A whole month of events and thoughts have accumulated since last I blogged, and now the task of articulating it all seems overwhelming.

First off, several of my feelings and perceptions have changed since I came back to Korea. One, I have slightly more flexibility, tolerance, appreciation, and acceptance of cultural differences and peculiarities. I can usually sit through the Wednesday night Bible study and then leave calmly at the end, not rushing out the door with a cry of freedom on my lips or drinking Cokes and eating choco-pies to reward myself. And I’ve noticed that I haven’t sulked in front of the bathroom mirror lately, bitterly complaining to myself about people who neglected to tell me important information or schedule changes. I feel more ownership of my experience this year, and less room to complain. After all, I chose to come back! For all these changes, I am grateful, but there are others that are just a little strange.

I haven’t gone out to sit in nature for a while… since maybe spring? maybe this time last year? Being in restful solitude in nature just no longer appeals to me like it used to. Now it seems less like rejuvenation and more like isolation. I remember when I was talking to my Korean adviser last year, describing the various activities that I was enjoying. He mentioned concern that I must feel lonely being by myself here. I assured him that though I was often alone, I was not often lonely. He told me he saw no difference between “alone” and “lonely;” to him, the two were equivalent. These days, I’m starting to empathize more with his perspective. Maybe this “community” thing is messing with my head. :)

I’m reading a book called /The Geography of Thought/, which details some of the fundamental differences in thought between Asians and Westerners. As you might expect, East Asians tend to see events in a much broader context than do Westerners, who normally zone in on just the event and not all the factors that could be connected to it. Something that bothered me when I went home this summer was that I realized a stark difference between my Korean and American “selves”. What I mean is, I behave, think, and feel quite differently in Korea than I do in the U.S. It especially bugged me that when I went home, my spirituality changed shapes. I reflected on that with Karen when I came back, and she suggested that it’s natural for a person’s spirit to need different things and react differently in different situations, and that it’s normal for us to revert to a less mature version of ourselves when we go back home because our feet naturally search for the old pair of shoes we left at the back door. I appreciated her encouragement, but it still bothered me that I wasn’t consistent across vastly different circumstances. Was I not being real? Which self was genuine and which was a sham? This book I’m reading has essentially confirmed what Karen encouraged me to see before, but it’s added an important component, namely that my longing for consistency across various contexts is Western by nature and not a universal ideal or ambition. In fact, many thoughts that I’ve assumed were human in nature are actually just Western. Asians have long believed that a person’s identity is dependent on context, and that when the context changes, even slightly, then the person changes. And many Asian languages reflect this philosophy, as it’s common for the words “I” and “you” to change depending upon whom one is talking to. I find this notion of natural identity shifting to be reasonable, satisfying, and freeing. Not that I want to condone wishy-washiness, but it just makes sense that our surroundings affect us.

Well, let me tell you what I’ve been up to these days. Despite my low confidence in my ability to learn Korean, I’ve been getting back into languages lately. I ordered the Spanish edition of /Tuesdays with Morrie/, which I’m having fun reading, and a few of my high school students want to learn French, so I’ve become their tutor. Last weekend I bought an Easy French Reader as well as a French dictionary, all the while asking myself, “What are you doing buying French books in Korea?!?” When I found myself lying on my bed grinning after an afternoon of studying Korean, Spanish, and French, I had my answer. Some things you do just because you’re made to do them. Ah, speaking of which, I’ve got a Portuguese dictionary on my shelf and a plane ticket to Mozambique! I’m going to visit there for 3 weeks in January, staying at the mission center I wrote about in a previous entry. I’m pretty excited!!

I’ve also made a couple excursions since coming back to Korea. I visited the House of Sharing, which is where a handful of former sex slaves from the era of Japanese colonization live together and educate the public on this sad period of Korean history. When the Japanese were in the prime of their imperial quest in the early-to-mid 1900s, they forced many Korean women and teenage girls to keep their Japanese soldiers “comfortable,” trafficking them all over Southeast Asia wherever the Japanese army had a presence. Thus, the women were nicknamed “comfort women,” a euphemism that is now considered politically incorrect, as it undermines the brutal and terribly inhumane nature of their work and suffering. They now wish to be called simply ‘harmoni,’ the Korean word for ‘grandma.’ Since the early 1990s, the relatively few harmoni who have gone public with their abuse have protested EVERY WEDNESDAY WITHOUT FAIL at the Japanese embassy in Seoul, demanding that the government apologize for sanctioning said sex slavery during its colonial rule. Japan’s government refuses to acknowledge or make restitution for the scandal, and so the harmoni continue to demonstrate. What’s even sadder in my opinion, is that Koreans themselves don’t support the women. As many foreigners—especially Japanese—visit the House of Sharing and related museum every year as do Koreans. And the neighbors who live next to the House have been known to throw rocks at the harmoni, calling them liars and prostitutes. To visit the House and learn the women’s stories was to feel great anguish for the ugly cruelties they endured, to feel inspired by their resilience and courage, and to feel more than anything, an immeasurable longing for peace and forgiveness. The bitterness still felt so heavy and alive there, and I just wished more than anything that Jesus would take it away and make their hearts light and joyful for whatever days they have left.

On a happier note, I’ve been able to enjoy some hiking in this beautiful fall weather. And last Friday was Karen’s birthday so Juhee and I got together with her in Seoul from Friday to Saturday. We had a great time catching up on life, eating Mexican food, and making up our own mini-orchestra with friends from Karen’s workplace and a variety of instruments.

Well, I need to wrap this up and hit the books again. Thanks for all your prayers, emails, Facebook messages, letters, etc. I enjoy hearing from you, and I rely heavily on your prayers. Hope you have a great October. Take care till next time!