Culture Shock

Dear Friends and Family,

I am excited to say that I have now been initiated into the wide world of blogging.  I feel as though I should all of a sudden be surprisingly witty or have something very profound to say, but I am positive that is not the case.  I just want everyone at home to be able to, in a small way, experience the wonderful adventure that I have embarked upon 2 weeks ago.  

It all started after a grueling and exhausting 27+ hour flight from LA, to Dallas, then to Tokyo, and finally to Busan, South Korea.  After we landed, we snatched up our luggage and were whisked away by 3 teachers from our schools.  We arrived at our apartment, which is a glorified studio, but bigger than we had expected,  and were asked to go out to dinner with our new co-teachers.  We decided that sleeping was a much better idea, and instead, they ordered us fried chicken.  We were able to force down a couple pieces of chicken and then collapse onto the smallest and hardest bed you can even imagine.  The bed was so hard that it prompted a swift trip to the store to get a new bed the next Monday.  

On our first trip out of the apartment, we found and explored what is basically a much nicer version of Walmart called "Home Plus".  They have everything, but by having "everything" nothing has any English on it.  So, trying to buy groceries for dinner is a time consuming task.  Even the vegetables are packaged differently and look slightly smaller or bigger than I am used to.  So, our first shopping trips consisted of me staring at bottles and bags, trying to decipher what the heck i was looking at.  Over these weeks though, I have become very creative and sought out certain staples that makes it slightly less of a scavenger hunt to cook dinner.  

This strangeness of language is far from the only thing different about my daily routine here.  I am unable to go out of the house without people staring and trying to talk to me.  You would think that TV would have prepared the Korean population for seeing people of fair skin and hair, like myself, but this is not the case.   They are such a nationalistic country that they rarely experience anything that is not Korean.  That being said,  the small amount of foreign English teachers that are here are all they know about meeting people from other nations.  Therefore, people stare and stare and stare some more.  I have found that it stops them and makes them smile if you stare back smiling and say "anyan-ah-say-oh" (hello).  But that gets tiring after the first 4 people you see on the street.  

The train is a different story.  I can't smile and say hello to everyone on the subway, so the constant staring is just something that has to be ignored.  You would think that after a 30-40 minute subway ride a person might want to look at something else... but that is not the case.  I heard of a guy who got so sick of someone stairing at him on the train, he just took out his camera and took a picture of the person staring.  Lets just say, I've considered it.  

Children are a different story here.  They are ALL learning English and are very eager to speak to foreigners.  Therefore, if a child is between the age of 3 and 9 they will do anything to come and say "Hello".  I have seen children almost jump out of car windows to look and greet me... and that is not an over exaggeration.  Children may be eager to say "Hello", but  when you respond with anything, they usually have NO IDEA what you are saying.  Even a simple "Hi, how are you?" usually gets blank stares.  So, the best thing to do is usually respond with "Hello" back and try to walk away.  If the child is persistent, as most children are, they will follow you and keep saying "hello"  over and over and over again... and this has turned into something that is super cute, or super annoying depending on the situation.  Still though, when a tiny child musters up the skills to say Hello on the street, it is one of the cutest things ever!

Now, it took me a while to size up why people were exactly staring.  But, coming from a culture where diversity is considered the daily norm, and especially because I just moved out of a city, my mind was not on par with where the Koreans are coming from.  Yes they have seen many people with blond hair and blue or green eyes on TV, but few have seen one in person.  So, my attributes actually make me a very rare and never seen before reality walking down the street.  Jared described it as, if you always watch the discovery channel, and see tigers all the time on TV you are used to seeing Tigers on TV.  But, if you see a real life tiger walking down the street, it's a different story and you might stare at it as long as you could.   So, I guess I'm the equivalent of a rare and glorified species that most have never seen in person before.  HA! - never thought that would happen.  

Just to finish up this concept of being stared at, I'll explain what happened when we tried to go to the gym for the first time.  Now, I'm expecting going to the gym to be an experience, like everything else here... so I was prepared for something out of the norm.  But, as soon as I walked in, I took off my street shoes, and saw that Jared, who was a head of me, was trying to give money to the desk person.  All of a sudden there was a phone shoved in my face by a man and on the actual phone there was a video of a live person saying Hello to me.  Like a deer in headlights, I said Hello back, and waved... and the man stepped away to continue talking, about who knows what.  I stood there... dazed and confused.   Jared turned around and asked what just happened, and it took me a couple minutes to collect myself and really understand that I was just saying hello to a video on some strangers cell phone...  We continued to the work out area, which was another experience, but that's for another time.  

All in all, people are super friendly and eager to help you get around here, I just think I might take up wearing big hats and sunglasses all the time to fulfill my new movie star persona.

All is well, thanks for reading!