When I laugh… I LAUGH. Mouth open, teeth showing, laughter just explodes out of me. A lot of my friends back home laugh just like that altogether and it creates a sort of happy insanity.

I went to a department store where I bought a pair of boots (60% sale b/c winter’s slowly ending here (:D) ) and the young 22-year-old-looking-but-actually-33-year-old sales guy started talking to me. When he said something funny, I started laughing like I usually do. He looked almost scared. 

“Americans and Koreans laugh so differently,” he said. He imitated a Korean laugh— which was a smile with a hand covering his mouth. I had never thought about the differences in laughter when crossing cultures. 

I’m sure not all Koreans laugh with their mouths closed and not all Americans laugh like me (aka, a horse). But it was interesting to talk about it with someone who acknowledged it as a cultural difference.