KIMCHI FOR BREAKFAST
When I was younger, one of my favorite books was entitled Ice Cream for Breakfast. It told the story of a family who did everything backwards. They walked on the ceiling instead of the floor, they slept with their head at the foot of the bed, and they ate ice cream for breakfast. I remember thinking how cool that family was and how I wanted to be different like them.
Then I moved to Korea, where they eat kimchi for breakfast. I wasn’t so keen on trying something that has been soaked in vinegar for several months first thing in the morning, but I’ll have to admit that I am now more willing to do so after living here for eight months. My family back home in America can’t believe that I eat kimchi at all, let alone attack my Western senses with it first thing in the morning, but I have been converted to a believer of the healing powers of pickled cabbage.
This shift in eating habits is what I would call an expected shift in my life since I moved here; there have been many of them. But those expected shifts in experiences have been accompanied by equal amount of unexpected shifts. I expected to shift from West to East on the map, but I did not expect to reach the East only to discover that on a Korean map, the USA is located in the East. I knew I was going to live like an Easterner, but I didn’t know that I was magically going to become one after a fourteen-hour plane ride.
Among some other expected shifts in my mannerisms were switching from bread to rice, from English to Hangeul, from hills to mountains, from churches to temples, from forks to chopsticks, from dollars to won and from feet to meters. Because these phenomena were expected, they have been easier to adopt. The unexpected shifts - going from oven to no oven, from late-night subways to ones that stop at midnight, and from using drying machines to drying my clothes on the floor - often account for the large part of my daily dose of humor more than an inconvenience for me. Pictures of wet shirts and pants scattered on my ondol-heated floor make for great blog posts to share with my family back home.
Little, inconsequential changes are what keep me alert and interested in staying here, so I never mind the challenge of baking cookies in a tiny toaster oven or eating a Krispie Kreme donut with chopsticks. The real challenge lies in controlling my reactions to the larger, overall changes and differences.
The Co-Teacher Hotline
Growing up in a country that taught me the history of pioneers and then coached me in computer games to go forth in search of dreams in far-off lands (even if I do lose oxen forging a river), I became very sensitive towards feeling dependent on others. When I lived in Chicago last year I was perfectly capable of waking up in the morning, buying coffee, going to work, coming home to do my chores, and then repeating it the next day. I proudly lived alone in a studio apartment, I proudly paid my rent on time, and I did all of these things without the help of a mother.
So it goes without saying that it was quite a slap in the face to come to Korea and suddenly not be able to know how to take a subway to work, order food at a restaurant, use the key to open the door to the English Zone, buy a cell phone, eat fish without swallowing half of its bones (I wouldn’t be surprised if I look half-human, half-fish by the end of the year), read a nutrition label on the food at the grocery store, or turn on my heat. I had no clue what buttons to press on my washing machine or why it sang a song to me when I pressed them. I tried to not be frustrated, but my mantra of “Calm down, you’re in a foreign country, you knew stuff like this would happen,” was becoming hackneyed after saying it to myself several times a day. I was afraid that my feelings of helplessness were going to manifest into an uncontrollable monster who would wreak havoc on the poor souls at EPIK after blazing a trail of control-freak terror on its midnight run to the States. Luckily, that monster never materialized. It took a lot of self-control and the grace of an angel in the form of my co-teacher, Lee Sang-Mi, to keep the beast at bay.
Sang-Mi is one of my seven co-teachers at Puil Electronics and Design High School, but she is much more than a teacher with whom I share three classes: Sang-Mi is the manager of me. I don’t think she expected to raise another child after raising her two sons who are now high school age, but throughout the past eight months Sang-mi has been my adopted Korean mother. She has also been my cool aunt, my dearest Korean friend, my advisor, my travel agent, and personal translator. Because she insists on taking care of me in ways that have long ago exceeded any rational call of duty, I now refer to her as my Fairy Godmother. I am no Cinderella, but Sang-Mi still blesses me with the comfort and wisdom and gifts that only a Princess deserves.
Several of my Native English Teacher (NET) friends also have co-teacher fairy Godmothers, and we often have to call one of them when we’re in a situation that requires Korean translation or explanation. I feel like I have a “co-teacher hotline,” an emergency call center that is full of co-teachers who will help the struggling NET baby birds whenever we try to fly and then fall on our faces. This hotline has come in handy on more than one occasion, the most memorable being the time I was in Jeju with my best friend and the only part of the weather forecast we understood was “typhoon Dianmu” and “Jeju-do.” After calling my friend’s co-teacher, we were reassured that we did not need to evacuate the island, but instead we should just stay indoors until the storm passed.
During my first month here, the co-teacher hotline helped me cope with many language and cultural storms, and I was very grateful. Unfortunately, after awhile I began to resent the fact that I had to rely on my fairy Godmother to translate the morning announcements at school, the directions in the textbook, and anything the other non-English-speaking teachers wanted to say to me. Although I enrolled in the free Korean courses offered to foreigners living in Busan, I wasn’t learning the language as fast as I had hoped, which meant that I wasn’t maturing from status of ‘Korean baby’ as quickly either. The transformation I went through last February on that magical plane ride from Independent American Woman to Dependent Korean Child was beginning to feel like a bad comic book story about a former superhero suddenly being stripped of all her powers. I desperately wanted my powers back.
Eight months later, a few of the old powers have returned. I can now with ninety percent accuracy read menus, separate the bones of a fish (with chopsticks!), take public transportation, and clean my clothes. I still feel, however, that I’m not nearly developed enough to begin helping others. When I tried to help the Imo (이모) at my favorite restaurant arrange the side dishes on the table, she swatted at my hand until I finally let go. I didn’t realize that there was a specific arrangement for the dishes so that they could be placed in harmony with one another and my “help” that I thought I was giving her was only messing up the yin and the yang.
All I want to do is return so much of the kindness that others have shown me, but this country with its emphasis on the importance of hierarchy confuses me. It took a long time for me to realize that the way I give back, is to appreciate those who do everything for me by showing them respect in return. It’s shameful to feel frustrated by helplessness when most people living in a foreign country want nothing more than for someone to spontaneously make their lives easier and more pleasant without asking for anything in return. I acknowledge that my stubborn desire to do things on my own is distasteful in light of how blessed I am, which is why I have decided to sit back and let my elders continue to care for me for the rest of my stay here.
Nunchi (눈치) Powers
Switching from an individualistic society to a collectivist one was another unexpected shift in my life when I came here. In America, the slogan “every man for himself” pervades the job market where the most ruthless rise to the top. It is inherent in the messages on the single-serving food items which line the grocery store aisles. It wasn’t difficult to understand the idea of helping my neighbor before helping myself, but the collective eating habits were definitely a challenge for me.
As someone who was accustomed to eating most of my meals alone in my Chicago studio apartment, it was difficult for me to grasp the concept of eating every meal with other people. How was I supposed to make my hunger coincide with the hunger of others? What if the food is too spicy and I need water but no one else is drinking any? Do I need to bring in enough food to share every time I want a little snack?
I also didn’t understand communal food in the refrigerator. At any other place of employment in my past, the refrigerator was filled with brown paper bags marked with signs like “Michael’s food,” or yogurts labeled “Eat this and you will die.” So imagine my surprise when I bought a bottle of Pepsi for English Club and put it in the refrigerator in the women’s teacher lounge, only to find later that day that some teachers drank it for lunch. At first I was shocked that anyone would drink something that wasn’t theirs, but then I laughed when I remembered that Koreans don’t feel like they possess food and drinks.
I remember how when I first arrived, my co-teachers would laugh when I said things like “my kimchi,” or “my soup.” I received the same reaction when I said things like “my Principal,” “my school,” and “my troublesome students who won’t stop talking during class,” as if I owned all of those things. Instead, I’ve been reminded over and over again, that everything is shared, from the good things like cake and mountains, to the bad things like unruly students and cold nights in a camping tent. I can’t imagine how I would have survived in this country if I couldn’t share the burden of classroom problems over a cup of tea, or if magical fairies at my school didn’t make snacks appear on my desk on a busy day.
Always thinking about others every time I wanted a snack or a drink was baffling, not because I was unwilling to share with others, but because I thought it would be expensive, or because it was too difficult to explain in my limited Korean language skills what I wanted. As it turned out, I had no reason to stress, because the Korean people I have met are very good at making food magically appear at the same time I become hungry. I think this has something to do with nunchi (눈치), where they can always sense my needs, but I’m ashamed to say that I’m not always good at sensing their needs in return.
I still often bring my own coffee to school in the morning, and I don’t know if this bothers them. Having been addicted to caffeine since I was inside my addicted mother’s womb, I can’t start a day without a large cup of American-style coffee if I don’t want to look like a dead woman walking. I feel like my co-teachers prefer the Korean-style instant coffee, so I don’t offer to share mine, but I constantly feel guilty about it. I can only hope that their nunchi powers sense that letting me keep that one individualistic habit is better than co-teaching with Annie Zombie.
Assimilation
Before I moved to Korea, I knew that I was about to embark on a journey where I would have many interesting stories to tell. I knew that I was going to be a foreign observer of life in Korea. I didn’t expect, however, to adopt any of those customs that I was observing. I knew I would try using chopsticks, and I knew that I would laugh at myself while doing so (my best friend’s blog is entitles “Often Drops Chopsticks”), but I didn’t know I would enjoy using them. I assumed that I would learn about the Korean education system, but I was surprised to find that I agreed with several aspects of it that are so different from our own. For example, I love that exercise and cleaning are forms of punishment for students instead of the more ineffective detention we use in America.
The most surprising, however, are the overall shifts in experience towards dependence and collectivism that I now appreciate. It’s true that living under these regimes at first felt oppressive to me, but now I feel oddly liberated when I don’t have to stress about the transportation I’ll need to take to an event or figuring out how to motivate students on my own. I think the reason for my willing assimilation is that I’m enjoying the beauty of trust.
I never realized how suspicious I was of co-workers, companies, bus drivers, landlords, and strangers in general until I came to Korea and had all of these experiences that I’ve mentioned. I have lost my cell phone twice since I’ve been here, and both times it has been returned to me by the Korean person who found it (Sang-Mi jokes that I must be the true owner of this cell phone, because it refuses to let anyone else own it). In America, someone would sell your lost phone on the internet.
Not only do we not trust strangers, but we also question the authority of our elders. Perhaps this is left over from the time when our forefathers questioned the actions of King George, or maybe children aren’t raised with enough respect for authority. I might not always agree with my elders here, but I can at least trust that they are people who concern themselves with what is best for the whole. In return, all I have to do is show respect for the importance of social hierarchy and promise to be a good member of the larger community. I now trust that my elders will introduce me to experiences that I would have never been able to find on my own, such as exotic foods or natural scenic gems. Instead of being afraid of what will happen after I enthusiastically agree “okay!” to the unknown, I wait with anticipation for my next Korean adventure.
Although the plane ride, language barrier, and food turned me into an Eastern, five-year-old fish-girl during my first month here, I think that both the patience from Sang-Mi and learning how to trust again have helped me develop into a less scary, slightly more mature woman who is now more appreciative of Korean culture. I’m just worried that after living peacefully in a trustworthy country, I’m going to go home and resent the selfishness of my compatriots. It might be difficult to explain the idea of communal food in the refrigerator at work and I’m sure I’ll be highly disappointed if I ever lose my phone and it’s not returned to me, but I’ll do my best to promote the benefits of Dependence and Collectivism (i.e. mutual trust) when I return to the U.S. I think the real challenge, however, is going to be convincing Americans that they should share kimchi with me for breakfast.
