I spent the morning of my last full day in Korea in my bedroom, painting my nails and writing letters to each member of my homestay family, then painstakingly translating them into Korean using my vocabulary and a lot of help from Google Translate. I snuck out to go for a "walk" which was actually an excuse to do some last minute gift shopping. My Korean family has been so hosptitable and welcoming to me, and beyond that they are all just wonderful people, and I wanted to give them a few parting gifts. When I presented the wrapped packages and the orchid for my host parents, my host mom asked me to wait until "the party" later. A few hours passed, and I was called into the living room, where a sweet potato cake, a watermelon, a bottle of sparkling white wine, and a cluster of gifts was waiting.
Without any foreknowledge of the other's plans, both the family and I had prepared gifts and written letters! Jun Myeong lit the candles that spelled out "I <3 You," and after some confusion for what to sing - since the birthday song clearly wouldn't work - we all just clapped and chanted/sang "I love you" for a few seconds before I blew out the candles. After, I helped Minnie install skype on the home computer. It was a very happy evening with the incredible family who had taken me in this semester. I hope we have more evenings together in our future. I'm thinking of heading back to Korea at least for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, but I hope I can see the In family before that as well.
I am nearing the end of my grant year (two more teaching weeks and a handful of days after to pack), and I find myself viewing my life through two alternating and contradictory lenses.
My friend Beilin introduced me to the term "graduation goggles," which she heard from the show How I Met Your Mother. According to a HIMYM wiki, "Graduation goggles is the nostalgic feeling one has about a time or someone in their life when it is about to end, even if the time was completely miserable." As my first year in the professional world, away from friends and family, away from my comfortable university bubble, and living within a culture and language I didn't understand, it's no surprise this year was one of the hardest of my life, but I certainly wasn't completely miserable. The isolation I sometimes felt my first semester (mostly due to location and a bad homestay match) was pretty painful, but my second semester has more than made up for it. Anyway...
*note* as I sit writing this entry in my apartment family room, my host mom just ran over with a huge jar filled with a thick, golden substance, plunged a tablespoon in and promptly shoved it in my mouth. It was honey. A tablespoon of sticky, ultra-sweet honey. I'm going to miss this insanity!
...the g. goggles are on in full effect, with each fractured, hallway conversation with a student and each potential last meeting with an ETA friend leaving me prematurely nostalgic and projecting forced "meaning" and finality all over the place. My host family is all goggled up as well - Ohma is teaching me how to make every dish in her repertoir in preparation for a time in America when I miss her and her cooking, and Minnie got choked up when I gave her an English copy of To Kill a Mockingbird with a note to her written on the title page for her birthday.
The second lense is more of a purgatory view: I know what I have ahead of me in America *more on that in a minute* and my "to do" list for getting settled once I'm there is already trailing down 10 of the 17 floors of my apartment building, but I'm stuck here for another 17 days with this tearful "goodbye" permenantly on my lips.
In short, I never want to leave, and I can't leave fast enough.
As narrative-loving creatures, we crave finality - the denouement, the "happily-ever-after," or, for the indie film lover, the "gritty and not-so-happy but still well-filmed ending with a killer soundtrack" often mislabeled as realistic. I've been thinking about this since I read a great review of the documentary The Swell Season (about a band of the same name) in which NPR entertainment blogger Linda Holmes addressed this obsession with endings. In this case, the issue was with viewers accepting the ending of the romantic relationship between the band's two members, as depicted in the film. Holmes says, "it's very hard to get an audience to accept the detachment of a successful ending ... from a happy ending ...." Holmes seems satisfied with the documentary's honest portrayal of the ending of the romance, but even in this case, the "end" moves over to make room for the continuation of a friendship and musical partnership.
In the past few weeks, when I attended Fulbright Korea's farewell gathering, parted with my fellow ETAs and the KAEC office staff for the last time, and began to psychologically prepare myself to say goodbye to the rest of my family and friends in Korea, I've discovered both my own heavy dependence on neatly tied-up endings, and how little my expectations - of relationships sustained despite growing distance and of smooth transitions from one phase of my life neatly to the next - resemble the reality of leaving.
Now and in my future, I will leave people and places that I care about, I will vow to keep in touch, and meet up again, and return, and despite my attempts and promises, I will lose a great many of those people and places forever. (Perhaps this inability to acknowledge an end is why a few of my relationships have had tumultuously dragged-on endings....)
This idea reminds of some people and places I lost upon leaving Harlaxton College in the winter of 2007. As a parting gesture, the seven members of my British Poetry Since the Rennaissance class went to the Angel and Royal Inn for some whiskey and wine and poetry. We sat in the fire-lit pub, warmed within by the spirits and good company, and read our favorite poems from the class. I read Tennyson's Ulysses, but right now I am remembering lines from the piece that Dr. Janice Fuller, a wonderful professor and friend, read that night, T.S. Eliot's Little Gidding:
"What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right ... is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph."
***
Another excerpt from the poem ties nicely into this next bit:
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
Indeed, I will return to America, Kentucky, and my family and know them in a much different way having lived in Korea with two Korean families for a year. I will also return to the location of the last phase of my life in order to begin the next; I was recently hired as the new admissions counselor for the Honors College at WKU! I am so excited to return to Bowling Green, but I know my new life there will be much different from my college years. As a recent college grad, I count myself lucky as all get out to have a job like this so soon! I get to work with people in an academic setting, frequently in and out of the office, and at my beloved alma mater!
***
I'm going to tie this entry up in yet another "goodbye." I never did write about Thailand, or any of 1,000 other fascinating things I did or experienced, but I want to concentrate on relishing these last moments and understanding what they mean - an end. Not a neatly tied-up end, but a messy bundle of emotions, necessarily unsatisfying goodbyes, and some promises made with hope but doubtful realities attached. I am so happy I kept this blog and posted so many pictures on my picasa account. I know having it later will make my imminent nostalgia more poignant for better or worse. To anyone who followed my journey through the year, thank you for reading and for your support!
... and since I've been meaning to post this anyway, here is the piece I wrote and submitted to Infusion Magazine, a publication of Fulbright Korea:
Reflections on “Growing Up” in the Winter 2010
I walked past two magpies scavenging in a chopped field on a path next to the reservoir behind my host family’s apartment complex. Hopping and tilting their heads, their beady black eyes searched for forgotten grains hidden under scattered, dry stalks. Another hop, a dip of the head, long black and white tail thrust up in the air, and one magpie raised her head again, gripping a pearl of barley in her jet black beak. A field that appeared so barren to me –lifeless compared to the shining gold affair that glittered on my last walk there a month before, when autumn was still lingering – had yielded what was perhaps a feast in magpie standards. I imagined the magpie would return nestward with her treasure and excitedly regurgitate the meal into her chicks’ mouths. Perhaps I just needed the image of a nurturing home after three months living as a guest – provided for but still not a part of my host family – and five months away from my own home. I missed my family.
I walked by the reservoir often after I returned to the apartment from my first real job as an English teacher at Wolbong High School. As a teenager, I used to fantasize about this part of my life, when I’d have a self-sustaining income and live in an exciting new place, far from the too-familiar city of my childhood and removed enough from my parents and teachers to live in the luxury of independence. But reality dimmed the idealistic glow of my high school daydreams a bit. In the early winter of 2010, I was a “grown-up” with my own job, money, responsibilities, and adventures, and I was achingly homesick.
That afternoon, on the other side of my path from the barley field, the naked, gaunt, brown trees danced in the distorted mirror of the rippling water, which also reflected the white-streaked, winter sky. The sky was blue like my mom’s eyes, a pale shade that appears clear and chill, but to me holds a warmth like home. The sky and the water surrounded me and the lonely trees, and the color that reminded me of my mom made me feel warm and rooted despite the weather.
Farther down the path, the apple trees that had been heavy with fruit a month before were relieved of their burden. Their branches, which should have been springy again, seemed lightened in a sad way that made me think of empty wombs and nests, and my mother’s blue eyes the way they might have looked when she remarked on the phone that this was the first Christmas season she and my father would spend alone, buying and ornamenting a tree and baking cookies to prepare their own nest for my brothers and I to return to, only for a few days. I remember when the idea of leaving the nest thrilled me, when any suggestion or command ruffled me. I chose to fly far away to the other side of the world, where the birds – cranes and magpies now – sing songs I don’t know. Did I need to leave home, to get all the freedom and space I could ask for, to realize how connected to my home and family I am?
The piece ends with a rhetorical question, and as Eddie pointed out to me, this experience in Korea has generated so many of those for both of us. Perhaps the impact of this experience won't become clear for a while to come.
“Of course anyone who knows me knows I change my mind once every couple seconds, so we'll see what actually happens.” –Me, April 12. Fateful words.
I have in fact changed my mind about 4 of the plans mentioned in my post from a mere month ago. I should just stop immortalizing my fleeting and fickle ideas in the blogosphere and stop opening myself up to criticisms of “Flaky Francis!” (kind of like “Negative Nancy”? My apologies to all readers named Francis or Nancy who are actually steadfast and optimistic.)
One fact regarding next year’s plans is set in stone now, though. I am moving back to Kentucky in July! I won’t even begin to speculate what I will be doing there or how long I will stay, although I suspect I will try to attain employment and / or admission to graduate school. I might just move into one of those teepee-shaped motel rooms and collect twine though, who knows?
Regardless, I’ll be back in the bluegrass state, which means more time to spend with family and friends, more time to sip bourbon on porches and catch fireflies, more time to pile into cars and head to Rosine for the Barn Jamboree, and more time for hiking and exploring the woods and hills of my beautiful state. I know this is a sappy and romanticized account of life in Kentucky, but I’ve missed home for a year, so I’m allowed to fantasize about my unrealistically perfect near future there!
- Reflections on my time in both rural and tourist-infested Thailand, and
- News on "What the heck is Eileen doing next year, really?"
Until then, I'll leave you with this observation: gift giving in Korea goes far. Today, my host mom told me that her father enjoyed the mug wort rice cakes that I gave her and that came from Eddie's vice principal's wife's friend, who made them. As a side note, mug wort rice cakes rolled in dry bean powder, despite sounding nasty, are actaully delicious!
I taught a fellow Fulbrighter's awesome "similes and poetry" lesson, and below are some of the hilarious responses I got. I gave each team a topic, and I selected my topics from Korean culture. A key, for those unaware of the latest idol craze or tasty traditional treats:
Hyun Bin, the current national male heart-throb, was the star of my favorite Korean drama, Secret Garden. Just a mention of his name will illicit squeals throughout my school's halls.
I used this photo of Hyun Bin in a bathtub (?) to inspire one group's poetic muse. See the results below!
My personal favorite Korean star, Won Bin, was the star of the action film, Ajussi, or The Man from Nowhere as it was released in the U.S. See Won Bin references in the below poems.
I bought socks with Won Bin on them... :)
"Hodu kwaja" literally means "walnut snack." Cheonan is famous for these little, doughy, red-bean-paste-filled goodies.
The 수능 or "su-neung" is the Korean SAT. Students can only take it one time a year, and most only take it once. It is extremely stressful for the students, who see it as their one chance to make or break their future success.
Hyun Bin’s abdominal muscle is like a chocolate bar.
It is brown and tasty.
Hyun Bin’s eyes glitters like star.
Hyun Bin’s body line is as perfect as sculpture.
Hyun Bin is like a God.
They are having a lot of fans and world best.
Hyun Bin’s abdominal muscle looks like a chocolate bar.
Hyun Bin’s self is as handsome as model.
Hyun Bin’s nose is like knives.
It is sharp and high.
Hyun Bin’s backbone deep like river.
Hyun Bin is as handsome as Won Bin.
Hodukwaja is like brain.
It is round and cute.
Hodukwaja wrinkles like a grandmother.
Hodukwaja is as delicious as bread.
Hodukwaja is like ball.
It is round and flat.
Hodukwaja is like heart thief.
Hodukwaja is as sweet as love.
Hyun Bin is like a carving,
He is sharp and handsome.
His arm muscles are like a radish.
His acting skills are as fresh as a dewdrop.
Big Bang is like a big bang,
They are touchable and intense.
Their voices are like a sparkling universe.
Their existence is as shiny as a sun.
Kim Yeona is like a small fairy on the ice,
She is noble and beautiful.
Her spirals look like a weakness of the little bird.
She is as pure as the dew.
Hyun Bin in the bathtub is like a moon,
They are beautiful, but we cannot have them.
Hyun Bin's abdominal muscle shines like a magnet.
Hyun Bin is as dreamy as a trip to the moon.
The 수능 is like a turning point,
It is the challenge of my life.
Students study like monsters.
The 수능 is as difficult as a puzzle.
