#<[Culture] A French Korean girl that I don’t know was upset with me because she was late to class>
daring kernel
Hey! So I'm a Norwegian exchange student in Asia (I don't want to say where, but it's in the north-east). I need some advice about French culture, and I hope there's somebody here who can help me ❤️
I've been attending a class my friend is in because I find the topic super interesting. We were almost late for class so I told my friend to head to class before me, because she's actually being credited and I haven't applied for the class yet. My friend texted me saying that they've switched classrooms because there wasn't enough room in the last classroom we were in. After I grabbed the lunch that I had paid for, I ran to make it to class.
The building the class is in is two buildings combined, so it was a little complicated finding the room. While searching I ended up meeting a girl from class. We've never spoken to each other before, but we recognized each other's faces. So I greeted her, and she said she's already searched the corridor I was walking towards, so in a hurry I began scanning the number of each room in the corridor, until I discovered she was right. However, at this point, she had made no attempt to follow me and seemed somewhat disinterested.
When I was at the end of the corridor, I noticed a local student and asked her for help. She kindly offered to walk me to the right building. I turned around to call the girl from my class over, but I noticed she was walking in the opposite direction of me and was talking to somebody else (if I remember correctly), so I thought she (1) must not like me and (2) was getting help from somebody else. Since we've never talked or greeted each other before, I didn't know her name and since she appeared to want to do something other than I was doing, I thought I should give her the freedom to do that and didn't think much else of it.
I made it to the right building, and began scouring the floor until I found the classroom, maybe around 5-10 min late. (The room was very well hidden, but I found it.) My friend had saved a spot for me, but I couldn't find her or any other free seat in the line I was in. That's when I surprisingly discovered my by then best friend of the semester was also taking the same class and didn't have anyone sitting next to her. I was so happy to see her and stressed about catching up with the class material they've already gone through, that I didn't really recognize anyone else. Halfway through, when the class was discussing the text out loud, I noticed the girl that I met in the corridor earlier in the back on the opposite side of the classroom from me. I was happy she had made it to class before me.
After class, I wanted to quickly pack up and catch up with the friend who had saved me a spot. However, the moment I began packing up, the girl that I met in the corridor came up to me and said she thought it was selfish of me to not come back for her after I had found the classroom. I was honestly pretty befuddled, after stumbling over my words for a few seconds, I just told her that I thought she didn't follow me because she didn't like me. After I said that she calmed down, and said we might've misunderstood each other and she looked a little relieved. After talking a little bit, the teacher called me up front to him, because he had noticed that I wasn't on the attendance list. I gave her a smile and a nod, and quickly went up to explain that I was considering taking the class and asked if it was ok for me to visit or audit the class if I wasn't able to officially apply, which he was ok with. After packing up, I walked out and tried talking some more to the girl. I ended up looking at her confused for a few seconds, because I was sensing this was probably a misunderstanding caused by a cultural difference. So I asked for her name and where she was from. She said she was from France. My semester best friend asked me I'm joining in for kimbap, and I said yes before quickly turning my attention back to the French girl. I wanted to clear the air up a little bit more. Outside we talked a tiny bit more, until she abruptly turned around to her friends and didn't acknowledge my presence again. After a few seconds I turned around, to follow my bf and the new people we had gotten to know in class up to the kimbap place.
Honestly I just felt bad about the whole thing at first. I feel like a lot of people has been sad or offended by how impolite I am (I really don't mean to, I just don't know any better), so I had been spending the last two days practicing being that country's style of politeness (bowing, saying my thank yous, good byes and polite speaking form even though I barely know the language and I'm just doing my best at stringing together words). So being hit with another confirmation about how rude people perceived me as was a little devastating. However, when I told my friends and to the new people I got to know that day about what had happened, they pointed out how weird it that girl was for expecting that from me, and that they would have done the same thing I did. I still felt bad, but it was very validating to hear.
glacial turtleBOT
<[Culture] A French Korean girl that I don’t know was upset with me because she was late to class>
daring kernel
Now I'm thinking of what I should do moving forward. I honestly don't want any drama or beef with anybody, and I just want to get along and have an enjoyable semester. I won't be able to ignore her, since she's in the class I want to attend. At first I thought that maybe I should just have a serious talk with her about expectations and compromise if another situation arises again or if needed, but now that I'm back in bed, I think she honestly scares me a little bit. It feels very burdensome that she expects me to serve her, without her trying to even get to know me (she never asked for my name, where I'm from, my interests, etc. We didn't know anything about each other at all before I took the initiative and asked her.)
What do I do?
elder stream
tl/dr?
hearty oak
Umm is there like a shorter version of this? 😅
plush solstice
Sounds like something better off on reddit
hearty moth
tl/dr?
TL;DR: OP got lost and met their French-Korean classmate who was equally lost. OP got directions but didn’t call the French-Korean classmate because they were walking away and were talking to someone else. OP arrived at the correct classroom, a bit late, but FK classmate got really late. After the class, FK classmate said that it was rude for OP to not call them as well.