Last Monday, First Call editors and writers gathered up at the Harnwell upper lobby to discuss how the first issue came along. I had picked up the magazine with excitement to check out my first-ever published work. Even before I turned a page to delve into my article, a full-page photograph on the cover caught my eyes: two ghetto adolescent boys smoking with a cardboard sign reading “HUNGRY HUNGRY HOBOS. Anything helps.”

What is a hobo? I sincerely did not know what a hobo was. (I’m serious, here.) I guessed in many different ways with my Wharton-trained analytical skills. It may be an acronym because it is capitalized. Maybe not, because “hungry” is also in caps. It may be Philadelphian slang since they seemed to be locals. (“Go Eagles,” in tiny letters, was written on the top edge of the sign.) In a long array of educated guesses, I carefully landed on a plausible conclusion: considering the intimate postures of the two boys, I thought it may be an abbreviation for Homosexual Boys.

A good portion of our meeting was dedicated to the subject of hobos. An editor who sat right next to me illustrated her summer vacation story of inviting hobos into her house for a party. She not only enjoyed the festival, but she also made a hefty sum of money by charging admission fees to the hobos. She might have been a lesbian, and everything seemed to fit into my extrapolation. Members chuckled and giggled all the way through. I sincerely laughed too, without faking anything, despite my ignorance on the definition of the word. The sound of the word cracked me up; certain words in the past had made me cachinnate without knowing the definition: mojo, toga, ringding, and so on.

As soon as I came back up to my room, I looked the word up in my cure-all electronic dictionary. It read “Hobo: (noun) a homeless wanderer who may beg or steal for a living.” Wow. What a linguistic epiphany. I began thoroughly digesting the definition and carefully examining the sample sentences from www.thefreedictionary. com. My phone rang. Caller ID: Etan Rosenbloom, one of my best friends who graduated from Penn three years ago. I, of course, was waiting for the time when I could incorporate the new word into a sentence in a natural context. “Do you remember when we met the two hobos in front of the 40th street McDonalds?” Etan’s casual response inplied that my attempt was successful, and now I get to toss in a new vocabulary word to my collection. These are the general steps (of recognizing, guessing, checking, and using new English vocabulary) I use to overcome my language barrier, by mastering a word at a time.

Yes, I am a foreigner, and I have the same language barriers as many foreigners who come to the States after their adolescent years. The language barrier, or actually the fear of having such a thick and high wall of verbal and social disability, was built into me when I first came to the States. Hearing my high school freshman roommate calling me a FOB, I had to look it up in the dictionary to find “Fresh Off the Boat.” Countless accounts of my linguistic misunderstandings, responded to by others’ cynically-driven jeers and head-shakes, exacerbated my despair and induced more insecurity. The active social life is critical for an extrovert like me: people intrigue me, teach me, motivate me, and rejuvenate me. And, there is nothing sadder than the thought of being separated from people. I had to somehow devise a way to smash that invisible but solid social barricade between me and the cocky New England preppies.

My first move was to join an a cappella group because the group required every member to speak a language other than English: music. My Korean accent and awkward word choices dissipated in the realm of the language of music. When all of us were singing from the bottom of our hearts, engaging in eye contact and matching our mouths, the heavenly overtones of our collective voice filled up the rehearsal room, and the magical moment of harmony inundated our hearts. We knew we became one without even talking to each other.

Once I became a member of the brotherhood that way, my English skill was no longer an isolating obstacle but served as the easiest medium to socialize with my fellow singers. When I just gladly let them enjoy my FOBiness and take my English skills as the object of their light-hearted jokes (because I cared much more about them than the brief moment of my embar rassment), I could visualize the grand demolition of the wall. My language barrier became William Hung’s jerky dance move that wasn’t intended at all but drew people’s attention at the expense of embarrassment. I took one more step. I tried hard to enjoy my verbal mistakes myself. Then, even that tiny bit of embarrassment disappeared, and I truly could understand the potential of my language barrier; it was the source of joy for my colleagues and myself. With this enlightenment my insecurity disappeared, my confidence in life was restored.

Do I still have the language barrier after ten years have passed? Yes, I do. (You just don’t see any hints here that often, thanks to the editors.) I am not afraid. I just need to keep building up my vocabularies, training my mouth muscles to adapt to English pronunciation, and having fun with my friends. I have a favor to ask you, the readers. When you meet me, please don’t turn away from me because of my awkward verbal expressions. We can become lifelong friends and together peel off the layers after layers of affectation to reach our essence; you will be my teacher and I will be your apprentice (and vice versa). And I get to enjoy crawling over the language barrier in your company. I am just a hungry, hungry English lover. Any word helps.