Why Do You Go Away? So You Can Come Back

Well, I've been there and back again as Tolkien would put it, and with the customary chests of gold to prove it, so long as chests can be suitcases and gold can consist of quinoa, clothing, candles, and many other things that don't start with /k/, if you can believe it. Allow me my alliteration, alright?

Anyway (sorry, sorry, I promise I'll stop), I've been back from vacation for about three weeks, which means I finally have the energy and presence of mind to write about, well, anything. Jetlag is rough, kids. Add that to the horrendously hot weather, and my sleep has been, in a word, crappy.

Each trip home has been weird in a different way. The first year it was mostly exciting and a bit surreal. My life in Korea started to feel like a dream, and I was surprised upon coming back to find everything exactly where I'd left it. My second visit was just odd and stressful and unsettled- I feel like I never really got my balance. And this year?

This year was the first time I felt any strong desire to move back home. I met my friends, and saw the lives they were living, and for a moment I thought...this could be me. Do I want this to be me?

I've been in Korea long enough now that a lot of the great things have become invisible, which puts the negative things up in sharp contrast. Some things are specific to Korea, while others are things that come with living in a country where you don't speak the language fluently. It's dumb, but the the Korea-specific complaint that I always go back to is bars. I used to love just popping into a local place around 5 or 6 PM, not to get drunk, but to sip on a drink at the bar and write or meet people. One time I talked for an hour with a guy who owned a company that cleaned up houses of hoarders or after a dead body wasn't found for a long time. Gross but fascinating.

It's also much harder to make friends and develop relationships, partially because of cultural differences, but also because of the language barrier. I wouldn't say it's necessarily difficult, but it's certainly more of a challenge. That's probably one of the biggest lures of moving back to Seattle or the US. Not only do I have a preexisting collection of friends, I know the rules of social engagement much better. 

However, for every positive outcome I could get by moving back the US, there is an equal and opposite negative outcome. Whenever I imagine moving, I forget that I won't be able to bring my well-paying job and rent-free living situation with me. I'd have to deal with the horrible US healthcare situation again. I'd go back to cat-calling and gun violence and an inability to afford an apartment of my own. That's a big one, I must admit. Living alone is a gift I'm not sure I'm willing to part with just yet.

I'm lucky to have the job that I have, to be able to support myself at 26, debt-free, with the ability to travel on my own dime, and not have to stress about the bill at a fancy restaurant most of the time. Any time I start to complain, I try to remind myself of that. Not in a "there are STARVING CHILDREN in [insert stereotypical poor country] so EAT your green beans for crissakes" but in a more...count your blessings sort of way. Visiting home every summer is a great way to remind me of that.

How To: Avoid Feeling Homesick

"Don't you miss your family? Aren't you homesick?" These are in the top 10 of questions everyone over here asks me, and while it's nice to know someone is concerned about my well-being, it makes me wonder if I'm the odd one out for not being homesick. This isn't new; I've been wondering about this same topic almost since I first arrived in Korea.

"Now, in the “Counseling Booklet” that Epik has provided me with, they give a very thorough explanation of the various phases of culture shock. The first phase? The “Honeymoon Phase”. The booklet describes this time as “the period just after arrival in a new country…everything appears to be exciting and novel. The individual rarely finds any problems with the new country and may feel euphoric. Many people believe that the new country is flawless.” Ever since I read that passage last week, it’s been floating around in the back of my head. Is my love affair with Korea going to fade into the more negative aspects of culture shock? Am I just romanticising things that, in a few months, I will realize I secretly hate?"

Well, I'm coming up on three years, and while the honeymoon phase is over, I can honestly say that I don't often feel homesick, and when I do, it's not crushing. Instead of ruining my day, it can be an almost enjoyable melancholy or nostalgia. Anyways, since I know that homesickness is a problem that many people deal with, I thought I'd write about my own experiences and how I fend off homesickness. Now, I can't say if any of these will be helpful for you, or even possible, but this is how I, personally, stay so positive in Korea.

Reason the first: Seattle Sucks

My life since middle school has been a long string of getting out of wherever I was. Getting out of middle school, getting out of high school, out of my hometown, and finally out of Seattle, where I went to college. Why a person might not enjoy life in a small town is pretty obvious. With a graduating class of 100, it didn't leave many options as far as friends went, and with a dwindling population and zero job prospects outside of barista, drug dealer, or starving artist (or the triple threat combo) ...well, I didn't waste any time shipping my own self off to college.

After graduating from the University of Washington with a BA in English and the newly kindled desire to teach, I made the big dumb mistake of taking a year off to "rest". Seeing as neither me nor my parents are independently wealthy, I couldn't just sit around for a year reading Marvel comics and drinking coffee, as much as that appealed to me. I needed a job, and with a degree in English from a great school, I was able to get a totally relevant job in the service industry. By relevant I mean totally irrelevant and by service industry I mean a tiny cafe that made crepes. As I was one of the only employees not in school at the time, I ended up going months without a full day off, working 50-60 hours a week, and still barely having the money to cover rent and life expenses. Minimum wage is just so awesome like that.

But at least now I am a certified crepist. Wait...

I was, in a word, miserable. It doesn't help that the weather in Seattle shares most of its characteristics with a damp sock. Even when things are going well in your life, unless you really enjoy overcast gray weather, it's hard to stay positive during the interminably long Seattle winters. And springs. And falls. And sometimes it stays cloudy even though summer, because the other 9 months just weren't enough!

What I'm saying is, probably the biggest reason for my lack of homesickness is that...well...there honestly isn't much for me to miss about home. Yes, I miss my friends and family, but with things like Skype and Facebook and Kakaotalk and email, it's easy to stay in touch on a level that keeps me from feeling the distance. Maybe this isn't the best kind of advice to give, since it boils down to "hate your home" and I know that's not something that most people are going to be able to do. I guess I'm just lucky to have had such a terrible time before I moved.

Get Busy

As they say, idle hands are the devil's...instruments? Playground? Idle minds are the devil's gymnasium? Look, I'm no expert in old sayings but you get what I mean. I think one of the biggest challenges, especially when you first move to a new place, is keeping yourself busy. Everything is going fine, you're feeling good, and then suddenly the weekend comes and you're on your own for two whole days. Personally, I start to feel down in the dumps when I don't have a lot to do, no matter where I'm living, but I feel like this is something that really matters for people who are trying to live in a foreign country. It's easy to feel isolated, and if you're just sitting around in your tiny apartment, that isolation only intensifies. So, instead of spending the whole time laying on your bed watching the English language movie channel and moaning about how much you miss your family/Taco Bell/good cheese, get your butt outside and do something!

"But I don't know Korean!" 

No excuse! Just go for it! Want to order food? Just point at something and hope for the best. Ursula the seawitch had it right: never underestimate the importance of body language. When I first got to Korea I was limited to "Hello" and "Thank you" as far as speaking went, but I was still able to joke with a coworker about mosquitoes, entirely through sound effects and acting.

This bit of advice is harder to follow the smaller your town is. Life in the middle of Seoul is about as similar to life in the rural country village as my students are to actual humans. Which is to say, not at all. But hey, this country is tiny. Do some traveling! Explore your (albeit) tiny town! Take up a hobby. Join a gym and get super buff (then teach me your secrets). 

Mr. and Mrs. Brightside

Lastly, and this is advice for pretty much everyone in any type of situation, try to find the positive part of what's happening to you. Bad thing will happen. Annoying things will happen. That's to be expected. Taxi drivers will try to cheat you on your fare. Classes will be changed and cancelled with no notice. Your coworkers will be passive-aggressive. Your students will make you cry. That's normal, and it sucks.

But the way I see it, focusing ONLY on the things that suck just makes them seem bigger. I really like the way Simon, from the Eat Your Kimchi folks, puts it in a blog post about staying positive: 

"I could be upset about dealing with our landlord, buuuut I have a soft kitty here[...]I could be upset that a project I had been planning fell through, but look at that sunset. Once you realize that all things are of equal significance[...]then the playing field is levelled. Good experiences and bad experiences have the same weight, so why not put my energies into experiencing the positives?"

I've always hated the saying "it takes more muscles to frown than to smile" because a lot of time, it's utter BS. Sometimes it's hard to smile. Sometimes pipes burst or cars break down or things just Go Wrong for seemingly No Reason. There's nothing you can do about that. It already happened. The best thing to do is to find the part of your day that didn't suck. Was there one funny thing a student said? Did you eat the most delicious strawberry ever? Did your mom send a photo of her new poodle? Focus on that. It takes practice, but trust me, it works out better in the long run.

I think this kind of thinking is especially important when you're living in South Korea, and probably any foreign country. Sorry Korea, but you're pretty...racist? I hate to pull out the R card, so maybe we can stick to xenophobic? Unaware that there are other types of people out there and that's okay? Whatever you want to call it, it's hard to be the one different person in a sea of similarity. I never realized how diverse the US was until I moved to Korea. As an American over here, as any type of foreigner I'm sure, it's easy to feel victimized or singled out. Any negative experience can be viewed through the lens of "it happened to be because I'm not Korean."

Sometimes, that's true. Other times, it's not. All I ask is that you take a second to consider if the taxi driver didn't stop for you because he hates Americans, or if maybe he just didn't see you. And even if its the former, will knowing that somehow make you happier? Personally, I know it won't. Even if I have to lie to myself once in a while, I'd rather assume the best in order to feel better, instead of assuming the worst and getting bitter.

So go out and enjoy life. Experience things, and when you miss friends and family back home, go do something interesting so you'll have the best stories to tell them when you meet again. Why do you think I've had so many adventures?

The Glass is Half Full (of BS)

"You're so positive! You really have a bright outlook on things!"

So say coworkers and acquaintances, but it's not something I ever really considered to be one of my defining personality traits. Sarcastic, judgmental, with a tendency to complain-- yes, yes, and (according to my mother) yes. But positive, glass-is-half-full gal? Is that really me?

Well, yes and no. Living in a foreign country is a lot harder than you'd expect. Things that should be easy are difficult, every little chore seems a bit more exhausting, and it's easy to begin to feel beaten down and victimized. When your class is canceled, or a taxi driver won't stop for you, or the store stops carrying that familiar brand from home, it's so easy to take it personally, to feel that your school or the country or even the world is against you.

It's like a big muddy snowball of negativity. You start it rolling, and by the end of the day, it's collected up every tiny bad thing that happened. By the end of the month, you don't have any space for good things because you've got this huge dirty snowball to roll around. It even starts to taint the good things that happen. If your coworker gives you a cookie, you're just annoyed because you're trying to stick to your diet. Instead of noticing how hard your students are trying in class, you only notice how noisy they are.

In truth, my positive outlook is a big lie. It's a lie I tell to myself because I have to, and a lie I tell to other people because I want to. The way I see it, your life is just a story, and you can decide what kind of story it's going to be, to some extent at least.

Lately, I've been thinking quite a lot about stories; the stories we love, the stories we tell to others, and the stories we tell to ourselves, and how they shape reality. I've always loved stories, and I'm pretty sure that's why I learned to read so quickly. The ability to find all the stories I want? Without having to convince my mom or dad to tell them to me? It was perfection. No matter where we get our stories, though, be it from books, movies, television, video games, what have you, it's undeniable that they shape us. From the way we fall in love to the way we react to failures or challenges, it all comes back to stories.

For example, at my last apartment, there were a lot of "quirks" that came with the place. I had to enter the apartment through the back courtyard of the restaurant on the ground floor. My landlords owned a skittish dog who didn't take well to visitors. My washing machine was constantly broken, to the point where I decided to just give up and hand wash all my clothes. After telling a story about the washing machine, and mentioning that it's actually quite relaxing to hand wash clothes, and better for the clothes besides, a friend was amazed by how positively I reacted to the situation, even though to him it sounded really annoying.

That's an example of a lie I tell myself because I have to. Why do I have to? There are inevitably annoying and difficult things in your life, and if you just see them as annoying and difficult, that's all they will be. If you tell yourself they're heavy, they will get heavier. But if I tell myself that hand washing is relaxing, it's easier to bear. If I tell myself that my hardships are entertaining, I can ignore them more easily.

Even so, I'm not actually a very positive person. I react poorly to failure, to criticism, to difficulties; I'm lazy, impatient, and prone to giving up. I often only do nice things in order to get favors in return. I'm selfish. Pretty nice picture, huh?

However, I've decided that that's not the kind of person I want to be. I want to be generous, kind, responsible, able to find the silver lining in any situation. So, when I'm faced with a situation that I find annoying or difficult, I force myself to find the good in it. It's difficult, because my go-to reaction is usually more of the "bitch/moan/complain/feel sorry for myself/give up" variety. When I want to do the lazy thing, like let the next person to use the copy machine refill the paper, I force myself to go downstairs and get more paper, because that's the kind of person I want to be.

The funny thing is, the more you act like the kind of person you want to be, the more you seem to become that person. Eventually, if you keep forcing yourself to look at the positive side of things, you pretty much just are the person who sees the positive side of things, even if inside you know that it's a bunch of lies.