To Feel At Home

It takes a lot of effort to truly feel at home in a foreign country.  The reason home feels so good is because everything is familiar.  We know what will happen, when it will happen, and why it will happen.  Of course, that familiarity is completely absent on arrival in a foreign country.

I remember being first dropped off at my apartment last March and subsequently going out for a stroll.  As I walked around my new neighborhood, I felt slightly overwhelmed at the idea of living in this little enclave called Guyeong-ri.  It’s a 30-40-minute bus ride outside the city center, and very much a family oriented neighborhood – Not exactly a happening place full of young people.  Nonetheless, I made a mental decision that day to really make this place home. 

Now, just over 1 year later, I can honestly say that I feel like a part of the community here.  There’s the guy at my local convenience mart who always wants to practice English and give me free gimbap.  There’s the women at one of my favorite restaurants who always ask me how my job is, and if the students are well behaved that week.  There’s my favorite little hike right outside my door that affords me a view of the entire city.  And of course, there are always my students who wave and say hi to me literally every time I leave my house.

I always kind of chuckle to myself when I tell people where I live in Ulsan.  More often than not, people feel sorry for me, because where I live is “the countryside”.  But to me Guyeong-ri is and always will be my Korean home.  I only wish I could show it to more people.

Choice

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of Choice and how it pertains to our lives.  To me, it seems to be one of the most underutilized coping mechanisms people have.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are constantly making choices all day every day.

Privilege of course does play a part in some choices.  Certainly, those of us who are born into privilege have more options to choose from in regard to what we realistically can attain in this life.  My decision to be an English teacher in South Korea is a life option that has no equivalent for my Korean counterparts over here – which is absolutely something I think every ESL teacher needs to be well aware of.  Nevertheless, there are indeed choices that everyone in this world can make.

Regardless of one’s place of origin, we can always choose how to react to any given situation.  Life is full of experiences.  Some are dull, others exciting.  Some are fantastic, others are shitty.  Whatever the experience, we always have the ability to choose how we perceive it.  We can get lost in the dull, shitty side of our experiences, or we can make a conscious effort to search for the silver lining.  It’s a bit strange at first, but if you make a conscious effort at it, it can become second nature.

A couple weeks ago while longboarding at the weekly skate night in Ulsan, I took a bit of a fall, busting open my chin and breaking a tooth in the process.  Strangely enough, the first thought that ran through my head after the fall was, Hmm, I’ve never been to the ER in Korea before. I wonder what it will be like!  Soon enough however, I was bumming about all the medical bills I was racking up.  So, I decided to treat the whole thing as a cultural experience.  I began to actually get a little excited on my trips to the dentist because it was a chance to practice Korean.  On each trip, I tried to make mental notes of the differences between American and Korean dentists and doctors.  And you know what, soon enough I wasn’t thinking much of the medical bills anymore.  Obviously, I would still prefer not to have fallen that night, but at least I got something out of the experience besides spending a bunch of money.

To say it succinctly,

Shit happens in life.  Everyone is aware of that.  It’s how you react to the shit happening that really matters.

읽어 주셔서 감사합니다!

The Good Old Days

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of The Good Old Days.  Looking through old pictures on Facebook or listening to certain albums always evoke certain memories of a time when things were so much easier, simpler, happier – The Good Old Days.

Of course, you rarely recognize those days when you’re in them.  There’s always day-to-day concerns to consume your thoughts in those Good Old Days.  It’s only sometime after, when a certain happy memory pops in your brain that you think, damn, those really were the good ole days.  I’m no exception to this either.

Still, I remember having a spout of the Good Old Days nostalgia the other day when suddenly the whole irony of situation struck me; There I was, thinking about some joyful time in my past, as I was living in KOREA!

Then I realized, I am in the Good Old Days!  Teaching in Korea is great, but at the end of the day it is a job just like any other, and getting bogged down in the day-to-day concerns of it can make you forget where you are sometimes!

So, if you’re reading this, at whatever point in your life you currently find yourself, take a moment and try to find those future Good Old Days in your current situation!