Itimidly enter the store, gently closing the wooden door behind me. Instinctively, I bow my head at the Korean 아저씨 at the cash register. I browse through the frozen meats, picking up some pork belly and wandering over to the ramen selection. When I return to check out, he’s standing with his glasses lowered, a hint of a smile on his face. “You know how I knew you were Korean?” he asks in the language I hear so rarely now. “How?” I respond, a little taken aback by his question. “It’s the bow,” he answers knowingly. “Only the Koreans bow in greeting.”

In the tiny Korean market in the Czech Republic, a country that is home to only 3,000 Koreans, the recognition of my ethnicity is strangely welcoming and sweet. It doesn’t feel like that back home in the States, and it hasn’t for a while. Both

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