Korea: The Re-Weigukin-ing

So I should probably have been getting on a plane for China today. It didn't work out that way, for various reasons. As of now, I'm doing my best to get back to Korea.

I've collected several of the required documents, including:

1) Three sealed transcripts. (The WCU Registrar's Office was amazingly prompt--thank you so much, folks!)
2) Six awful passport photos. At least they're not going on my actual passport?
3) A passport, valid until 2021.

I'm waiting (trying not to bite my nails) as the FBI processes my criminal background check. In the US, this can take anywhere from four to twelve weeks (it's been about three), and there's no way of knowing upfront how long it's going to take. In the meantime, I need to copy my diplomas and have them notarized and apostilled. I think there's also a health affidavit, but there are apparently several different versions, so I'll wait till the actual application process to fill one out. Fortunately I've had an E2 visa before, so I don't need to do the consular interview.

Of course, I still have to get an actual job. Because the process is so long now, most schools won't talk to you till you have all your documents in hand, and this has been rather a last-minute thing. I'm starting to get offers, anyway, but I'll have a lot more flexibility once I can just step on a plane.

I want to be absolutely ready when I do get my visa, so I'm thinning my possessions again and packing away what I won't be taking. I've also taken Yggi (my cat) in for a rabies titer test, which is needed according to the new animal import regulations. It was pure luck that I even found out the regulations had changed--can't remember what I was looking up, but I'm glad I figured it out in time!

I'm thinking about getting an Instagram account. I've never seen the need for one before, but cell phone photos are way more convenient, by and large, than using a regular camera. If I do get an account, I'll link it here.

Updates hopefully more regular henceforth. XOXO,

Kate

New things

I'm home again, for the month of November, and considering my options.

I had almost decided to start graduate school. I'd even aspired to a voice Master's from UNC Greensboro. It's supposed to be a very competitive school, but I thought that the competition might motivate me to try harder.

Then I had a voice lesson. My confidence deflated like a balloon. It's amazing how much you can forget in four years away from singing! The slump passed quickly, but it was too late: I'd already let the doubt in.

I love to sing, and I never want to stop, but I'm pretty sure now that voice is not the ideal career path for me. To succeed in the performing arts, you must be absolutely positive about what you are doing. There is no room for self-doubt, and you must be 100% committed. I've tried to take it that seriously, but in truth I've never been that resolved.

The problem is that my real ambition-- and I know, I've waffled a lot on this blog, but this is the real one-- was always to be an author. Not a writer. An author. If you'd asked me at age five or six what I wanted to be, that's what I would have told you. If you'd asked me at age seven, eight or nine, I would have said the same thing. It wasn't until I hit middle school, and started hearing about how hard it was to succeed as a writer, that my career ambitions started to waver.

I once heard that the job you dream of at age six is usually the best one for you. I'm sure that in most cases, that's not true-- "fairy-princess-ballerina" comes to mind. However, I have always wanted to write. I've littered my life with notebooks half-full of stories I never had the steam to finish-- and they're fascinating stories. I find them and want to keep reading, even though the ideas were eaten by moths a long time ago.

I've never given up on this. I've let my music slide-- I've let my languages slide-- I've let everything else slide, but I've always had a story going. I guess this should have been a sign to me.

I knew, though, that it was hard to make a living as a writer. Anyone you ask will tell you that. I've always tried to have some solid career trajectory in mind to keep my loved ones from worrying. "Oh... I'm going to be a teacher. I think I could be a pretty good teacher." "Maybe I'll be a nurse. Do you like being a nurse?" "Urban planning. It should be fun, and it's compatible with my talents..." My most recent scheme was to come home and become a wedding singer.

I still might do some of that, if life works out that way. I love to sing. I love weddings. I love to dress up and be fancy.

I just don't think I can make my life out of it.

Right now I'm thinking seriously about taking a CELTA course after my current contract is up, and using it to find a job somewhere new and interesting. I don't want the best job, or the most prestigious job, or the most glamorous job. I want a solid, reliable, low-stress job, where I can get all my work done and have plenty of time left over to write. ESL jobs are great in this respect-- and have the added advantage of taking you to exciting new places. I don't have to find A Perfect Thing; I just need to find A Thing That Works For Now.

I was talking to a friend about this yesterday, and she pretty much got it.

"All of this," I said, "is pretty much a way to bide my time until I start finishing and publishing books."

"But you no longer feel guilty about this."

"No."

And that seems to be the crux of the matter. I no longer feel guilty about devoting myself to the one kind of work I have always known I could do.

I've set up a writing blog to document my progress, and am using National Novel Writing Month as a way to kick-start a new project. It's not easy: I've finally, finally realized that serious writing is hard work.

But I'm up for it.

Life updates

I've decided to stay in Korea for now-- and at the same hagwon I've been with for three years now. It wasn't an easy decision, and required a full pros-and-cons chart and everything, but in the end it came down mostly to not fixing what ain't broke.

I'd decided to move to Seoul, actually, so I could spend some time seeing more of the city, and had launched a full-scale job search after telling my current school I wasn't going to renew. I went on a number of interviews, met some nice people and saw some pretty nice places, but never did get an offer that was better than what I've got now. That, plus the hassle of moving-- and a month of personal vacation for signing on again here-- made leaving seem like a poorer and poorer choice.

I'm quite happy with my decision-- I was actually kind of elated when it was finalized. I'd thought I was looking forward to moving, but coming closer and closer to the day when I'd leave all my students and coworkers was apparently depressing me, because I bounced right back up when I got to tell them I was staying. Now that I know I've got the rest of the school year with my current crop of kinders, I've been getting much more involved with their development and am doing my job much better.

Since I've decided to stay here, at least for the time being, I've also decided to feather my nest a little bit. Since moving in three years ago I've treated my apartment as temporary housing, like a hotel, and haven't really done a lot to personalize it or make it nice (beyond the requisite Home Plus flower decals on the walls). Since I initially thought I'd only be here a year, I didn't really see the point of making it a "home" and loading myself down with stuff I'd just have to mail or get rid of at the end of the contract. The same reasoning carried me through years two and three, each of which I thought would be my last. The whole time I've been here, I never really bothered to make my apartment a "home."

It's understandable, in one way. Expats are in a weird position: you don't want to get yourself too involved in where you currently are, because the more entanglements you have the more difficult it is to pack up and go home again. Friends are one (good) entanglement, and romances are another. Putting lots of time and effort into a home or apartment is like admitting that you expect to be there for the long haul, and for some people I'm sure that's scary.

I don't plan to be here "for the long haul" (though, again, I've already surprised myself three times), but I've started to think that people need a home-space that they can fully occupy, even if it's only for a little while. Maybe that's how you become an adult-- take charge of what's around you, decide how you want things and take the steps to make them that way. It's more than I ever really did as a child, it's much more than I did in college or right afterward, and until now it's more than I've done with my apartment here. Having a few things I like also inclines me to take better care of them than I do of the ragbag bedding and plastic dishes left behind by former teachers. By viewing this place as temporary, I absolved myself of a lot of housekeeping responsibilities-- but I also missed out on a lot of the privileges of having my own place.

So, from now on, things to do:

*Translate all the controls on the washer and thermostat, rather than using only the buttons the former tenant pointed out to me when I moved in.

*Hang posters on the wall.

*Get rid of all the crap I've accumulated since moving in here, keeping only the things I need, like and want.

*Etc. I'll post pictures if I ever manage to make the place sightly.

Yours, Kate

We had a lot of surprise snow last week. We'd gotten so many false predictions that I stopped paying attention to the forecast. Then it snowed off and on for about three days. It was very pretty, but the air was too warm for much accumulation. Probably that was for the best.

---

I'm really torn about what I'm going to do when I go home this summer. I've considered a number of possible jobs-- tutor, TA, copy-editing assistant-- but none of them has really caught my interest. If I'm honest with myself, the idea of settling back into a regular job and niche at home is a little depressing. I also feel like it's a little silly to leave a proven, steady source of income and step back into the uncertainty of the US job market right now.

At the same time, the part of me that sounds like my mother says that I should get started making a "real career" for myself. I'm 26 now, which is a bit too old to be acting like an indecisive college student. Maybe I should be "making connections," meeting people, building a resume that American employers would be able to relate to.

But 26 is really young, too, and I want to travel more.

I miss my family and friends, and seeing them more often is a big reason to go home. How often would I see them, though? They have their own lives. I might not even be able to get a job close to home. Then what? I'm also terrified of ending up in another stifling cycle-- barely treading water, watching my free time slip by in an exhausted daze while I struggle to put gas in my car. The year before I came to Korea was, in some ways, my most miserable ever. It was certainly the most hopeless and frustrating. I never want to return to that, and I'd do a lot to avoid it.

I've been thinking a lot about Japan in the last week or so. I'm reading Speed Tribes right now, which has renewed my interest in returning to the places I saw there this summer. Tokyo, in particular, captured my interest, and I'd love to see more of it. I'm not sure about living in Japan, though-- it's hideously expensive, and I'd just be staying afloat (if not losing money. Still, it would be an adventure, and I'm not ready to give up on those.

I do want to spend some time as a person before I go back to being an alien, though. When I went home for Christmas this year, I couldn't get over the simple miracle of being able to speak in my own language to anyone I met without coming across rude. I want to eat familiar foods, use a dryer, have a social circle of more than a handful of people. I need to spend some time reconnecting with home before I start in on a new kind of "away." I'm just having a hard time visualizing how it's going to go.

Six months? Really?

I can't believe it's been so long since I updated this. I knew it had been a long time, but did not realize how fast the time would fly. Since July, I have:

1. Won NaNoWriMo for the first time in five years of trying.
2. Gone home for a three-week visit.
3. Decided-- or realized-- that what I have always wanted to be, and all I will ever truly want to be, is a writer.

What happened to Urban Planning? It's gone the way of all concessionary dreams. I'm told it was a nice post I wrote about it, though.

Anyway. I know only one person is following this, but it means a lot to me that I'm picking it up again. I've had a post sitting in my notebook since September that seems to have been blocking the chute, as it were, so here it is in all its slightly-vintage glory:

9/7/09:

I love K-pop music.

My aerobics instructor always has the latest hits on the workout routine, so I always want to dance and sing along when I hear them on the radio out in public. Do I look silly? Yes. Do I care? Not really.








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I don't know what I'm going to do when I leave Korea. It's going to feel like tearing out a piece of my heart. When am I going to come back here? When am I going to stroll around in Gimpo on a lazy Sunday, go "eye-shopping" in Hongdae, have dinner out in Itaewon? I've come to recognize and welcome the changes in the seasons here. One of my favorite things is the fruit-- strawberries, apples, grapes, tangerines, most of them fresh from the field and sweeter than I've ever had. You can buy them by the bucket from street stands or the backs of pickup trucks.

Want to hear something truly sick? By the end of this summer, I'd come to enjoy the incessant noise of cicadas buzzing outside. (Korean word: maemi.)

My Korean language study has been going better, and I'm starting to enjoy the language more. When I first got here, it sounded mushy and dull to me-- endless strings of mumbled syllables, impossible even to separate into words. Now I can recognize a kind of music to it. It's got an underwater sound, in a way-- the words rise up like clusters of fat bubbles before dropping to a murmur again. The vowels and rhythm actually remind me of French, in a way-- so much so that when I try to speak French now, my meager Korean invades. Mais becomes hajiman. I want to keep studying and using Korean after I stop working here, and I wonder how I'm going to do that when I go home. I briefly considered going for my Master's in Korean, but realized it wasn't practical. Seems like a big loose end for me to drop, though.

The real problem is that I fall in love with any place I stay in for very long. When I see sunlight slanting off green mountains, I want to be back at Western-- doing what, I don't know. Even Cary has a big draw for me, though I spent most of my adolescence complaining about it. Granted, the draw is mostly familial, but in a big way it's still my home.

I don't think there will ever be a perfect solution for this problem. I'll always miss most of the places I've traveled. A short visit is never long enough, and a long visit just builds more ties: I've been to France and Japan twice (briefly) each, and the urge to go again is stronger than ever. Traveling is like making Horcruces, except less messy. You leave a piece of yourself buried in every place you go, and every place changes you irreversibly in one way or another.

---

End vintage post. Wow, tl;dr. Anyway, I've more or less decided to go home for a while as of now, but I'm still not sure what I'm going to do there. Now that this is out of the notebook and up in the ether, I'll try to keep you posted a bit more regularly. Thanks for reading.

Your respiratory functions are being monitored.

I just got a phone call from the Korean CDC. Apparently I was seen-- and reported-- sneezing at the airport, and my name got put onto a list.

Dear Korea: You are unhinged. Seriously. There is something wrong with a country that has the kind of police-state mentality it would take to a) monitor travelers' bodily functions, whether through spies or security cameras or whatever, and then b) rather than speaking to them in person, and resolving the issue on the site, put their names on watchlists and track them down inside Korea. (That plan of action, actually, makes me think they have someone going through security footage in search of suspicious respiratory activity-- or, possibly, that they require airport/airline staff to post daily reports of illness indicators, which are gone through later.)

Fortunately, the caller was convinced by my (accurate) explanation of my suspicious sneezes: I have summer allergies. I started sneezing immediately after getting to Japan. (The disease, according to the guy on the phone, incubates for seven to nine days before symptoms appear.) He told me to watch myself for a week or so, and call the CDC if anything showed up. (Right.) Still, I was majorly creeped out by the phone call. The speaker-- who started the conversation by mangling my name-- had that oily, too-intimate tone we associate with people who do not mean us well. If I could have asked to see his credentials over the phone, I would have done so.

Worst, I don't think my concerns are idle. I read an article in a free English-language mag called Groove: Korea about the Korean government's... unique?... approach to quarantine. After a case of swine flu appeared in a new English teacher who'd just gone through company training, several dozen of his co-trainees were rounded up in ambulances and dragged off to quarantine. They were lied to (or at least misinformed) about where they were going. Many were not given a chance to pack their bags, and had to spend the next several days in a strange place with no possessions and no changes of clothing. A blog entry with links to several accounts can be found here.

I'm going to be looking over my shoulder for weeks. Thanks, Korea.

Stuff and Things

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want to do next. I'm about to start a new contract, and it will be my third year of teaching here- same school, same job. I like it, but it's starting to get old.

I want to keep Having Adventures. The more I read, the more I want to see. I've thought about the Peace Corps, but I don't feel very comfortable with the whole go-where-you're-sent, do-what-you're-told thing. (I briefly considered the military, back in high school, and rejected it mostly for the same reason.) Ditto the Foreign Service, though that would be more to my taste. I'm not sure I want a full-on career working in Points Abroad, and embassy work sounds a bit boring. (There's also the exam and hiring process, if it comes to that.)

The easiest thing would be to just keep on teaching, maybe in another country. I briefly thought of going to China for a year or so, just for the experience. I feel like I'm starting to be in a rut, though, and the thought of spending years and years more teaching ESL abroad for profit is starting to feel a little suffocating.

Another option would be to try and do grad school abroad. I don't know where I'd study, but I'm still thinking about urban planning off and on (especially whenever I read something remotely environmentalist). My main concern there is the expense: from what I know, most places won't let you work on a student visa, so I'd be living abroad and pouring my savings into school with no guarantee of a job afterward.

It sounds cliche, but I do feel like I'm being pulled in two different directions. One part of me gets a little wistful whenever I see updates about friends my age getting married, moving into new apartments, having friends with other friends I haven't seen in years. Another part thinks I'm lucky to be free of all that, and wants to cut all ties and go wandering in Cambodia or something. I've tied myself down a bit with the cat, which is one weight on the "settling" side of the balance, but I don't quite want to put down permanent roots yet.

On the other hand, I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss going to parties with people I've known since college, catching up on people's lives, being at home and making a place for myself in a neighborhood I can plan to stay in for a while. My life here is many things, but one big one is TEMPORARY. I have to avoid picking up too much stuff-- knickknacks, dishes, things to move later. My friends come and go-- one of my best friends here is leaving in a couple of weeks, and I've only known her a year. Starting over again means I'll have to pull up what roots I have put down and start the whole awkward feeling-out process again, in a new town at least, maybe a new country. It's a daunting prospect.

The obvious downside about going home, right now, is that the job market is terrible. If I go home, even for graduate school, there's no guarantee I'd be able to find a decent job, and there's the terrible risk of ending up right back where I started. The one thing I DO NOT want to do is get stuck in a retail rut all over again, even if I could start at a slightly higher level. I've gotten used to being able to afford to do the things I want to do. I like having the money to travel, eat out, buy clothes-- these are things I couldn't do, before, not with a bank account that was always veering towards the negative. I'm luxuriating in stability. The problem is that it's a false stability. No matter how many roots I put down here, this is not a place where I could stay forever.

-~-

I tried to spend yesterday making plans for Tokyo. Made lots of lists, but didn't get much concrete planning done. I've almost decided-- pending in-person inspection of the area-- to stay in Ueno, at least. I plan to find a motel first, set up camp, then read my guidebook a little and go out for a bit of sightseeing before dinner. That will probably be all I'm up for, the first day. Ueno's the area that had most of the most interesting restaurants, according to the guidebook. It's also right on the railway, and has some interesting things to see. It seems like a safe, comfortable area to base myself from. I tried to make reservations for a ryokan, but I'm not really comfortable doing that over the internet. Since travel plans always change, anyway, I'm leaving mine fluid this time. I plan to take my laptop and will try to update as possible; if nothing else, I'll try to do some kind of a write-up when I get back next week.

-~-

A story for you. I'll preface it by explaining that all the foreign teachers' apartments are leased by our school, and the school handles all the maintenance requests (largely because none of us speak much Korean).

A year ago, I came back from my end-of-contract vacation and noticed that a section of my ceiling was sagging a bit. I didn't do anything about it, because I thought it was just the wallpaper coming loose and didn't want to deal with the fuss of repairs over something so simple.

Over time, the sag got bigger, and I realized there was stuff inside the paper-- as in, the damp, crumbling contents of the ceiling. I told John, our school's man-of-all-work, and he brought in the building guard to look at the problem. The guard opened the ceiling panel, looked inside, frowned a lot and made some noises. He left, promising repairs.

A few weeks later, the ceiling started to drip. I put a pot under the leak and called in John again. He called the building guard. The building guard came up, opened the ceiling panel, looked inside, spotted the leak, and commandeered my (one and only) mixing bowl. He put the bowl up inside the ceiling to catch the drips and went away, promising repairs.

The leaking stopped for a while. John said that the problem had been a leak in the water pipes upstairs (our floors are heated with hot water), but that it had been fixed. I forgot about the problem (and the mixing bowl) and waited for the ceiling to dry out. The bulge was by now very unsightly, and the paper was starting to peel a little at the seam.

A couple of months later, the leaking started again. I called in John. John called the building guard. The building guard came in, opened the ceiling panel, took out my mixing bowl (now overflowing with water and silt), emptied it out, and stuck it back up again. Apparently the problem had not been fixed. He left, and John promised me they would fix it this time. The leak seemed to stop, the ceiling dried up it was ugly, but not unstable. I breathed a sigh of relief and went on with my life.

On Tuesday, the ceiling started to leak. Again. I touched the bulge, and found that it was wet again. The paper is now gaping about two inches at the seam, the inside of the crack is black with mold, and the whole thing looks like it's thinking about coming down. (I tried to take some pictures, but was unable to capture the full effect.) The kindergarten had its 100th Day event today, and I'd gone in for fun, so I let John know that the Problem had returned. He brought the building guard over right away. Lo and behold: My mixing bowl, still faithfully serving its new purpose, was once more overflowing, and the problem had SPREAD. Water was now pooling in other areas of the ceiling, which are now subtly beginning to sag. The guard mopped something up inside the panel, replaced the bowl again, and stuck the biggest sag with my paring knife like he was lancing a boil. Water immediately began to drip out-- and not clean water, either, but brown and rusty, enough to fill a tupperware container halfway. The guard said it would stop after about ten minutes; it was more like three hours, though it did stop.

I started crying. This is my house; this is where I live. The fact that Upstairs is having a problem with its sink (that's the latest explanation) should have no bearing on the structural soundness of my roof. The guard left. John gave me a hug and promised that someone would be in to work on the thing tomorrow-- I'm leaving him my key so he can let the guy in whenever he ends up coming, since I have an errand to run in Seoul tomorrow and we don't know when the repair guy would be coming. John also promised they would fix the problem permanently next week. We'll see.

What I'm Doing Now

It seemed like a good idea-- not least because my mother suggested it-- to resurrect this blog from the sands of time.

-~-

I'm on vacation. A serious vacation, from the middle of May till the end of June. The first two weeks were spent with my mom, traveling all around inside Korea. We hit a lot of tourist spots, ate a lot of food, enjoyed each other's company and generally had a great time. Now I have the month of June to fill.

I have one more trip planned, from June 13th-21st. I'm going to Tokyo. I've always wanted to go-- to Japan in general, and Kyoto and Tokyo specifically. I'd like to go more than once, and I decided I'd stick to one city this time. Partially it's to motivate me to go again, though I don't think that will be a problem. I haven't made very detailed plans yet, but that's my only goal for tomorrow so I should get some details sketched in then.

I'm going alone. I found out after I'd booked the tickets that some friends of mine were going a week earlier, but I have things to do in Korea this week and couldn't change the dates. I used to think about traveling alone without even blinking-- I've spent a lot of time alone-- but now the idea is less appealing. Part of the reason I'm not doing more traveling this month is that it doesn't seem as much fun going myself as it would be going with friends.

It should be a nice, relaxed trip. I'm thinking about spending each day in a different area of the city, though I'll probably change my plans (such as they may be) once I actually get there. I'll probably do a lot of wandering around, shopping and taking pictures and watching people. I'd like to talk to people, too; I wish I knew more Japanese. I know a lot of people speak English, but I feel bad not knowing the local language, even though I'm only going for a week. Hopefully people won't be too offended.

That's three weeks of travel. The other three weeks, interspersed with important things (a wedding, a good bye dinner, etc.) are devoted mostly to idleness. At first I was going stir crazy, but now I'm getting to enjoy it. Every day I get to sleep late, stay up late, eat when I want to, go where I want to, and spend most of my time reading and playing with the cat. (The cat seems to be pretty happy about all the attention. I feel bad for leaving him alone so much when I'm at work.) Overall, I'm enjoying the hell out of my free time, and I don't want to go back to work.

-~-

At some point while my mom was here, we hit that point where Korea suddenly decided it was summer. Korea dresses by the season, not by the weather. There seem to be cut-off dates inscribed in the culture, which perhaps I could read if my Korean were better. They tell people when it's okay to wear short sleeves, or go sleeveless, or turn on the A.C. Maybe it's in the news; maybe everyone just watches the celebrities and does what they do. We foreigners tend to dress more for comfort, and I've often been the only one on a subway car in summer clothes, despite the weather. Right now the trendy Seoul ladies are all wearing gladiator sandals and cute little buns in their hair. I've seen several people in sleeveless tops, and am no longer getting funny looks for wearing mine.

The weather ranges mostly between sullen heat and heavy rain, with a few muggy days in between. It poured down rain tonight. The sidewalks here are all uneven bricks, and the water stands in puddles or runs everywhere in little creeks. I soaked the cuffs of two pairs of pants and was glad to put on dry pajamas when I finally got home for good.

As long as I don't have to go outside too much, I almost prefer the rain to the "clear" days. There are millions of cars here, and the air pollution is getting really bad. Looking out the bus windows, sometimes I feel like I'm in a futuristic landscape being toted through poison gases in a protective bubble.

Bug season has also begun. Aside from the mosquitoes, I really don't mind them-- mostly they're delicate little black things, easily squished and not very noticeable. The mosquitoes themselves are a bit of a problem, always out for my sweet blood. I keep thinking about getting a net-- there's a hook above my bed where someone must have hung one before-- but I've been through two summers here without one and don't know if the expesnse is really worth one. If I catch a horrible mosquito-borne disease, feel free to point fingers and say "You should have bothered!" The mosquito trucks are almost more troubling than the mosquitoes themselves. They come out at dusk, and drive around trailing pesticide fogs that smell kind of like a more noxious form of auto exhaust. Does not smell healthy to me, though Korean kids seem to like it. (Old clip, but still funny.)

-~-

Went to a friend's wedding on Sunday. She's American, but married a Korean, and they had a full-on Korean ceremonies. Korean wedding ceremonies are big photo-shoots, staged and short, with fabulous gowns and lots of staff and a very assembly-line feel about them. I've been to several of them here, all for co-workers, and they're mostly variations on a theme. Most people get married in a wedding hall, which is a big building with one or several chapels in it, each of which can be rented for about a one-hour ceremony and is then cycled over to the next group (not counting clean-up, set-up, and other prep time). Guests give money, not gifts, and in return are given meal tickets for the buffet dinner that follows the wedding. There are a lot of guests at these things. Many are friends or colleagues of the couple's parents, and may not know the bride and groom personally at all. Everyone pays their respects to the couple and their parents, gets a picture taken with the bride, watches the ceremony, eats fairly quickly, and leaves en masse.

My friend's wedding was fairly typical-- except, of course, for the fact that the bride was not Korean. The Koreans involved in the wedding did not seem to know how to handle this. The ceremony was in Korean, and only a few phrases were translated. Most of the Korean guests I saw spoke to the groom's parents, but did not have much to say to the bride or her mother. Worst of all was how my friend's mother was treated. She'd just arrived in the country the day before, speaks no Korean, and was obviously uncomfortable. The wedding hall staff dealt with the situation by sticking her in a corner and ignoring her. All the foreign guests made a point of talking with her, but I thought it was really shabby of the staff-- and the groom's parents- not to make more of an effort to include her. The language barrier is not really an excuse; there were plenty of bilingual Korean guests present who would probably have been happy to translate.

The Korean wedding guests also seemed uncomfortable with the large number of foreign guests at the wedding. Mostly they just decided not to look at us. Eye contact or at least a nod would have been appreciated. Maybe it's just me; no one else I asked seemed to have noticed anything unusual in the vibe. Since both the foreigners and the Koreans pretty much talked amongst themselves (with the exception of our school's Korean English teachers, who mingled), I guess they wouldn't have. Anyway, it was a pretty ceremony, and the bride and groom both seemed very happy, which I guess is the most important part. (I actually sang a song-- they asked me a while ago if I would-- which came off pretty well; fortunately a friend of mine was nice enough to play the guitar. We did "Love Me Tender," which might not be exciting but was really appropriate for the bride and groom. So-- not a gig, but the first time I've sung on personal request. Huzzah!)

-~-

I think I'm starting to understand how resident aliens in the US must feel most of the time. One big problem is the frustration of being unable to communicate. The worst was the first few weeks after I got here, in June of 2007. I couldn't read anything without a lengthy struggle-- all the signage might as well have been hieroglyphics. For someone who spends mostof her free time reading things, this was intensely frustrating, almost suffocating. My Korean's gotten better, and I can usually get my point across, but complex conversations are beyond me. If something goes wrong-- if there's a problem with my cell phone, or a notice gets posted in the apartment building, or something breaks in my apartment, I need an interpreter to get anything done. I need to study, and have been better about it lately, but I really want to be able to acquire the language instantaneously. I'm impatient.

There are different ways of communicating here-- different nonverbal cues, different postures and gestures, different connotations. I think about the subtleties involved in communicating in English-- subtle shifts in tone, obscure references and metareferences, the fine shades of meaning that make us choose one word over anothere-- and am frustrated by the knowledge of how much I must be missing even of those conversations I do understand. It's not that I have any particular fascination with the Korean culture-- it's just that my main goal in life has always been to understand things.

There's also a sense, here, that many people don't see you as quite a real person. There's plenty of the oh-look-Mommy-a-blond/tall/fat/foreign person that I expected when I came over here. I've gotten used to it, and it doesn't bother me that much, though it does set my teeth on edge a bit every time I hear someone say "Whoa, look, a foreigner!" or some variation. (I've started responding with "Oh, look, a Korean!" which always gets a stunned look from kids who'd never conceived of a non-Korean being able to speak even a little of their language. Sometimes I just glare.)

What really bothers me, though, is something I've noticed more and more of lately: people who treat me as if I'm not there at all, or as if I've got the plague or something. I don't mean line-cutting, or jostling in a crowd, though there's plenty of that to go around. I mean I am standing in a store or bank, face-to-face with an employee, mouth open to ask a question-- and then some Korean person comes up and interrupts the conversation with a question of their own, as if the employee had been staring at nothing. And the employee answers them, and lets me sit and stew until the More Important Person's concerns have been dealt with. Or I am on a bus or subway, and there is an empty seat next to me, and some Korean who has just boarded looks desperately up and down the car for any other seat before taking the one that is available right in front of them. Foreigner cooties. I know we're associated with the Swine Flu now, being as how the furrn devils had it first, but this all predates that.

Korean culture is quite homogenous, and it's usually very easy to tell if someone is Not From Around Here. Most people are not used to trying to decipher a foreign accent; mispronounce your Korean a little bit and you're speaking a foreign language to them. Koreans as a whole are also very nationalistic. "Us and Them" rhetoric is not just popular, but standard. An exceptionally popular name for things is "Uri," or "Our." "Our Bank." "Our Rice." "Our Potatoes." The "Us" in question is clearly defined." It's a bit much to overcome if you want to interact normally with someone to whom you might as well be an extraterrestrial.

Not everyone is like this. The vast majority of the people I talk to here are exceptionally kind and friendly-- curious about where I'm from and where I'm working, complimentary about my poor Korean, eager to communicate as well as we're able to. That's why it's so startling-- and so hurtful-- when that one person in a crowd suddenly stops what they're doing to give me a blank-faced full-bodied stare as I walk by. I guess it's like with anything-- no matter how many positive things there are, the negative ones still stand out.

-~-

This wasn't meant to be such a negative post, but all this has been bothering me. I'll try to think of something a little more upbeat for next time.

Take care--
-K<3>