quick update on my life while I am across the universe..
Korea is really different from what I remember 2.5 years ago. That summer before my sophomore year is a vague haze of finding my way around the subway station, rotting in some bullshit sat class, shedding my money like hair, dragging my aunt to the department store every day, stopping at every food cart on the street, watching my stomach expand, and lying around the apartment doing nothing...
That nightmarish summer was why I had such inhibitions about going back to Korea and pushed all thoughts of my homeland away. But when my mom put down the phone one day and said, "We're going to Korea," I had all these plans of what to do, what to eat, where to go, etc, and I was nothing but morbidly excited. And maybe it's because my stay here is only a fleeting week long, but I am doing everything in my power to stay busy and on my feet. Since my camera is total rubbish, I have been using my aunt's camera to document everything interesting I see: the grey underpass, exotic Korean food, the beauty of public Korean bathrooms (leather stall doors, plastic seat covers, just omfg). This time, I came to Korea with a plan, determined to not make the same mistakes I made last time; seeing all my relatives, living in the same apartment, and visitng all the same places, I realized that Korea and this quaint city of Duk-So never changed. So when I say "Korea is really different from what I remember 2.5 years ago," I lie. Not everything is transient- in fact, most things are not. Human perception, emotion, and intellect are the very things that make us capable of change, and are ultimately what set this trip to Korea apart from others.
Generally, I can confidently say I've changed over the years, though not exactly for the better. I do miss my empathy, blissful ignorance, youthful exuberance, and capacity to love; no matter how hard I try to bring back my rose colored glasses, a façade is nothing but a façade. But each layer of naiveté I shed brings me closer to the core of matter. 6 years ago, I bought my happiness in Korea with clothes and unimaginable shopping sprees. 2.5 years ago, I bought my happiness with deep fried food and slothfulness. This time, it's only been 3 full days in Korea and I already know I am the happiest I've ever been in this country. It's not only the hand-me-downs from my aunt, or the delicious homemade meals made by my grandmother, but also the trips down to the laundromat or the supermarket or the dentist that make me happy- the long car rides, the dusty streets, the man selling dried squid for only 3 dollars. For the first time, I am truly grateful for losing my "blissful ignorance" and "youthful exuberance" because now, I can appreciate what I truly love and be happy from just being. As I started off my UC essay, "I rarely lived in reality." I always made up these fantastic, ideal worlds and threw myself into them. This time around, there's none of that; snapping myself back into reality, it's not so bad. And as of this moment, the cars zooming by, the man yelling through his intercom on the street selling his squids, and a sliver of the -10 degree draft outside seeping through the window next to me, reality might be a little beautiful.
