The Beautiful & Painful Moments

Today, I’ve lived in South Korea for 235 days–that’s almost 8 months. And in fact, 6 months longer than I first thought I could while I was experiencing culture shock, home sickness, and workload stress when I began teaching English in August, 2022. By now, I’ve seen all four seasons, learned (almost) all the names of my students at my first school, I know all my bus drivers and how they drive, I’ve been to approximately 40 different coffee shops around Korea (and counting), and traveled to Jeju Island, Thailand and soon the coastal city of Busan.

Just…wow.

I can’t stress it enough: 1) I didn’t think I could make it this far, and 2) I won’t know just how incredible this experience has been until I’m no longer living it. That’s kinda natural though, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll look back on the year I dedicated to Korea and see what God was doing in me all along, but right now I just want to reflect on the last 8 months I’ve had with some of the beautiful and painful moments made so far.

Both have helped me grow.

Painful Moments

Being a foreigner in the countryside of Korea is so isolating and sometimes I still feel the almost tangible presence of…presence-lessness. There’s also the issue of being stared at everywhere you go (as some foreigners call it: “the fish in a glass bowl” experience). Just imagine your skin crawling with eyes from all directions, all of the time, simply for your height, weight, and skin color. I am constantly reminding myself that my identity is not from what others think of me but what God thinks of me.

It’s the most challenging when taking the train station to Seoul, which I do almost every weekend. There’s a word in Japanese culture, which applies to Korea as well, called the “Gaijin seat”. It’s the empty seat next to a foreigner on the train–even if it’s the only seat left–but nobody will sit in it. Guess who’s familiar with the Gaijin seat? I am. It’s perhaps the most painful thing I’ve experienced in Korea–over and over again–when Koreans will approach the empty seat, look at me, and not sit in it.

This happened once when a mother and her child walked onto the train. I scooted over so the two could sit together. When the mother pointed to the seat next to me for her boy to sit in, he looked at me and shook his head no. She pointed again. He shook his head no. At last, she decided to sit next to me instead, and the little boy on her other side stared at me from over her shoulder.

A painful moment I will never be able to forget–but, I can move on from it. And it doesn’t stop me from taking the trains into Seoul. I should also add that not all Koreans do this, of course; there are those who sit next to me without a second of hesitation. That makes me so relieved and happy!

Beautiful Moments

Let’s continue with the train theme. In the Asian culture, if the train has no available seats but an elderly person walks on, it’s polite for the younger people to give up their seats for them. Unfortunately that chivalry is dying out in Korea (kind of like a protest against seniority oppression?), but I try to do it myself anyway. I think it’s important as a foreigner to represent my country well (and the loving goodness of God, of course!) Now I should add that giving up your seat means standing in one spot usually on a crowded train for about an hour (on my route). It can be so exhausting.

But on one such time I gave up my seat, the elderly woman (we’ll call her Grandma) was shocked I would do this thing for her. She insisted in very fast Korean that I should stay sitting. But I’ve been in Korea long enough to know how to be persistent right back! So she took my seat, and she wanted to continue having a long conversation with me–but I haven’t been in Korea that long. I told her my usual “I can speak some Korean but I don’t understand it well, I’m sorry” and so we were content with that.

I popped in my AirPods and picked a spot nearby to stand for the rest of my trip, until some few stops later Grandma tugged on my shirt sleeve and pointed to a new open seat. She asked if I wanted to sit there, but I was really okay standing. So she grabbed my arm and practically pushed me into the seat as her way of showing her gratitude that I had given her mine earlier.

She’s not the only Grandma that’s shown me affection since I moved to Korea. In fact, there’s a Grandma and Grandpa I walk with about once a week from my bus stop all the way to my house–because we take the same route together anyway. We don’t say much because we can’t communicate well, but Grandma will tell me the Korean names of fruits and flowers we pass, and sometimes she’ll give me apples. Grandpa doesn’t say anything but I know he likes me. I can tell!

---

I can’t believe I’ve had some of these experiences. Some of them are practically straight out of a Korean drama. But these are just a few of the painful and beautiful moments I’ve collected so far. When I came here, I had an empty box ready to fill with whatever experiences awaited me. Now I have so many I can’t even sort through it all! And though some of them are painful, I’ve grown so much. I still have 4 months left, though, and a few more adventures up my sleeve before I make my journey back home.

Are you ready to see what adventures await? What other Grandmas will show up along the way? Me, too! Let’s go along together 🙂

Signed,

Allison the Adventurer