“Do you always do what the elders say?”
“Hmm?” It takes a moment for Hyunseo to contemplate the question, but she quickly shakes her head. “No, not always, if I did, there would be a lot less adventure, right? And a big part of science is questioning why!” she muses to her friend. Even though she isn’t saying anything overly scandalous, it still seems odd to question the elders sometimes. Probably expectations from around the community, but how could they learn anything new if they didn’t try to push the boundaries a little bit?
“The elders say that we shouldn’t really go in the woods, right? But I’ve been out there thousands of times and nothing has happened to me!” she claims, not really counting the scrapes and bruises she usually has, or that time when she broke her arm when she was eight. Trying to build a glider out of just branches and leaves was not exactly her brightest moment.
“Plus, if we really think about it, the elders are our oldest residents… but the trees are even older than them, and with all the things I’ve learned in the forest, I’d say that the trees would absolutely think I should be out there, so maybe the town elders should listen to their elders a little more,” she pauses for a second, wondering if that made sense, but she figures if anyone might get her, it was Yihwa.
“In the world, there are examples of surviving species from prehistoric times, like crocodilians and certain fish species that are still around from back then, like the coelacanth, did you know they thought that it was extinct before they found one? It was located in…” she trails off, realizing she had moved onto another topic… but couldn’t remember what the original one was anymore. “What was the question?” she asks with a pout, feeling sorry that she likely had rambled on too much.