A month into 2020, two months into my time in Korea, and barely a day into the year of the White Metal Rat – the appearance of a new post. The title reads (lunar) as I was recently made aware of the fact that the term “Chinese New Year” fails to take into account other countries that celebrate the holiday. Whether there are people who find this slighting or not I’m not particularly aware, but I thought I’d try out this alternate title since it simply and effectively elucidates the reason for the new year in the first place. And anyways, I love the moon.
I’m writing this after a long day compromised mostly of eating with my Korean family. All of my relatives, but especially my grandmother, seemed to want to urge me to eat as much food as I could; my plate was piled high with 갈비(Korean marinated ribs) and the largest pieces of orange I’ve ever seen were continuously being pushed between my fingers. I was so full that after an hour or so of eating I had to lie down and take a nap – which I did gladly. My grandparents live about an hour outside of Seoul, and I visit them every two weeks, if not more often. Whenever I come here and the family gathers the TV is perpetually on the background, and there’s always food and drink and someone occupying the massage chair they have in a corner of the living room. (I think I used it for about two hours today, in instalments. It’s extremely comfortable.) It all feels quintessentially Korean: eating, drinking, talking, lying around; there’s not much to do in the immediate vicinity so most of the time is spent at home, at least when I come to visit on weekends. When I’m here I feel an inarticulate melange of emotions – at home and content, both relaxed and restless; lazy and yet itching for something to do.
The latter feeling was dominant after eating so much today, so I ventured outside with my uncle for a walk around the park that lies at the edge of my grandparents’ apartment. South Korea, and especially the areas within and around Seoul, is populated with these towering complexes of apartments: they jut up and into the sky against the backdrop of blue days, and during the night, at such times as I’m writing, lights live on in certain of their flats. Through my window I can see several shining out at me across the park like the absent stars in the sky. The view is somewhat hazy, but it’s as if the constellations have moved from the heavens to the earth and are now present, if only in a mutated sense, before my eyes.
It’s hard for me to believe that I’m already nearly two months into my time here, and more than halfway through my first semester at the language course. I feel like before I know it, my time here will be over. But so much has happened since I’ve arrived: in writing this post I’m only just easing myself back into writing, but soon – soon!! – I’ll write about how I’m finding the course, where I’ve been going and what I’ve been eating in more detail. People often ask me how I’m finding life here in Korea and whether it was what I expected or far from it. The honest answer is that it falls pretty much within the frame of what I had supposed it would be like: coming to Korea every summer for a month at a time has prepared me better than most who come here for the purpose of learning the language. And yet there are small things I’m realising about myself, and about others, through my time here; realisations that mostly occur in contexts different to those of family holidays, which explains why I hadn’t had them before.
Coming to Korea to learn Korean properly has been a long-anticipated, long-awaited fantasy of mine that has finally come true with my decision to take a gap year. I’ve always felt inexplicably drawn here, more so than to my Danish side, and yet there’s an inconsistency to how Korean I feel, or allow myself to feel, now that I’m in Korea. Being surrounded by those of a homogenous culture, a culture to which I have some claim but no experience truly living amongst, serves to emphasise my differences and multifaceted background. From how I look to how I act, I’m starting to realise these things on a deeper level. The main obstacle, of course, is language. The singular importance of language in its capacity to access a culture and unlock the hearts of people is becoming ever clearer to me through my time here. Though I by no means wish to neglect my Danish heritage, I want to have the ability to blend seamlessly into Korean society, rather than being immediately labelled as an outsider (which isn’t always the case – but still). I want to have that option: to be able to be both a citizen of the world and a member of Korean society; to maintain my international and open-minded perspective but still be able to adapt to the way of life here.
Like the steady and yet unpredictable dripping of water from a just-closed tap, these thoughts and realisations come to being in my mind. In the short months that have elapsed I know that I’ve grown as a result of the people and environment around me, and I’m curious to find out what the second part of this new year and the entailing months will bring. My urge to write swells and fades like the flow of the tide, but apparently the year of the rat is meant to harbour renewal and unleash creativity – or something along those lines, which seems to bode pretty well.
