Mr. Joe is back from a visit to the U.S. after 3 years in Yongsan!
For Civil Service folks, The Government pays for a visit if you extend your tour, (sort of like a midtour trip for GI's).
A few things we learned:
-The government pays for cheap seats. You should have a milage card from some airline (United, in this case), so you can upgrade.
- Economy (Cheap) now comes in TWO sizes, Economy and Economy plus!
- Economy Plus seats are about 4 inches wider, and are for American sized bodies. "Economy" seats are for children or small, short people. They have nearly no legroom. (Your briefcase WON'T fit under the seat in front of you.)They are in the back of the plane. The agents know that, and probably try to fill them with small Oriental people who should complain less.
- We were short on time when we made our reservations, and were not able to get a seat assignment until we arrived at the plane. They put my (formerly Korean) wife in the tiny seat section, and assigned me (Plus size) six rows ahead in the plus seats! They said they were sorry. They were right about that! After we got in the air the skinny girl beside me agreed to switch seats with my wife, after I informed her that I snore loudly, and would be making frequent trips to the rest rooms. A Flight Attendant said earlier that I would have difficulty finding someone to switch seats to "Economy" seats, as they were small, and less comfortable. Also, she said, seasoned knowledgeable travelers had paid about $100 MORE for the Economy Plus seats, and detested the smaller seats.
- The larger planes would seem to be more confortable, but the big 747 large screen movie was turning off often and a real disaster on one flight!
The 777 had individual movie screens on each seatback. The free earbuds don't fit very well.
- If you have noise-cancelling earphones, take them with you, with a proper stereo plug, and you will reduce cabin noise as well, and have a more enjoyable experience. Or, just wear earplugs to reduce noise. Twelve hours of high ambient cabin noise can cause some hearing loss.
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- There are lots of other things we learned, like -forget Korean, you will need Spanish if you are going back to live in America. We will continue this after my siesta- Jet lag is still with me.

Welcome back !

Welcome back!

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Why do u so laugh ?
Mr.Joe is my only adviser. Even though he can't speak Korean, his say is always right.

Because it's true what he said about Spanish and I thought it was funny.

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OK, I got it.
Maybe, Are you Spanish ?
How is the rate of the Spanish in American society ?
I heard about them from American friend that they don't speak in English.
And also my friend said, we have to learn their language.
But I can't understand that. America's language is English.
So, why Spanish don't speak in English ?

The short answer is because many of these people are in the USA illegally and they have no respect for our country even though it is the country providing them with an income (in most cases).

It is really a very complicated situation that is hard for most Americans to understand, so explaining it to a Korean would be 5 times as difficult!

Actually, the proper way to refer to them is "Hispanic." While some of them might be Spanish (someone from Spain), only a tiny fraction of Spanish speakers in the US are from Spain. 미국에 살고 있는 한국 사람들이 보통에 "히스페닉계" 라고 합니다.

Many of them don't speak English because they never learned how to speak English and they can get by just fine only speaking Spanish.

It's the same for Koreans who live in Koreatown in Los Angeles. They can live there and not know a word of English, and get by just fine. Even the street signs there are bi-lingual. You can take a driver's license test in Korean. Virtually every service within the service industry has Korean speaking representatives: doctors, lawyers, banks, all kinds of stores and shops, etc.

It's always been this way in America. 100 years ago in the large, urban Italian neighborhoods, many of the first generation adults never learned to speak English.

America, why do complicate so ?

I am Samoan (well half) and half White. I don't speak spanish, however when I went to Cancun last year, they tried speaking spanish to me as if I were Spanish..

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