I spent three years in Daegu city, a super conservative city in the interior of Korea which boasted it's views of the surrounding mountains, and the tastiness of it's apples, but soon after I landed I nicknamed it 'The Armpit of Korea". It stank. It smelled of a mixture of kimchi, smog, pollution, sweat and puke. Unemployment and living with my mom suddenly seemed like a better option.
Okay, so in retrospect, I might have been in a bit of a hurry to get away and didn't choose the best place to go, but at the time, when everything seemed so unstable, I had an 'in" with a Korean friend who assured me a "real" teaching position in a "real" school which wasn't about to go bankrupt two days after I arrived. And thus, my first experience living abroad started. But why this little walk down memory lane back to Korea?
I am finding myself moving abroad again, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This time, for my husband's work, to be closer to the other half of my family and for the kid to learn Portuguese. I've been reading a lot of blogs written by women, some of them moms, who lived or live in Brazil and I guess I'm not entirely surprised by what they are going through. A lot of their experiences and observations are very similar to what I went though while living in Korea. Some of the similar challenges include:
1. Friendships: Making friends that feel like "real" friends is always a challenge especially if you are in a place for a short period of time. Daegu city was home to three foreigners. Me, my colleague who was socially awkward and was there to spread the "word", and another guy who admitted to being there just to attend cheap baseball games and cruise for Korean women. There was one interesting Korean girl from L.A. who didn't speak Korean, and was there to rediscover her roots, but she got fired soon after I got there because she was caught smoking in front of the school. Smoking in public if you are a Korean woman is a huge social no no and as my Korean colleagues explained, others can't tell by looking at her that she from L.A. and doesn't speak Korean.
For reasons such as this, making friends with Koreans wasn't easier. I was never sure if they were hanging out with me because of me or because it was a way to practice their English, to gossip to their classmates or to boast that they had a foreign friend. Mom bloggers in Brazil mention that it's easier to make Brazilian friends when they have a kid because Brazilians are super-kid friendly, so that's a plus for me, but they also complain that it takes a significant amount of time to become fluent enough to have meaningful conversation. One blogger admits that often finds herself physically flinging herself at people across bars or running across busy intersections when she thinks she has overheard the sweet sound of English. Which brings me to the second challenge.
2. Language: My Portuguese is much better than my Korean ever was given that I speak French already, so I'm happy about that, but I know that I still have a long way to go. While in Daegu, I learned to practice what I call "social meditation", which consists of sitting for long, long, long periods of time cross-legged in noisy, smoky restaurants with crowds of drunken Koreans, not understanding a word being spoken, and pretending to be having a good time.
"We will go to sing Karaoke at the no-rae-bang (singing room), teacher, you will come with us?"
(Oh, please, can I? Can I please hear a drunken but seriously rendered version of "My Heart Will Go On" one more f*&$#ing time? Please? With reveb, please?)
-Insert happy meditation pose here-
3. Food: Both Korean and Brazilian food is meat and rice happy and delicious, but foreigners in each country don't seem to miss their own food, but that of other countries. While in Korea, I took 2 trains, a subway, a taxi and walked through a sketchy public market to find the only Indian restaurant in the entire country. That was the only non-Korean food restaurant I ever found if you don't count the one "foreigners breakfast joint" in Itaewon, Seoul's 'foreigner district', where they served toast, eggs and hash-browns.
As for Brazil, it seems foreigners, especially Americans are on a constant quest of "authentic" Mexican food, especially tortillas. That and chocolate chips. But at least, unlike Korea, Brazil does have a much more varied ethnic population and it's not difficult to find fresh sushi, Lebanese delicacies, and cheese fondue, a popular dish should the temperature dip below 25c.
4. Culture Differences: Most cultural differences are obvious and others are more subtle and take time to appreciate but all of them make the experience of living abroad enriching and memorable. Enriching and memorable doesn't mean that you don't have the right to explode in exasperation and frustration, bawling your eyes out, snot and tears running down your face and calling out for your mommy while the waiter passes by, shaking his head as if your crazy behavior just proved that yup, foreigners are weird.
When I think back on my 3 years in Korea, I think I stayed in the Armpit for too long. I should have left that day I exploded in the restaurant and called it quits. Because of this, my memories of my time there are like kimchi; at first, pretty nasty, but once the taste acquired, totally delicious. So, as I pack for my new adventure, I am reminding myself, that sure, adaptation is a process and homesickness is inevitable at times no matter where you go, but that Brazil has a million of it's own special wonders to show me, and it's up to me to stay open and positive to accept them.
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| I like this funny photo I caught in Cabo Frio, Brazil. |
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