You were on your way home from your last day of school. It had been a long year and you were glad it was finally over. All you wanted to do was go home and sleep for a week to try and regain some of the strength that had been depleted.

As you walk in the door, you yelled out to your parents to make them aware of your presence.  There was no answer, which was strange because your parents would typically rush to your side and pepper you with questions about your day. You began to become curious and decided to check the house.

You start off with the kitchen, hoping your mom was in there making an after-school snack for you. After seeing that the room was empty, you headed toward the living room. When you arrived at the doorway, you saw your parents huddled together on the couch, intently reading a letter they held in their hands. You walked towards them and bend down to try and see what the letter was about, but their bodies were efficiently blocking your vision. “What are you two doing?” you said rather loudly into the quiet room.

Both of your parents were focused so intently on the letter that they both jumped simultaneously at the sound of your voice, completely unaware that you had walked into the room, let alone that you had come home from school. You felt slightly hurt that they had completely ignored your existence like that, but you pushed the feeling down and repeated your question.

After having calmed down from the shock and hearing your question again, they gave one another a strange look that you couldn’t interpret. They both opened their mouths at the same time. “We are having a foreign exchange student stay with us this year!” your parents say in unison. Your mouth drops down to the floor in shock. Since when did your parents start taking an interest in housing other people? You always viewed your parents as rather reserved people that didn’t like company all that much. It’s no wonder all your classmates think you’re antisocial with parents like these.

“Uh…O.K.” you reply, too shocked to voice any of the questions suddenly crowding your brain and fighting for dominance to be asked first. Your parents continue talking about when and how this sudden change would happen. You finally organize your thoughts and regain enough of your awareness to ask what you think of as the most important question.

“So, is this person going to be a girl or a guy?”

“Well, a girl of course!” your mom replies. “We don’t want any funny stuff going on in our household, not that we don’t trust you, dear.”

You release a huge sigh of relief. You were never very comfortable around strangers, but being around strange males only served to increase your awkwardness. Every time you would find yourself in such a situation, your mouth would refuse to open despite your best efforts and your feet would suddenly decide that walking was for chumps and falling on your face was the best way to travel.  This problem, coupled with the fact that your parents didn’t allow you to date until you had your driver’s license, helped to explain why you had never had a boyfriend in seventeen and a quarter years of existence.

Now that you were relieved of your biggest worry, you began to become curious about your soon-to-arrive housemate.

“Where is she from? How old is she? What does she look like? How well does she speak English? What are her favorite things?” Questions spouted from your mouth like water out of a fountain.

“Whoa there! Calm down a bit. We don’t know much yet. The program she is traveling with feels it’s better for the students to share about themselves to help build a closer bond and so they can adjust to their surroundings at their own pace. All we can tell you is that we requested a girl from an Asian country because we know how much you love Asian cultures.” your dad responded.

It was true. You absolutely adored all things Asian. Manga, manhwa, anime, K-dramas, J-dramas, Taiwanese dramas, K-pop, M-pop, J-pop. If it was Asian, you were all over it. For some reason, it seemed you had a passion for those types of things and fe