Reporters are often told to show, not tell.

It's a great principle, but I'll admit that sometimes I get lazy and just have someone tell me the facts.

That wasn't an option in South Korea, where I spent a month in a cultural exchange with the Rotary Foundation.

Most of the people I met spoke little or no English. But even though I only knew how to say "hello," "thank you," and "this please" in Korean, I found plenty of good stories.

In Gimcheon, a city of 100,000 people, I often ended up riding with a Rotary Club member who owned several restaurants there. I was amazed by his ability to pick up his cell phone every five seconds while speeding through the very narrow streets.

He wasn't the only one stuck on the phone. In the car, in a meeting, in the sauna, even during dinner, everyone picked up their cell phones. Nobody ever said "excuse me" or seem offended. If they got someone's voice mail, they just re-dialed the number.

I got a taste of home in 10-second increments when songs such as "Stand By Your Man" by Tammy Wynette or Jimmy Cliff's 1993 cover of "I Can See Clearly Now" would come on every time the phone rang.

In Pohang, a city on the southeastern coast of South Korea, a Rotary Club member was ready to take a picture of our group when his cell phone rang. He was anxious about ignoring the call, but took the picture. Not surprisingly, he immediately left to return the call.

I'll bet the law prohibiting the use of cell phones in cars that takes effect here Tuesday would not work well in this country.

In Gyeongju, I went to a public bath. Once I got over being nude and realized that nobody was looking at me, I enjoyed the experience.

But South Koreans don't do this just for enjoyment.

"If you go into the warm bath for a minute and then jump into the cold pool for a minute, you'll have better blood circulation," said Ok, our interpreter.

And she jumped -- one minute in the warm pool, one minute in the cold pool, and so on. I noticed that others were doing the same thing.

The morning after the public bath, we were having cold persimmons tea, a perfect treat for the hot day ahead.

Ok had different thoughts: "This tea is good for preventing cancer," she said.

I got sick of the health advice, but I realized her advice wasn't just talk. Ok, who is in her 40s, could easily pass for someone 10 or 15 years younger. And I found many more older South Koreans who looked just as young. Maybe Koreans are on to something. 

English is my first language.

I understand Vietnamese thanks to my parents, but didn't speak it very well.

"You speak as badly as an American," my mother joked.

In Gyeongju, however, I met Du, a 22-year-old Vietnamese girl who was engaged to one of the Rotary Club members. They met in Vietnam and she moved South Korea to marry him.

She didn't speak much Korean and she didn't understand much English. So I had to swallow my pride and communicate in Vietnamese.

It was difficult, but Du was gracious about my rudimentary skills and we managed to get to know each other.

She shared how the marriage would help her family, which includes her parents and five brothers and sisters who live in a rural area of Vietnam, to get out of poverty.

But her opportunity came with sacrifices. She lives thousands of miles from her family. Vietnamese food is not widely available in Gyeongju, and she has had to get used to extra spicy Korean food. Intense Korean language lessons left her so exhausted that she could only watch television at the end of the day.

But she shared her blessings, too. She made a few friends. Vietnamese food is just a short drive away in Dageu, a city of 2 million people. And she is no gold-digger -- she clearly cared about her fiancé.

"He's a nice guy," she told me in Vietnamese. "And he takes care of me."

At the end of the night, she encouraged me to keep practicing Vietnamese: "You'll never get it if you don't keep speaking it," she said.

Surrounded by South Koreans, she's probably never fully shared her story, even to her fiancé. I was privileged to have the chance, even though I sounded at times like an idiot.

In South Korea, I learned that being a journalist requires much more than knowing the traditional reporting methods.

It may mean setting aside your discomfort, like I did when I spoke Vietnamese with Du. Or looking anywhere for a good story, whether it's in a public bath or a luxury Hyundai.

And sometimes finding a good story, even in a foreign county, doesn't require language training.

Mai Hoang can be reached at 577-7685 or mhoang@yakimaherald.com