A week ago, I met up with a friend and he introduced me to his cousin who recently flew in from Vietnam to pursue his undergraduate studies here in Korea. He looked so young, energetic and bubbly that I had to inquire about his age, which the lad disclosed with a smile on his face. Upon hearing it, I almost immediately began to reminisce on my high school days when we studied “Literature in English.” We usually read books in different genres but my favorite were dramas set in the medieval period. I still remember one of Shakespeare’s classics titled “Antony and Cleopatra,” where Cleopatra reflected and said “My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood...” She was talking about her youthful and naive infatuation with Julius Caesar, and as young students, we began to use the metaphors of “salad days” and “green” to describe our more youthful selves, just like Cleopatra used it to described a time of immaturity and inexperience, contrasting her past feelings for Caesar with her deeper, more mature love for Mark Antony. As I spoke with the young man who