The Power of the Post-It!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned the neighbors who scream and throw things at each other all hours of the night? The woman has a high pitched, piercing scream, like a banchee in a blender, and someone is always throwing things at our adjoining wall, shattering an entire plate set by now. They fight so fiercely, I seriously felt relieved to learn Korea has a no gun policy, except for the military officers, so phew, at least I wouldn’t wake up to gun shots, that’s how intense they fight.

From time to time I reconnect with the foreign teachers who taught at Sky English before me, and both of them confirmed that this couple had been fighting like this long before I came. Also, on the gossip front, my ‘my-neighbor-is-a-prostitute’ theory was also confirmed. Anyway, I had little hope that anything would change. If the fights got particularly impertinent, I’d ask Mr. Shin to call the landlord and complain, but there’s no way to know if that happened.

And then I bought a pack of post-it notes!

Okay, we’ll back up a bit, I have a new co-worker, and she’s a complete weirdo, like, seriously, don’t-leaver-her-alone-with-children weird, but that’s a whole other blog topic. So, in one of the creepy conversations we’ve had, she told me the owners of the building live on the fourth floor. Well, there’s no going back when armed with that kind of information, right?

On a seemingly unrelated note, I purchased a pack of post-it notes at the local Office Depot, (I should get paid for the plug :) and ever since, I’ve been marveling in the handy-dandyness of them! All of a sudden, I have with me documented proof of my fleeting moments of genius! There are post-its by my bed, ranging from song lyrics to half-formed ideas while falling asleep. For example, why do toe nails grow so much slower than finger nails? That’s a gem if you ask me. I also have some brilliant schemes for wealth, but for now, I’m afraid those ideas are just for my bookie and me.

Anyway, my neighbors had a new battle to fight, now that I am armed and ready to go! For the last 2 weeks I’ve been walking up to the fourth floor, and knock on the owners door. Equipped with the number 206, I made it clear that whenever I couldn’t sleep, they wouldn’t be able to either. (Admittedly, I wasn’t always asleep when they started fighting, and it could be 5:30am and I'd be wide awake, but still, I went up to her.)

And can you believe it? VICTORY!!! As of Monday, the occupants in apartment 206 are officially gone! I woke up to a whole lot of commotion on the stairwell (my apartment is on the lowest floor, and everyone who lives in the building has to walk pass my door, footsteps echoing the whole climb) but there was an inordinate amount of noise. So I popped my head out the door and saw them moving stuff! I was so excited I started involuntarily clapping. They scowled as they carried a heavy looking box away, and no, I didn’t offer to help! Oh, sweet victory!

This made me think of a random experience I once had. The comment I posted on my facebook page was, ‘Once, I was fired on a post-it note. Just sayin...’ because, yep, I have indeed been fired that way. It wasn’t intended for my eyes, but, well, there you go.

This also reminded me of an episode of ‘Sex in the City’ where Carrie is dumped on a post-it note which eventually becomes her get-out-of-jail card. The thing about that show is, I’ve never seen it until I moved here. I know right? Me? Who completely adores anything HBO does, not see an episode of ‘Sex in the City?’ I think I’ve seen maybe 3 different episodes, but I’ve seen them like 5x each, so I never appreciated the scope of the show. It’s funny, I’ve seen more mainstream American television since I moved to Korea than ever before. But well, do I need to say I'm hooked?! It’s clever and witty and makes me laugh and say hmmm all at the same time! Ah American television, thank goodness you’re here!

Identities Are Like Hats

It's funny how environment impacts our identities. I noticed this when I was backpacking Europe, the first few 'getting to know you' questions are very different than the typical arrangement. These three are generally the first questions you ask other travelers:

Where are you from?

Where have you been?

Where are you going?

There may be an age question, but nowhere on this list is, What do you do? Which, of course, is totally a sanctimonious question. I remember when I was in Germany, I hung out with a kid from Florida all day, but we never actually exchanged names. We went for a hike, had dinner and rode a train together, but in my head, he was ‘the American’ I hung out with. Similarly, my roommates became, ‘the Canadians,’ or where ever they were from.

It took me being in another country for me to realize I even had a national identity. It’s an identity that’s next to useless when I’m home, but when I’m abroad, it’s my first identifiable characteristic. I would never walk around Utah saying, ‘I’m American,’ let alone in the same prideful tone I tend to say it here. Apparently, my national identity is reserved for international travels only.

National identities at home tend to be surrounded with idealistic notions relating to the military, the south, war, religion and whatnot, so I tend to wear it tentatively when I’m around other Americans, but as a foreigner living abroad, it’s the first thing I say about myself.

Even though I’m American, I never EVER say I’m from America, I guess my national identity doesn’t extend that far. I will say the United States, or the States, or even the U.S., but never, ever America. That’s just a little too patriotic for me I guess. In my mind, there’s not much difference between announcing I’m from America to unveiling a tattoo of an eagle clutching old glory in its talons! Does that make me ‘less’ of an American? Hmmm... yeah, probably.

For the last 10 months and a few weeks, I’ve been slowly reading the book, ‘A People’s History of the United States’ by Howard Zinn. It’s not exactly a book you just read for hours, it’s a book that is best understood after ingesting a little at a time and weighing what I’ve read, which is a revised version of the history I have been continually exposed to. I really liked the way he describes the motivation from this historical account of the United States:

My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex.

This was the first time I thought about the concept of a national identity, and whether or not it exists. I can understand what Zinn proposes, that the sheer size of the United States and staggeringly different experiences the population encounters, makes it impossible to identify a national identity. That, in fact, people are more likely to experience a local identity that is often assumed to be national, when it’s not. But I don’t know if I agree with that because there are a lot of stories that give me the feeling of the Land of Opportunity. I can identify the difference between my local identity and my national identity. My love for the outdoors comes very much from living in Utah, but the inspiration Washington D.C. gives me comes from my national identity.

So the thing is, I only wear an identity as long as I need it. And this connection makes it impossible to ignore the relationship between identity and community. There have been points in my life where I’ve identified in a way that is completely at odds with how I identify today. That doesn’t mean I was wrong, or it never applied, for instances, my identity as a student is no longer pertinent in how I view myself, so I rarely use it to describe myself these days.

I’ve also noticed that it often takes a while for me to warm up to the idea of a new identity. For example, technically I am working in a job that requires both a higher education and specialized skills, but I am still reluctant to refer to myself as a working professional. Even though that most aptly describes my current situation, I have not yet owned that identity, regardless if it fits. I suppose the reason it takes a while to warm up to, for me at least, is because of what I said earlier, I’m not ready to be apart of the community that follows the identity. When I think of other ‘working professionals,’ they have a longer work history in their profession, maybe have an asset or three, and I don’t, so I’m not confident in being in the same community.

One undeniable lesson Korea has taught me is, identities are as brief as relationships. You think they’ll last the hardships of time, but they don’t. And there’s not much lost in that because, normally, there are new identities and new relationships to get distracted by. At least, that’s been my experience.

A Few Life Lessons

Undoubtedly, my experience in Korea has taught me a few invaluable life lessons that have no geographic boundary. And for one reason or another, I’ve been reflecting on these lessons and how I have changed as a result.

My best-mate, and awesome cousin, Adam ‘Bad-A’ Bavelas, recently wrote me an email telling me that in the time I’ve been here, he’s seen me grow and gain a quiet calm and patient lovingness that he attributes as ‘Korean’ qualities I’ve wisely adopted. Besides agreeing with him, it’s curious to be told how I’ve matured by a person who’s diapers I once changed! But when he’s right, he’s right!

My separation from everyone I know has been educational, relieving and at times, burdensome. I understand more about my nature and the reserves of strength I’ve never tapped into before. It’s nice to know what my motives are. For instance, if I were home, and I acted in an unkind way, chances are, someone, somewhere in my life would be privy to that knowledge, and on a certain level, perhaps my decision to not act unkindly is partially motivated from a fear of chastisement. That’s not to say I don’t have a conscious, but let’s face it, there are times we act a certain way knowing we are being watched. It’s a natural repercussion of living within a community. That is not the case here. Very simply put, I do not belong to a community. For the first time in my life, I am liable to myself and no one else.

Though this thought can be daunting, I revel in what I have learned about myself. The compassion I feel is not limited to the people I know. I genuinely feel for others and think of how my actions will hinder or aid them. When I am wrong, I am quick to apologize, and when I am wronged, I am even quicker to forgive. I am less judgmental of others than I am of myself, but I’m getting better at that. I’m quick to laugh, and slow to anger and find it more helpful to be understanding than jaded. Despite the periods of loneliness I inevitably feel, I feel quite content with my life at.the.moment. which, in itself, is a small miracle.

It has been my experience that if I only did this, or was working toward that, or was moving away from whatever, then I would achieve the kind of inner peace I feel most days. But here I am, living in the moment, formulating plans for the future, and making peace with the past simultaneously, and like I said, most days, I am aware that this is the most authentic way I’ve ever lived.

I read ‘The Alchemist’ by Paoulo Coelho a few months ago, and got a lot of insight from it. One passage that really resonated with me is on pages 43-44:

He walked slowly through the market. The merchants were assembling their stalls, and the boy helped a candy seller do his. The candy seller had a smile on his face: he was happy, aware of what his life was about, and ready to begin a day’s work... ‘This candy merchant isn’t making candy so that later he can travel or marry a shopkeeper’s daughter. He’s doing it because it’s what he wants to do,’ thought the boy. He realized that he could... sense whether a person was near to or far from his Personal Legend. Just by looking at them. It’s easy, and yet I’ve never done it before, he thought.

When the stall was assembled, the candy seller offered the boy the first sweet he had made for the day. The boy thanked him, ate it, and went on his way. When he had gone only a short distance, he realized that, while they were erecting the stall, one of them had spoken Arabic and the Other Spanish.

And they had understood each other perfectly well.

There must be a language that doesn’t depend on words, the boy thought. I’ve already had that experience with my sheep, and now it’s happening with people.

He was learning a lot of new things. Some of them were things that he had already experienced, and weren’t really new, but that he had never perceived before. And he hadn’t perceived them because he had become accustomed to them. He realized: If I can learn to understand this language without words, I can learn to understand the world.

This is actually a perfect segue into the last bit of this blog entry, having to do with words and understanding. I am the only foreigner at work, and when I first started teaching I had high hopes of befriending my Korean co-teachers, but found most of them reluctant to make plans outside of work. I wondered why this was for about a minute, but then I’d get distracted by something shinny and wouldn’t obsess about it for too long. Then, when Teacher Kim (remember Lindsay) was leaving and we got together for dinner and a movie, she mentioned inviting Teacher Gum too, but that had she said no. When I asked why, Lindsay told me that Teacher Gum is embarrassed to speak English in front of me, especially since she’s never studied outside Korea.

This was one of the most clearly identifiable life-lessons I’ve learned while living in Korea. It would have been so easy for me to assume that her decision to distance herself from me had everything to do with me, but it didn’t. It was her own insecurities that stopped us from getting to know each other. Normally, this would have been something I would have lost sleep over, ‘why don’t my co-workers want to be friends outside of work?’ but I suppose I just thought it was a cultural thing and didn’t give it much thought.

And the thing is, how many times have I limited my exposure to other people out of fear? Oh, these people are smarter than me, or, that party is going to have loads of working-professionals and I’m not one, so if I go, I’ll look like a fool. It’s rather egocentric to assume anyone really cares about that, isn’t it? I mean, Teacher Gum never got to know that I appreciate conversing with people who may not communicate in English the same way I do, if only because it makes me a better teacher. So important lesson learned, sometimes, the things people do that effect me, have nothing to do with me after all.