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.
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