Becoming established

So, I am now more than a full week into my third month here in Seoul, and am feeling less and less like a tourist, and more like a resident. Granted, I still can't read a lot (although my grasp on the alphabet IS increasing, as is my vocabulary) and I tend to want to stay in places I am familiar with, if I am going to be by myself, but I think the "lost little American" look has finally left my face. I am practically innured to the stares, and I am shocked when I see another westerner, or overhear spoken English. The transition is finally hitting me, and I have found it to be an incredibly interesting alteration of perspective.

Where I was completely exstatic about everything Korean when I first got here, like the food, the fashion, the city layout, I now recognize and acknowledge the aspects that are less than desirable, such as trash, stray animals, and an overwhelming vanity. Where I was all set to completely immerse myself in Korean culture, like straight black coffee, I am now more likely to ask for just a little western "sweetener." I am starting to seperate the "propoganda" from the reality, and to see past the shiny polish that everything was covered in when I first arrived. And these changes in understanding accompany, indeed aid in the development, of an ever deepening love for this strange and unique country.

The mindset of the people here is one so different to Americans. For the most part, working for 10 hours a day is an accepted, unwritten standard, and being sick truly is not an option. When it comes to work, these people are dedicated, driven, and industrious. A huge portion of the population holds Master's Degrees; indeed, an MA/MBA is looked upon basically the same way a Bachelor's Degree is looked at back home. But the people also play very hard. It is no longer so shocking to see a 60 year old man puking his guts out in the gutter while his friends look on and laugh (I am convinced that the only thing keeping this country from having an alchoholism rate of 100% is the fact that they don't acknoledge alcoholism).

However, the constant rush and bustle, and ant-like industriousness of so many people has still not intruded upon my own sense of time. You know how at the end of "Queen of the Damned," Lestat and the girl walk away down the street, and the people blur into streams of light around them, and yet they seem completely unconcerned? Yeah, that is how I see myself when I am walking with Koreans...I am in slow motion, and they are just little darting beams of light. It makes every journey interesting. *For those of you who want to be contrary and miss the entire point of this comparison, I know that Lestat and the girl are actually the ones moving quickly...I reversed the image for my own purposes...thanks for dealing with it!*

Also, I am starting to have a greater respect for the feminine here. For a culture that is quite obviously patriarchal, there is an incredible respect and awe for all things feminine. Something that we seem to have lost in America. Women here still fight for equality in the work place from what I understand (although they are farther ahead in the political arena than in America, as the leading opposition party is headed by a woman), but you would not know it to look out at the street. Women are gentle creatures, full of laughter and beauty, that are tended with great care and pride. Perhaps that is the love Western men have for Asian women, that they are not hardened like so many American women have become. Women here wear dresses and heels, and they do their make-up and hair, and they are dainty and sweet; I know every feminist that reads this will hate me, but perhaps embracing the feminine is just as powerful as rejecting it...we are the more beautiful of the two sexes, so should it be lessening ourselves to cultivate that aspect? Also, it seems to help the female to female relationships...there is not the constant back-stabbing and competition that drowns so many women back home. And men here admire that softness...it is not even questioned that a man will open doors, hold umbrellas, offer a hand when a woman is exiting a car, or carry her bag if it gets too heavy. I can not even imagine any of the guys I have dated ever offering to do something similar, but then, being immersed in the sense of the feminist as I was, I always made it prefectly clear that I could do for myself. But these women here can do for themselves, they just gain joy from letting their men do for them...I don't think that is so terrible. And in return, they respect their men, and, to the outside world, seem to cleve to the men's wishes (however, what little I have seen makes me question how far into the home this "submissiveness" goes). So there is a perspective that has changed in me.

Anyways, what I am saying is that I no longer sense the alterations in me. The changes are not noticable. So where once the changes in my perspective were like that of losing a limb or gaining a super-power, now they are like getting a tan, or growing longer hair. They are slow, and intregal, and are more powerful, I think, because I do not notice them so quickly. I just looked up one day and realized that I no longer felt as I had. The alteration of my self is...exciting. I am becoming a new me.