Reflections

"The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.” – William Makepeace Thackeray

It's been 4 months since I've come to Korea, and like I regularly tell my friends "I've felt like I've been here for days or years, take your pick." The closest thing that I've had to this in my life was when I served a mission for my church. Each day felt it lasted a year, each week a month, the each month a week, and the year a day. Time kind of did it's own thing and I lived within it. 

I think a large part of why that is is because steep learning curves have a way of sucking you into them. You become such a part of the experience that when you finally surface for air you realize days have passed in the sea of everything you've had to learn. My Grandpa "C" asked me yesterday if I felt like I had settled in or if I was still in the middle of adjusting, and while I told him I felt like I was out of the woods, I might have been lying a little bit (my apologies, Grandpa).

It's an interesting question, and one that I have been asking myself the last few weeks. There are a lot of things I do right now without hesitation that two months ago would have left me paralyzed. I have things delivered to my apartment, buy food on my own, try speaking complete Korean sentences with my exchange friends, and have even walked into a hole-in-the-wall pubs to ask the bartender where the nearest bathroom is (it helps this was a tad bit of an emergency situation). 

I keep wanting to type "but the biggest thing..." and "that has been a big difference", but there have been so many things that have caught me off guard about how I've settled into living here. So identifying the catalyst to my transition from "perpetually freaked out" to "chilling at random cafes waiting for friends," is hard to pinpoint. 

So the only way to illustrate it is to share examples. 

Buses - Buses were terrifying to me. I understood in theory how they worked, knew how they functioned, liked them in principle, but had really no practical experience when it came to using them. I had no idea how to get a bus card, how to refill it, and if it wasn't for the map app that has a notification alarm for when the stop is coming up, I'd have been stuck on the bus going in the wrong direction a lot more times than I have been. 

But somewhere in the last month my debit card now functions as a bus card, and instead of obsessively staring at my phone to make sure I don't miss the stop, I find myself almost absentmindedly tapping the stop button a few minutes before I need to get off. Granted I've learned some landmarks since I'm pretty predictable in the places I visit, but assuming the ahjussi driving the bus isn't playing his folks tunes on high, I realized I also recognize the stop names when they're announced. It's nice to not be terrified of the most basic mode of travel available to me. 

Wandering Sangnam - So Sangnam is the heart of Changwon, or at least it is for me. The best food is there, the best cafes, and generally that's where I hang out on the weekends. Get past midnight though, and the signs and music turn it into a maze of lights and noises that were incredibly disorienting to me in the beginning. The map app doesn't have a guide feature unless you're driving, so walking the streets can be a little disorienting without a little dot to follow. Needless to say I've gotten lost a couple times. 

A couple months later even my directionally challenged self has managed to recognize certain streets and areas, and I'm much more comfortable getting myself around. To be fair, most of the times I'm there it's with Koreans, but while I'm almost always coming with someone, my non-drinking self generally calls it a night long before anyone else does. 

In the early days though, I didn't feel confident taking a taxi on my own, and I didn't want to force anyone to go home earlier than they wanted to. So I often would be out a lot later than I generally preferred, and getting home was always something I kind of wished for. But that apprehension about getting in a taxi (also new to me...Iowa doesn't really do those) held me back.

But that all changed a couple weeks ago, when I realized I just didn't want to have to be out until 3AM. So I waved to my friends who were heading out for third rounds, walked up to a taxi, hopped in the back, and told the driver where I wanted to go. I didn't use an app, didn't have Saeyong or Hyeonho from language exchange set it up for me,  I just went and did it. The familiar wave of anxiety and apprehension wasn't there. The feeling was actually a little surreal, almost like an out of body experience. Because that was me talking to the taxi driver, me confirming my location. My slightly shaking fingers holding my phone. Realizing that they weren't shaking from nerves but excitement. That sense of triumph left me feeling so good that instead of going to bed when I got home, I called my mom and talked to her until 3 AM.

Now here's my disclaimer for all of these expereiences: Nothing I say is exactly the way it should be, and my methods are generally far from elegant. But they are effective, and it makes living here a little easier bit by bit.

Life in general - I also have become a much more active person socially (quiet the raised eyebrows friends, I couldn't believe it either) and that's helped a lot. With friends to regularly hangout with on the weekends, Korean lessons/exchanges, and church on Sunday, I see and talk to a lot of different people on a regular basis. And I actually genuinely enjoy it. In the beginning I was pretty reluctant to leave my apartment, and don't get me wrong I enjoy a quiet night or day at home (for example I'm currently writing this instead of trying to confirm what is apparently failed dinner plans, hahaha), but I actually like going out. 

For all that to make sense, you need to realize hanging out and socializing were things that I didn't really feel comfortable being a part of until the latter part of college, and even afterwards leaving my apartment was one of my least favorite things unless it was to visit my family. Ultimately, my expectation for myself was to not like spending time outside of that really small circle, and I was pretty content to live within that expectation. 

This was all fine and good at home in Iowa where I had established friend and family circles that I could rely on. But it's crippling in a country where I knew no one and no one knew me. Short term comfort warred with long term success as I considered how I was going to present myself in this new country. It felt like Korea was a giant floor to ceiling canvas, asking me what I wanted it to be...who I wanted to be. So, dipping my metaphorical brush into my paint can, I stepped out into this white space and started painting. 

As I've had a million "tell me about yourself" conversations with people who have little to no context for my life or culture, I've realized what things are really important to me. Few people here know I grew up a book worm, played multiple instruments in high school, or couldn't talk to a boy without imagining myself madly in love with him. They do know I'm a practicing Christian who doesn't drink alcohol, tea or coffee, that I love dancing as a hobby, can speak Spanglish, and have a rather dry sense of humor (which unfortunately doesn't always successfully cross the cultural divide). They also learn that I've driven since I was 14, have little interest in dating unless its likely to be serious, and that spicy rice cake in almost all its forms is my favorite thing to eat. I talk about my family. I talk about my religious beliefs and how they help guide my life. I talk about how music and dancing bring me peace and focus when I really need to be centered. I talk about how much I love different cultures and learning everything I can about them. 

And in hearing myself talk about it, I'm realizing I'm learning maybe even more than my audience is. It's not that I still don't like reading, or playing music, or I don't get a nice collection of butterflies when I see someone attractive, but there's a lot more to it now.  Granted that makes sense. To say all of these changes happened in the last 4 months would be inaccurate. These are comparisons and contrasts I'm making from over a decade of life. Culture and context just provide such a deep setting for life, and it was only when it was stripped away and I had to decide what I was keeping, that I realized how I've seen myself and who I am isn't necessarily the same person. 

Looking at the overall canvas of my life, I realize that there have been many moments where a blank page has been set before me, and that question "what will you do with it?" has been asked. The strokes aren't always consistent. Some are bolder than others, darker with heavy undertones, other lighter and less substantial. Even the constant themes of family and religion have changed as my understanding of them have deepened and matured. Nothing is quite the same, and I think that's a good thing. The only thing that matters is to never stop painting. 

- Shayla