Travelling... and Living Abroad (part 1)

It's weird to be in a country you think you've known forever, and have nothing happen as expected. I really have to beat myself into thinking that this time is like a first time in Korea, no matter how many things I've got to know since I came here the first time.

I guess I'm going through something similar as my friend who's gone to Japan long-term on three different occasions. She went, like me, on a student exchange for a year. Then she went for university. Last, she went to Japan for work and ended up getting married there.

The first time you go to a country as foreign - in a regards - as Japan, you live a complete set of emotions.

You are afraid: You are leaving to an unknown land, of which you can only imagine the way of life, and of which you do not master the language. You know you will not be able to see friends, and miss an important part of your school-life with them: the prom. The feeling of lost and the fear are slightly blurred by the weird numbing feeling of WTH! I'M GOING AWAY AND I'LL BE ON MY OWN FOR A FULL YEAR, HELL YEAH MTF!

But yes, all in all, you feel fear.

You are happy: You are going to a place of your choosing, you are going to go farther that many people you know, or get to a similar place where your friends might have been, if they did a student exchange. You will be the only one to chose what matters to you and suddently realise you will have no choice to man-up and be responsible.

You are super sad: You are in a world full of people, yet feel completely alone. People will all have their friends, their habits, their way of life in which you may, or may not fit. You will have to make effort even to go grab a snack with a friend on the way back from school - because you'll need to make that friend first. Because let's face it, how many long-lasting friendship have you made from scratch that after you were 10? Not many.

Time and places where we are born define in some way the friendships you will have. That's because friendship does not necessarily have all goods. You are stuck in a specific neighborhood and have to find the friends that are the most compatible with you, and since there's not that many choice, you grow to know each other in good and bad times. And you put up with the bad; because being alone can suck, and by putting up with the bad, you make the most amazing friends.

As we grow up, we cherry pick people with the same affinities, and usually don't put effort in relationships if they tend to bring more stress in our lives. The result is that you end up with lots of "amazing temporary friends" who don't really keep in touch unless they spend some time in your area and happen to have free time.

...that long philosophical theory did not come to me at 15...mind you.

You are lost: Whatever you do, whatever you think is common sense, might not be good in the country you go to. So every step you take becomes stressful. Am I doing something wrong without knowing again? You become overaware of people around you and their reactions. While some countries are used to have foreigners come in and out, and are pretty easy-going about the life miss one can commit, some countries are harsher in their judgment of right or wrong. In my case, I think I was in the latter, and that probably made my student exchange pretty unique... for the best and the worst. You start having the feeling of wearing a mask whenever you follow the uses and habits of your host country, and don't intrinsically think it's the right way to do. Then you start thinking that maybe it's you who'd been wrong all along.

In the end, you realize that the ISN'T the idea of right or wrong (in most regards, anyways) but it's just a matter of differences in approaches. You realize you don't have to know if what way is "better". While you live by abiding to your own sets of morals, you can jogg in between different sets of beliefs and ways of life without having to judge them. YOU are the one visiting the country, hence, you have to make 95% of the efforts (they stayed home, you came to them, you were prepared to see different things, they probably were not: give them that if they act rude toward you without realizing it).

To Be Continued...

#traveling #livingabroad #studyinAsia #workinAsia #Korea #Japan