Periphery

I find myself struggling with my list of the best things about Korea.

This doesn't mean what you might think it means. Korea has plenty of great qualities mixed in with some bad ones, much like anywhere else. The problem is that I keep trying to write about deep cultural aspects — yes, even deeper than food or pop music. As I try to explain culture here, it becomes more and more apparent that I know nothing about it. I've observed it, sure, living here for 18 months, but the life of foreigners in Korea is totally peripheral. I don't talk like a Korean. (I don't even speak Korean.) I don't look like a Korean. I don't think like a Korean. My perspective is entirely different in such a basic way that I'm at a loss even to describe it.

Maybe foreigners who stick to their foreign communities feel like this in every country. Probably, even. I feel like in Korea this alien feeling is further amplified. Korea, like Japan, is one of the few places on the planet where the borders of a country align with a nation of people — a group that all identify with each other, not divided based on history, culture or ethnicity. All the emphasis here seems to fall on sameness. Even fashion and hairstyles all fit in the same category, following the trends beyond anything I've noticed in the States. So much sameness makes every little difference stand out ten fold — and we do, all foreigners here.

You never get used to the staring. You train yourself not to notice it unless it's too blatant, but the comments and conspicuous glances of passers-by are always there. Some of it is innocent enough. Children look up at you, eyes wide with nerves, before calling "Hello!" Old women, hunch-backed and weathered-skinned, call "ipuda" (beautiful) as I pass. (It's not just me, Caucasian looks, pale skin and light eyes are the sought-after standard of beauty here, along with being tall and thin.) Some of it is obnoxious, like teenagers screaming "hello" and then erupting into cackles, or lewd lingering gazing from drunk old men. Sometimes it's frightening and offensive, like when a Korean man on the street asked me for sex, assuming that foreign women are easy, or that I was one of the Russian hookers you sometimes encounter here.

I have enjoyed my time teaching at Yeodo Middle School, but I find that when I'm not teaching a class, I spend most of it alone, or interacting with other Americans and Brits through cyberspace. Of the school's 800+ inhabitants, I am the only non-Korean. That's what I signed up for, not a cry for pity, just one more example of isolation.

The attention can be nice sometimes, a friend of mine loves living like a "D-list celebrity" here. I confess it's flattering that strangers call me beautiful when I trudge to the convenience store in my glasses on an unwashed Sunday morning, but I'm ready to get back to fitting in.

I had a conversation with a 15-year expat in a bar in Tokyo last October. He told me he'd been so excited about Japan when he first arrived, and so successful in business and learning Japanese, but he'd never been able to integrate. You'll always be a foreigner here, he said. Go home. I never expected to stay here, to become Korean, but I miss fitting into a community larger than the band of 100 foreigners in Yeosu. Reverse culture shock or not, I know in three weeks coming home will feel just right.