For this week's tl;dr, we're going to talk about something a little more personal.
Since we've been living in Korea for over 7 years now
we've been really thinking about how living abroad,
how being an expat has changed us personally.
And I'm not just talking about having more stamps on your passport,
but what it has changed our personalities and our perceptions of life.
First issue: The struggle of reconnecting with your family and friends living back home.
Whether you're just returning from a vacation to your home country
and you're planning on coming back abroad again
or if you're actually making the move back home,
there are a lot of struggles people have.
We find that like day 1 and day 2 back home are okay
because your family and friends are usually really excited to hear
like stories and they want to see pictures.
So they want to know all about your life living overseas.
But that eventually starts to change,
and by eventually I mean like ...
-[S+M] day 2!
-[M] Hahaha. -[S] And eventually you just have to just reintegrate back into the society that you left before.
But the real issue is that you living abroad for a while
has really changed how you view the current society that you're back in.
-[M] And we don't mean like suddenly you're like judging everything. -[S] Mmmhmm.
It's just that we've been living in Korea for so long that
-[M] our everyday life is Korea! It's not a vacation. -[S] Mmmhmm.
It's not like we went to Korea for 2 weeks and here's what we want to tell you about it,
-[M] it's like we are used to sitting on the floor now. -[S] Mmmhmm.
We're used to eating food with certain spices in it.
So like now our favorite Canadian food is incredibly salty.
-[S] Right. -[M] It's inedible; we can't even eat it.
We're used to being comparative now instead of just taking everything for granted as is.
We always think about it as, "Oh! Here's how it is here, but here's how it is elsewhere as well".
So we can't turn that switch off.
Yeah, and the problem that happens is that you end up becoming that person
who seems like that obnoxious, like:
-[M] "Oh well in Korea! ..." -[S] "In Guatamala! ..."
-[M] "You clearly never had guacamole 'cause you've never been hereeee!"
And that's not what you're trying to do.
I would say that our friends and family are quite good with it because a lot of our friends are
-[M] friends that we made now in Korea... -[S] Right.
-[M] that have moved to our home city and you'll find that your circle of friends will start to become
people who have lived abroad, but other friends it can be really really hard to keep that connection going.
The 2nd concept that really changes when you've been living abroad is your ideas of friendship.
I know that moving away from your home country,
the most challenging part is the idea of leaving your friends and family.
Your core group, your little bubble that you're so comfortable with,
you're not going to see them anymore and you're going to have to develop new friends.
But you also wind up kind of rethinking how close you are with your new friends
because if you've been in another country for a long time the way we have,
-[S] you see friends come and go so quickly. -[M] Yeah.
People are here for one year, people are here for two years, and you might form really good friendships
in those one or two years but then when they move away,
there's a good chance that you will never see them again.
-[M] You might talk to them -[S] Right.
-[M] Like on Messenger services and e-mail, but it's not the same as having someone to go out with
for food or dinner or partying.
The idea of closeness really changes as well.
We really sympathize, and this is going to sound silly,
vampire movies now. Because whenever you hear about
people converting to being vampires, you're always like,
"Oh, the worst part is that you see your friends and family die as they age and you don't".
We kind of feel that on a smaller level here because we have friends here that essentially leave Korea
and die because we never see them again.
-[M] And the thing is that... -[S] In a small sense of a way
-[M] Yeah, it's not that you're not close with them, like you can still stay close with them,
but it's something different than going out and sharing something with people who are like-minded
and then just not having them anymore.
[Simon and Martina make Hissing-Vampire sounds]
"Sunlight burns us!"
"... that's always burned me."
"BURN! it burns you more than me. I just tan nicely."
Ha! I like how you make it sound like a vampire.
-[S] "AHHH!' -[M] You can never make up a vampire to me that is unsexy.
-[M] You know what I want to call you? -[S] "Dante!"
-[M] YES! Exactly. That's what I was going to say haha. -[S] "I'm the vampire, Dante!"
-[M] "Marshmallow!" -[S] "Esmeralda!"
No I don't want to be Esmeralda...
I want to be Marshmallow! Fiercest vampire in the east.
-[M] I'm sparkly and I'm super white. -[S] And pasty.
I love the nighttime and I'll burn near fire.
A little puffy.
[Martina laughs]
Wait a second.
The next concept that we find really interesting is our idea of "otherness" that has really changed from
being "other" in Korea.
-[M] You made this extremely vague. Please continue Simon. -[S] Well because, when we were in Canada,
-[S] we never really thought about being Canadian.
-[M] You're born in Canada; you just grow up in it. -[S] You're born and raised. Yeah, your nationality is
something that you oftentimes take for granted.
But now that we've been living here in Korea, and that 97% of Korea is Korean people,
we really notice, we really feel what it's like to not be a part of the country.
And it's like you're kind of reminded all the time that you're not part of the country.
-[M] For many different ways, like, the obvious one would be like... -[S] We don't look like Korean people.
-[M] Yeah, so like just recently we went to the, um, DMV in Korea... -[S] Right.
-[M] ...to get my International License, and Simon and I walked in, and Simon and I were wearing our cute
-[M] Korean couple clothing... -[S] Yeah!
-[M] ...and like, I got my sunbrella, and I looked around the room and it was... -[S] "Two of these things are not like the others".
People are always concerned, like, "If I come to Korea, are people gonna like stare at me!?"
-[M] Like, you might get people... -[S] Occasionally.
-[M]..looking at you, yeah. But it's not like a malicious thing. But, when you live here, it starts to kind of wear at you
You know, when you walk up to the stoplight and the people on the sidewalk beside you say in Korean:
"Mom, look, it's a foreigner!"
"They must be American!"
And then you're like, "ugh", so you kind of, you correct them in Korean.
Eventually, you just give up on that.
But that also makes us rethink what it's like to be Canadian again.
Because like my parents are immigrants. They came to Canada when they were like in their late 30's.
And for me, I was in born in Canada; I grew up in Canada. But I never really understood what my parents went through.
-[M] Yeah, the struggles -[S] Now that I've been living in Korea for like close to a decade now, it really makes me
appreciate more of what my parents went through in order to go to a new country, to leave their families
behind, and try to start a new life. That's a very big challenge, and I have a lot more respect for them as a result.
-[M] Not to mention, they spoke Polish... -[S] Yes!
-[M] ...came to Canada and had to learn English... [S] Exactly!
-[M]... in their late 30's -[S] Mmhmm.
-[M] That's crazy! -[S] It's challenging!
So now that whenever we go back to Canada, if we speak with other people that are relocating to Canada,
then I have a little bit more sympathy for them, something that I never actually thought about
before actually living in another country.
Yeah, it's made us have a greater understanding of people's "otherness".
The last thing we want to talk about is a little bit more materialistic, and that is taking care of your possessions,
-[M] something that we definitely took for granted when living in Canada. -[S] Mmhmm.
Let's say your bra strap snaps in half or your underpants are so old that the, uh, band has shredded off the bottom.
-[S] Um, let me just make this clear, -[M] What?
-[S] this has never actually happened to me.
-[S] This has happened to Martina. -[M] Listen!
-[S] Let's make that clear line of divide.
-[M] Lots of girls have... -[S] Grossness versus not grossness
-[M] No. Lots of girls have favorite underpants that are super comfortable and fit perfectly
and then one, sad day you put them on and your band just pulls off or your thumb goes through it.
It's impossible for me to replace those underpants in Korea because nothing fits my giant ass.
The problem is that I can't just go and replace them, which is something I took for granted in Canada.
Now if my underpants disintegrate off my body or my shoes break, I am super screwed.
Mmhmm. So what winds up happening as a result is that the comforts that we've grown up with,
when we try to have those comforts here, we appreciate them more. We take care of them a lot better that we
would have back in Canada where we just take them for granted, if something broke we can just replace it
easily. Here, we're a lot more...careful.
Yes, careful with everything, which is giving me a major appreciation for having something in my size, or
even like, your makeup skin tone. I know a lot of girls that come here will complain that they can't find their
right tone for their skin. If your skin is lighter or darker, like literally just those two extents, you can't find
makeup for you. Simon's like, "I know, I can't find makeup for my skin".
"Totally"
Even something on the cooking level, like spices, like I really took for granted the idea of going to the store to get the stuff that I
needed to make chicken soup. Like, "Uh, I'm sick, I need chicken soup". That's just not happening here.
You have to bring it with you or have it with you, but how can you predict what you're
going to miss from home until you miss it.
Exactly, until you feel the lack, then you can't really know what you're going to need.
We're going to talk a little more philosophically in our blog post about nesting and possessions and
about how your concepts of holidays change as well
from living abroad so make sure you click on the link here,
if you want to kind of get deep and profound and all that kind of sweet stuff.
So here's our question for you today: If you have lived abroad, and I don't just mean a week overseas,
I mean like living in another country, how has your perspective changed and
has it changed your life when you moved back home?
Or, if you haven't travelled abroad, if you do know people who have lived overseas,
how have you found that they've changed when they came back ?
Because we're speaking from our perspective, what's it like from your perspective?
"You call this Bibimbap? Uh, you've obviously never been to Bucheon."
Hey we're gonna be going to Canada and the U.S. next week, so none of this is going to really apply to us.
We're gonna buy all the things that we need.
But it will apply because we only have so much space in our luggage for my underwear.
I'm just going to be very surprised to be back in Canada and to experience a lot of things that I'm just like...
Never been to Vancouver City. I'm really excited.
Hey, next week.
Listen, I am looking for underpants that will fit me and will not shrink when I wash them.
-[S] Yes. -[M] I'm sick of it! I'm sick of coming back to Korea and being all like "and now you won't cover my butt crack
and now I suffer with you for a year"
Hey, it's summer time. Need to go commando.
-[M] "It's like a hot summer breeze..." -[Both] ...When you goin' commandooo"