progress

This morning my host mother asked me if I'd read today's paper, and when I said no (I'd just gotten up, and anyway the English language newspaper is always about a day behind the Korean one) she told me that it had been discovered that the four men involved in the London bombings were Englishmen, from Pakistan. This was very shocking to her.

Yesterday she spoke to a former student of hers who is currently living in England, and this morning she told me that her student had said that there are many different kinds of people living in London (Jews, 'Islamics', Americans...), and that there is a lot of fighting, and that this prevents London from 'progressing' (an interesting choice of words, I thought).

I think I probably made a very obvious face when I said that I think having lots of different kinds of people living together is a good thing, even if it sometimes has problems.

She nodded, then said, "But Jews and Islamics together?" exhaled and gave me a look as if to say, "What were they thinking?"