So, the new quarter has started. I am really enjoying everything. However on the late, I have realized that the best part about not being at home in the states, is meeting new people.
Of course who doesn’t like to meet new people.
But these people are different. I have lived in one city pretty much my entire life. My family moved into one house, and we lived there through my entire schooling career K – 12. Of course I lived out during my undergrad days, but really I continued to encounter the same types of people. Sometimes you would run into a new person, with a nuanced way of thinking, and a unique outlook on the world, but that was rare.
Looking back, sometimes the most interesting people I met were the ones who I encountered at work, a small retail tennis shop, where I shared a few scattered conversations. Oddly enough I can remember these conversations vividly. Like the man who showed so much compassion and love, the lady from Chicago who gave me her very understanding viewpoint of seattle vs Chicago and her home country of Russia, the newly weds who had some great plans to travel, and the man with his daughter buying her first stick; I remember what they looked like, what their voices sounded like, and if I saw them tomorrow, I would know who they were.
Now that I am a foreigner in a new land, everyone I meet is different, has a different view on everything, and its slightly amazing. I get to meet people that I would have never ever met if I stayed in the states, and took the logical pathway into the career I, methodically?, chose. Made lots of money, and set my self up for the American dream if a life.
If nothing else, meeting interesting people has made this experience worthwhile a thousand times over again.
Sometimes I meet people that I will never see or talk to again, but a look into their thoughts has somehow changed my view in a slight way. It’s unexplainable but it’s a feeling that I can not capture in words, but I know that its important. Like the others, I remember them vividly, and will never forget.
And then sometimes, I meet people that I will meet again. That have a crazy way of thinking, that think in a way that I couldn’t have dreamt of. Is it crazy? Not really. But I don’t know how to explain it, its just nuanced and beautiful in a way that I didn’t know before meeting them. Its like not knowing what a specific type of beauty looked like, and then knowing.
It’s a retired business man, who is expecting to become a grandfather next week, who has left his fancy life in Japan to come and learn Korean in Korea. He started out his career the same way as I expect to, in public accounting. He made the switch to private industry, and worked as controller of large, well respected, and famous international companies. At the moment, he lives in a tiny room, where many university students live, and is learning Korean. He wants to be immersed in the culture, and learn what it means to be Korean. In hopes to bridge cultural differences between Japan and Korea. Grandfathers are always cool, but this guy shatters and boggles my mind. He has forever changed me with his story, which I only wish to learn more of.
And then it’s the friends I have made who are not from the states, that are from other places, that don’t know where Seattle is, and think Washington is on the east. Its really a great thing. And then there are the people from the states who are always great to talk to as well.
It’s funny I thought that being here, I would meet a lot of degens that just didn’t know what else to do in life, but come to a foreign place. Okay, I guess I should explain degens, I mean it in the least degrading way possible, if that is possible? Well anyways, yes, This is not the case. I meet people who want to work for NGO’s. People who have started out their career’s and had great jobs, made globs of money, and HAD stable, good, and respectable jobs in this crazy economy that the states is living in. Only, to pack up, and take off. They went to better universities then me, probably had better test scores then me, and are nothing close to degenerates.
~ ~ ~
Being here, I really have starting to rethink what I really want to do next, and what is important in life. As I was closing that time in my life where I went to school, and only dreamt of the days when I could be a working man. The days when was waiting to emerge into the “real world” and have my first stab at “real life”. Now I don’t know what real life is. I feel like I am in-between the two stages, and don’t really want to go back to either. How bad, or good, would it be to travel the world, take up any job you could find fit, and just scrape by with. Experience endlessly, learn endlessly, and have no obligations to anyone. Degenerate? Maybe.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
number one
hello there,
so i plan to write in this cafe to keep updates of my life, interesting stories, funny encounters, insights i have learned, discoveries i have made, accomplishments, paintings, sculptures, victories, and books that i have written.
so i guess let me start from the start. i arrived here on January the 5th 2009. it is now January the 18th(i would attempt to explain how many days it has been but i would get it wrong somehow), however most likely still the 17th where you are. Already i have a new perceptive i guess, while it is Sunday morning here, you are enjoying your Saturday evening.
This whole time difference idea makes communicating with home interesting. Usually i would be communicating with friends or family or people I don’t like in the same time zone. So for example if it was 3am and I could not sleep, I would also be talking to a person in a similar mind state as me; slightly incoherent. Now as I talk to my slightly incoherent friends, I am enjoying the evening with the nice satisfaction of a meal. This makes talking to people slightly more fun, and sometimes more interesting. Mother or father feel free to try this out, if you can manage to stay up until 3am
Okay since this is a first post kinda thing, I should mention some of my sub pair abilities -- my incompetence’s. First I am a rambler, i cant spell well, my grammar is probably often scattered, and my thoughts can get slightly messy at times. Ahhhh and I am a pretty sarcastic person and a little to quirky at times, I try to tone it down when I am writing but sometimes I cant help myself.
So I have started school now. I learn Korean from 9am to 1pm everyday Monday through Friday. My class is about 12 students, the demographics are 4 Japanese (with little English speaking ability, I mean almost none), 1 Japanese (with Chinese, English, and Japanese fluency), 1 Japanese (with decent English ability), 1 French (English and French ability), 1 Russian (English and Russian), 1 Ukrainian (managed to miss more then 75% of classes so far, but can speak English), 2 Chinese (no English), and me. 8 girls and 4 boys. It’s a fun class. Last week we all went to dinner together, everyone in the class is very outgoing, and seems to be much more worldly then me.
Although my class is 12, there are over 250 students in the morning program, so over the quarter I am sure I will meet many more people.
I also finally got a bank account and a mobile phone here. I had to wait to get an alien registration card which took about 10 days. So next week I plan to meet up with some of my friends who live in Korea!
This is quite a long post now, but I should at least tell you about my teacher. For 3 hours we have one teacher and for one hour we have a pronunciation teacher who only speaks Korean to us. My main teacher is very funny. She is older grandma level, but she is the funniest lady. She is quirky and mumbles a lot, and is a very cute little lady. A few stories, we went around the class room telling where are from countries where one of the first things we learned to say in Korean. So this Japanese girl said she was from Hiroshima Japan. Our teacher immediately made a big body motion imitating an atomic bomb going off, the girls was slightly shocked, but then just smiled and laughed a little. Then she was teaching us how to say India, and imitated Gandhi and yoga. She sings and dances to Korean Pop groups like Wonder Girls and Bi (rain) (just think of grandma singing the newest miley cyrus song and dancing). She found out that one of the students is 17 and started signing (I am 16 going on 17). She throws water on the floor next to the chalk board at least once everyday because its to dry in our classroom (I guess its common in Korea, but it seemed like this crazy ridicules idea when she first did it). Or maybe I am just too used to the suburban life of Bellevue school districts, or the rain in Seattle. She is not great at English, and seems how half the class cannot speak English anyways she often imitates things. Let me tell you her imitation of a pig is amazing. First of all the different noises that animals make in different languages is quite amusing in it of itself. I mean growing up you would think animals make the same sounds in different countries, but that is just not the case.
Well I think that is enough rambling for one day.
But let me also inform you that fruit in korea is the best in the world I think. At home I can goto the fridge and get an apple out anytime, but the chances that the apple is crisp is about 1 in 5. In Korea they don’t accept bad fruit, so every apple is amazing. Also don’t eat apples at night because it is bad for your digestive system, or so I am told. We eat fruit at least twice a day in Korea, and when I return I think I might miss the fruit the most. Persimmons are evening growing on me, although they smell like armpits.
Oh and I am quite mad at myself, or kinda, or I don’t really know what to think. Last night, saterday evening, I went to a wedding for one of Hyung Rim’s teachers (Sung Il’s wife, the mother of the family I am staying with, She is a Professor and a Principal of a kindergarten.) So after the weeding there was food. And one of the dishes was Dog. Sung Il immediately pointed it out to me, making me a little nervous. I guess before I explain the story, before I left I kind of made a pact with myself to be adventurous on foods. There is not many times when I can eat live octopus and having to kill it in my mouth so it doesn’t suck on me. anyways, I did not eat the dog. I still don’t know if I should have, I am mad at myself for not trying it because it was a perfect opportunity, but then I don’t know if I really wanted to eat it. Then again why not, I eat all other meats. I don’t know, it just is one of those things that will bother me and keep me awake all throughout the night for months.
Hope all is well back in the land of rain.
so i plan to write in this cafe to keep updates of my life, interesting stories, funny encounters, insights i have learned, discoveries i have made, accomplishments, paintings, sculptures, victories, and books that i have written.
so i guess let me start from the start. i arrived here on January the 5th 2009. it is now January the 18th(i would attempt to explain how many days it has been but i would get it wrong somehow), however most likely still the 17th where you are. Already i have a new perceptive i guess, while it is Sunday morning here, you are enjoying your Saturday evening.
This whole time difference idea makes communicating with home interesting. Usually i would be communicating with friends or family or people I don’t like in the same time zone. So for example if it was 3am and I could not sleep, I would also be talking to a person in a similar mind state as me; slightly incoherent. Now as I talk to my slightly incoherent friends, I am enjoying the evening with the nice satisfaction of a meal. This makes talking to people slightly more fun, and sometimes more interesting. Mother or father feel free to try this out, if you can manage to stay up until 3am
Okay since this is a first post kinda thing, I should mention some of my sub pair abilities -- my incompetence’s. First I am a rambler, i cant spell well, my grammar is probably often scattered, and my thoughts can get slightly messy at times. Ahhhh and I am a pretty sarcastic person and a little to quirky at times, I try to tone it down when I am writing but sometimes I cant help myself.
So I have started school now. I learn Korean from 9am to 1pm everyday Monday through Friday. My class is about 12 students, the demographics are 4 Japanese (with little English speaking ability, I mean almost none), 1 Japanese (with Chinese, English, and Japanese fluency), 1 Japanese (with decent English ability), 1 French (English and French ability), 1 Russian (English and Russian), 1 Ukrainian (managed to miss more then 75% of classes so far, but can speak English), 2 Chinese (no English), and me. 8 girls and 4 boys. It’s a fun class. Last week we all went to dinner together, everyone in the class is very outgoing, and seems to be much more worldly then me.
Although my class is 12, there are over 250 students in the morning program, so over the quarter I am sure I will meet many more people.
I also finally got a bank account and a mobile phone here. I had to wait to get an alien registration card which took about 10 days. So next week I plan to meet up with some of my friends who live in Korea!
This is quite a long post now, but I should at least tell you about my teacher. For 3 hours we have one teacher and for one hour we have a pronunciation teacher who only speaks Korean to us. My main teacher is very funny. She is older grandma level, but she is the funniest lady. She is quirky and mumbles a lot, and is a very cute little lady. A few stories, we went around the class room telling where are from countries where one of the first things we learned to say in Korean. So this Japanese girl said she was from Hiroshima Japan. Our teacher immediately made a big body motion imitating an atomic bomb going off, the girls was slightly shocked, but then just smiled and laughed a little. Then she was teaching us how to say India, and imitated Gandhi and yoga. She sings and dances to Korean Pop groups like Wonder Girls and Bi (rain) (just think of grandma singing the newest miley cyrus song and dancing). She found out that one of the students is 17 and started signing (I am 16 going on 17). She throws water on the floor next to the chalk board at least once everyday because its to dry in our classroom (I guess its common in Korea, but it seemed like this crazy ridicules idea when she first did it). Or maybe I am just too used to the suburban life of Bellevue school districts, or the rain in Seattle. She is not great at English, and seems how half the class cannot speak English anyways she often imitates things. Let me tell you her imitation of a pig is amazing. First of all the different noises that animals make in different languages is quite amusing in it of itself. I mean growing up you would think animals make the same sounds in different countries, but that is just not the case.
Well I think that is enough rambling for one day.
But let me also inform you that fruit in korea is the best in the world I think. At home I can goto the fridge and get an apple out anytime, but the chances that the apple is crisp is about 1 in 5. In Korea they don’t accept bad fruit, so every apple is amazing. Also don’t eat apples at night because it is bad for your digestive system, or so I am told. We eat fruit at least twice a day in Korea, and when I return I think I might miss the fruit the most. Persimmons are evening growing on me, although they smell like armpits.
Oh and I am quite mad at myself, or kinda, or I don’t really know what to think. Last night, saterday evening, I went to a wedding for one of Hyung Rim’s teachers (Sung Il’s wife, the mother of the family I am staying with, She is a Professor and a Principal of a kindergarten.) So after the weeding there was food. And one of the dishes was Dog. Sung Il immediately pointed it out to me, making me a little nervous. I guess before I explain the story, before I left I kind of made a pact with myself to be adventurous on foods. There is not many times when I can eat live octopus and having to kill it in my mouth so it doesn’t suck on me. anyways, I did not eat the dog. I still don’t know if I should have, I am mad at myself for not trying it because it was a perfect opportunity, but then I don’t know if I really wanted to eat it. Then again why not, I eat all other meats. I don’t know, it just is one of those things that will bother me and keep me awake all throughout the night for months.
Hope all is well back in the land of rain.
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