually invited my Grandfather to come eat dinner with his family. By the time my Grandfather left Cricket was skilled enough in English to carry on a conversation. Before he returned home after the war ended my Gr...

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...mmunicate.
It was at that point that we finally were able to connect and talk to each other. Now that we had some form of communication that she was comfortable with and I was completely willing to comply to, we instantly hit it off. After that we quickly became close friends and even go as far as calling each other sisters. Now that I have a name for that moment we shared I am very happy to know what to call it. Though there are plenty of these contact zones in my story like with my Grandfather, the new foods, and other things it is the point where my friendship with Seyoung started that is the most important one. It could have happened in a more negative way and ended up with us both hating each other or misunderstanding each other. But being we both entered the situation with an open mind and a willingness to communicate it turned out positive for both parties.

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