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?