Korea wafts around me like a heavy scent that spirals and envelopes my form. I am spinning: shot of me wrapped up in a tendril of smoke, moving in slow motion drunk on the moment.
This place is now home. I am permeated by it. Comfortable with it. I know which grocery store has cheap peanuts, and which one has cheap tuna, and which one you can't buy the rice from b/c half the time there's these tiny creepy crawly black bugs in it (delightful). I am used to the stares I get, and barely notice them any more. I find the ajummas, even the militant ones, (old korean wives: picture a stocky but muscular korean woman with a gigantic visor on her head, a hardcore perm, a floral shirt and baggy hammer-esque zebra print pants--no joke this is regular attire) are amusing and cute. When I am frustrated I yell, "Chincha!" (really!) and when I'm happy I chirp "Assa!" (kind of like yelling Yes! in Korean). I regularly impress cab drivers with my cab Korean, and still feel pretty proud of it. I walk so close to cars its probably dangerous, but don't really mind, and actually find it slightly thrilling. The smell of rotten kimchi is pretty much a norm, and I no longer half expect to see people of other races walking down the street--it used to sort of shock me that every one here was only Korean, now it's just a given. The fact that there are trucks that drive around with giant speakers on top blaring K-pop (a strangely infections form of pop music Korea-style) isn't cause for alarm or outrage anymore (well maybe a little outrage) but is accepted as just another feature of the landscape.
Speaking of K-pop I know the words or at least the tunes to the majority of the popular songs, and occasionally find myself singing them with/to the children. I don't even hate them any more, like I did when I first got here. I had no choice really, because as it turns out every store around has a giant speaker outside of it and blares the stuff non-stop, hence my knowing all the songs. They. Are. EVERYWHERE. Disliking it was like fighting a battle of attrition against a formidable adversary with about 14 troops on my side--there was simply no way I could win.
(Another aside on K-pop--it's basically Korean pop music which is infused with a line or two of english in the super catchy refrain, hence my ability to sing along, it's incredibly up tempo, as is all pop I suppose, and will get stuck in your head like no other music I've ever encountered.)
The chilin's are good. I've had some trouble with a few of my classes, who all just so happen to fall on Wednesday, causing me to dub Wednesday, "The Most Annoying Day of the Week" sung to the tune of "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year". Which made me laugh, between stress headaches that is. But I don't like getting angry/irritated with children, after all they're these little unformed lumps of beings who are so frightened/elated by everything that comes their way. They have no god damn clue whats going on, or worse they do, and they're slightly terrified of it. I need to rise above for chrissakes. After all I'm an adult, sort of...
Fortunately for me my friend Ashleigh, who is kind of my book evangelist--since being here this girl has given me some of the best books I've ever read it's pretty awesome--lent me this book "Buddah is, as Buddah Does." Rip off Forest Gump title aside the book is insanely insightful, and has been really informative about what the main tenets of Buddhism are--generosity, patience, kindness and compassion, intensity of effort, a dedication to morality/positive actions, meditation, and a willingness to delve deeply into the mind as means to both understand and still its inner workings.
I'm reading this book being like shit man, are you kidding me this is not only up my alley THIS FREAKING IS MY ALLEY.
Needless to say I'm doing further and further research into Buddhist thought, while also trying to apply these things directly to my life. And it's been really helpful, especially with the most annoying children. I realized that these little shits are sometimes kind of like these emotionally ugly mirrors of my child self, and my impatience with them has largely just been my impatience with the aspects of myself that they embody that I don't want to face. Rosa who is such a validation needy follower that it makes me cringe. Tom who just can't stop trying to be the center of attention that the urge to strangle him becomes overwhelming (heh). Jason who I think is kind of a bad person and will willingly do bad/cruel things in the future out of a sort of inborn malice/confusion with what his ends are. I have struggled since the beginning with this kid, he has a lot of pain in him, but the burn off for him is in being a little shit, I pity him, and hope I can find a way to better empathize and understand. Jack, oh fat little Jack why is your sweatshirt so small? Why is your need for the other children to like you so desperate that it repulses them? Why Jack, why? You make me feel gross emotionally: shot of gawky buck toothed four eyed little Liz wondering why she doesn't have many friends...
Oiy. The past. When I was 18 I watched the movie Magnolia for the first time. It's a really great film, and I have always carried this one quote from it with me, "You may be done with the past, but the past isn't done with you." I knew it was the truth when I heard it, and I know this still. So I will do my best to remove my impatience from the children, as I have been all week (with a bit of success no less), and try better to reflect upon what it is in me that makes me want to lash out.
F'ing past.
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