When I used to write profiles for ACORN I could get even the most reticent interviewee to open up because I'd ask the right questions. The first morning after I decide to turn things around, I ask Antonio at breakfast, "What's the strangest thing for you about Mexico?"
Nothing, he insists. I really like it here, he says.
So I try again. "What is something you like about Mexico that is very different from Korea?" I ask.
"The food," he says, finally.
I had tried several times to tell Antonio that there are Korean tacos in the U.S. but each time he had looked at me like I was a liar or a mental patient. Now I ask him whether they have Mexican food in Seoul.
He tells me that there is one area in the city where all the foreign food restaurants are located, English pubs, Italian bistros. The way he describes the area makes it sound like it is not some organic neighborhood created by immigrant communities, but something more planned, a kind of outdoor, overgrown food court.
"And it's dangerous at night," he tells me. "If you're going to get robbed in Seoul, that's where it would happen."
I've just gotten more out of Antonio in five minutes than I have in the entire two weeks put together. Maybe I've found the solution. I have to interview Antonio.
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