expat life

Of Grief and Gratitude: On Leaving Hong Kong

Yesterday, I blinked back tears as I handed in my notice. The principal in her smart black blazer and Adidas sneakers stopped me and said,“No sad! You make the children here very happy. I wish you and your family to be happy. Big hugs.” Her words were spare and earnest, her kindness both a comfort and another crack in my breaking heart.

On Facetime, friends and family say, “I-can’t-wait-to-see-you,” and, “You-must-be-so-excited.” And I wonder, Must I be?

Of course I want to see them. This family, these friends—they are the entire reason we are returning to the U.S. Because we’ve found ourselves on the other side of the world with this vibrant, gorgeous, hilarious, child who has never even met most of her family. Many of our dear friends back in the US are neck-deep in the daily liturgy of keeping tiny humans alive. We always dreamed we’d do this part together with them. Because we believe that we cannot do it alone. We believe in the value of raising children in a community who will love our children like their own. And we want our daughter to know and be known by the people who have shaped us.

I believe all of these things to the core of my being. And yet…I don’t know how to explain that this does not feel like coming home so much as it feels like leaving it.

I have faith that a year from now, life will be sweet in ways I can’t even foresee right now. But believing that does not make this transition any easier.

We have done the picking up and moving thing so many times now, but each time it’s been harder. This is without a doubt the hardest one yet. I love this city. I love the mountains and the harbor and the islands and the beaches, the neon signs and the brilliant skyline. I love the dim sum and the trolley and the markets and the egg tarts. I love the women in their carefully curated, perfectly tailored outfits, each piece costing about as much as my entire wardrobe. I love the elderly people who play old Chinese pop music aloud while they hike. I love that my friends here are from all over the world, and that they constantly challenge me to think differently about politics, priorities, faith, and what deep friendship looks like.

I love all 450 sq ft of the home that we’ve built together. First as a family of two and then swelling and stretching to fit first Juniper and then our beloved auntie, Beverly. It frightens me to think of taking Juniper away from the only home she has ever known. It makes me physically sick to think of taking her away from Beverly, both for Junie’s sake and for Beverly’s. They adore each other.

Most days, sad does not feel like a big enough word for what I feel. It’s something closer to grief. It is a visceral pain in the place where my ribs join my sternum, by turns sharp and dull, like a cough drop lodged in my trachea, difficult to breath around. For more than a year now we’ve talked and prayed and talked and prayed about this decision. Even after we’d made a decision, part of me thought if I just ignored it, it wouldn’t really happen. And now it’s six weeks away.

So I move through the motions. Take pictures of items to sell online. Force myself to respond politely to a dozen messages trying to negotiate a discount on the pieces of my life. Force myself not to scream, “Don’t you understand? This is what I wore while I carried my daughter (safely inside my body) through a year of tear gas and riot gear and fire. And this? This is the mat where my baby learned to roll over, where she learned to bat at toys, her fingers splayed wide like a starfish, where she smiled at me for the first time. These moments were holy. No, you cannot have a discount on my existence.”

Today there was a moment when the grief hit me so hard it took my breath away. And then I thought, I don’t want to spend my last precious days here being miserable. And I thought of an essay by Andre Dubus that I first read eleven or twelve years ago. At the age of 49, Dubus was in an accident that resulted in the loss of one of his legs and paralysis in the other. He had stopped to assist another motorist who had been in an accident and, while pulling the survivor out of the wreckage, he was hit by a passing car. In “A Country Road Song,” Dubus writes about his memories of running, not with bitterness, but with profound gratitude.

“When I ran, when I walked, there was no time: there was only my body, my breath, the trees and hills and sky…I always felt grateful, but I did not know it was gratitude and so I never thanked God. Eight years ago, on a starlight night in July, a car hit me…and in September a surgeon cut off my left leg… It is now time to sing of my gratitude: for legs and hills and trees and seasons…I mourn this, and I sing in gratitude for loving this, and in gratitude for all the roads I ran on and walked on, for the hills I climbed and descended, for trees and grass and sky, and for being spared losing running and walking sooner than I did: ten years sooner, or eight seasons, or three; or one day.”
“A Country Road Song” Meditations from a Movable Chair

I remembered this passage and I thought, If I cannot stop the grief, let me sink into the gratitude as well.

And so. It’s time to mourn and to sing in gratitude for Hong Kong. For loving this place and these people. For the mountains and the beaches, for the monkeys and the pink dolphins, for the dazzling skyline, for the temples with their countless golden Buddhas, for my students, for my coworkers, for my friends, and for the family I grew here. I sing in gratitude for all of this and for being spared losing it any sooner than I am: two years sooner, or nine months, or three; or one day.

When You’re Not Proud to be an American: Reflections of an Expat on the Fourth of July

Last week I spent the 4th of July outside of the United States for the 8th time in the last 15 years. I went to work as usual and watched my Instagram and Facebook feeds fill with pictures of families decked out in red, white, and blue. I didn’t feel nostalgic or homesick. Mostly, I felt relieved that I wasn’t there. That I didn’t have to participate in a holiday celebrating the birth of a nation I am less and less proud to call home.

Before I go on, I want to say that I am aware of and deeply grateful for the many unearned advantages I have had because I am an American citizen. Even having the opportunity to live and work internationally is due in large part to my American passport and to being a native English speaker. I am deeply grateful for the men and women who came before me, dreaming of a better world and a better future. I am grateful to my family members and friends who have served in the military and to so many other people who have sacrificed in countless ways for me to have the life I have today. But I can be grateful for all that my country has given me and also feel grieved over what she has become.

I grew up in a conservative environment–politically, socially, and religiously. It wasn’t until college that I began to consider other ways of thinking and living. Yet for as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be somewhere else in the world. I was born with an unquenchable curiosity about other lands and other people.

Even in my less-examined life, when I believed that the United States upheld the ideals of liberty and justice for all, I also believed there was much to be learned from the rest of the world. At this point, I have lived a significant part of my adult life outside of the US. I have also had the great privilege of traveling extensively. I have long since lost any belief that the United States is the “best” country in the world (whatever that means) or that their way of doing things is necessarily right or better. This goes against a fairly typical American sentiment that assumes that what the United States has is both superior and desirable.

Last June my parents came to visit us in Hong Kong and we took a short trip to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. At one point I listened to my dad discussing Cambodia’s recent political history with our local guide. The guide expressed his feelings about their recent election – a nod to democracy that was undermined by the fact that there was only one party on the ballot. My dad responded by saying that they were making progress and not to be discouraged because achieving true democracy takes time.

My dad’s basic assumption was that American-style democracy was the ideal that a developing country like Cambodia must be aiming for. I think this a stereotypically American way of looking at the world – that we as a nation have achieved something desirable to other countries, and that they must naturally look to us as an example to follow.

There may have been a time when that was true, but I’m not the only one who has had a shift in perspective. I used to meet people in other parts of the world who spoke of the United States with admiration or at least curiosity. And now? As the world watches the U.S. deal (or not deal) with Covid-19, migrant detention centers, and Black Lives Matter? Now the world looks at us and says, “These are the most selfish people on the planet.”

Some are openly disdainful, but many (especially in places that formerly idealized the US) are baffled and betrayed. This? This is the most powerful country on the planet? This country whose citizens are so divided they spew hatred at each other day in and day out? This country whose BIPOC citizens live in fear for their lives from the very people who are supposed to protect them? This country whose citizens are happy to let the most vulnerable among them die because they are too selfish to be inconvenienced by a scrap of cloth? Why would we want to be like them?

Americans are (often rightfully) perceived as both ignorant and arrogant. Confident in our superiority but with shockingly little understanding of our own history. At least we come by it honestly. We are fed a false narrative of exceptionalism from our preschool days. Part of what makes the United States exceptional, we are told, is that it was built upon the idea that all men are created equal. We conveniently ignore that these very words were penned by white men who bought and sold black men, women, and children as if they were animals. Who did not even consider allowing women to own property, have a voice or a vote. Not to mention that the very land this new nation was built upon was stolen with force and violence from indigenous people.

A country is not great because it insists it is already the best. It is not great because it refuses to acknowledge its flaws. It is not great because it sticks its head in the sand and ignores anything that challenges its fantasy narrative of freedom and equality. A truly great country, like a truly great human, is one that is able to confront difficult truths about itself, to confess the things it has done poorly, and to actively seek a better future. For ALL of its citizens.

I do not think the United States is the best country in the world. Frankly, I do not think the United States needs to be the best country in the world (whatever that even means). But I do think the United States can and should become a good country. One whose institutions treat its citizens with equity. Whose people care about the real needs of others in their community over their own convenience or pride. And one who uses its vast wealth and resources to promote justice worldwide.

I’m not proud to be an American today, but I have hope that one day I will be again.

The Coronavirus Diaries: Adventures in Virtual Teaching

I know many of you have just experienced your first few days of distance learning with your kids. Others of you are teachers like me, spending hours and hours trying to learn an entirely new platform and figure out how to best translate your material into this new medium. I feel for you all.

I’ve been teaching online classes for about 6 weeks now. I am a reading specialist so I am primarily working with younger students on phonological awareness, the mechanics of reading, and later reading comprehension and writing. The majority of my students are 3-6 years old and English is their second (or third) language (although I’m not teaching ESL).

With my youngest students, we do interactive and play-based learning. For some LOLs, check out this promo video that was shot 10 days before I gave birth.

Now imagine trying to translate that onto an online platform.

Along with the challenges of trying to deliver engaging and effective lessons online, there are also totally new challenges. Like trying to keep a three-year-old’s attention when they get up and walk away from the computer. Below is a collection of things I’ve observed and experienced of the past six weeks.

Observations:

Lots of my students’ parents wear their pajamas at all hours of the day.
There are two types of parents to watch out for:

1. The Over-Involved Parent

Me: What is the first sound of ‘cat’?

<offscreen> MASON! YOU KNOW THIS ONE! ANSWER THE TEACHER! WHAT IS FIRST SOUND OF CAT? IT IS ‘C.’ SAY ‘C.’ SAY IT!

Me: Thanks, Mason’s Mom. One point for you.

2. The Under-Involved Parent

Me: Hey, Hanna, where did you go? Come back! Hey… Hanna’s mom? Or dad? Or grandpa? Anyone?

Hanna’s dad: Where is Hanna?

Me: I mean…I don’t know…she just kind of ran away. Isn’t she with you?

Hanna returns: I WAS IN THE TOILET! I WENT POOPOO.

Me: Wow. Thank you for sharing.

Hanna: You’re welcome!

I have sooooo many more chins than I realized. Also very huge and expressive eyebrows.
Every child in Hong Kong has something with Elsa or Optimus Prime on it.
Mute buttons are glorious and we should have them in real life.
Technology is amazing. Except when it’s the worst. Which is at least once every day.

Experiences:

I have one 3-year old student who attends class along with everyone in her household. I think they connect the computer to their TV screen. And then Sasha and her mom and her baby brother Lloyd and her grandma and her two helpers all attend the class together.
I have several students whose moms or helpers (Helpers are like nannies. They are also called aunties.) are sitting off-screen shoving food into their mouths through the whole class. Can they not sit through a 30-minute class without eating?!
One of my coworkers had a student attend a class while he was going through airport security. Another attended from what seemed to be a restaurant bathroom. Another friend had a student attend while in the backseat of a taxi.
My older students (like first to third grade) actually behave better online than they do in person. I suppose because they can’t flick erasers at each other and stuff like that?
Some kids become very tight-lipped while others overshare. In a class of 3-4 year olds…

Me: In today’s story, we heard about a boy who was very naughty. Are you ever naughty?

Gladys: No.

Me: Oh, ok. That’s good.

Scarlett: Sometimes yes.

Me: Ok, what happens when you’re naughty?

Scarlett: I cry.

Me: Oh. Does your auntie ask you, “What’s wrong, Scarlett?”

Scarlett: …No…

Me: Does she say, “It’s Ok. Don’t cry.”

Scarlett:…No…

Me: Ok. What about you, Natalie?

Natalie: Well…I am not naughty. Except only sometimes my auntie says, “Natalie! You are a troublemaker!” and I say, “Whachyou talking ’bout?” I’m not a troublemaker, except sometimes only I am supposed to go to sleep, and I don’t want to sleep, I just want to eat.

Me: Wow. So does your mommy say, “No, Natalie! You have to sleep?”

Natalie: No.

Me: Really?

Natalie: No. Because we are Chinese people. So she doesn’t say, “No,” like that in English.

Touche, Miss Sassypants

***

This is a learning process for all of us, so no matter which side of this you’re on, can we all agree to give each other grace? You don’t judge us for our lessons being a bit hodge-podge or the online platform glitching, and we won’t judge you for bribing your kid with M&M’s to get them to sit down for class. Deal?

The C Word: Life After Eight Weeks of Coronavirus

Over the past week I’ve watched as the United States and Europe woke up to the reality that we in Hong Kong (and other parts of Asia) have been living with since late January. Coronavirus…Covid-19… Wu-monia…whatever you want to call it. We are all in the same boat now.

I admit that it’s a little irritating to see people suddenly panicking. We all have a tendency to ignore that which does not seem to affect us, and Americans are notorious for this on a national level. It’s not that I want anyone to be panicking, and I certainly am not happy that the virus is spreading, but I can’t help feeling a little like, “Welcome to the party.”

If you’re like me, you are equal parts sick-to-death of hearing about it and simultaneously reading everything you can find. I wanted to share some thoughts about my experience so far. I’m not in any way unique here, but I hope it helps someone to hear that life can and will go on while practicing social distance.

****

Here in Hong Kong, we are 573 miles from the epicenter of the virus in Wuhan, China. Which is basically the distance between Washington D.C. and Charleston, SC. To paint a clearer picture, it takes 10 minutes by high-speed train to cross the border from Hong Kong into mainland China. Chinese and Hong Kong citizens are able to easily pass back and forth over the border without visas or passport stamps.

Hong Kong ranks between 2^nd and 3^rd in the world for population density with 17,311 people per square mile. Compare this with the US’s 92.9 people per square mile to understand how staggering that is. In my own home we have 3 adults and a baby living in slightly less than 450 square feet.

I remember first hearing about the virus as “a kind of pneumonia” a few days before our school closed for the Chinese New Year holidays. By January 24th, the first day of our holiday, 75% of people out and about seemed to be wearing masks. Juniper had just turned 3 months old and we had been hoping to get out and enjoy some Chinese New Year festivities. On January 25th, the Hong Kong government declared a virus emergency, cancelled all Lunar New Year events, and began restricting access from mainland China.

The Lunar New Year is the biggest holiday of the year for Hong Kong and literally millions of people travel to see family in mainland China during this time. As those travelers moved back and forth, the virus spread to Hong Kong.

For two weeks everything shut down. Many things were closed and we hardly left home. We went from 75% of people wearing masks to 99.9% of people wearing masks. This also led to a mask shortage. Prices were hiked. People lined up for actual miles to buy masks, hand sanitizer, soap, and cleaning supplies from stores. The toilet paper crisis started.

The Education Bureau announced the extension of the Chinese New Year Holiday to February 17th. A week later it was pushed to March 1st. Then March 17th. Then April 20th. As of this writing, the report is that schools will not reopen on April 20th, but a new tentative date has not been set.

Jonathan and I are both teachers, but we work for independent learning centers that are for-profit businesses. We have to abide by the Education Bureau’s decisions, but if our company does not make enough money, they can shut down and we can lose our jobs.

At this point we have been teaching online classes for 6 weeks. Many of you are probably experiencing online school now, whether as a teacher, a student, or a parent. In whatever capacity you are experiencing online teaching…it is both a marvel of modern technology…and an absolute pain in the rear. Whenever you think it is impossible to make online learning work, please remember…I have been trying to teach 4 year olds how to read. Oh, and also, English is not their first language.

Some of our students have continued classes, but some have suspended indefinitely. This means that our schools are actively trying to recruit new students to join our classes all the time. To encourage this, they offer two free classes. The result is that we have a core group of students who have stayed and a revolving door of students who come for a few classes and leave. On the one hand it feels pointless to stall the rest of the class to try to explain what’s going on to these students who will more than likely attend their two free lessons and then leave. But at the same time, if you don’t stop and give them some extra time and attention, what chance do you have at getting them to enroll? It’s very challenging as an educator whose job is also dependent on student enrollment.

Unfortunately, at this point we are still required to go in to work to do our teaching from there. Which means I don’t get to spend my between-class-time with Sweet Juniper.

This is what daily life looks like:

We go to work. The doorman at my office building takes my temperature every morning when I arrive at work to make sure it is not above 37.5. We come home. On the weekends we sleep, we cuddle our baby, we take walks. We read books. We watch shows. We do the New York Times crossword every day. We occasionally see friends. Rinse and repeat.

Whenever we go out we wear masks. As Westerners, this is not a cultural norm. We don’t necessarily believe they are effective in protecting us from others, but it does make sense that it helps keep people who are carrying the disease from spreading it as much. Mainly, we wear them because it has become socially unacceptable not to. In other words, it makes other people feel safer if we wear them.

Here is some good news:

All that social distancing seems to be working. Hong Kong has had 181 cases only 85 of which are currently active.

Fourteen of those cases were confirmed in the last 24 hours and all but one were imported infections. A significant number of people left Hong Kong when the crisis began and are now trying to come back because things are better here than wherever they fled to. And some of them have brought the virus back with them. Hong Kong now has mandatory quarantine for all arrivals, thank goodness.

The toilet paper crisis is over. Because it was not real to begin with. A rumor started that there would be a shortage of paper products coming in from China and people started panic-buying. I can only assume that word of our experience spread to other places until everyone for some reason thought: Coronavirus means toilet paper shortage. And they too did panic-buying. THERE IS NO TOILET PAPER SHORTAGE, PEOPLE. YOU CREATED THE SHORTAGE BY BUYING MORE THAN YOU NEED. If you are experiencing this now, don’t worry. In a few weeks, you will no doubt find that there is ample stock of toilet paper and hand sanitizer again.

I plan to do a few more posts over the next week or two with some adventures in online teaching, tips for dealing with anxiety, and book recommendations while you hunker down.

For now, I’ll just leave with this thought – we are all living in unprecedented times. We are all experiencing things we have never dreamed of. We will remember these days for the rest of our lives. Our children will remember these days for the rest of theirs. So let’s make them worth remembering.

Tickle your kids. Kiss your partner. Inhale your baby’s sweet smell. Let your dog sit in your lap a few minutes longer. Light a candle. Play your favorite song with the volume up loud. Dance if you want to dance.

After all, how we spend our days is how we spend our life. Even these days. Especially these days.

What I’m Into: October 2018

This month has been especially busy for us, but mostly full of nice things. We did some traveling and had a friend come for a visit. We don’t have much of anything planned for November at the moment, and I’m actually looking forward to a few weeks of a normal routine. I admit that as obnoxious as it is when people post about how wonderful fall is, they have a point and now that I am living somewhere without a fall, I am definitely missing it. People here have started to dress like it’s fall, but it’s still in the low 80’s every day. It does get into the 70’s in the mornings and evenings which does feel like a nice change, but it’s hardly cause for sweaters and coats.

What I’m Reading

I read 11 books this month. Sadly, I am still about 20 books behind on my goal for the year. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I will be pretty impressed if I can pull this off. All of the books I read this month are pictured below, but I will just mention a few standouts.

My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodi Ashton. I had been waiting for this book ever since I read the trio’s first book, My Lady Jane, last year. In this re-telling of Jane Eyre, Jane is not a fictional character created by Charlotte Bronte, but instead is a real life friend of hers whose Charlotte uses as the inspiration for her classic novel. Only this Jane can see dead people. It is every bit as silly and delightful as My Lady Jane and I definitely recommend you listen to the audiobook.

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. This book has been out for a long time and I can’t believe I only just got around to it since it is about one of my secret fascinations – fundamentalist polygamist cults. The thing that stood out to me in listening to this compelling account of the history of fundamentalist Mormonism was how similar so much of the language is to what you would hear in a mainstream American evangelical church. For example, I can’t tell you how many times in my life I heard someone say, “I prayed about it and I felt the Lord leading me to do x, y, z.” Many of the stories in this book have that same language, but, you know, the thing the Lord is leading them to do is marry 13 year olds or slay the infidels. So there’s that. Seriously though, this book is fascinating and done in Krakauer’s typical thorough and engaging style.

La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust) by Philip Pullman. It was great fun to dive back into Pullman’s world and to get more of the back story on Lyra, the heroine of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Pullman’s storytelling was every bit as compelling in this book as it is in the original trilogy, though I do have to dock it a few points because I felt the last third of the book dragged on for too long.

Unthinkable: What the World’s Most Extraordinary Brains Can Teach Us About Our Own by Helen Thomson. This book was fascinating. I’m not a scientist, so I appreciated how accessible this was for an unscientific audience. Thomson traveled the world meeting with people with rare psychological disorders and talking about those disorders both as they experienced them and in terms of what doctors and researchers had learned about the brain by studying the brains of these unique individuals. Her subjects include a man who believed he was dead for 3 years, a woman who constantly hears music that isn’t there, and a man who believes he turns into a tiger. In my opinion, Thomson was able to write about these people as real humans instead of distilling them down to their condition.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang. This debut novel has gotten rave reviews with good reason. If you are looking for a fantasy novel you won’t be disappointed by, look no further. Rin is a poor, dark-skinned war orphan with no prospects, but after receiving the highest score in the Empire on the entrance exam for the empire’s top Academies, she earns a spot at Sinegard, the most elite military academy. There she learns the art of war and discovers her own unique gift in shamanism, widely believed to be a dead art. When war breaks out, Rin learns the true cost of her gift and what it might take to save her people. I will say, there is a lot of descriptive violence and brutality on the page in this book, but it’s fantastic. And it’s the first in a series so there will be more to come!

What I’m Watching

We are trying to catch up on the current seasons of Better Call Saul and The Good Place. Meanwhile, I have been on an Elementary kick. I’ve seen random episodes of the show off and on over the years, but never really followed it, so now I am taking advantage of Netflix and watching old episodes.

We also went to see A Star is Born. There was much weeping. That really got me in the feels. And also, I already knew Lady Gaga was wildly talented, and I think she is so interesting, but her acting in this was top notch. And of course…Bradley Cooper. Just…sigh. When we left the theater I was blinking back my tears and said to Jonathan, “We will never speak of this again.” It’s beyond my emotional capacity to handle how many feelings this movie gave me. Go see it, everyone. But then don’t talk to me about it. Because I just can’t.

What I’m Writing

While I was out having adventures a lot this month, I didn’t do quite as good a job of documenting them. But I did write about our day trip to Macau and told some fun stories about odd things I’ve eaten recently and some funny ESL moments with my students. Please follow me on Keep Roaming On for more of my day-to-day adventures and stories from my travels. I have a ton of things half-written, but I guess I have been struggling with follow through this month.

What’s On My Mind

This is a new section of the monthly post and it’s basically a place for me to word vomit some things that have been filling my thoughts lately and haven’t made their way out in the form of a blog post.

The amount of hatred in the world, but particularly in the US right now is terrifying and heartbreaking. My heart is heavy for the many victims of injustice and violence who are suffering right now. Lord, have mercy.
It’s hard to make new friends as an adult. Like seriously hard. But it makes me really appreciate the close friends I have who have continued to make the effort to be friends even though I’m the one who decided to pick up and move across the world.
When we were in the Philippines mid-October, the shops were playing Christmas music. This felt wrong on so many levels. Rocking out to “All I Want for Christmas is You” while sipping mojitos on an island beach was…incongruous to say the least. And then yesterday (October 31st) the stores in the area where I work started putting out their Christmas lights. And I thought the US was bad about starting Christmas too early…
One of our cats back in the US has been missing for several weeks. I try not to think about it too much because it makes me so sad, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I know this is not on the scale of anti-semitism and cancer, but on tough days it feels like the actual worst.
Speaking of cancer, my cousin’s double mastectomy went well and they believe they got it all, but she will have to undergo a round of chemo just to be safe. She is a strong and beautiful woman who is already using her story to help other people. I’m kind of in awe of her.
Having to meet your friends’ babies over FaceTime is both an amazing marvel of technology and also somewhat devastating. You cannot get that new baby smell or the feel their little fuzzy bodies through a phone screen. But thank goodness there’s a way for us to actually see each other live. We take it for granted, but if I had been living in Hong Kong even like 15 years ago this would have been impossible.

What I’ve Been Up To

On October 10th, my bestie had her first baby, a truly gorgeous little girl with hair to die for. (Yes, this is a different baby than the one that was born last month). Natalie Loren, you are loved all the way across the world!

45175832_10100225277884988_752631686491013120_n

I’m dead. Completely dead.

On October 14th, we flew to Cebu, Philippines where we stayed for 4 nights in a hotel with the biggest bed I have ever seen. It was literally five Lily-lengths wide. I know because I counted. It was amazing. We had some very chilled beach time and also went out to Kawasan Falls and to the top of Osmeña Peak. It was like being in The Jungle Book.

We stayed for four nights and then flew back to Hong Kong where my lifelong friend Rachel met us the very next day. She had been working in Bangkok and flew up for a few days before heading back to the US. So we spent 3 days playing.

We were blinded

Victoria Peak

10,000 Buddhas Monastery

Coolest afternoon tea at this hidden speakeasy gin bar

Last weekend I had to go to Macau again to activate my new visa, but because Jonathan and I were both tired and didn’t really want to spend the money on another trip to Macau, I went by myself. I rode the ferry over, walked through immigration and into the ferry terminal, then went up the escalator and walked back through immigration the other direction and got on the next ferry back to Hong Kong. The whole thing took a few hours, but I was in Macau all of 10 minutes. The government, man.

So that’s me. I feel like we haven’t chatted in forever. What’s been going on with you guys? Read anything great recently? Or just want to commiserate on the sorry state of the world? Leave a comment or send me a message. I’m still here.

My Country Tis of Thee: On Living in the Land of Giants

We landed in Dallas after a 12-hour flight from Tokyo and stepped foot onto American soil for the first time in a year. I was overwhelmed by how familiar and foreign everything felt at the same time.

In the first gas station we stopped at, Jonathan and I ran up and down the aisles like children, yelling our finds to each other over the shelves. “Did you know that there are Peanut Butter Snickers now?!” “You can get a 32 oz CAN of something! Who ever heard of a 32 oz CAN?! It’s HUGE!”

Driving through my hometown, I was bombarded with new storefronts and neighborhoods that seem to have sprung up like mushrooms over night. Several fast-food chains whose logos have dotted the American landscape for decades have gotten facelifts while we were away and several entirely new chains have sprung up, our ignorance just one more sign of how long we’ve been gone and how far away we’ve been.

Adjusting is not like I expected it would be. In some ways, I’ve assimilated quickly, falling back into comfortable rhythms and familiar interactions I’ve known all my life. But on some subconscious level I also find myself viewing America as an outsider. For the first time, I identify with those who stereotype America as a land of crime and excess where everyone is fat and spoiled. (True story: When I first met one of my Korean coworkers she said to me, ‘When I heard you were American, I thought you would be fat.’)

I find myself shocked by the sheer size of everything. The size of portions and the size of people and the size of my cat who looks like a puffy version of his former self. After years of craving space, now everything feels too big and too loud. I also find that I am more worried about safety here, in my “home,” than I was in Korea. Here I lock my doors and avoid dark parking lots and my eyes are always peeled for suspicious people. Last week I started to panic after standing in line at the bank for 10 minutes, suddenly recalling every bank hostage story I’d ever heard, stealing sideways glances at the other customers, tension rising in my shoulders. In Korea, I ran after dark down city streets and took cabs across town after midnight and never felt uncomfortable.

Then there are things I didn’t realize I’d forgotten, like the way we Americans chat with strangers while they go about their day – maybe this is friendliness or maybe it’s just an inability to handle silence. Last weekend a girl taking my order told me I looked exactly like someone who worked with her husband. She asked me my name and when I told her, “Lily,” she told me all about how she was going to name her daughter that but her best friend had a daughter first and stole her name. She named her daughter Chloe instead.

After two years of minimal interaction with people around me, I find the sheer volume of words required for daily life exhausting. In the evening, when Jonathan comes home from school, I am quiet, having spent my words on cashiers and neighbors in the parking lot and the librarian with the horn-rimmed glasses. He asks if anything is wrong and I say, “No,” only that I’m tired.

I don’t know how to say that I am dazzled by this life we’ve fallen into. Awed by the strangers who have welcomed us in and called us friends, amazed by how beautiful ordinary life can be, and yet constantly, persistently uncomfortable with this life that is so hauntingly familiar and so utterly strange. How do I explain that I spent my day going through the motions of an ordinary American life like an actress playing a role she’s memorized so well it comes to her as easily as breathing?

Settled: Chronic Homesickness and Moving Back After Two Years Abroad

It’s been three weeks since we arrived in America and it feels more like 3 months because of all we’ve crammed into those 21 days.

“Are you all settled in?” people ask.

Am I settled? I’ve unpacked. I’ve decorated. I’ve figured out where the bank is and the grocery store and the closest Chinese takeout place. Is that settled?

“You must be so glad to be home!” they say.

Glad. Yes, I suppose I am. I was glad to see my family and my in-laws. Glad to reconnect with old friends. Glad to have a car and the ability to drive where I want whenever I want to. I’m glad to have more space and glad for an apartment with central air conditioning. I’m glad to be surrounded with our old things and glad to have our cats back in our home. Glad to start making new friends and building a new community. But glad to be Home? I don’t even know what that means.

I crave Home like water. Like air. Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn my head it fades like smoke in the night, leaving only a shadowy outline where it may have been. I’m unsure of its shape, much less its substance.

In Korea I was homesick for my family and for America. In America, I’m homesick for my family and for Korea. I’m comfortable here, and yet, I’m homesick. And who says I can’t be both?

I miss the river and the mountains and the park by our house. I miss life in a city and the energy of downtown and the ease of the subway and how completely safe I always felt in spite of all the people. I miss my friends and I miss the luxury of two full-time incomes and how little we had to worry about paying for groceries or going out to dinner. It takes my breath away, how much I miss it. While in Korea I thought of America as Home and yet I’m realizing that on a subconscious, maybe even visceral level, Korea is Home as well.

Last week I went to Publix, a local grocery chain I’d never been to before. I walked along the aisles of produce and marveled at the abundance, the novelty of such easy access to foods both familiar and foreign. I stopped in front of a cold case of artichokes, green beans, and asparagus. I picked up a bundle of asparagus, felt the weight of it in my hand – succulent green stalks with their knobby purplish heads that I can never look at without thinking of Junior the Asparagus from Veggie Tales. It wasn’t until the man stocking produce asked if I was OK that I realized I was crying.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m OK.” Embarrassed, I put the asparagus back and wandered down another aisle where I was assaulted by an overwhelming 10 varieties of Oreos. I left without buying anything.

Science tells us that adaptation is crucial to survival. We bend and change and mold ourselves into new shapes, learn to breathe the air and drink the water of a new environment. But I can only bend so far and sometimes I think I’ll never quite fit this mold again, although it once fit me like a glove. I feel stretched thin, spread across cities and continents, straddling an ever widening gap between the world I’ve loved for the past few years and the world I’m trying to love now.

I don’t know if Home is here or there or if I will ever stop feeling homesick for some other unnamable place, but I do know this: Who I am and Where I am are not the same thing, but they are connected. Who I am is a work-in-progress. Who I am has been shaped by Louisiana and Chicago and Raleigh and Korea, and now it’s being shaped by Columbia.

Maybe I’ll never truly feel settled, but I will always know where I’ve been and who I am because of those places. Here’s to the next stage of becoming.

52 Weeks of Adventure #33: So Long, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Unbelievably, it came. It came the way Christmas came despite the Grinch’s best efforts at keeping it away. It came like the downward plunge part of the roller coaster, where the build-up seems to last forever as tick-tick-tick your way to the top and then suddenly you are plunging downhill and the whole thing is over in a matter of seconds.

Friday was both our final day in Korea and (because of the time difference) our first day in America. We somehow made it through our long trip back to America with our 4 suitcases full of everything we’ve collected over these years. But before we left, we said good-bye to some of our favorite places and some of our favorite people.

We went to Busan, our favorite Korean city, and said good-bye to the water, and the skyline, and the beach, covered in fully-clothed Koreans hiding under umbrellas.

We ate our last bingsu and our last bulgogi and mandu and (mercifully) our last kimchi.

We went to the noraebang (like a private karaoke room) for the last time and I bellowed out a painful rendition of Colors of the Wind while my friend Josh performed an interpretive dance.

We sold, donated, or threw out all of our things. And we said goodbye to the friends we’ve made who will now be scattered all over the wide world, to Canada and India and South Africa, and good old Kansas, USA.

We said good-bye to our steaming hot apartment, our twin-sized bed, and our wallpaper with silvery butterflies.

We said goodbye to the cutest children and the pushiest elderly people in the world.

We said good-bye to city living, to daily cultural misunderstandings, to the background noise of screeching buses and old people spitting in the street and unintelligible Korean chatter.

We said goodbye to our home.

And then.

We said Hello.

My amazing family!!!!

With my grandparents at their regular breakfast joint.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about my final days of teaching and my English summer camp, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Top 10 Things I Won’t Miss About Korea ( and Taking a Break)

Yesterday I wrote about the Top 10 Things I’ll Miss About Korea. That post made me a little sad because it made me remember all of the things I love that are soon to be gone. Today I decided to do a companion post that might help me feel a little better about leaving. Here are the Top 10 Things I Won’t Miss About Korea.

Spitting. The man who lives upstairs from us spends a solid 30 seconds – 1 minute every single morning making horrible retching noises followed by enormous spits. It’s the soundtrack of my morning. Of course, different cultures have different standards for what is polite or rude. Some of the biggest differences between Korean culture and American culture (and generally Western Culture, I think) are these standards for politeness. Koreans, young and old, dainty and gnarly, spit with abandon anywhere and everywhere they want to. First they will hock up a huge loogie, by making retching and gagging noises in the back of their throats and then they will spit phlegm wherever they please and should that be where you are standing, they will not even look sorry.
Shoving. It is very rare for Koreans to wait in line. When a bus or subway arrives, rather than waiting for the crowd of people exiting, they will all stampede the door, pushing, shoving, and throwing elbows to get themselves inside before anyone else. The elderly people are especially good at this and will intentionally elbow you or shove you out of the way if they think you are going to take their seat. I’ve literally seen old ladies throw an elbow, run to a seat, and then cackle in your face when they get there before you.
Trash and Trash Smell. The residential streets smell like trash and rotting food all the time because there aren’t dumpsters or trash cans. Instead people set out bags of garbage or small pots with food waste (because all food waste gets composted). These are picked up seemingly at random, so you may put out a bag of trash that doesn’t get picked up for several days. Imagine a whole street with pots full of decomposing food sitting in 100 degree heat for several days and you can imagine the smell I’m talking about.
Can you imagine this on every city street in America?
Korean Work Culture/Emphasis on Appearance. Emphasis on appearances isn’t unique to Korea, but the importance of things looking good over actually being good is more pronounced in the Korean work environment than anywhere else I’ve seen it. To give one example – teachers in Korea often have to do open classes where the principal, parents, and other teachers can observe. These open classes are nothing like ordinary classes. They are scripted out, sometimes even practiced with the students beforehand. One of my friends said her Korean Coteacher actually drew out blocking for them during the class showing where she had to stand when. Much of Korean work culture is about elaborate performances to make sure things look good with very little emphasis placed on real results. In addition, seniority is valued above all else. If the principal decides to do something, no one can question them or make an alternate suggestion, even if it’s a bad idea. You always do what the authority says. This leads to a lot of abuse of power and also to really bad teachers (cough, my CoT, cough, cough) being virtually un-fireable after they reach a certain level of seniority because nobody under them can complain about them. Appearances also matter tremendously in hiring. For most jobs you have to submit a picture of yourself with your application. It is standard practice for these photos to be so heavily edited that they don’t resemble the applicant at all.And of course, there is the prevalence of plastic surgery here which is so commonplace that the #1 high school graduation gift for teenage girls to receive from their parents is double eyelid surgery.
Stereotyping/Racism. I’m not even the slightest bit going to suggest that Korea has a larger problem with race than America does. America has serious racism problems. The thing that is more unique to Korea is the cultivated ignorance of the outside world, the fundamental teachings of “us” vs. “them” and the acceptance of speaking negatively about other people’s race or ethnicity. Korea’s population is 98% Korean. Anyone who is not Korean is simply referred to as “waygook” or “foreigner.” I constantly hear teachers and other adults tell children things like, “Foreigners are picky.” and “Foreigners don’t like spicy food.” When I show pictures of black people in lessons, students either say, “Oh, Obama!” regardless of who it is, or they say something along the lines of, ‘Teacher, he’s like monkey!” No, I’m not kidding. There are no real enforced laws against discrimination. A few months ago Korea made international news when a school refused to hire an Irish woman because she was Irish. They sent her a letter that said, “We cannot hire you do to the alcoholic nature of your kind.” Which is shocking on its own, but is ten times more ridiculous if you know anything about Korean drinking culture in which it is standard for businessmen to be passed out drunk together on weeknights. During last year’s ebola outbreak, a bar in Seoul put up a sign that said, “Due to ebola, no Africans are allowed here.” As though you could contract ebola just from being African. All of these things can be frustrating and disheartening as I have seen them being passed onto the next generation.
Lack of Air Conditioning/Heating. This probably makes me sound like a brat, but it baffles me that Korean schools get away with not using the heat and air conditioning when the school is full of children. The purpose of this is to conserve energy, but it is wickedly hot here and this seems like cruel and unusual punishment for all of us. My school didn’t start using the air conditioning until the end of July, even though temps had been in the 80s and 90s for two months. Nothing better than super sweaty 6^th graders in a stuffy room with no air circulation. The same goes for the winter when I wore my coat, scarf, and gloves all day long.
Being Stared at ALL THE TIME. I know, I know, you’ve never seen anyone with such a “tall nose” and you think my eye color has to be contact lenses. But it’s weird when we are making direct eye contact and you are still staring unabashedly.
Being Fat Even When You’re Not. I am an average – small sized woman in America. I am 5’3” tall and I wear an American size 4 (when it’s not holiday season). In Korea, I am an XL. Sometimes the salesperson will just look at me, shake her head and say, “Too big. No fit,” and not even let me try it on. This is mostly because Asian people are generally very petite with slim hips and straight legs, so although I’m not that big, I’m built very differently to most Koreans. Even knowing the reasons behind it, I’m still a woman and it’s still disheartening when I can’t squeeze myself into XL pants
Street Cats. Dogs are popular pets in Korea, but cats not so much. There are feral street cats everywhere. As a cat owner, it breaks my heart to see these nasty, mangy cats all over the place, but the worst is the kittens. Just Sunday on our way home from Busan a little black kitten that couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old came out from under a car and rubbed against my ankles and tried to climb up my leg. It was starved for food and attention and so, so tiny. We brought it a little bit of food but unfortunately there wasn’t much we could do for it besides hope that it found its mother or someone took it in.
Korean “Modesty.” So this one sounds worse than it is. It’s not that I have a burning passion to wear scandalous clothes. The issue is that what’s considered modest in Korea vs. the West is very different and sometimes very inconvenient. Basically, chests are immodest. Never ever should anything below a woman’s collar bone show. Arms are also pretty sketchy, so sleeveless tops and dresses (even if they come up to the collar bone) are frowned upon. It’s OK if you wear a mini skirt to work or if your shorts are so short that your butt hangs out a little. Just keep your chest covered. Probably best to just wear turtlenecks always. This doesn’t matter much in the winter, but when it’s 100 degrees and there’s no air conditioning and you have to wear sleeves and something up to your neck, things can get a bit toasty.
Cartoon by Luke Martin

After making this list I’m feeling slightly better about leaving in two days. I’ll be taking a blogging break while we move and transition to our new life. I will still be trying to upload my weekly adventures since I’ve already made it this far, but otherwise you probably won’t hear from me until September. Thanks so much for all of your encouragement and well wishes. Can’t wait to share life as an ex-expat (just a pat? a re-pat?) with all of you!

Top 10 Things I’ll Miss About Korea

Well, friends, we are down to just three days left in Korea. Three. Days. In honor of our time here I thought I’d make a Top 10 list of things I’ll miss about Korea. Of course, I’ll miss more than this – I’ll miss my cute students and random people telling me I’m beautiful all the time, and maybe even (occasionally) CoT, but this is my top 10 list of things I really enjoy about Korea.

Mountains everywhere you look. I grew up in Louisiana which is so flat that parts of it are actually below sea level. Then I spent 5 years in the Chicago area – also completely flat. When we moved to Raleigh in 2011 I was delighted by the slight roll the land, but it’s nothing compared with the legitimate mountains that surround Daegu completely and are present anywhere you go in Korea. They’re not Rocky Mountains or Himalayas, but they are still little bits of beauty poking over the city rooftops and I love them.
Excellent Public Transportation. While I sometimes miss the directness of hopping in my car and going exactly where I want to go, I have to admit that buses and subways in Korea are cheap, easy to use, and go anywhere you want if you can stick with it through the lurching, sometimes crowded bus rides. Taxis are also abundant and very cheap making life without a car completely doable. It takes longer to get where you’re going without a car, but I enjoy not having to deal with traffic or pay for car insurance and maintenance.
Photo Credit: http://thegrandnarrative.com
Skincare and Makeup. Korea is famous for their advanced skin care and makeup products. I’ve become something of a makeup junkie in the last year and have enjoyed trying out lots of Korean products which are generally very affordable. Additionally, my skin is probably the best it has been in my entire life over the past few months so I’m really trying to squeeze backups of my favorite skin care products into our suitcase to take back with me!
Cheap Healthcare. I’ve had mixed experiences with the quality of healthcare in Korea, mainly just the running of unnecessary tests and tendency to over-medicate, but I can’t complain about how incredibly cheap it is (Average doctor’s visit is $3 – $4. Average prescription $4 – $5). I went to the dentist for a cleaning – $14. I went back to have a small cavity filled and while the price for this was comparable to what it would be in the states, it was 15 minutes between the time I walked in and the time I left. Of course, Korea is quite bad about things like basic hygiene which is why I was forced to share an ear thermometer with all the teachers at my school during the MERS outbreak when we had to record our temperature every day. As I predicted to my CoTeacher, this resulted in me getting an ear infection. But, again, the good news is that even though I had to go to the dr every day for a week to have it cleaned out, it only cost me about $15 or $20 total.
Mandu, Bulgogi, Galbi, Tofu Jigae. These are some of my favorite Korean foods. While I don’t like all Korean foods, the ones I like, I REALLY like and I know I’ll miss them. It may take a while, but I will miss them eventually.

mandu

bulgogi

galbi with banchan

jigae
Norebang.The word “norebang” is Korean for “song room” and these are basically like private karaoke rooms. These are wildly popular as an activity to do with your friends or with your business colleagues after a night of hard drinking (also popular). I sing constantly, but I have no talent for it. Nevertheless, I love those dark rooms with the disco lights and that mike in my hands.
Couples Outfits. Sadly, I never got Jonathan to join in this popular trend of Korean couples dressing in matching clothing. I did manage to get us a set of couples underwear last Christmas and while I can’t get Jonathan to wear them, it makes me happy that we have them!
Photo credit: http://fashionmagazine.com
Feeling Safe Always. Korea is a very safe country with very low rates of violent crime. I have never once felt threatened to walk home late at night in our dimly lit streets or even to go running alone after dark. While I get a lot of attention here for my blond hair and blue eyes, and the staring can be annoying, I’ve never felt threatened by it in the way that I have often felt threatened by (particularly male) attention in America. I’ve never worried about locking anything here or leaving my laptop on the table in the coffee shop while I go pick up my order. During my years in Korea the safety in my own country has decreased dramatically and I am not looking forward to going back to that constant awareness of myself and who is around me and whether my car door is locked and whether that package looks suspicious.
Service! Service is basically when a store or restaurant gives you free things to thank you for coming. It’s the best and it’s very, very common. Free drinks or desserts at restaurants (or occasionally an appetizer), free samples at beauty stores (and not like one or two foil packets, like whole free bottles of things, sheet masks, makeup samples, etc), or even super random things like socks or instant coffee.
All the free stuff!
Friends, Korean and Foreign. We’ve made some good friends during our time here, both Koreans and other native teachers like us. It’s strange to leave somewhere and really not know for sure if or when you’ll see these people again. We are so thankful for the friendships we’ve made here and I really do hope to stay in touch with many of the friends we’ve made and to see some of them again someday, in America, in Korea, or somewhere else in the world.

May

Su Yeon

Josh, Laura, and Genevieve