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Finding a New Normal: What We Miss Most about Korea
Now back in the United States for a couple of months, we’ve been enjoying some of the comforts of home. Catching up with friends and family has been a highlight of our return. However, it’s also been a time of reflection on those parts of our South Korean experience that we really miss. Grief is a normal part of culture shock, and part of coping is understanding that conflicting emotions are okay. It’s okay to miss home and also to feel really excited about living in a new place. It’s also okay to feel happy to be home but also to grieve for the place you left. Few life transitions…
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Returning to “Normal”: Hitting the Easy Button on Stateside Life
We loved our experience of living in Seoul and wouldn’t trade that time for anything. It was hard to leave a city we had come to love and the people who made our year really special. As happy as we were, we knew that parts of life in a different culture and with a significant language barrier were very stressful at times. The moment we landed in Hawaii, our first stop in the U.S. after leaving South Korea, we were reminded of how much easier life’s simplest tasks are when you are in a familiar culture and speaking your first language. Here are some of the first everyday “easy button”…
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Hate is a Virus: A Foreigner’s Perspective on the Pandemic in South Korea
Although the one-year anniversary of the global pandemic declaration has passed, this week marked one year of COVID-19 impact for our household. One year ago this week, the “distant” pandemic became real, as Peter’s university quickly made the decision to go on-line and the hospital where I worked began scrambling for PPE and isolation rooms for patients we knew would present with the novel coronavirus. My gym closed, our church stopped all in-person meetings, and our plans with friends were canceled. It all got very real, and that was before we witnessed the overwhelming loss of human life that was to come. Experiencing the effects of a pandemic first in…
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Good Grief! What’s so Shocking about Culture Shock?
If you’ve ever traveled outside of your hometown, you probably are familiar with the highs and lows of experiencing a culture different from your own. Traveling (even to another state or city) can be exciting, challenging, and full of learning opportunities. It also can be scary, frustrating, and overwhelming. Add a worldwide pandemic into this mix, and you have a recipe for lots of potential stress. The term culture shock describes the mixed emotions and sense of disorientation that are commonly felt by travelers to a culture different from their own. As I’ve spent my social work career helping people coping with grief and loss, I find it helpful to…
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U.S. Election Week: A Brief Update from the South Korean Front
“So… Donald Trump is winning the election, right?” Thus began several conversations with our acquaintances here circa Wednesday (EST). As I write this post, ballots are still being counted in a number of key states, and the results of the U.S. Presidential election are unknown. Despite living 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, we were disappointed to discover that we are not privy to learning election results any earlier than the rest of the world. We have been following the news closely this week and feel justified in all our efforts to ensure that our ballots would reach Pennsylvania in time to be counted. In other words, I didn’t…
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Where in the World is Yongsan-gu?
South Korea, you say? Quarantine for two weeks, you say? In a very small apartment, you say? We say – why not? We have felt really lucky that were are able to quarantine in our Airbnb apartment. It was a little tricky getting all our luggage up the narrow stairs when we arrived from the airport, but we’re happy for the view of the street that a small second-floor patio has given us. Plus, there have been flooding monsoon rains falling basically since we arrived, so at least we have no flood concerns on the second floor! We have a living area, two small bedrooms, and a galley kitchen that…
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Getting tired of 2020? 투표하다! (VOTE!)
Many of you have expressed concern about whether Peter and I will be voting absentee this November. The short answer – yes! Of course, as we quickly have discovered, few enterprises are simple when trying to accomplish them from overseas quarantine. While possible to request a ballot, it was not quite as easy as I expected. It required perseverance and a little technical skill. Peter had easily requested an absentee ballot in the U.S. before we left for Korea, but then we discovered that there is a different procedure for having a ballot sent to an overseas address. Lots of googling for information led me to two helpful resources: The…
