Exploration

The last thing I posted regarded finding the Quaker Meeting in town. Well, let me tell you a little something about directions in South Korea; they are practically non-existent and all in Korean. I went to Google Maps, typed in the address, and got directions to take the subway to a certain stop. From there, there was literally an arrow pointing from the subway stop to the location – through buildings and streets and alleys. No street names, no ‘take a left here’, no hint of detail. Though on Sunday I still attempted to take the subway to the correct stop to see if I could maybe, juuuuust maybe, find my way there. I had the Lord on my side after all. However, trying to find your way to an undisclosed location in a country where no one speaks your language and all the signs are in foreign characters is, in a word, difficult. I ended up wandering through some alleys where I am pretty sure no white people ever go because I got STARED at. One group of people actually smiled at me, though I think it was due in part to being so surprised. I tried to get some food in one alley, in this tiny hole in the wall place where an old, wrinkled Korean woman was stirring soup in big cast-iron pots. We gestured to each other for a little while before she pretty much told me whatever she was making would be too spicy for me and kept saying ‘kim-bop!!’ (Korean sushi) and pointing wildly around the corner. Needless to say, I did not find Quaker Meeting. Yet.

While I was eating my kim-bop around the corner from the old Korean woman and her spicy soup, I was reading a book called Seoul Survivor, which was written by an early thirty-something Canadian who had lived in Korea for many years. It’s been giving me some good insight into the Korean culture, and I felt like I was really getting into it – eating kim-bop, hearing Korean spoken all around me, and reading about the culture. Then I got to a part that said ‘Koreans find it odd when people eat at restaurants alone.’ Erhmm. Well! I was done with the kim-bop anyway so I best be on my way!

This brings me to a conundrum I have been having. As I was sitting eating alone in that restaurant I was feeling good about myself for being adventurous and exploring alone (in a very SAFE country, parental units!) I was all jazzed up about being an independent woman and then felt de-jazzed (unjazzed?) after reading that people in Korean generally do not dine alone, so I got up and went on my way. So, how much do I want to be myself and how much do I want to fit into Korean culture? My whole life I have been taught to be yourself! Do what you think is right! Be independent! Then I come to a country where that is not the case; how much do I change about myself and my habits to conform to a different society?

This is an especially tricky question when I spend most of my time here in an international school where we are teaching students with an American curriculum. The school sometimes feels like living in a weird American bubble in the midst of all things Korean. It is quite bizarre to teach Korean students with this curriculum because they just don’t get much of the references. I was teaching explanatory writing the other day, and the example the book used was ‘How to Make a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich.’ None of the kids knew what that was. (It took me ½ an hour to find jelly in the store on Wednesday and all they had was strawberry. Koreans don’t eat much jelly.) Sometimes I find it hard to relate to the students because of that big gap in our cultural backgrounds.

Yet, this is what I am here to do – learn about a new culture/way of life that does not dominate the flippin’ world, like the American culture does. Most of the time I think it’s really quite wonderful and exciting; such as when I see straight men wearing pink shirts and sequined pants, or when men wear their partner’s purses on their shoulders, or when I sit down to eat a truly Korean meal, or when I wander through an outdoor market, or when I stop and think ‘I’m in SOUTH KOREA.’ There are other times though that I throw my hands up and think ‘God damnit, Korea!’; like the fact that the government requires everyone to buy special garbage bags in a scheme to make them money, or when I’m on the crowded bus for an hour round-trip commute each day, or when I stop to think how old-fashioned and patriarchal the society is, or when I have compostable food scraps I have to throw it away.

But you know what? Here’s to getting out of my comfort zone and growing.

Happy weekend!