Sacked in the Endzone
The cafeteria was filled with ravenous high school students and the faculty’s table was crowded. My boys were out digesting with a game of soccer and my tray was filled with its usual components—kimchi, rice, soup—as I struggled to get to my seat. I ate quickly in silence and headed back to my classroom.
My friend—Anskar—who teaches at the high school next to me was out to lunch with his principal that day. We don’t anxiously wait for the other to finish class so we can eat together anymore. We go to the gym, walk around and grab the occasional beer together but Anskar and I don’t go to Pizza School every day like we did back in August.
The change from pizza to principals has not come as the result of a deteriorating friendship (see Surprise Birthday) but rather because we’re comfortable in Naju. Wondering if I’ll get on the bus going the wrong direction is no longer an issue and I know how much my favorite foods cost by now. As bus schedules are internalized and restaurant owners are recognized the anxiety over living in Korea inevitably eases. We no longer need to vent about homestay frustrations or the lack of red sauce here to each other on a daily basis.
None of this is surprising.
We’re safe because we’re comfortable, but that comfort’s dangerous.
Subtract the fact that crime in Korea is nearly non-existent and there is very little reason for me to be comfortable in a country that I don’t even know how to order takeout. As I welcome the comforts of a less anxious weekly routine I also lose a lot of the urgency and concern that I ought to still have.
Time for facebook is encroaching on Korean language studies because I’ve survived two months in rural Korea with my current level of Korean. Why bother putting in the effort, right? No…wrong, right?
I’m hypersensitive to complacency. Most of the times I’d say I don’t do anything about it but I always feel worse off for having settled into it.
Life in Naju (and Korea) is great. Maybe that’s the problem though. Or maybe the issue is that I always need to complain?
