Tradition

I visited Gyeongbokgung with Rosemary a couple weekends ago during the Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) holiday. There were lots of traditional performances, including...

Homesickness

One of my good friends once said something very simple yet very true. "Alice," he said, "people always want what they can't have." It's funny how those words have stuck to me like parasites for the last few days. I don't usually completely realize what I want from the U.S. when I'm in another country. But then if I come in contact with something trivial that reminds me of home, I'm hit with homesickness all over again.

That happened to me recently when I visited my friend Rosemary. She is a Korean (from Seoul) whom I met in the U.S. when she studied there for a year. We decided to hang out for awhile last Saturday, and in the evening I went back to her house for dinner with her family. All I had to do was walk through the door, and I suddenly began thinking with exclamation points. The conversation inside my head started off something like this: "There is sanity in the midst of chaos! There is some peace in Seoul!" The exclamation marks just continued...

Their house was set up western style. First of all, it was an actual house, rather than a huge apartment building. Secondly, there were chairs around a dining room table! (The closest thing we have to a chair in my apartment is the piano bench--it's pretty typical for Koreans to sit on the floor.) Rosemary's family also had beds, not just pads and blankets on the floor, which is traditional Korean style.

And then, the climax came--there was a bathmat on the bathroom floor! It's odd to think that such a small thing can make such a big impression, but I must be honest--it was the bathmat that made me feel homesick. Most Koreans don't use a shower curtain or have a bathtub, so there is always water everywhere (hence, no bathmat).

This wet bathroom mentality is a cultural nuance I don't quite understand. It's convenient to not have to worry about making a mess, but the whole idea of allowing water to spray all over the bathroom just seems so bizarre at times. It means you have to walk through puddles for the next few hours or until the water evaporates--whichever comes first!

At my apartment we have a tub and shower curtain, which is a little unusual because many Korean homes only have a hand shower over a drain in the middle of the room. However, I don't think my roommate actually uses the shower curtain, because whenever I go into the bathroom after her, there is water everywhere—-sink, toilet, door. It's a little crazy!

And so my homesickness was perpetuated by the presence of a bathmat on Rosemary's bathroom floor. Perhaps I sound melodramatic--or whiny--but it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I know what I want but can't have: American--style dry bathrooms!

Cultural Surprises

It is a truth universally known that if you travel abroad long enough, you will discover some unusual things which are normally hidden to the rest of the world. To put it bluntly, the rest of the world is simply ignorant. Travel and life in Korea is no exception, I think. And what I have discovered here has surprised me sometimes—and also made me practically double over laughing on occasion.

I must add this disclaimer, though: the things which surprise me likely only surprise me because I see them from a western American-centered perspective. If I were Asian, they would probably not be so surprising. And if I were Korean, then they would probably even seem normal. But because I'm American, some of the ideas I encounter just seem bizarre.

For example, Koreans tell me it is not safe to hike in a t-shirt. A t-shirt traps too much sweat and might cause you to get hypothermia. Never mind that t-shirts are made of lightweight cotton material. You may die anyway. (For real!—I learned this first-hand when I made the mistake of hiking in a t-shirt...the fact that I've lived to tell about my experience may be nothing short of amazing!)

Also, it is not good to sit on the ground outside. You might accidentally sit in “rat poop,” and then get a disease, and then eventually die. That's why everyone here takes a plastic mat with them every time they might have to sit on the ground. They don't want to die because of what might be lurking in the grass.

There are also various other random health-related thoughts. For example, some believe that eating dog meat in summer will keep you healthy. (However, I believe that this idea is starting to die out, as not so many people enjoy eating dog meat these days.)

But perhaps the most interesting idea that I've come across is that of fan death. This is a topic which has received considerable Korean media coverage within the past few years. And believe it or not, the majority of Korean people believe in it. Fan death is as simple as this: if you leave your fan on overnight while you are sleeping, you may die. I've heard various reasons for this assumption. Some say that it sucks all the oxygen out of the room. Others say that it causes your body temperature to drop too far. I'm not sure what the scientific explanation is. But I was sure surprised when my normally easygoing roommate strongly forbid me to leave my fan on at night. (However, she later told me that it's okay as long as the window is open, too.) Apparently, there have been several unexplained sudden deaths in Korea—and the thing that they all had in common? Yup, fans in the room.

So living overseas has some interesting surprises. Just as soon as I think I understand most of the culture, something strange jumps out of the corners and leaps into my path. But it keeps life interesting, I guess.