It’s been a whole year here in Korea! In case you like your summaries of posts to be brief and in the first sentence, that was for you. As of the 23rd of September (which it is now in Seoul because I’m a night owl, if somehow you didn’t know) I have been in South Korea for a whole year. For some reason, I am a big fan of personal, time-based milestones: I’m always thinking back to what I was doing last week/month/year, or trying to work out when big anniversaries will come around. I guess it’s my own personal measurement system for growth. And in a nice little moment of commonality with my current country of residence, it’s actually quite common to do the same among Koreans. Couples celebrate 100 day anniversaries together, and parents honour their children’s first 100 days. It’s a little something that can bond me with this place.
It’s been a great year in a personal sense- obviously not in many other senses, but at least I have this. In the way that things normally go when you go through a big life shift, the year has both flown by, and September 2019 also feels like a lifetime ago. The pandemic helped with that last part. Ups, downs, sides to sides, you know how it goes, because even on the other side of the world from most of my friends and family, it’s still life. As a little commemoration, I thought I would write down some of the things that I’ve learnt whilst here, in a spark of startling unoriginality. I could have picked ten things, but that’s so mainstream and eleven is a much better number (actually, as someone born on the 11th of November I would even say it is the best number ever no takebacks), so here we go:
1. THE FOOD HERE IS SO DAMN GOOD. I should probably start this list with something a little bit more meaningful, and also technically I didn’t really learn this here, but hot diggity was it compounded when I started living here, and damnit food is meaningful. Whilst I will always defend British food from its harshest critics (my Italian friends), it is true that Britain does not have a food culture like so many other places, including Korea. Here, the availability of truly delicious, often really healthy and also regularly fairly cheap food is a real treat for me. Korean barbeque and kimchi are (justifiably) famous, but the rice dishes, noodles, stews, fried goods, street foods, even the cow intestine (trust me on that one) are also worthy of admiration. And they are so much more accessible here than a similarly exciting meal would be back home. I live in an area surrounded by restaurants that are (from what I’ve sampled) pretty tasty, and even some tiny little local cafes can provide food that is just as good. There are two places I like to go for my budae jjigae (spicy sausage stew) and my kimchi jjigae (three guesses) respectively that are effectively just little holes-in-the-wall run by ajummas (middle-aged/old ladies), but with the most glorious, cheap and quick food. It’s built up my spice tolerance, my diet is probably healthier now, and good god Korean food is just delicious.
But they do put sugar on garlic bread.
2. Britain is a small country and not that important anymore. I should have really worked that one out myself, but it’s hard when you and everyone you know lives there. It just goes to show how much writing history and narratives centring one country above all others within one’s own media will warp your view of your nation’s importance in the world (cough *America* cough). When I came here, I was genuinely surprised by how many people that I met didn’t seem to know much more than the stereotypical basics about the UK (The Queen, Harry Potter, Tottenham Hot Spurs- exclusively because of their Korean player-, maaaaybe Ed Sheeran). Did these Johnny Foreigners never study the Industrial Revolution? Shakespeare? David Cameron having questionable relations with a pig? Great Scott! This total lack of interest was confirmed when Britain had a general election on December 13th 2019 and literally no one around me gave a single shit. I remember checking my phone to increasingly tired disappointment during lesson breaks whilst everything else stayed the same and thinking to myself “well, at least no one will be going on about it to me”. Kind of a damning assessment of Little England and their deluded sense of self-worth. We don’t matter. Sorry, but not anymore. Since we stopped ruining everywhere and The Beatles retired, we really aren’t all that. However, it did amusingly lead to one of my students guessing that I was Mexican because he was so clueless as to where a non-American English-speaking person might be from.
3. We Brits think we know rain. We don’t know rain. In August there were like, 3 typhoons that hit Korea. The rivers and streams overflowed. People died. Britain is just excessively damp.
4. Korea is filled with mountains and it’s so beautiful and I love mountains now. I live in western Seoul, and I can see a mountain range in the distance on my 20-minute walk to work. When me and my friends drove to Gangwon-do in the East of the country, we drove by so many, it was wonderful to look at. I know the UK has mountains too (calm down Welsh people I hear you), but we don’t really have them sat right in our megacities. It’s cool.
5. Koreans follow the rules in a public health crisis and wear masks all the time without being lil bitches. It means you can still go to restaurants here without working out how many households are going, and supermarkets aren’t one-in-one-out like some sort of extremely depressing club. The government also appears to have coherent strategies that they plan and stick to. Wild.
6. Feminism is sadly a dirty word in much of this country. Learnt that the hard way on a very bad date (“men and women have different brains, it’s science”, “all Korean women are bad and just make men buy everything for them” HAHAHA NERVOUS LAUGHTER). There are a lot of complex reasons for this, including the above-mentioned belief that women (especially Korean women, apparently) want to leech off men and their money whilst doing nothing but buying cosmetics and clothes. Which is funny, seeing as how every single female Korean friend I have, along with nearly all my colleagues and about 50% of my students, is an independent, smart and hard-working person. Almost like misogynistic conceptions of the world are total bullshit…
7. Maroon 5 and EDM (Electronic Dance Music, to remind my mother what that means) are massive here. I don’t know why either.
8. Wearing preeeeetty short clothing is not considered that shocking on women here in Korea, but god forbid you have a chest and anything ever highlights that. It’s an odd thing to adjust to as a Western woman where almost the opposite is true, but here, short is fine. Also, while we’re on fashion, the people here really are more stylish overall. I see men wearing outfits I would consider ‘good’/’wow you actually know what you’re doing’ every day, regularly. It’s phenomenal. They actually take care of their hair. The mind boggles. Though on the flip-side, there is definitely much less diversity in styles- there seems to be one trend of minimalism, toned-down colour palettes, accentuated small waists and/or long legs and a VERY particular doll-like makeup look for everyone.
9. The Tube in London is not only crap, but staggeringly crap. Here, the subway is always on time, the train is wider, it has WIFI and air con, every station has see-through door/wall/screen thingies that align exactly with the train doors, and the trains have little TVs on them that show clips from TV shows, the news, and sometimes recipes. Oh, and the announcements, both visual and audio, are always in 4 languages in Seoul, including English. All the Tube has is the snigger factor of ‘Cockfosters’.
10. Korean kids really do work hard. In my hagwon, all the students have classes with me as the native teacher, classes with one of the Korean teachers, and online lessons in our little computer suite. They get regular homework and tests from us, and we’re probably just one of the hagwons they go to. This is all in addition to school. Some of the kids, at the youngest end of those I teach (around 8 years old) have shown me their heavy rucksacks full of books. Of course, they don’t enjoy that workload, and no, not all of them are good students in my lessons (the silent twins will haunt me forever), but I am constantly impressed with just how much studying is built into their lives. I’m not saying I agree with the heaviness of this workload, but I can’t help but think none of my contemporaries when I was at school (nor me) would have ever shown this level of dedication. Education really seems important here, and as a teacher and person who likes learning stuff, that is generally nice to see.
11. Even when I move thousands of miles around the globe to an entirely new place, my wonderful family and friends are still able to support me, make me laugh and show their love. The jewel in this crown was when my Mum came to visit last year for my birthday, but I also love the video calls that our cat consistently walks through for attention. I love the dumb memes people still send me, the little messages to check in, the long video or voice calls about all kinds of nonsense (shout out the drunk watch-a-long of Cats) and so much more. All of you lovely people (because some of you even read this) won’t stop being lovely even when I’m far away and that warms my heart. When I moved I was, of course, worried about loneliness and I do still feel it sometimes, but all you fabulous people have let me know that you’re still here, and for that, as always, I love you. If the world ever allows it again, I would love to have you here to spoil you with great food, mountain views, sensible mask-wearing and exceptionally efficient train journeys.
Here’s to the year that, and whatever lies ahead.
감사합니다.
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