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     Despite obstacles she enjoys participating in community service and art competitions, having her own room and seeing lots of friends. Three of her seven closest friends are Caucasian Americans, one girl and two boys. The rest are Thai girlfriends. Like Tomimatsu, she admits she's closer to her Asian friends, noting they have the same culture, speak the same language, and share the same experience of being in a foreign land. Also, Americans, she feels, are more aloof. "Thai people always hang out together. Americans, sometimes they just don't feel like going with anyone, so they just go alone."
     Shovityakool finds that the most difficult thing about Wyoming Seminary is keeping up with her schoolwork. The experience, she feels, has hardened her.
     Unlike Shovit6yakool, 18-year-old Ken Chen takes the culture gap in stride. The Taiwan national has been in the U.S. for six years, attending his brother's alma mater Darlington for the last four. Before that he went to a private day school in Ohio and a public school in Singapore.
     When Chen first came to Darlington he encountered problems with a few students who were "stuck up" about their lineage, made fun of his accent, and told him to go home. The harassment really got to him, he says, until he realized they were just ignorant. Hecklers from a rival team were unable to get to him with "chink" and other insults when he pitched a baseball game last year. Chen just laughed it off.

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     A few of his Asian friends are too closed-minded and thin-skinned for their own good, Chen believes. "Be more open-minded and not take things too seriously," he advises his own younger brother, "especially when people say stupid things." Dorm life and field trips, he says, have helped him meet "wonderful people". His closest friends are from the U.S. -- one, his roommate, is Puerto Rican, another, a former roommate, is black. The rest are White. He finds it easy to meet girls, dating mostly Caucasians.
     Of the five students we spoke with, Steven Song seems by far the most at home at boarding school. The 15-year-old Corean American has attended Darlington School, his uncle's alma mater, for the past six and a half years. Prior to the third grade he attended the town's public school.
     Song really like the faculty and students who "keep him challenged most of the time." He also enjoys the sports and, like Tomimatsu and Paik, appreciates how sports improves your social life. "There's a different relationship if you meet them in sports than if you meet them in class." Of his eight friends, four are from Korea, three are Caucasian Americans and one is from Spain.
     He met his American and Spanish friends through sports or dorm life. His grandmother introduced him to the Coreans at the beginning of the year when she came down to register him. "She kind of gets around," he says, "tries to know all the Corean people here." Song speaks "moderate Korean," but mostly speaks English with Korean friends. He says Coreans tend to stay together but are adapting to American life "really well."

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Of his eight friends, four are from Corea, three are Caucasian Americans and one is from Spain.