[To keep the blog active while I’m traveling I’ve asked 3 of my favorite expat bloggers to answer 10 questions about their experience abroad. I’ve enjoyed reading their answers and am excited to share them with you!]
The next 10 Questions is with Anne, a travel writer from The Matador Network. Two of my favorite articles written by Anne are on the easiest and most difficult languages for English speakers to learn. She also writes a personal blog about living and teaching in South Korea. I was especially happy to see that Anne also likes to novelty snack!
Here’s Anne’s 10 Questions:
1. Current address:
Ulsan, South Korea.
2. Previous address(es):
Ottawa, Canada (the motherland), Thailand and Turkey (TESL jobs and general wanderlust).
3. I landed here because…
apparently, I couldn’t get enough.
I taught in Korea 3 years ago and met my boyfriend here. We left in search of other adventures, but Korea stayed on our minds. I was so excited to come back.
Catching up on new K-pop groups was a real party. The boyfriend didn’t love that part.
My talented students pretending to enjoy the theatre portion of their winter English camp. We put on “Alex in Wonderland.” At their request, there were K-pop dance intervals.
4. The best part of living abroad is…
finding novelty and wonder in day-to-day stuff.
Just going to the corner shop or post office is a new process, and you can glean so much about the culture in those small events. How honorific speech is used with customers, or how no one minds that the 7-Eleven clerk’s baby is napping behind the counter.
A tourist rests in Gyeongbokgung, a palace complex in Seoul.
5. The most difficult part of living abroad is…
feeling deracinated from the culture you’re in.
I’m Canadian, urban born and raised, and multiculturalism is all I’ve ever known. It’s jarring to go into a homogenous culture where I’m so starkly classed as a foreigner.
In any country, I think it can be tough for an outsider to define their role. It’s hard to delve into the culture and make local friends. It’s easy to wear the tourist hat, hang out in expat bars, mock the bad English on shop signs.
I think most expats want to be involved in the local community, but meet a lot of hurtles with language, culture, social expectations. Is there a happy medium? I don’t know. I’ve been teaching ESL abroad for five years and I still haven’t figured out the “role” of the expat.
Initials carved into bamboo stalks in Damyang Bamboo forest.
6. Before living here (abroad), I never realized…
how much people love pale skin!
In the west, we love our tans and bronzer. I’m Celtic-pink and burn like bacon, and used to get teased for being so pasty.
My first teaching job was in Thailand, where local friends would hold their arms next to mine and point out how pale I was. Thinking they were teasing me, I would join in. “Jeez, could I be paler? I’m like a ghost!” They were actually complimenting me, and I sounded like a jackass rubbing it in. Yipes.
7. An addition to my day to day vocabulary is…
갑시다(gapshida) means “let’s go!” I hear it constantly. “Let’s go eat.” “Let’s go home.” “Let’s cross the street quickly.”
This is Geoje island, which has beautiful beaches and mountains, as well as an immense shipbuilding industry.
8. Three words to describe my host country are…
Proud, reverential, mountainous.
A family feeds the pushy seagulls at Sonjeong beach, north of Busan.
9. If I could live anywhere (hometown excluded) I’d choose…
Portugal. It’s beautiful, and the people are heaven. The revelation that teaching is my career path came while working at a summer school, teaching the most thoughtful, creative, lovely group of Portuguese teens. They absolutely inspired me. It was Dead Poet’s Society in reverse.
10. A traveler or expat (famous or not) I admire is…
Sarah Menkedick. Her essays about travel and expat life are smart and poetic. Every time I read her writing, I find myself nodding. She can take a tiny detail, like a mango vendor on the sidewalk, and make beautiful narratives that give you a vivid sense of culture, and how she interacts with what’s around her as an expat. She’s very bright and opinionated and self-aware.
For many interesting articles about culture and travel visit Anne at Matador. For more on her life in Korea, check out her blog.
Thanks for sharing, Anne!
xo, jill
[All photos by Anne Merritt]
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