So this Saturday finds me with a curious combination of familiarities. On the one hand I've awoken in my old room at my parent's house, nestled away in the cool of the basement, desperately trying to ignore the noise of my parents walking about keeping me awake. On the other hand, I can't help but notice I've slept in until 2 in the afternoon, I'm still wearing most of last night's clothes, and my body is punishing my enjoyment of last night's libation with a classic hangover. It appears that two distinct period of my life have been mashed together on this Saturday, pre-Korea and Korea. Having been home for the past week I've been met by a myriad of realizations about my life at home and abroad.
And since there is no way I'm getting out of bed until I absolutely have to, may as well reflect on it.
Being home brings up a lot of memories about my life here before I left. I've more or less been forced to confront the many ways in which I've changed since leaving a year ago, and I'm left to wonder in what ways I'll change over this next year in Busan.
Traveling changes you....
Once I might have been naive enough to say that traveling changes you for the better, but traveling has changed that in me. That is not to say that traveling changes you for the worse, that's equally naive. My experience has shown that it simply... changes you. It's neither good nor bad, those kinds of values are cultural expressions. Such expressions begin to deteriorate as you make your way across the globe, seeing the similarities and differences in peoples' values. Being an outsider forces you to analyze a culture and it's behaviors in order to adjust to your participation in said culture. Yet, I've found that in coming home, I can't switch off that analyzing aspect.
I find myself critiquing my experiences here as I would in Korea, trying as I often did there, to explain it in my mind. A fond past time I've had over the last few months is trying to imagine the conversations I'd be having coming back to the States. I'd try my best to come up with the best explanations for how Koreans eat, talk, walk, structure their lives, etc. Yet, while I'm home, I find myself looking at the lives of my family and friends and I try to explain it. Not that I suspect I'll have to explain American lifestyles to many Koreans when I get back to the ROK, yet I am still analyzing.
I think it may have to do something with the question I'm often confronted with by everyone I visit.
"So when are you coming back (for good)?"
The answer is always a smile and and shake of my head, "I'm not sure I'm ever coming back! I'm having too much fun!"
Which admittedly sounds like a trite response, immature and adolescent, often followed with tales of drunkenness or travel. Yet, it isn't a response I've come to flippantly, it is one that is constantly being reenforced by my experience here in America.
I'm not who I was four years ago... hell, I'm not even sure I'm who I was four days ago! I have grown a great deal, and spent a significant amount of my cognitive energy to figuring out what decisions in life have been mine and which ones have been decisions I've been socialized into making. There nothing wrong with choosing to participate in society according to its unspoken guidelines. I admire people who have the courage to settle down in a marriage, house, job, offspring, etc. It's a lifestyle I find increasingly unattractive in a manner similar that one finds a cheeseburger and french fries attractive one day, and would rather starve than eat it the next. I suppose I mean that tastes grow, not just in culinary palette, but in lifestyle.
Before I left I put a significant amount of thought into "What do I want?" What I came up with is really simple: freedom.
Sure 'MERICA is the home of the free, but the freedom I've been craving has nothing to do with political alignments. What I've been craving is more along the lines of Moksha, or Nirvana. We are all socialized into certain ways of behavior, certain ways of thought and belief. Most of us take it for granted as simply "the way things are." Because we are rarely confronted by something radically different, we struggle to call into question the ideas that we own ourselves as opposed to the ideas bequeathed to us from our community. Living in a radically different context forces one to confront this issue. Living abroad has changed me because it has finally provided me with a context to truly confront my cultural upbringing and see what I value, not simply what I'm raised to value.
In this way I have the chance to really be free, to be released from the clutches of cultural impressions and prejudices. To know and feel that my actions are the product of my own will and desires. To know that the relationships I have, and the way I treat people, is a product of my desire to be genuine, not simply polite. Freedom for me is about breaking from the subconscious cues that have motivated and manipulated my decisions in order to find a way of life that is truly my own. To shed my inhibitions and shame, not to shock or rebel, but to dance and laugh like we all did when we were children. That is freedom, and travel has given me the chance to really reach for it, in a way that my life in America never could.
This is in part because I'm living in Korea. Korea is a wonderful place, with many friendly and generous people. Yet, in spite of this openhandedness, in Korea I will always be an outsider. Because of my nationality, my language, my ethnicity, I'm categorically "Waygookin" (foreign). I'm not upset by this, and Koreans are always eager to show off their incredible culture to silly Waygookins like me, I love that. Yet, I could never assimilate into Korean society in the manner that foreigners in America become assimilated into the melting pot. Yet, I don't mourn this, being an outsider gives me the freedom I need to explore my own path without getting sucked into the cultural cues that have herded me in my past life.
Though my awareness is heightened in my visit home, I have to admit I've found myself slipping back into old roles rather easily. At some moments it feels as if I'm trying to wear an old shoe that doesn't fit, at other times it's like putting on those ratty old jeans you love because you've worn them down into being the softest clothes ever....
It is a joy to be home... but only for a short time. I've got the world waiting for me and I suspect she's as eager for me to get back to exploring her as much as I am!
...more ramblings to come...
