Separation and Riches

I feel like I am failing at describing a particularly cultural experience in Korea (and failing at describing much of anything when I don't blog for over 2 weeks), but everything is interconnected. And sometimes it is simply through seeing something in a different context that you understand more about where you came from. A cross-cultural experience may be more revealing of the visitor than of the visited, you stare into these strange lands, faced with these new experiences, and what you see is yourself in a new light.

This does not start off as the most cheerful post, but it gets better, so bear with me. There's a reason why this blog's title includes the word "hermit". I have been known to say "I like being a hermit" and yes, freak that I am, it has occurred to me to take a few months to live in complete seclusion. Over the past few months, through a series of events (and a lot of phone calls), this view of myself had slowly begun to break down. However, there was enough left of the contentment with isolation that I was quite surprised at how this first birthday alone made me feel. From the minute I got on the subway in Seoul to head back to Daejeon, I knew that I was on my own for the rest of the day. There was something very daunting about that thought. I've often isolated myself, but this isolation was forced on me, not chosen. I realized that even at my most isolated moments, people around me had cared and been there for me in spite of myself and it wasn't that they didn't care, it was just that everyone was so far away.
When I got home and started seeing the birthday wishes from people all over, it meant so much and at the same time, it was so painful.

But in the following weeks, I started realizing that I may not have family here, or best friends, and every friendship doesn't just grow at miraculous speeds, but that doesn't mean there aren't new friends to be made, people around me. When it comes down to it, I may be separated from the people who know me best, but I'm not alone, and I can build new friendships.

Going out with people, hearing where they came from, what brought them here... all these different experiences make for such an eclectic, and fascinating picture. There's so much to learn, whether from the Koreans I meet, or the other foreigners. The separation can sometimes make it hard to see the richness that surrounds me in this situation.

One of my favorite things is building relationships with my students. Of course the better their English, the easier this is, since obviously Korean is not really an option. There are always those moments in my higher level classes when I can a get talking about something they're really excited about. And they just get carried away. I had the most quiet student alone in class, and I was able to ask him about things he cared about, and he talked for almost all of the 45 minutes. Granted, this isn't some six hour conversation about something very profound or personal, but they open up, and on some level we connect. The most difficult thing for me is still when one of my kids cries because I can't help. That language barrier is a borderland that infuriates me and fascinates me all at once. I both want to conquer it and contemplate it.