The Mind of a Wanderer

Imagine an experience where hundreds of other people around the world are motivated to do the same things: travel, meet people, experience life in the fast line, work or immerse yourself in a totally new culture that is nothing more than foreign. One of the things that I didn’t list is something that is getting harder and harder to find nowadays.

Friends. We have all different types of them, reliable, loyal, honest, flaky or all of the opposite. When traveling abroad however, especially in a country where you have no one else to count on, they instantly become friends for life. There’s not much pretentiousness going on, since you don’t know what they’re about (or haven’t known them long enough). It makes relationships a lot easier to have as well as to keep.

When traveling abroad, you really learn/remember how to be a good friend since there’s no family that accompanies your fellow foreigners. Like family, you learn to listen well, respect them, offer them your time, do whatever is needed to take care of them, be kind, and most of all, love them like family no matter what happens.

In an essence, the friends that you’ve made abroad immediately become friends for life because you’ve shared something that no one can take away. Whatever the word friend means to you, know this: treat them like they’re the only ones in the world (or country for that matter) and you can’t go wrong.

It’s been two weeks since I’ve been back home from Korea. Here are the things that I’ll be missing about Korea.

Safety

Don’t sweat it! It’s only 3am in the morning and we’re walking! In the year that I’ve been in Korea, there hasn’t been one time where there was stranger danger. There could be a couple of reasons for this-long working hours+long school hours. That, or they aren’t the type of people who feel like making trouble =) 

People

Native Koreans are generous by nature and have treated me with nothing but respect and supreme kindness. Whenever we needed help, they were more than welcome to lend a hand.

Foreigners from all around the world have an automatic connection with each other. Since family aren’t aren’t around, they become our own. There’s no hiding your personality either. The friends you meet here are genuine at heart because there’s no reason to act like someone else. We don’t know who that someone else is! 

Set up a time and date with your buddies here and it’s done. There’s not many obligations other than work here, so it’s rather easy to hang out with the buddies. Eat, drink or go wild, it’s just so easy.

Public Transportation convenience 

Use your transportation recharge card at all major forms of transportation-subway, bus and even taxis! Since Korea is rather small for a subway line, it can take you practically anywhere around Gyeonggi-province. If not, hop onto an inter province train and you got Korea mapped out for you.

The price of public transportation are one of the pluses as well. You can easily go from Incheon all the way to the other side of Seoul for nearly a dollar or a little more. Taxis start at a little over two dollars and charge about a dollar a mile. Talk about convenience. 

Does the place I live in have all of the above? Maybe just one of the three, but golly, was Korea great. 

uhhhhtaco:

Oh i hope my cousin comes to norcal to visit me, he just came back from teaching at korea. Hes my big bro, my childhood partner in crime hahahaha

My time in Korea has come to end. I lasted one year and gained a lot, but it made me wonder, its safe to say that it’s been a roller coaster ride (just like anything in our lives). Filled with twists and upside down flips, high speed acceleration and then the free fall back into what I call reality-being back home.

Whether it was being yelled at by an old Korea to be quiet, being kicked off of property for being a foreigner, it was a thrill for the mind and stomach. It made me more tolerable of these twists and flips. They became predictable and made me ready for the many sudden changes of direction. It’s funny how that works in our lives isn’t it?

Then there was the pace of the K-coaster. It was an accelerated coaster that seemed way too fast for me. Exactly a year ago everything just zoomed by leaving me in the dust. People in Korea unlike other parts of Asia (Japan, China and Vietnam) don’t rush as much. They truly live a fast paced life which takes some getting used to. People run all he time in the streets, buses run red-lights in fear of being late as well and restaurants make food in lighting speed.

There was always a sense of urgency that needed to be fulfilled. It was due to the city life, and well, I don’t have much experience with that kind of atmosphere for that matter. So the coaster had it’s turns and flips. To add to the excitement, the hard acceleration either left you wanting more, or left you with a feeling of, “I need to get off.” 

Call it living life in the fast lane or living life to the fullest.

“We’re going to have a dinner for your going away.” “We’re going to have a dinner to start the new semester.” “We’re going to have a dinner for ________.” This is what it typically sounds like every other month or so depending on each school or company in Korea.

It’s like there’s always an excuse to have a dinner party, but that’s just how Koreans roll. They’ve thrived off of being a collective society and would have nothing more than a get together to celebrate something…more like anything. It totally makes this whole work experience abroad a lot more comfortable in that you can see your co-workers without their serious faces on. 

In relation to America, going out with your co-workers can be a little awkward because that may be considered fraternizing or just getting over friendly until your work relationship suffers. It’s a cultural thing from how I see it. We are so much more independent and competitive back home that we forget at times to have a good time with the people we spend 8+ hours a day. 

Korea, however sees it bonding time to create a better working atmosphere. It totally makes sense. They think as one and act as one. It’s truly remarkable from the way I see it. 

It’s my last week in Korea, and I would have already gone to 3 or more “we’re going to_______’s.” So let the festivities roll! It’s going to be one of the many things that I’ll miss. 

“If breaking the rules are your last resort, would you?” This question was asked when I was being interviewed for a medical adminstration position 4 years ago. My answer was, “if there’s no other alternative for a solution, I would resort to breaking the rules.” That question has been stuck in my head lately and there’s good reason for it.

The far east however, doesn’t give much leeway in terms of the rules in the workplace. The rules are the rules. If your contract says you can’t leave at this or that time, you can’t leave. If you would like a custom order at a restaurant and it’s not on the menu, it doesn’t exist (based on my experience). Order a coffee and want milk on the side? No way Jose, you got to get a cafe latte! Want to split an ice cream in two? That’s not even possible at times.

It’s a cultural way of thinking and it’s been well documented when comparing the far east to the far west. We westerners just want things our way and with the right motivation, will do whatever it takes to get it. 

So it got me thinking, when it comes to rules and how they confide us, we can either 1) take them seriously, 2) find loopholes for them or 3) when it’s absolutely needed, break the rules when deemed necessary. This sounds like breaking laws or illegal activity, but I’m just getting at the workplace.  

My flight home was for September 5th which is the same day of when my contract expires. The flight was for 9:00am and so I told my co-teacher. She had to go through her chain of command, and immediately said, “there’s bad news.” My heart sank and I didn’t know what could have gone wrong. The bad news was that I was “breaking a rule.” 

What rule may that be? The rule that I have to finish at least a 3 hour day before I can fly out. That didn’t make any sense to me. What’s 3 hours going to do for anybody when there’s nothing to do? So I could have easily been a passive person and let it go and rescheduled the flight. Too bad, I fought for it.

When it comes to flying, it’s a hassle to change flights, get a refund or anything that has to do with altering your itinerary. After 30 minutes of convincing, I told them there has to be an exception to this rule, because I have to go home and there’s no way I’m going to change it. 

I even offered to not get paid for that day or take a sick leave. So in a sense, I stretched the rules or found a loophole. Now I’ll be on my way home after “breaking the rule.” Hold your ground and things will go the way you need them. 

After 1 year of teaching in Korea, today was my first teacher’s meeting. This time around it was my responsibility to say goodbye and thank you. Before I started however, the principal talked about how I’ve become more sad and visibly just homesick. The only thing that came to mind was, “my goodness, I really can’t hide my emotions well.” 

As I proceeded to say goodbye and thank you, it dawned on me that my time has simply just expired in Korea. Expired in the literal sense in that the one year contract is over and so is this experience that has been absolutely enlightening and beautiful at the same time.

Then again, things always seem to renew themselves in ways that well, strengthen the bond that we have with others and our experiences that go along with them. Not to mention build a strong mind that can tackle life’s adventures. Coming up- the top things that I will truly miss about Korea. 

Now that the sun is out after weeks and months of constant rain, it’s time to bring out the sunglasses! It hasn’t quite caught on in Korea however because of a certain, how do we call it, status symbol (well at least in Incheon not in Seoul)?

My students, co-teachers and random people in the street have called me anything from movie star, fashionista, king…basically anything that has to do with being a celebrity. They look at me with looks of confusion and amazement at times and it’s enlightening as well as a tad creepy.

According to the Koreans that have spoken to me, sunglasses are worn by celebrities and people alike to hide themselves from the public’s eyes. That just made me wonder since celebrities wear them, you can’t wear them? It could just be a breach of their status, or they don’t want to be seen as someone they’re not.

Then again, it would help protect their eyes, but that doesn’t matter much because they don’t want to be famous (not really). In other words, it’s pretty rare to see a Korean wearing sunglasses even though the sun has been blinding. Protect those eyes! 

Bathrooms all around Korea have an interesting situation. You have the standard toilet, and then we have the squatter. The squatter is basically a whole in the ground where you have to squat to do your business. Since I’m from America, we don’t get the opportunity to use these and well, it should be easy to figure out why. 

Some bathrooms have both types of toilets, or some just have the squatters only. This day there weren’t any toilets available to my dismay. Luckily, there were handicap toilets that were available to the disabled. It sounds terrible for me to take advantage of it, but when a man’s got to go, a man’s got to go! So I went into the handicapped bathroom, pressed the button and I was on my way. 

However, the door didn’t close. So in a state of panic, I pressed the first button I could find which was a red one and all of a sudden a man answered (in translation) “hello, how can I help you?” Right then and there I got nervous. Was I in trouble? Did I do something terribly wrong? So I immediately said, “O.K, O.K!” Then the door closed. 

It ends up the button was for handicap assistance. It could have been a good thing for someone else, but not for me because I didn’t need help other than closing the door. 

From then and there, I told myself, just deal with it. The K-bathroom is a killer if you don’t know how to use it.

My time is winding down in Korea, so I thought what better way then to dedicate my next entries to the culture, experiences and lifestyle that I’ve had the beautiful opportunity to be apart of for the past year.

A group of us guys decided that it was time for us to do something that Koreans by law aren’t allowed to do-gamble. It’s hard to believe it, but the Korean government makes it illegal for Korean natives to do the devil’s deed known as gambling. That just made us want to go even more. 

The Casino where we wanted to spend (and hopefully win) our hard earned won is located in Seoul. Specifically, Gangnam 강남 at the Co-ex center known as Seven Luck Casino. I brought my camera along in hopes of taking pictures of my first gambling experience in Korea, but the security guards didn’t allow it. 

So coming into the casino, we thought there would be a bunch of foreigners, but that’s not the case. Most of the casino goers were: rich Chinese men, rich ex-pat Korean men and rich Chinese men. Now how do I know they’re rich? Simple. They play with the equivalent of $900 at each table and when that goes down the drain, they bust out another $900. 

Now, that was at the low tables. When we took a trip to the “high roller” tables, there was a new colored chip that was equivalent to $3,000. I’ve been to Vegas and all, but wow, to spend that much money in Korea sounds ridiculous. Then again, if you got it, flaunt it. 

Like Vegas, they give you whatever you want to drink. All you can drink except alcohol. That just made me wonder, how in the world could the casino get even higher earnings if they don’t serve alcohol?! When people are intoxicated, they lose their inhibition so hey, spend away right? That’s just apart of the suttle differences with western style casinos and our far east counterparts. 

After playing $100 worth of blackjack, I walked away with $110 on top. Not too shabby for my first time doing the devil’s deed.