During my exchange in UBC, Canada, I had run into an embarrassment where I did not know how to responds to the topic of homosexual. That was during one of the pre-project discussions when we were trying to get familiar with the group members. The guy I was talking to suddenly says, “No, I am not living in school. My boyfriend and I rent an apartment nearby.” I was a bit shocked at that time, and did not know how to respond. I tried to twist the conversation to another topic and pretended I feel nothing strange about what he said just now. I was not sure whether my behavior was proper and for the rest of the conversation, I tried to observe whether he felt offended by my ignorance. Luckily, he seemed not. Nevertheless, for the rest of the project, I treated him with great care when the conversations went into topic such as Valentine’s day or boyfriend/girlfriend. I cannot stop by thinking, what should I say or behave when I face the same topic again when go to work later?
To be frank, I did not have any problem with the fact that one was homosexual; indeed, I was a bit curious since I never met any homosexual couples before. However, as an Asian, I never heard people talk about her/his homosexual partner in public. The topic seemed to be sensitive and private to my knowledge. I know in BC, Canada, homosexuality was protected by law and people accepted them naturally. However, even sometimes in US, the most freedom country, we still heard that homosexuality was against by some religions or the older generation. But the westerns seemed to be better at observing whether people were open to the topic or should avoid it during conversation. In contrast, Asians were trying not to mention it all the time. But how long can we continue to ignore the topic?
