I had a lady who messaged me expressing her desire to learn Korean and be a language partner. We started to send messages back and forth asking simple questions like "how are you?" and "where are you from?" and she said she was from Brazil. So I asked what part of the country was she living, just to get to know each other better and make some common ground. She said she was living in the Rio Grande do Sul at the moment. Frankly, I didn't know much about this particular part of the Brazil but I've heard a lot of beautiful places from my friends about Brazil and also did a little research on the Rio Grande do Sul before I responded. As a person who never lived in a beautiful place like Brazil, I replied back saying, I wish I can live in a place like the Rio Grande do Sul (in Korean), expressing my genuine desire to live in a beautiful place with warm weather like Brazil in the future. I thought it was totally appropriate to say such thing to a person whom I just met, but the respond I got was this: "I don't think you understand what the purpose of this site." I understand that there could be an issue around translating my Korean into Portuguese and her translating Portuguese in English, as she was also an English learner, but when I wanted to apologize and ask for clarification, she already blocked me in the Italki. I don't take such things too seriously as stuff like things does happen, and it's not the first time having misunderstandings during a conversation with people, but I just wanted to hear from other people's perspectives in this matter. Is there something going on in the Rio Grande do Sul at the moment that I'm not aware of? I knew that, from the research, there was a history of some internal rebellions in 19th and 20th centuries in the Rio Grande do Sul, but what do you think what she meant by "purpose"? Did I make a rude/offensive mistake? If so, would you tell me what it was? As much as I respect the culture of mine and the country that I'm living at the moment (the United States), I've never intended to disrespect other countries' cultures or history including Brazilian. I wanted to know whether what I did was a wrong doing. At the end of the day, I don't want to come across rude unintentionally in the future conversations with Brazilian friends, or any other friends around the world for that matter if that was the case in this situation. Or is it perhaps a racial thing, which I really don't think is the case here? Or was she just having a bad day?
What do you all think? Did similar stuff happen to you as well on Italki? Just thought I would ask.
