I am the foreigner that I hate…

We have met the enemy and he is us. G is dealing a lot with my pride of late, and judgmentalness (not sure if that's a real word- sounds like one, but my spell check says no).

Basically I have become the American in some ways that I have always hated in other people. I am frustrated that I can't make myself understood in any language. I am grossed out by seeing the live silkworms wriggling in huge vats in the marketplace (we're supposed to eat those!!). Its day 10 and I already feel like I don't want to see kimchee again for at least a month. I crave hanging out with other westerners, and feel intimidated by the crowds around me. No matter where I go, there is nothing I can do to fit in… it is going to be painfully obvious no matter what that I don't belong here. I find myself thinking skeptically about the country I am in. I'm not embracing the inconveniences as colorful differences owing to a vastly different past, and an engaging opportunity to learn about another culture. Instead I find myself thinking superior thoughts about my culture, and judging the system I am in. In short- I find myself afraid of the unknown. I have never really been this way before. I devour languages normally, and analyze them and revel in them and love them. After sitting in 8 hours of meetings in Korean, I feel overwhelmed by the Korean language (Hangukeo). I don't feel like I have an in- I realize that I rely heavily on morphology to do my language analysis. That's why languages like Estonian and Lithuanian were so great for me. Korean has some morphology true, Chinese has very little, and I have a hard time hearing the phonemic contrasts I need to hear and a hard time parsing the words.

I know it is the first hump, and once things get going I will become more myself I hope. This is a bigger cultural jump than I have ever made before, and apparently even jumps like to Georgia or Armenia didn't prepare for me this. Or maybe they did, and it would have been still harder for me had I not gone there. I think the key thing is that its one thing to be somewhere as a tourist, it's another thing to live there, and know you are committed.

As much as I find myself sometimes wanting to just run away, I know I won't and I shouldn't, I know I am called to stay and to let this wave crash over me. I know I am being changed- I can feel it.

I am hearing incredible stories still, and I am very blessed and encouraged to see what is happening in this part of the world, people who are risking literally everything for the sake of what they believe- an intensity of life I have rarely seen. I see G answering that belief by manifesting H'self in powerful ways!

I sat in a little ch last night, cold autumn rain (yes its quite autumn already) pouring on the roof, singing pr songs in Russian, surrounded by Russian Korean bros and siss from central asia and maritime kraj, and I felt truly at home for the first time. The Russian language felt so familiar, and the students who had grown up in Tajikistan and Ussuriland and Tashkent, I was able to understand them in a way that I still feel unable to do with many here so far.

And a sign that I am maybe slowly becoming myself again…. I hammered out a little conversation in Chinese/Russian/English with a Mongolian student (brother) who speaks no Korean (the operating language of our college), almost no English, a few words of Russian, and only some Chinese… (I don't envy him… lift up Amo and his transition if you think to). And I loved it. Being bathed in those songs pointed upwards toward our source of peace, the walk through the rain, past the sunflower and applepear trees in the darkness of a September night, corrected my focus, gave me hope that I could in fact make it here. I know that My Best Friend is very active here, and I will be guided into those opportunities and relationships that I will need to survive and to thrive here.