Living in a foreign country teaches you about replacements and uniqueness in a way that living far from home just doesn't.
It's something a lot of my peers, colleagues, and friends are doing these days - moving away from home. It's a trying time, attempting to define yourself outside of the college classroom in a setting you've read about, talked about, and looked forward to for quite a while. A lot of my friends have said things about finding "their target" or a coffee shop that makes lattes just like our college coffee shop. We all are, in some way, in a new place trying to find our way - it helps to find things that are familiar. (Why did I cry when I found Caribou Coffee in Seoul? I'm unsure… but I wasn't about to fight it. They were happy tears.) Moving out of the midwest or out of the city you grew up in can be hard, and moving to a country or continent that isn't your own can seriously add to those challenges. What's really neat to me is thinking about the things that I will eventually miss about South Korea. When I went home for Christmas I was so excited to eat cheese and drive a car and go to chipotle and pump my own gas and have normal sized napkins and cups at tables (the list could go on and on), but I also found myself wishing for some steamed mandu from the place across the street and being able to speak freely about any topic (assuming most around me couldn't understand what I was saying). There are so many great things about both the USA and Korea, and it's been so interesting to see what holds its place in my heart, and what can trade with another or join the party alongside other comforts.
So, onto literal replacements:
I was making 300 Kringla for my school's Culture Fair and learned about sour milk. Sour milk is a common replacement for buttermilk, which was required for the aforementioned Kringla recipe. These cookies were a commitment. Seriously. Not knowing how to read the milk containers (okay, I can find milk and soy milk, now…), I just went the replacement route. I soured my own milk - super easy, worked well in the recipe, and I felt great about myself as an adult. Look, mom! I can follow a recipe AND replace ingredients in a foreign country! I bought all the ingredients, mixed up 3 batches in my bowl that was probably intended to be a children's cereal bowl (I'm exaggerating, but the struggle was real, friends) and refrigerated it over night. Brought my heavy triple batch of dough to school, kept it in the faculty fridge, and brought it over to Melinda's apartment after school, because she has an oven. I jumped ship and didn't make them into pretty knots because it was entirely to challenging and time consuming, but the cookies were well received.
One night this week Meg and I took a long time to get home, stopping at a bunch of places for a drink or a snack and conversation. We ended up talking a lot about our job and our students. She has such a unique view of our school, knowing our students as artists and through student government. We had student elections this week and one of the candidates speeches cited our school as home. She broke it down for me. As students who have feet in two countries (often South Korea and the USA), they are unique. I've had students tell me that they weren't accepted in Korean public or private schools - other students knew they were "from" another country, even though they spoke Korean, have Korean parents, eat Korean food, and had lived in Korea for part of their childhood. Our students are generally pretty accepting of each other, knowing that life outside our school grounds and outside of South Korea is very different for each person. We, as mostly American teachers, end up aiding students in walking social boundaries, helping them to see the world through two lenses at the same time, learning how to compare and evaluate objectively. I talk so often about the differences between Korea and America with my students - they're all planning on/hoping to go to college in the US, so why not prepare them thoroughly. From my VERY American perspective, my students seem so Korean… but I'm sure from Korea's very Korean perspective, my students seem so foreign (not all have a specifically American influence). It's all relative, but when you're a child of two cultures, you can end up feeling like you don't belong in either one of them.
We, as an adult community have a similar experience. I know I've written about it before, but it's such an invaluable and all encompassing part of my life, it's hard to NOT talk about it. The place where I work is where I have all of my friends (except like, 3 who I met in an expat choir), it's where I work out, it's where I eat a third of my meals, it's who I spend my weeknight dinners with, it's who I bring to the hospital with me, it's who I pick up medicine for, it's the birthdays and transitions I help with. I barely have friends who I don't work with. I don't see my family except through Skype or on visits home. This is college, guys. But it's college on crack because nothing is hypothetical - it's all real.
We, too, as teachers belong to a community of "others"- we're away from home, dedicated to a life of unknown and adventure in a subtle way. Without our own families or a serious pool of humans to reach out to (sorry - I haven't learned enough Korean to make friends with the scores of people I'm surrounded by), we understand each other's homes and past in a way that no one else does.
On a much less poetic note - life keeps moving fast.
-Sophie and Jeff's baby was born almost two weeks ago! Cora is such a sweet little baby and it has been a really heart warming experience to visit them at the hospital and be a there for Cora's baptism.
-Solo & Ensemble Festival is coming up - Melinda, Stephen, and I are hosting and it's been such a large task. Last year our school hosted last year, so we have a lot of great resources to use, but it's nearly doubled in size. Organizing a lot of humans and locations is sort of fun - but it's been a lot of work. I'm so excited for a week from today, seeing students from all over Seoul making music at my school.
-Long weekend! Buddha's Birthday and Children's Day are monday and tuesday so we get a sweet four day weekend. I'm filling my time with noraebong (karaoke), eating at a lot of places I normally wouldn't get to during the work week, and spending time with friends.
-Seriously, only like 4 weeks of school left. Ridiculous! This school year has gone SO FAST!
-I've got plane tickets home for the summer - I'll be getting back to the USA on June 28th and returning to Seoul on August 4th.
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