i made it back from tibet. i'm alive. this is not the epic recap i planned, but that will probably require more time than i have at the library of miracles today. so instead, i will write about my view of korea in the wake of tibetan enlightenment (the tale of which will come later in the week) and i will keep my tibet experience to myself for a couple more days while i try to synthesize and digest the whole endeavor. i will be kind enough to drop some anticlimatic hints about my travels though--nothing life threatening happened, i didn't get drunk enough to make a fool out of myself, and i didn't have sex with any complete strangers. sorry to crush some dreams. but i did get altitude sickness. and the flu. more about that later...
i spent all day on friday travelling to get back to korea from beijing. the prospect of coming back to sidae apartments in suncheon, south korea made me exceedingly happy for some reason. not because i was eager to leave tibet or mainland china, but just because i was just happy in general. because of travelling. and here i am on a monday back at work, and this extreme happiness for no particular reason at all has carried over (i guess tibet isn't particular enough for my tastes. but it's a more general happiness). i wonder how long this can last. at some point i'll get the "wow. back to the routine. not on vacation anymore" doldrums, but for now, i'm just happy.
one of the wonderful things about coming back to korea was that i actually saw snow. funny, i went to tibet "the land of snows" and didn't see any precipitation. but then i come back and there are the big, fat flakes and it's actually colder than tibet felt. and then it felt like christmas, or winter, or some other pleasing sensation. yesterday i went to seonamsa temple again. and it was beautiful. as i was riding the bus out there, i was struck by a fear that maybe everything in korea would seem disappointing compared to tibet. there's always that fear after travelling--getting back to the reality of daily life being too overwhelmingly mundane to handle without some very real emotional repercussions. but the mountains were snow-covered and idyllic. the temple was peaceful and quiet (a contrast to tibet's bustling, functional, living sites. but not a bad contrast), and i was extremely satisfied by the fact that i could come back to korea--a country i have called on many occassions "ugly"--after 2 weeks in tibet and find myself alarmed by how beautiful it was. snow is a magical thing.
As I sat in a tiny little convenient mart eating chocolate next to a big cast iron stove waiting for the bus at seogwangsa (sp?), I was quite pleased with where I was on this particular Sunday afternoon. And then some korean man responded quited rudely to the fact that I was an american. He asked helen and I where we were born. Helen's from england. He was fine with that. I'm from america. He was not fine with that. For all the times I have reluctantly and begrudgingly admitted that I was an american (until this point, totally unwarranted), this was the first time anyone had ever voiced any disapproval of america or the military. I say the military, because the next thing that happened—after a group of men shook their heads to my "america, joayo?" inquiry—was pantomime shooting. Great. So that sort of pissed me off. I've been expecting similar reactions for a long time, but because no one ever responded that way, my guard was down. had I not already gotten a ride from a complete stranger earlier in the day (replete with gifts of oranges and strange, remarkably tough bread), I would have been annoyed with koreans. And had I not also been riding this post-tibet euphoria or if he had expressed anything other than what I too feel about america, I would have gotten angrier than I did. But instead I was just unprepared. And I felt ashamed by my exposed vulnerability after months of being adored simply for being an esl teacher in the korea.
On the long and winding bus ride home as we 4 waygooks (picked up 2 more on the bus) drifted intermittently in and out of sleep, I was brought back to a calm, happy place. The sun was setting, the bus was warm, strangers gave us candy (sans razor blades or poison). The bus driver realized that he had a bus full of comatose people and that the music was his call. So I was eased awake by the increased volume of the traditional korean music, a nice accompaniment to the traditional korean life passing outside the window, on my way back to my traditional korean apartment. Life was good.
And that was my weekend. seemingly anti-climactic. but extremely satisfying.
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