180 centimeters
Yeon Woo asked me how tall I was today.
“Five eleven or six feet,” I said, “I’m not sure.”
It’s a reflex answer, the response I always give to the not-uncommon question. I wasn’t expecting Yeon Woo’s response, though.
“Five eleven?” She said. “I don’t understand that concept.”
As it turns out, in South Korea everyone is measured in centimeters. Yeon Woo is 160 centimeters – about 5’3″ – and my “five eleven” was meaningless to her.
The United States is one of the few countries that still measures in feet and inches, pounds and ounces. Metric measurements are meaningless to me. Talking to Yeon Woo this morning made me wish I knew the metric system a little better.
For the record, I am about 180 centimeters tall. I’ll have to let Yeon Woo know.
Carlee, I am an instructor who will be at the workshop over the upcoming weekend. This is a great blog post! I really enjoyed how you showed a cultural difference between yourself and another student. You could have just said: Yeon is from Korea. Instead you showed the different. Keep up the good work!
Carlee: I am really enjoying your blog. In this post especially, I appreciated that you used a short anecdote to illustrate a very poignant moment during camp – students discovering and exploring each others cultural differences.
Also, you have a knack for good storytelling and letting the scenes unfold. Nice work.