Welcome to My World - My Husband’s Visit to Korea
Happy Solar New Year to everyone! My extended “absence” from the “blogosphere” this past month was due to my husband’s 3 week visit to Korea. E-mail and 3-cent-a-minute phone cards kept us connected during our four months apart, not to mention surprise packages and old-fashioned hand-written letters. However, nothing compares to being together and I did not want to “waste” any of our time writing blog entries!
You will hear about our various adventures over the next couple of weeks. Some entries will even have pictures, when I remembered to take them! The most interesting part however was getting to watch another American adapt to Korean society. I have gotten so used to the crowding, hurrying, language and customs of Korea, that I had forgotten how overwhelming they can be to a new person.
By New Hampshire standards, Pyeongtaek is a major city. With almost 400,000 residents, it is four times the size of Manchester. I tend to think of it as a small agricultural town in comparison to Seoul’s 24 million people. But Tod saw it compared to Weare New Hampshire’s 8000 very spread-out residents. Through his eyes I experienced once again the amazing population density here in Korea. Koreans’ sense of body space is very different than Americans and one is pretty constantly jostled, brushed against, or leaned on whenever there is a crowd. As in American cities, most people are in a constant state of hustle, so anyone trying to figure out where to go (or simply sight-seeing and dawdling along) is an obstacle to forward progress. In Korea, the hurry extends to bus drivers and taxi drivers who engage in what feel like life-threatening driving feats to shave 5 minutes off their arrival time (think “New York City cab driver” and then add attitude). This “ppalli, ppalli” or “fast, fast” personality has rocketed Korea from third world to first world economy in less than 30 years, but it does leave one a bit bewildered in the subway station. On the other hand, an amazing number of people stopped to ask us if we needed help - always in English.
After two weeks, Tod commented that he was surprised there was so little variety in the food. I was a bit astonished - he had eaten kalbi and samgyeopsal (grilled beef and pork) as well as Buddhist Temple Cuisine, which is vegetarian. But we realized what he meant was that all the food he was eating was recognizeably Korean. In Manchester alone, an adventurous person can eat Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Irish food, to mention only a few. This is pretty standard in any good-sized American town. But in Korea, you have to search a fair bit harder for non-Korean food, though Chinese and Japanese dishes that have been “Korean-ized” are widely available. I think this says something important about America’s acceptance of diversity in the past few decades, while Korea is still trying to adapt from its previously multiracial society to its rapidly multicultural one.
Being with Tod also showed me how many things I now do automatically, though I had never seen or done them five months ago. When I hand something to someone, I use one hand for young people, two hands for people senior to me, and one hand with the other hand near my elbow for equals. The first time I handed something to Tod this way, he looked at me baffled and I asked him what he was so confused about! I half-bow to new acquaintances, bring bags to the supermarket, get my vegetables weighed and labeled in the produce section (not at the checkout), eat neatly with metal chopsticks, navigate city buses, subways, three kinds of trains, and two kinds of taxis, and read signs and communicate in a language that to Tod was “circles and lines”. Five months ago some of those actions felt completely overwhelming. Now I often take them for granted.
Seeing Korea through Tod’s eyes gave me a strange “double vision” - I could see Korea the way I had when I first arrived, and yet also as I see it now. It makes me wonder what the country will look like in five more months when I take my leave from here and head back home.
Add comment January 15, 2008
