Obviously On Hold....

It's been a very very long time since I have even opened this page...
Due to a change of continents and change of story, I have not blogged in an entire year.
I will actually make an effort to restart this story in January, adding more pictures and less words (who wants to actually read all this anyways...pictures are soooo much easier :)

Gotta have faith!

That was the song that was streaming through my mind as I woke up this morning...yep, George Michael to the early morning wake up!
And as the woman who runs the sandwich cart (egg sandwiches pronounced 'toast-uh') was making my sandwich, she offered me egg fried kimbop and the customer next to me offered to poor me a hot drink...I was reminded as to why I would trust an 18~something young man that asked to borrow my phone last night.

I willing allowed the young man to 'use' my phone and was rewarded with a sprint through traffic in my attempt to catch him as he ran away with my cell phone... and for the record, ol' girl is slow...I really need to work on my turn over (that is how quickly I can move my legs for you non-runner types).

But you know what? Korea with all of its quirks is still by far a safer place, and in many ways, a more pleasant place to live than other locations throughout the world.
I am reminded of this daily with customary shows of respect, unnecessary displays of kindness and generosity, of all the quirkiness that makes up Korean living.

Where else do toddlers bow to you in greeting simply because you are a foreigner and their parent wants you to walk away with a good impression of their country?
Where can you oogle and googoo over a ridiculously cute dog (on the subway) and the owner embarrassingly obliges your immature fascination?...
Where your greeting of another person that does not expect you to even pay them the time of day is rewarded with the biggest smile and hello that you will see throughout your day?

...Not many places have such a display and appreciation for human interaction, and for that, I love Korea and am grateful for it...and for the fact that I can immediately hop into a cab post theft-sprint, cry and blubber all over myself as I am driven to my friend Mindy's apartment where I am greeted with the most beautiful mix of shock, confusion and open arms as she opens the door to my red-tear stained face and am too emotional to tell her the source of my incredibly rare display of emotion.
Korea has given me amazing friends, a support system that I am eternally grateful for.
So regardless of last night's events, I will keep my faith in Korea...cause there's really no better choice in the matter now is there?

The bitter and the sweet

He blows in with a gust of cold air and plops down in my office with his cigarette smoke wafting in behind him...his nerves pulling at the corner of his mouth with a slight twitch, only to be further exaggerated as he finishes off the can of liquid crack (commercial coffee) in his hand. It starts with a simple question, "How's work?"...and the unraveling starts.

Ever seen a grown Korean man tear up when he's NOT watching a Korean TV drama? Well, just ask one that is overworked in the financial industry how his days are...and the years of dedication repaid with denied vacation, a nonexistent wife (because he never had time to find one), and unfulfilled dreams of life in foreign countries and you will see a hint of emotion in otherwise well hardened tear ducts.

His story starts with the recent loss of his opportunity to get sponsored to work abroad through a clerical error with his company...the feelings of betrayal and pure anger show as slight tremors shake his shoulders. This does quickly transition to words of hopelessness, loss and confusion. He doesn't know what would make him happy, he only knows he is unhappy where he is, of working for people that really don't care about him and never notice the hard work he puts in. He mentions his dreams of travel, of life abroad...how he has wanted of family but (cue pent up anger...) he is unhappy and always takes his unhappiness and unfulfilled dreams out on those around him, that he can't imagine taking care of others because he can't seem to control the emotions that boil up from inside. I do make a mental note of this rather respectable choice.

I am just so confused and frustrated...is what his rant boils down to. He proceeds to ask me if I ever feel this way, if I am ever unsatisfied...ummm, if he only knew who he was talking to! I condense my feelings of complete loss of direction, momentary suffocating inability to see my future, and oppressive feelings of uselessness down to a "Yes, I do"....and this satisfies his curiosity.

Sadly, this shadow of a dreamer makes my job a little more meaningful. I am grateful for his angst...does that make me a bad person?...no, let's just call it efficient- making use of what I can get!
I am left feeling significantly more hopeful than the hour before... that maybe I can learn from these classes, give my dreams time to surface, and realize that my self-value does not come from a job but from the work I put into living life out of the shadow of expectation and obligation (my new favorite word in Korea) and out, under the sun...preferably with temperatures higher than 2°C.

Decision to love...if only a little

Same day, two different students, two completely different worlds...not compared side by side nor even with exactly the same circumstances...but each portraying vastly different people and different approaches to life.

One student, during class, asks me what I value most. So I, in turn, ask him the same question. He names three different things that seem to have little correlation to me: wisdom, money, and fame...yes money and fame can be easily coupled up...but really, how wise are those who open up their lives to mass media and society? Okay I say. How do you plan on achieving your fame? My student responds that he will make a monumental investment decision that will rock the investment world of Korea, of course. So, this is the game plan. From a man who openly dislikes his work, who drinks each night away with the morning promise of never doing it again, who considers his child a leach on his personal space and time, who seems to receive great amusement from how much he can wear the same suit days in a row because he has not been home. He relays the happenings of his days which involve little actual effort in his work and 100% commitment to his smoking breaks. These are not statements made out of judgement, these are words straight from his lips.
In my mind I find it hard to rationalize that an individual such as this would be capable of any great feat...but what do I know about investment really? Maybe this is just the echelon of person that the industry requires? Who knew?!

Later the same day, a student comes to my class, initially a little quiet but with eyes that burst with desire to ask questions...he had read a book which upset his well manicured corporate world. The book was The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. He asked me to explain a little bit of it to clarify timing and events that were told by Randy Pausch in his novel. To quickly summarize, Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University that gave a true 'last lecture' about achieving childhood dreams (he was suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer which would take his life about 10 months after the lecture). Note: This book is absolutely phenomenal and my crude summary does it no justice. I highly recommend it. My student looked at me and said that he had achieved nothing of what he dreamed of and would be full of regret if death should make an early appearance. He had always dreamed about being an architect...he had drawn pictures of homes in all his notebooks throughout his childhood. As fate would have it, with the specialized high school system in Korea, he was pushed toward a school that focused on the arts and literature - not science and math. This then momentarily crippled his pursuit of a future as an architect. His dream is still alive, though, and picking at the edges of his mind.
Here is the beauty of the sad situation...he wants to change, he really wants to make an effort to live a life he dreamed of as a child and his wife is fully supportive. He, a 30something corporate employed Korean man, has plans to quit his job and go back to school full time in order to study for a second degree in architecture.
How awesome is that?! Completely and utterly fabulous if I do say so myself!

It are these little sparks of hope for a little change, a proactive approach to happiness that really make the days a little more sweet. For this reason (and moments like when a student had an epiphany how better off (relaxed) Korean society would be if the government stopped feeding them cigarettes and people switched to weed... but that is a whole different blog) I am going to like my job today.

Work: to love or not to love it...or just accept it

Working with adults is grossly different than teaching children. In some ways it is easier but...well, there are always 'but's. I have been 'teaching' adults for 2 months now and whether it is the split shifts and looooong days or the work, the time seems much longer.

This position has given me an insight into Korean life incomparable to other positions. For both men and women, life in Korea is ruled/haunted/dominated/drenched in obligation. From what I have gathered from 99.9% of my students, their lives are governed by obligation that I had never encountered in my western life.

One might compare obligation to responsibility and say this is a good thing. In some cases I can agree and say that it is even necessary. But the extent to which the students I have encountered eat, breathe, bleed obligation is just amazing.

A rare few are actively trying to break away from this obligatory cycle and find some way to make their own happiness but the fear of the unknown, of a life outside the known obligation sphere, seeps from their pores (some in the form of perspiring others in the form of digesting all the soju they have consumed in their creative process).

The obligation I speak of does not start as an adult...it basically starts at conception when their lives are obliged to be created (I would love to give a class on the necessity and enjoyment of passion in any aspect of life...other than work that is). These children are groomed to look a specific way, manicured and molded by their stay-at-home moms, hardened by their distant work obsessed fathers, and brain washed of virtually all 'illogical' dreams of their future by a competitive society.

Children turn into young adults that study and test their youth away in order to succeed in the post graduation rush for employment in which only 20% of them will succeed and the rest will have to answer to the shame of their families. In between the studying and the testing, young women decide which eye shape they want and monitor their all too slim figures with the ferocity of Kate Moss...young men turn into 'men' with their obligatory military service and work to save as much money as possible in order to be able to afford a girlfriend.

Eventually relationships are formed and the overbearing girlfriend role is taken up (when really she is just afraid of being discarded and having to answer to more family shame) and distant boyfriend is created (through the pressure of family to marry and carry on the line as a proper man should)...as for love, lust and passion?...well, the lust can be satiated through less admirable avenues.

Should twentysomethings reach 28~29 without a boy/girlfriend or even marriage...the obligation mounts its offense and personal goals and standards are lowered in order to meet the call of life's checkpoints: "Have you gotten a successful job and secured a female to have your children?" "Have you maintained yourself well enough to secure a man that will provide for you?"

Then the dispassionate cycle continues with more children that are not born out of want but necessity...you would think they were still surviving on farms and needed working hands in order to survive.

Men, suffocated by their wives and needs of their children, live at work. They attend special 'business meetings' where extra needs are attended to and have soju to 'clear' their mind the rest of the time.
Women are quietly forced to quit their jobs to have children, because the biggest achievement in a women's life is bearing children of course!...why would she need a job to feel fulfilled? They become overbearing mothers because their children are all they have since their husbands have married their jobs and other extracurricular activities.

While this might seem like a comedic dance to an outsider, a ridiculous circus that one should easily be able to get out of if they wanted to...it's not...obligation is Korea's drug of choice and it is passed on generation to generation. While the younger generation sees more possibility in their lives than maybe their parents did, they also see the expectation in their parents' eyes and that is a hard sight to turn from in such a Confucian society.

Where do I fit in? I am what I once thought was a teacher, giving people the opportunity to do more with their lives...But I have come to realize that I am 1) just a new hurtle in the obligation course, English must be learned in order to survive your competitive peers; and 2)a new form of a talky girl from the bar...men book my class to look at and speak with a foreign women, where they proudly relay their overworked lives saturated with unhappiness and for many, tinged with exploits that I would really prefer not to hear about.

Yes, I do know that the location of my office feeds me a very specific Korean demographic...and this cannot be applied to everyone- that would be racist. BUT this is a reality that is hard to turn from as I am assaulted with it daily and make a conscious effort to observe it and not take it on as my own burden (I have the weight of my own world to deal with, thank you very much)...sometimes it does get a little heavy, particularly those with a blatant dislike and annoyance with having a family that they 'have to' go home to. Is that what it comes down to? Really?! No, I was not raised with the golden, idealistic image that you can have your own perfectly happy little family where all are honest and devoted- but there was some hope for something beyond resigning oneself to whatever reality they are obligated to live.