Enjoyment

In my last entry I was just a tad irritated by Korea. What can I say? It happens when you're an expat. Some days just seem longer than necessary and when one doesn't have many outlets, it tends to come out full force in the few one does have. Anyways, I'm writing here to say I'm much better now. Things are starting to fall into place and/or I no longer feel I'm falling apart every moment I step out my front door. One reason for this is it's finally summer, and warm and the daylight lasts until 8 or 9 and I can relax outside (finally!) in the cooler summer evenings, skipping the stifling June afternoons. I can also run at night and hide amongst the shadows of Lego-like apartments, dodging to and fro like Batman or an alley cat on the prowl. Then in the humid early evenings when the sun is still out and draining, I can read under a tree or in an air-conditioned coffee shop and fall into universes alien to existence here.

I've also begun learning French, a language I believed impossible five years ago, but now find conquerable in contrast to my new fortress, the Korean language. I have found a French tutor and am finally carrying on conversations I never knew I had in me. Things like film noir, or Albert Camus, or Nicolas Sarkozy have never peppered my thoughts as they do now. It's not that I'm becoming an expert or anything, I mean I can't speak at length or in depth. But, I find myself using them in comparisons or questions, and then am shocked at my own knowledge. It's then, when I see the headway I'm making, that I want to learn more. Seeing progress is helpful in itself; but it is evermore so a therapy for the restless expat.

Lastly, I've begun volunteering at an orphanage near my apartment. It's small and I only tutor two students every week for one hour. But I enjoy it, and feel that perhaps I just may be doing the same for them as French is doing for me. Opening doors in my mind that I thought were securely welded shut. Every week I have a new game, something simple but fresh so that when they try to recall words we learn they can correlate the word with the game of that week. Er, that's what I'm hoping for. Either way, we have fun and enjoy getting to know each other. Both the students are sixteen, and awkward insecurity is no friend of theirs at the moment. The first week they were scared to laugh at my jokes and goofy strategies, the second week they warmed a bit when I brought the games I'd promised along with candy (the trick of every ESL teacher!), and finally this last week they appeared to show some sadness when I told them I wouldn't be able to come this next week due to orientation (a three day get-away where I should learn to be a better teacher, but will most likely just meet people, hang out and play beer pong... not my choice, rather an obligation of my contract ironically.)

Anyways, I'm going to be arrogant and think I'll be missed this week as I'll miss them. They're bright kids, just don't have the same opportunities as their peers thus shucked to lower level classes and passed through school with no hope of higher education. Not unlike our schools in America really, only I think there's perhaps a bit more sympathy in America for orphans than there is here in Korea. Not really certain of the programs we have, but there's is very hush-hush and usually managed by a local Christian or Buddhist community.

To put my statements in perspective, to be an orphan here is to have no family lineage, the keystone of every Korean's life. So to have no family means you don't really have anything to honor and pride yourself on. Remember, in this country they put their last names first as a matter of pride their family. They also base marriages more on the fact of the families liking each other rather than the actual bride and groom to-be. Moreover, the reason the orphans are even orphans at all is usually due to divorce, where off-spring from a first marriage is not accepted as apart of the family of the second marriage thus they're sent away, usually to orphanages like this one I'm volunteering at. Blood is such a big part of Korean culture and psyche that it's also the reason I and other expats are such outcasts. We can't (and should never in some older Korean's minds) share the same blood as them. It's kind of like Harry Potter actually, the fight between 'pure-bloods' and 'half-bloods'. Those who taint the purity of their Korean blood-line with a foreigner spouse are looked down upon by older Koreans, like they've destroyed something sacred and have no shame in it. Even some younger Koreans stare and gawk at mixed race couples with their mixed race children, like animals at a zoo, if you're different you're fair game for eye-balling. My point is that it's not good to be different here. Being the same is good and being the best is your goal. Be the best among the same and you're a role-model for Koreans.

So, back to orphans, they're not as palpably different as mixed-race couples and children or as much as myself and other expats. Yet, they are different in the context of modern Korea. To not have a family to call your own is not a good starting point for a career. I doubt that even with the same education as their peers, the same looks and the same resume that they still wouldn't be picked for the job because of their disconnect from Korean society. But to add to that disconnect is a system against them, meant to keep them at levels of work deemed appropriate by society and the government. I asked my students at my elementary school what they wanted to be and their answers were all big and dreamy like a child's should be. Astronauts, soccer players, scientists, dancers. Given that my orphanage students are a little older and so a little less likely to dream so big, I asked them just to see and they didn't have answers. Neither believed they had any real choice in the matter. They just followed the system, did as they were told and lived day to day. "How was your week?" "Nothing special." "How about ten years from now?" "Nothing special."

Though I don't go often and really can't speak with my students with out the Korean translator with me, I really would like to help the students, to make a difference in their lives. It seems others feel the same but just don't know how to go about it. I can't help but think that perhaps that's all people, that everyone just wants to help, wants the best for their fellow man. Thus, with this new found optimism I'm returning full force every week with my games and spunk in the highest of hopes, thinking all the while about the story of the little girl throwing starfish back into the sea and answering the question of "Why? When they're are so many to be helped? Why bother?" and she replies with another toss of a starfish, "It mattered to that one." It's a very empowering story to run through your head over and over, and I think it's a bit more productive than my paranoid running theory.

Thus, on that note, my new progressive theory is that perhaps I can make a slight glimmer of hope appear on my student's horizons, even if it's very small and not remembered by either. I would like to think that like my progress in French for me, their sliver of progress for them gives them a boost of confidence in a world weighted against them. That with just a little handout of help that they'll think "Yes, I can." and that perhaps that can stretch on through their next, major rat-racing years. Extremely optimistic, I know, but if you think about their stories, about why they're where they are and why I'm sometimes unhappy where I am, then I think it's the perfect medicine. Nothing cures suppression like ignorant, love-filled optimism and enjoyment right?

Running

"A year alone can fool any mind, into thinking there ain't much to rewind."

My thoughts exactly. Most days here pass by me like spindles of a pinwheel, going round and round with the same activities, same friends, same life. But when the rarity of getting a whole day to myself arises, and I finally have the hours to pass on my own watch, I'm off-set, nearly nervous. I don't know what to do with my time. I think there must be some great activity I can accomplish, some Mona Lisa in need of painting, or some child in need of saving. I want to DO something but find myself suffocated for work or even play. I find myself starving for life.

In that suffocation, one could go crazy. Or shall I say one does go crazy, as that's where I feel I'm finally at because I'm paranoid as I walk down the street. I know what will happen, I know how many looks I'll receive just because I'm 'different', a 'foreigner'. I'm also scantily dressed for Korea, not America, but Korea in general. I'm wearing a tank-top with a short-sleeved sweater over it, rather short shorts and doll-like shoes with little embroidered flowers on them. I'm comfortable for the eighties high day that awaits me. I know I'll get stares of course, but then that spiteful, crazy voice inside my head says "NO! You have every right to dress the way you want, when you want, and most certainly on YOUR day off with high temps!" One last look in the mirror before I leave my self-centered island of an apartment and I'm off, out to turn some heads but trying my best to be apathetic towards it because I'm going to DO something today, not just hide in my shelter and watch a beautiful day pass me by.

It's paranoia I think as I walk down the street. I feel stares, I see old men and women stop what their doing as I walk by, hear conversations halt just to ogle me. It's then that I wish I could melt into the moss colored paint peeling of a building next to me and disappear, fade into black like Metallica always ominously sings in my ear. I just want to be where I'm normal!

It's not everyday that I feel this isolated. Most days I have school to think about, French to study, a novel to throw myself into, friends to meet in Seoul. I have a life, I swear. It's just on days like today, when the weather is beautiful and I have hours to squander that I wish for freedom, liberation from my worries of stares and thoughts of others. I long for America then. I admit it, I wish I was in the land of equality and freedom even if it's tainted with greed and sex driven sociopaths. At least there no one checks to see if I can speak the language, or comes up to me to ask about my religion (okay they do, but they're much easier to tell off than these Korean zealots!), no one stares unabashed as I walk in a store, and no one comes up to me asking for lessons in English (a quirk here that I understand, yet abhor because it's like a hard slap of a reminder that I'm different.) All these things and more dissipate as I cross into America (or even American army bases). The level at which my appearance matters goes down from 99% to 20% in importance. I can then stretch out on a lawn chair on a hot afternoon in just my tank and shorts. I can walk down the street without fear of being accosted by some rando wanting something from me, if even it's just a 'Hello'. I can be among people and pretend I'm at home amongst strangers; probably the greatest thing I miss. Pretty much, I can be me and not be self conscious about being so.

I'm certain that's why I'm now so into running. Just like I was in college and for similar reasons as well: asserting my individuality, proving I can kick ass, and finding peace amongst chaos; just a few on the list of reasons I've picked it up again here and can't seem to stop. It's a good thing for my body especially, which had wasted away on a winter of cabin fever and Korean style Ho-hos. The in-shape side affect is nice, and gives me a boost of confidence to leave my apartment/island. But running, the activity itself, is starting to act as my saving grace here. The sheer enjoyment I get out of it is so magnificent that I sometimes think I should just be like that legendary girl in college who ran everywhere, in just plain clothes, with books and backpack in tow, and with the longest hair I've ever seen bouncing to and fro on her buttocks as she surpassed all onlookers without care. My God I laughed when I finally saw the girl everyone gossiped about. It was so funny to see. Her and that hair- a perfectly constructed unit and now legend of my college years. I laughed but now I cry. I want to be like that girl here I think. I understand her now. It's so liberating to fly everywhere, past everyone and their judgments and eyes.

When I'm running no one comes up to me for English lessons, no one accosts me about religion. If they stare, I tell myself they're staring in awe at how fast that foreigner girl is. If I catch them staring I run faster, stronger; it becomes a matter of pride in myself and my foreign status that makes me push for the stars and beyond. No one can stop me. I am free but also of an island, one that is outside my small apartment yet which still serves as a home for my thoughts and self and safety from all else. Korea fades into the badly painted buildings and stair wells and not just my Metallica me. I become the queen of the road or pathway I'm cruising upon. I find my voice in my head and she's powerful now, unstoppable. She starts to chant a mantra and I start to run to its beat. She says, "Move out of the way because I'm not afraid of your stares today, I'm not paranoid. I'm ready for anything because I'm running, because I'm free, because I'm me and I'm home!" If this girl had a name it would be just like the movie, Kick Ass!