The Black Hole

That's what I'm calling Seoul.  Whenever I meet another expat who's been here for 3-4+ years, I always ask them how long they initially planned on living and working here in Seoul...the answer is always one year.  After one year they would return home and after a few months back home they would return to Seoul.  I can see how that could happen.  It's easy to get used to, or sucked into, the lifestyle here.  You go out every night for a few drinks with your coworkers and friends (especially when you don't want to go back to your lonely one room apartment), you can easily get away with never cooking for yourself, public transportation here is wonderful, your apartment is paid for (minus the utilities), and it's easy to save some money for whatever you may have planned in the future.  Oh yeah, Seoul also serves as a great "home base" for traveling to other parts of Asia.  But then it's also easy to get stuck in a routine, or rut, if that's what you would want to call it.  Some of the expats I meet make a life out of teaching English here.  I don't see myself staying here another year.  Life here can be very convenient.  

But then again it's also difficult to not get out of, over, the depression after a few weeks or months of living here.  One of my coworkers who arrived here on the same night as me turned in his six weeks' notice earlier this week.  I heard the news from my other coworkers, but I definitely understand what he's going through.  However, I promised myself that no matter how bad things got for me, except for an emergency of some sort, I would stick through my one year contract.  Living and working here is no vacation and it's absolutely nothing like home.  South Korea is quite the experience for a waygook, foreigner. Of course, you also meet some great people here.

"have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Two Months

Two months have passed by and I still can't believe I'm here, in South Korea.  Not sure if this surreal feeling will change.   I still have my moments of homesickness, which have a tendency to hit really hard.  Unfortunately that feeling will never go away.  Of course I still question my decision for coming here.  However, the wheels are a turnin’ in my head for my travels once my contract here is up.

Now I remember what it was like being uprooted a few times during my childhood.  Back then I had no choice and it was a little difficult for me to make friends as my family moved around.  It didn’t help that I was extremely shy.  Here I am now, uprooting myself from family, friends and I guess “familiarity”…  I would become comfortable and felt as if I was “home”, then we were off.  I’m the one who’s responsible for what’s happening in my life now.  It’s kind of funny how things have turned out.  But then again, that’s how I grew up.  Although I am finding it a little difficult with being away from my loved ones, I’m not as shy anymore…I can’t be.  I’ve definitely come a long way.  Another thing to think about…even though I uprooted myself from “familiarity”, I’m still in a familiar place when it comes to moving somewhere I’ve never been before without any friends.  Even though my brother is here in Seoul, we’re about 30 minutes away from each other and he has his own life to live.  We’re not going to see each other every day, but we will see each other. 

I’m having no problems with meeting people and making friends.  However, I still encounter the feeling of loneliness.   Unfortunately, with this lifestyle, the new friends I make will not always be around.  They will leave to go back home, or to some other country, for other new and exciting experiences, and vice versa.  The same goes with the kids I teach.  One of my students' last day at school was yesterday.  Her family is moving to Fairfax, VA.  Quite the change.  

I leave you with an excerpt from a book I read this past summer…

"Virginia Wolfe wrote, “Across the broad continent of a woman’s life falls the shadow of a sword.” On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where “all is correct.” But on the other side of that sword, if you’re crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, “all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course.” Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous."

~Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)

P.S.  I know I'm behind on my blog posts.  Don't worry, I'll get to them soon enough. I need to get my lazy butt into gear.