An Interesting Fellow in the Cafe

Yesterday was my first official day without coffee and where did I find myself? In the local Starbucks, of course! I had to get out of my house. I don’t care if I’m still a little sick, I refuse to sit home all break. And, a café is a great place to go when you want to be alone with your thoughts. But I just wasn’t in the mood for tea and with coffee not being an option, my choices were limited. I ended up getting a Chai Latte out of a lack of any better options. It made me think- a cup of black coffee, at least calorie-wise, isn’t as bad as a big cup of sugary whole milk. It’s better for my blood sugar and cholesterol, too. I’m tempted to change my “no coffee” pledge to “no coffee at home or work.” That way, if I really want a cup, I’ve got to get up and get out of my house and walk a bit, which is actually pretty good. It’s a motivation to get myself going.

As often happens, I just rambled on for an entire paragraph about something that I had no intention of writing. The real purpose was to tell about a really interesting guy I met while I was sitting in the café. Contrary to my most recent post, I found myself sitting at a table next to a Korean man, who was also by himself. He was reading. I was deep in thought, listening to Bob Marley and writing in my journal on the topic of “What is love?”

After we’d been there a half hour or more he politely said, “Excuse me.” I heard him after the second time, maybe third and took of my headphones. I smiled, “Yes?”

“What are you writing about?” he asked in fairly good English. I sighed. Despite his seemingly decent English, I’ve found that sometimes difficult or abstract topics like love can sometimes be very difficult to discuss with my Korean friends, because of the language barrier. Even if that proved not to be a problem, did I really want to discuss love with a perfect stranger? But, I didn’t want to be rude and here was the opportunity to have a potentially interesting conversation with a Korean. Isn’t that the reason I travel? After a long pause, I cautiously told him, “Love.”

“What about love?” he asked.

Here was an opportunity to get an outside perspective on love, from someone who doesn’t know me or my situation, from someone who is part of a totally different culture than my own.

“What about love?” I asked back. “That is the question isn’t it? What is love? What does it mean to you? How would you define it?”

Now it was his turn to pause. He sat back in his chair and put his hand to his chin, really thinking about it for a moment. Then he leaned forward again and said, “That’s a very difficult question.”

“Yes, it is,” I replied and we shared a smile. It was only the beginning of what turned out to be nearly a two hour conversation about love, philosophy, journalism, and travel. Now, you might be inclined, after hearing the topics, to think that I dominated the conversation, but it turns out that my new friend, Jung Eun is a broadcast journalist for a Korean broadcast station. (It’s little coincidences like this- call them signs- that make me think that going to back to school for journalism might be the right track.) Also, he’d live in New York for a while. So, we had much to talk about. He’d been a musician in New York and didn’t make it, but he still loved to play. He told me journalism is a tough field, but not as tough as music. We talked about the challenges and pleasures of living in a new culture and day-dreamed about places we’d like to visit.

He paid me compliments. “You are the most interesting person I’ve met.” How can you not get along with someone who will stroke your ego like that?

After a long while, he had to go, but we exchanged numbers and I hope that we will get together and talk again soon. Maybe I’ll invite him to my dinner party on Sunday. It’s so interesting to get to know so many different kinds of people in my travels. It’s where my passion for traveling stems. I’m never going to stop!

The Latest...

Where does one begin to describe a place like Korea? The culture unfolds before me. Things that were at first strange now seem common place. I suppose that is to be expected. What I actually find the most interesting is the more subtle things that an outsider might not even notice. For example, you never see a Korean person alone. They are always in a group or a couple. I regularly go into my local Starbucks- yes, you read that right, Starbucks- and sit with a book to read about far off places or write about my adventures, and I can't help but notice that I am the only one there sitting by myself. I never feel uncomfortable about it- I'm used to doing things on my own- but I do get a lot of sympathy glances from the people around me. They just don't do things like that here. I think that even if the odd Korean felt so inclined to do something like sit in a cafe by him or herself, they wouldn't because the culture doesn't allow for it. Korea has a very strong collective identity. I notice this too when I'm walking down the crowded streets. Koreans will not move out of your way to let you pass, they will literally push you out of their way, and they will spit on the ground a inch away from your foot. This drove me crazy when I first got here. I thought they were so rude and self-centered. Until I realized that, this too, is part of the collective identity. They are all one. The following analogy isn't meant to be offensive- they are like ants building a hole or collecting food. It doesn't matter if one climbs on top of the other, they are all there for the same purpose, working toward a common goal. And so, it just isn't offensive to push someone out of your way.

A Westerner needs to learn to retrain their mind a little bit if they want to be able to try to not stick out too much. I refrain from saying "blend in" because I don't think that it's at all possible- even for some of the people I know who have been here for years. But, you can learn to at least not make a total ass of yourself. On this, I'm still trying... I first got over my frustration with walking the city streets when I was able to let go of my idea that it was rude to push someone out of my way. Once I became comfortable with this, I stopped wanting to strangle someone every time I went for a walk.

There are other things that we thing are rude that are quite common here. One is slurping. The technique of slurping at hot beverage or soup is actually done with the purpose of cooling the liquid off before it enters your mouth. For months, I would stir my soup or let my green tea sit until it was warm, waiting many long minutes to begin consumption, while the people all around me were nearly finished. Mom always told me to stop slurping and something ingrained into your brain like that is hard to break.

Here's another interesting one. Don't say "please" or "thank you" (except in rare circumstances) to your students. These are courtesies reserved for people of equal or higher rank or age as oneself. I think that I lost a lot of respect from my students when I first started here because I used these words freely. "Please sit down." "Please hand out the papers." "Please open your books." Or, when collecting homework, "Thank you." There are times it's OK to say this to a student, for example, when one of them erases the board for me after class, without me asking. Or, when they bring me chocolates- how can you not say thanks to that? But to throw around "pleases" and "thank yous" in every sentence confused my students sense of Confucian hierarchy that is seemingly innate to every Korean. By eliminating these words from my class, and maintaining a slightly more rigid persona, I have gained an enormous amount of respect from my kids. I think they are actually more comfortable with this than the lose carefree, friendly teacher I tried to be at first, because it is what they are familiar with.

There are many more examples I could give, and many more, I'm quite sure, that I have yet to realize. It's altogether amazing to see how complex culture really is. It certainly calls ones own identity into question. I love the newness of discovery- both this place and myself.