The Big Picture

By most accounts, today was a rather ordinary day.

School went well, as most school days do. Hae Kyung has proven to be a significant reason for my adaptation. An elementary school teacher for nine years, this is her first year co-teaching English, and she was noticeably apprehensive during our first meeting and first class a few days later. You can forgive her the fear; I was worried, too. You hear horror stories: either the co-teacher teaches the entire class and you just stand there occasionally sounding out words in English, you conduct the entire class while the co-teacher sits in the back doing crossword puzzles, or you find a balance between the give and take of two personalities born to completely different ways of thinking.

I have thankfully been given the middle road. I am a centrist in most things. I look to the middle road and try to see both sides, veering this way or that depending on a few key topics. Some foreign teachers prefer everything be done by them, others would rather be the English monkey. I wanted to take the lead on occasion, but I don't want to be the only one out there with 25 pairs of Korean eyes on him.

We plan lessons together, usually in the afternoon before the end of the work day but after classes have finished. And, we talk: not just about the work, but actually talk. Korea is known to basically ignore the possibility of any homosexuality in its country. It doesn't exist. If it does, it's definitely not approved of. One day, Hae Kyung spoke of the four months she was in California for a teacher training last year, and how one of her teachers was lesbian. To the west, this would not be cause for alert, but in Korea it certainly is. Hae Kyung noted how the woman had "a great mind, and great ideas. She was a very good teacher." And that was it. Not a very good teacher "for an evil westerner." Times are changing; there's even a lesbian bar in Seomyeon, or somewhere in Busan. But, men are not allowed for fear of some women being "outed" and having retaliation. Times are changing, but they are not quite there yet.

Hae Kyung is a very classy woman. Not in the "has to have the finest, latest, coolest" whatever, classy in the very simplest sense. She does not drink much, she does not espouse her ideals, she does not cowtow but is still shy enough to be polite. She is modest about her English skills but, over time, has continued to open up more and more, and our conversations have continued to grow more and more fluid. She is one of the reasons I have been able to adapt to Korea.

Another reason is knowing when to lead and when to follow. It's Saint Patrick's Day on a school night. I am broke. I am tired. I am cranky and miserable if I don't get enough sleep. I know all this and yet, in 2005, I know I would have gone out with some of my new friends for a Guinness at the "only Irish pub in Busan" to just be with other English-speaking folk. To socialize. To remind them I am here and I am fun, fun, fun! But, I didn't, because I am looking at the big picture. I am going out this weekend and will see pretty much everyone I would have seen tonight. I am having dinner and meditating with some kindred spirits, the Dobbins, tomorrow night at their apartment. So, it's obvious people know I am around, I want to socialize (I want to have fun? Not everyone would put that and "meditation" in the same breath. To each their own). This time, I am leading.

And, I am looking at the big picture. In a year, I want to be significantly debt-reduced, and going out every night because the thought of being alone in a foreign country is too much to bear is just too much to bear. As long as I can remember who I am, I'll always be home.

So, it's Patrick O'Hearn, Classic Game Room HD, Donkey Kong Country and ramyeon noodles for me. And, that makes me pretty damn happy.