Snowboards, Logic, Small Children and TKM

This week I've started something new. Fitting right? New year, new you, new resolutions...blah. I don't do new years resolutions because I don't believe in waiting to change something. But as it so happens this new thing coincided with the start to the year.

I went to the "oriental medicine" clinic (no, I'm not being insensitive, that's the name of the place). It's on the way from my home to school. I'd seen chiropractic tables in there as I walked by, and figured if I ever needed it I could probably get adjusted there.  I haven't had any back pain or any other issues really until...

I went snowboarding a few weeks ago. It's been ages since I've snowboarded (really it's been a decade, but that makes me feel old). I did quite a bit of falling before I got my breaks back. Eventually I got the hang of it though and I had a really good time... for a while. Here is where it's tempting to stretch the truth or gloss over details, but I'll go ahead and give you the less-abridged comic story.
After several hours of snowboarding, and successfully navigating a couple runs with no falls I get to the last 100 meters of the run at the very bottom of the mountain. As I start slowing down, this small child slices right in front of me and stops so that I have to A) swerve wildly to miss him and probably fall or B) physically move him out of my way, because he's honestly that close and he's stopped (WHO DOES THAT!). So I obviously choose B and gently grab his shoulders and move him about 30 cm to the right. Now as I do this I'm smiling, and thinking unpleasant things about young children.
**Reminder: Yes, I teach 'children', but I do not teach small children for reasons such as this. Small children have no logic. This infuriates me and doesn't work well. I teach adolescents and they have logic combined with heavy doses of hormones. This is much better. It's an interesting combination.**
After I move him, the small child looks at me like I've just thrown a rock at him or shoved him on the playground. I smile pleasantly and say "thank you" in Korean, because I'm a really nice person (and I don't know anything else appropriate in Korean under those circumstances. I really wish I could have said "Respect your elders, even on the slopes!" but I'm not that advanced.) So, I continue down thinking that I'll go back up for one more run, and the same kid slices in front of me AGAIN. But this time he stops at the end of the slope, turns around, and stares/glares at me. At this point I'm about 50 m from the end of the slope, he just stares me down as I slowly advance. So I do what any self-respecting adult would do and I stare right back at him...
and then I fall flat on my face.
I swear the kid was sending me ancient Korean curses, or manipulating the snow under me so that I'd fall. But probably I just wasn't paying attention and didn't adjust my board to go over a drift... either way I was face-first, wind-knocked-out-of-me, could-have-bitten-my-tongue-in-half laying in the snow. And to top it all off this kid was still staring at me.

Now here I am weeks later and my neck is still hurting from that epic fail. Which lead me to the Oriental Medicine Clinic! Let's just say I have made myself a lab rat. More on my experiences there next time.

The Time Avalanche

One more day and the year is done. They seem to do that, go by. Passing faster and faster like a time avalanche, the more that gathers the faster it goes. I assume one day I'll feel over taken by it. Caught up in the time avalanche: afraid for my life, happy in the memories, unable to look ahead.
So we start another story in the series (if it can be called that). This one a touch sadder and more dear.

There is a lady that lives next to me with her son. She is elderly and her son is in his forties with a disability of some sort that leaves him unable to work. It's common in Korea to live with your parents until you are married. But you have to understand one thing: I live in a studio smaller than most hotel rooms. For me this is do-able, I actually have a bit of a thing for tiny houses so this is right up my alley. But for an elderly mother and middle-aged son... I'll just say I can't imagine this being comfortable. They seem fine though, no squabbles or fights, believe me I would know.
The day I moved in we (3 of my wonderful co-teachers, a wife, a daughter, and I) were cleaning the apartment and left the door open a crack. Next Door Neighbour was there in a heartbeat. Asking questions, wanting to know where I was from, who I was, what I was doing here. I, of course, understood none of this and my co-teachers prodded her away with smiles and polite answers as they shut the door.
Every day Next Door Neighbour and her son go out to collect cardboard to sell to the recycler. I see them walking. Sometimes he's in front, sometimes she takes the lead with her makeshift cart made from an old baby stroller. Whenever I have empty boxes I leave them in the hallway, on top of the pile of broken down cardboard that continually transitions from collection, to doorstep, to recycler. Each time I see them in the elevator or walking up the steep hill to the apartment I bow a greeting and say hello. Next Door Neighbour usually regales me with some story or questions, none of which I can understand let alone provide a response to.
I once saw Next Door Neighbour in a group with several other ladies that spend their days collecting recyclables. I had never seen her look so content, animated, and happy. I bowed my hello and she didn't notice. It was the best thing I'd seen in a while.

Umbrella and the rain

The first happy elderly person story. A little late, but still on time.

On a rainy morning in September I left my apartment with my usual 4 minutes to get to the bus stop, stepped on to the elevator, and was promptly greeted by a bag of food waste held by a woman who would come roughly up to my collarbone if she had been able to stand up straight, but since she was in a permanent semi-hunch she was a little taller than my elbow.  I nodded a greeting as I got on the elevator and then thought about my lesson plans. When we came to the bottom I let her get off first, as I arranged my jacket and umbrella. As I walked out of the entrance, I noticed her standing on the steps looking out at the misting rain, down at her food waste, and then back in at the elevators in a worrisome fashion. She did this several times as I took the few steps to meet her. Once I was next to her I motioned to my umbrella and smiled. She returned the gesture by taking my arm with a huge smile and a lot of words, only a few of which I understood. Let's just assume she was grateful because "thank you so much" was repeated several times. As I walked with her to the food bins she bantered on and after disposing of her food waste patted my arm and hand in what I can only describe as a grandmotherly fashion. I left her on the steps, having gone a total of 20 meters out of my way, and received the biggest smile and most cheerful "thank you. have a wonderful day." I may ever receive. She made my day. 

How shockingly unshocking.

When I came to South Korea I thought I was flying solo. No group, no built-in support network, no easy friends. It's probable that there has never been a more incorrect assumption in my entire life. Upon arrival, not only was I put into a group of fellow native speakers who would live in my area but it also turns out we all hit it off quite well (yay! for group 3). Thus a support network, a vast array of friendships, and a community was born.  So pretty much immediately my mentality was shifted from 'flying solo' to 'group,' which can make a huge difference. We've all been here for a little over 5 months now. Some of the friendships have grown stronger, some have dissipated; which is bound to happen in any group of 40 people. Overall they're amazing people and I cherish the time I have to get to know them. But in the last few weeks something odd has been happening....

Between three and five months in country something special starts to happen... the culture shock down-slope then bottom out. It's inevitable. When I was in Peace Corps Training they gave us this chart of emotions telling us how we would feel across the timeline of our service. We laughed. We made fun of it. We joked around about people thinking they could predict how we would feel not even knowing us. We were not predictable or chartable... or so we thought. Four or five months later and we all were bottoming out. Someone pulled out the emotions chart, in a fit of irony, and wouldn't you just know it: Month 5 to 6- Rock Bottom. (I've just gone ahead and posted the chart, because it's useful. Seriously useful.)

And now we are a little past month five in South Korea.

This time I knew it would come. A couple weeks ago it started happening. I'd be talking to someone and then the conversation would turn to how we were both having a tough time. The same conversation happened over and over again. Each person's difficulties were a little different, unique to them, but the feelings are the same every time. It is hard to separate a crappy work week, indifferent/mean/demanding colleagues, a lack of social options, a distaste for the food, bad weather, feeling homesick, missing important things back home... I could go on... from the ups and downs of culture shock. Sometimes we just feel like it's all jumbled together and we're not sure if we can take it. Usually at those times we give up, in a small way or in a big way.

There's nothing wrong with giving up. Sometimes it's part of accepting the new culture and moving on, "No, I won't do all your work for you, but I give up trying to explain why. Now I'll just do my own work and when you ask me to do yours I'll say, 'no.'"  Or in my case "Ok, Mr. OMT I give up getting mad at you. Now you can interrupt me, then shove something in my face and ask me a series of demanding personal questions, because the whole time in my head I'll be singing 'Then I threw it on the ground. I'm an adult' while I nod and smile at you." Not to get personal or anything. But sometimes giving up is so complete that there needs to be a clean break, and that's when people decide to go back. And that's ok too.

Honestly, the culture shock is not that bad for me. Having hit the culture shock rock bottom three separate times in the past ten years has helped ease its intensity and helped me understand it and cope with it better. Knowing it would come, that it was inevitable, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it (or more importantly with me, for feeling this way) has helped me immensely. For me, just identifying that I'm in the throws of culture shock has helped.
Now I give myself a break every chance I get. Bingsu is this ice, fruit dessert and it's something I LOVE about Korea! The best break is an afternoon bingsu with a good book or a good friend. Taking time to sit down and reflect helps me remember all the things I like here, which are numerous. My goal is to keep perspective. That's it. 

Celebrations and Independence

This year July 4th marked the end of exams for my students, and that was about as exciting as it got. In doing a lesson on independence I discovered that Americans are quite a bit more visibly enthusiastic about celebrating independence than the people in my current country of residence. Of course right now I rely solely on the opinions of my students and I won't truly  know until August 15th (Korean Independence Day), but after showing them excerpts of fireworks shows in Boston and New York a consensus formed that nothing like that ever happens in Korea for any holiday.
*Note: I'm asking to be proven wrong. Please, please, please tell me of an event that I can go to in Korea where I will be able to experience the communal excitement of the picnic/bbq/house party/concert/firework/baseball game in some exciting combination.*


The other weekend I got to visit a good friend of mine in Seoul and go to a baseball game with her and her husband. You can see us goofing off and having fun in the picture. The stadium was packed even though it was raining on and off. The fans had choreographed cheers. There was a section that produced a team flag that actually covered that entire section of the stadium. Songs were sung in unison; chants were shaking the stadium; the wave went back and forth in fast and slow motion perfectly synchronized. It was a wonderful experience. And honestly after seeing this amazing display of collectivism I was shocked that nothing like it exists on a national level in celebration of something other than a corporately sponsored sports team. Are Koreans really bigger fans of their sports teams than they are fans of their country? Not sure that I believe that. While they don't seem to be as nationalistic as Bulgarians, Koreans still seem to have a great sense of national identity and pride. So why the lack of show for it? Or substantive show? Am I just missing the way they show their national pride?

I also found it very interesting that a collectivist culture (steeped in communal values and dependent on mutual understanding) would have a void of community events celebrating the largest communal victory: Independence from imperial rule. Each city has a festival celebrating that town, but when I asked about a national celebration only one student (out of several hundred) could think of one, New Year's Eve. But New Year's Eve is a global holiday not a national one. Does NYE bond people together here and provide a sense of community? Maybe, maybe not.

In the few months I've lived here I've noticed an almost co-dependence of societal relationships and that Koreans feel inextricably linked to each other based solely on being Korean. Seeing how these two factors permeate every corner of society  I can't fathom that Koreans don't have a large, celebratory, social holiday that binds them further together in their Korean-ness. I'm baffled and I would love it if anyone could shed further light on this for me!

Chicken or the Egg

Hello again, or for the first time. I'm international but this time is different, isn't every time. I'm in a super modern country making a very livable wage with a community of people who are doing the same and also speak my primary language. Really, it's inherently different than any situation I've been in in the past.
For my first post back after...years...I should probably write about the cultural difference of South Korea and Bulgaria and America or my adjustment to the new country/job/culture or any number of culturally comparative topics. But instead I want to write about people.
A friend recently shared with me that she felt I was more perceptive and a better communicator than most people she has known. The more I thought about this the more I wondered how traveling and living internationally affects perceptiveness and communication style. In thinking back to the myriads of global citizens I've crossed paths with, I wonder: Is there a marked difference in how we perceive what is happening around us, what is said, and what is not compared with those who only live in one country?  What skills and character traits has our international life imparted on us? And most of all, I wonder if it is the choices that have shaped the traits or if the traits were always there and they shaped our choices.