My Roommate-Jiin

There is a very famous TV comedy called Big Bang Theory in the US and I am a big fan of it. I really like the character Shelton because he is cute and smart but weird. However, if he were my roommate, I would hate him for his complicated roommate agreements. Roommates can have a very big influence on each other’s lifestyles. As you may know, roommates can turn into your best friend or your worst enemy. I have been so lucky that my roommate has become a good friend.

My roommate called Jiin is a very easygoing and sweet Korean girl. I met her last semester; she was very outgoing and friendly. After living together for a semester, we’ve developed some great habits together, such as cooking dinner with both Chinese and Korean food, communicating in English to practice our English, learning about each other’s culture, and hanging out during the weekend for shopping or doing some kind of sporting activity together.

• Cooking dinner together
  

This picture shows our breakfast this past Sunday. Jiin fried the rice with spam and kimchi, which is the most popular food in Korea. Jiin told me that most Korean people cannot live without kimchi. They put it in everything; they can cook it with rice, add it to soup, or serve it with Korean ramen. To be honest, it was so yummy！！

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•   Improving our English skills
  

In addition to learning professional knowledge, improving language skills is another important task for international students from non-English speaking countries. Jiin and I try to do this by discussing our daily life everyday, like how classes are going and anything funny that might have happened that day. When there is a sentence we don’t know how to express, we usually check the dictionary or Google it to find the right words. Sometimes we correct each other’s pronunciation when we find it sounds weird. I practice my English skills almost every minute except while I’m sleeping. It has been very useful for me. Besides, talking to my roommate could double the happiness and lessen the sadness.

• Learning about Korean/Chinese culture
  

The best way to learn about a foreign culture is to make a friend from that country. Jiin is my first Korean friend. During our conversation，I found that China and Korea have some similarities in their cultures, for example, our lunar new year day is the same day and a standard Korean ID includes the person’s Chinese name on it. Jiin explained to me that sometimes, Two Korean words have the same spelling and pronunciation; Korean people use Chinese to explain and distinguish the meaning behind them. In addition, it’s a really good opportunity to learn some Korean phrases. From what I know, Korea is a country of courtesy and propriety. As Jiin told me, when young people talked to elder people, they have to use a Korean syntactic category, which is always the difficult for me.

Boston University ranks ninth in the nation in the number international students, with more than 5,200. At the first, I was a little nervous to live with people who came from different countries since we have different living habits. However, I was totally wrong to feel this way. Believe me, I have a lot of fun living with my Korean roommate. Thanks to this certificate program, I entered a small international arena to learn from different people from different countries.