I was very scared when I decided to move away from home. I consider myself someone who is able to get along with most people, but I also realize that I haven’t spent very much time outside of the city that I grew up in. How many years have you spent in the Bronx? Do you meet different sorts of people when you leave your hometown?
Seattle was my home for 24 and a half of my 25 years. Although Seattle is a somewhat diverse city, most people agree on a lot of issues there. For example, I think that protecting our environment is extremely important, and so do most of my friends in Seattle. So, when I left, I was nervous that people would disagree with a lot of the things that I believe in, and that it would be hard to make friends with people who are different from me.
When I arrived in Thailand, a tourist from America told me that Thai people are only friendly because they are able to earn more money that way. He said that when they smile, they are just smiling so that the cash in our pockets comes out a little more quickly. I refuse to believe this. I have lived in Khon Kaen, where tourists are hard to find, for nearly four months, and yet people still smile just as much as they do in tourist destinations like Phuket and Koh Phi Phi.
