As most of you probably know, I'm currently in the US, and I've been here for almost 3 weeks now. Before leaving a lot of people talked to me about reverse culture schock; that it might be worse than the initial culture shock I experienced upon leaving for Korea over a year ago. I guess to me it's seemed as though coming back has been easier in a lot of ways, but also a little difficult in other ways.
For example, it was unusually strange to have to use English when talking to a server at a restaurant at first. This might seem strange, but I went out with my friend Sheji a couple of weeks ago, and my initial impulse when ordering food was to speak in Korean! I thought that was very interesting.
One thing that I thought was a little difficult at first had to do with communicating with some of my friends. Generally a lot of my conversations with my friends are about reminiscing on common experiences that we shared in the past. But what seemed to hinder conversation at times was the fact that for the past year we haven't had any experiences together because we haven't been in the same place.
At first it seemed hard for me to have conversations with a lot of my friends because any time a subject came up in conversation, I tended to relate it back to something in Korea. I guess to say the least, I was a bit tired of only being able to think about things that I've done for the past year. But after about 2 weeks that changed, and I seemed to have an easier time talking with people. I guess in terms of culture shock, that was the most difficult thing.
Coming home after being abroad is interesting because there are still a lot of things that have remained the same, but there are a few things that have changed. At the Constant Spring Pub in Goshen, I noticed that they remodeled a section of the bar that I found myself sitting in every Tuesday evening for trivia when I was living in Goshen. I was schocked and asked someone “Where's our table?” Another big change is that since graduating from Goshen, the entire art department faculty has changed, with the exception of my ceramics teacher Merrill Krabill. But most of Goshen and Minneapolis have stayed the same, and I've really been appreciating the familiar things that make both Goshen and Minneapolis feel like home.
After being away I've been able to appreciate the things that used to be normal. In Minneapolis, I was surprised at how bright the sun seemed. In Seoul there are so many tall buildings, so the sun doesn't seem to shine as brightly as it does in Minneapolis. The sun seemed especially bright when I made my way down to Goshen, and looked out the window of the bus I was riding to see vast flat farmland with the sun shining over the midwestern landscape.
In Seoul in particular along with the tall buildings, there isn't hardly any natural grass, so it was truly amazing to see grass when I came home. Of course grass is so normal for me, and for my whole life up until now I've lived in a place with grass everywhere. But seeing grass was a familiar site that stood out to me, and made me think "There's no place like home."
It's been a good few weeks, and I look forward to my last week in the states. I'm really glad that I got to see my friends and family, and I've been able to see a lot more people than I thought, which is also really good. Although leaving again means that I will be away from everyone back here, but at the same time I look forward to going back to Korea.
