Reentry
Reentry A Personal Guide on Condensing a Year into a Sound Bite Hey you [that is, me]– You know that knot of anxiety that forms in the pit of your stomach every time you return from an adventure? Those first few months of college, where you pushed boundaries and explored your independence; the weeks abroad spent running through and memorizing every twist and turn of your new neighborhood; the first real job you ever held, with a desk and a computer and a new wardrobe and actual responsibilities–their terminus is greeted with the inevitable “How was it?” Although expected and seemingly harmless, this question pulls the strings around the anxiety knot a little tighter. It’s like you’ve been asked to distill thousands of moments, smells, interactions, laughs, and tears–your humanhood for a span of time–into a digestible soundbite. Reclaim this expectation. Reentry–the return home and The Question that goes with it–should be bolstered by emotions preemptively chewed. Imagine the conversations you’ll have, explore your emotions now, parse out the subtext you want to share from a year of introspection, excitement, hardship, and curiosity. This is your personal pocket book. These are your experiences, your story. Deflate the impending melancholy by answering The Question like this: To your mother: Tell her about the food—the pervasive aroma of kimchi, the novelty of cooking samgyeopsal [1. Grilled pork belly ], the strange way samgyetang[2. Soup with a whole chicken stuffed with rice, ginseng, jujube, and other spices] reminded you of home. Describe cooking with your host family, rolling up ddeok [3. Traditional Korean rice cakes] for the holidays and making pajeon[4. Pancake-like dish made from eggs, flour, and onions; can include meat or seafood] on the weekends. Wax on about chimek[5. Chicken and beer] Friday nights. Wipe the drool from the corner of your mouth and reassure her. Nobody can ever touch her cooking. Your host mom’s 14-dish spreads were gre–okay, but nothing compares to your mom’s lasagna. The 10 extra pounds you’re packing are definitely a byproduct of desk warming hours, not your nightly hotteok[6. Fried dough pancake filled with sugar syrup] stand pit stops. To your interviewer: Deliver the speech you started concocting during the long walks to and from school before you learned to navigate by bus. Try to capture the unrehearsed air you actually rehearsed in March. You matured in this foreign land; personally, professionally. The skills you picked up living in another country will stay with you for the rest of your life–and just so happen to make you an invaluable asset to the corporate team. Korea fostered your entrepreneurial spirit—after all, you founded an after school soccer club so you could hang out with the cool kids from class 2-8. You mastered the art of spontaneous innovation—planning lessons on scratch paper during the seven minutes you designated as “quiet journal time” because fussing with the temperamental school computer meant losing face. Who else could provide the team with the same tenacity, perseverance, EQ, self-reliance, and cross-cultural perspective that you, a U.S. Fulbright Grantee, would bring to the table? To your best friend: Try to explain falling in love, wholly unexpectedly, abroad. Let your story spill out from you. Offer too many details. Relish in the retelling of too many anecdotes in an attempt to make your friend understand the deep impact of the relationship on your life. Tell them this love transformed your year and became the best thing about it. Reassure them (yourself, too) that it was meant to be – not borne of circumstance. Catch yourself. With their pursed lips and wringing hands, you can tell they are thinking they’ve been replaced. You’ve neglected to express proper remorse at the yearlong BFF separation. Try to salvage the conversation. Harp on the things that used to connect you together, immediately and effortlessly. Thirty minutes later, hug goodbye and leave a half cup of cold coffee on the table. As you walk to your respective corners of the parking lot, reflect on how far apart two people can grow in a year, separate vines on a Y-shaped trellis. On Facebook: Write that it was the best and worst year of your life – but you wouldn’t trade it for the world. Post some pictures. This doesn’t actually mean anything, but it’ll get you an above average number of likes, with the added bonus of excited exclamations at your homecoming from people you haven’t spoken to since you left. You get a pass on clichés. Try to find temporary value in the internet karma. To your college professors: Show them the research paper you wrote. Attribute your success in Korea to their help and guidance. Give them the bottle of soju (just for fun) and fancy rice wine (trade for the recommendation letter you will ask for). Delve into flowery, cursory observations of Korea. Use big words. Slip in a few Korean words that “there’s simply no translation for”—nunchi, jeong. Pronounce your judgments on the education system, the advantages and the shortcomings. Talk about the first week of school, how a student stood up in class and ran out the school gates crying. How you got more sleep in one night than some students got in three. How you anonymously surveyed the students, asked them if they were generally happy, and 46 percent said they wanted to commit suicide. Pause. Discuss Korea’s perception of itself, relationship with the world economy, with neighboring countries North Korea and Japan. Analyze gender, nepotism, beauty standards. Agree to give a guest lecture for your professor’s intro class sometime, a sometime that will become a nevermind because you have no time. To the scowling taxi driver: “But in South Korea, nobody tips.” To your father: Say “It’s good to be back, too.” Look him in the eye and place your hand over his as he holds your shoulder – but wait. For now, keep it light. Take him to dinner and regale him with tales of your soju-soaked hweshiks[7. Company dinners] and noraebang[8. Karaoke
Photos: Volume 9.2
[slideshow_deploy id=’4896′]
Homerun Homestay
Uiseong, South Korea- September 2015 My host dad told me early about his love of baseball, and demonstrated it one night as he inhaled dinner and bounded back to the television to watch Korea beat the United States. The first week into my homestay, he also told me that his nephew had recently signed a contract with one of Korea’s professional teams, the LG Twins. Prior to joining this team, he had also played for the national team, and before that, Yonsei University. I’ve never cared much for baseball, my heart lies on the volleyball court and in the hammer-throwing circle, but even so I could tell that my host dad’s nephew had a pretty impressive resume. So, as the Chuseok holiday approached, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would be able to meet the all-star. ——— “Oy!” I turned from watching my host dad chase down a missed baseball behind me to see his nephew waiting to send the next one my way. He had not learned my name yet. In fact, he really had not said much at all to me since we met the day before. I thought maybe he was just shy and intimidated by English. Or was it that a big time athlete couldn’t care less that I existed? Regardless, I refocused my attention and watched through the blinding afternoon sun as he tossed the ball and connected with a loud “CRACK!” The ball zipped and bounced across the ground like all of the other balls he hit towards me. It was meant to be a softer hit, a “manner” hit as a Korean might call it, and a hit that paled in comparison to what he was truly capable of. To me, though, every hit of his was challenging for my awkward baseball skills. Prior to that weekend, I had not touched a baseball since the sixth grade, when a poorly calculated swing left me with a purple knuckle. Nevertheless, I played on, thankful that I had been included in the family fun rather than sitting in the house. ——— “Becky, what do you think of my nephew?” My host dad broke through the silence after breakfast as we all sat together on the floor. He was waving Vanna-White-style in the direction of the baseball player, who sat at his side, looking quietly down at his hands out of shy embarrassment. Undeterred by the silence of his nephew, my host dad moved on in an attempt to sling arrows like cupid: “He is one year younger!” Hoeun had come just the day before, flanked by his equally tall, handsome, and athletically built brother who was just one year younger than him; there was no doubt they had caught my attention. Both brothers loved sports, were sons of a farmer, single, and about the same age as I was… As my host dad looked on with eager eyes, I could feel my face burning red while I tried to think fast. Hoeun seemed nice, but I didn’t think I was interested in dating him. Still, I needed an answer. A quick answer. An answer that wouldn’t hurt feelings. An honest answer? What was the answer he was hoping for? “He’s…handsome” I finally replied. Thankfully, my awkward answer was quickly forgotten in a sudden commotion, as the wives hurried to move everyone out the door for grave visits. ——— While Hoeun remained shy most of the morning, not muttering much more to me than “be careful” as I stumbled over a fallen tree, his brother, Hogang, chatted excitedly with me as we made our way up a mountain to clean the grave of their great-grandmother. “Do you like sports?” Hogang was smiling cheerfully as he walked, unfazed by the weight of the weedwacker engine and gas tank strapped to his back, even as we ascended upward. Like his brother, he loved baseball, and took an interest in other sports as well. He also told me that he would be starting his two year military service in February; he was currently in the ROTC and so would later serve as an officer. After clearing the area around the grave, we all sat together resting under the shade of a tree while passing around a large Sam-da-soo water bottle. My host dad’s older brother decided to use the break to ask me about my relationship status. “Becky…you…boyfriend?” After answering that I did not have one, he proceeded to gauge my interest in his son; this time the younger one, who now sat resting just a foot or so in front of me. “How about Hogang? He is strong. He is farm-boy. Hogang you like? Hogang you want!?” Before I could answer, his younger son whipped around and grinned in amusement as he offered up a flexed bicep: “Touch!” He then extended a fist to bump in approval of my response to his father’s question, with which I had answered simply: “He’s a nice guy.” Uiseong, South Korea- February 2016 “Best team!” Hoeun gave a thumbs-up in approval as my friend, Margaret, and I stuffed newspapers into a foam board. We were working much faster than my homestay parents, which kept Hoeun busy as he carried them to the other side of the greenhouse. It was the Seollal holiday weekend, and my homestay uncles were taking full advantage of additional labor to help with work on their farm. “Margaret…boyfriend?” My host dad had noticed his nephew’s sudden friendliness, and as my friend shook her head “no” I could see him gearing up for his usual cupid routine. I suppose he had given up on me after he and his brother failed at their second attempt in December, and was ready to pursue a fresh, new target. “How about my nephew? No girlfriend!” Hoeun, who usually feigned ignorance whenever my host dad started the conversation, retorted this time with “있어요”[1. Issoyo, I have one] and a clever smirk as he exited the greenhouse in search of something to