While walking down Splatter Street recently, my friend Guthrie remarked that she is seldom acknowledged by other Americans. We had just walked by two white girls living in my neighborhood of Mapo in Seoul. I’ve never said a word to them either.

She’s from Minnesota. I think people are a lot kinder there. They smile and even wave at passersby.

Guthrie is in the throes of culture shock. She went to a huge department store recently and couldn’t find anything that fit. Not even in The Gap, that bastion of Western casual wear.

"Nothing fits my boobs," says she.

Guthrie will soon hit her five-month mark in Korea. It gets a lot easier after that.

Westerners can easily find things to complain about in South Korea. We’ve got it so good we just can’t help but complain about the handful of things that suck. One of the things that suck: other foreigners.

"I don’t even like hearing them in the subway," Guthrie says. "It annoys me so much that I try not to talk on the subway anymore. They’re so loud. I don’t want to be like them."

She is a contradiction. Guthrie would like to get a smile from a white girl passing by. But she doesn’t like to hear flocks of them speaking the English while on the metro. This is fairly common. Despite our similarities (number one being living in a polarizing Asian culture), we stick to our cliques. It’s like high school. But everybody is the socially-awkward-sexually-repressed-culture-monging fringer. We just find like-minded subdivisions within that domain. That’s a given here, along with the following:

1. Christian married couple (late 20s) paying off debt and saving for a house. Recognizable by their conservative khaki pants and sour expressions.

2. Uber-educated, 30-something females unable to find intellectual equals back home who decide inside instead to pursue their careers and cultural enrichment abroad.

3. Middle-aged pornographers with a hankering for the innocent Asian girls.

4. Hot young guys willing to teach English for a year to hook up with innocent Asian girls. Recognizable by their public hand sex in coffee shops.

As much as I dislike the stereotyping…there you go. Part of establishing your identity while you’re in another country is acknowledging that you are what most annoys you in other people.

Becky Ann Bosshart