Perfection

If you live in a village in Kazakhstan, spending a week in Seoul is the perfect vacation. East Asia meets West Asia, and the similarities between them make the differences stand out all the more. Remember the scene in Cinderella where a filament of fairy godmother sparkles turns mice into horses, a pumpkin into a carriage, and rags into a glitterific gown? Korea is Kazakhstan plus Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo. The faces on the street seem familiar, but instead of ankle-length fur-collared tsarina coats and hooker heels, Koreans wear cute colorful sneakers and fashionable oversized scarves. Squat toilets make your skin crawl? Fairy godmother presents: heated thrones with ample TP and a number of dubious bidet options. Both Koreans and Kazakhs are meat-lovers, but the big vat of boiled mutton and sloppy noodles is magically upgraded to pork, veggies, and kimchi sizzling on your table’s own charcoal grill. And if sketchy Gypsy cabs got you down, try an immaculate Korean taxi, complete with a meter (!) whose own special algorithm ensures that you get a fair wage, even if you encounter traffic.

I took almost perverse pleasure in the fairness that I encountered. In a cheap salon one day, it took a total of six people to cut and dry my crazy-ass curly mane, and I don’t think it even occurred to them to charge me extra (I tipped the main stylist five bucks and he gawked in disbelief). Even weirder, people wait in line. The whole week I had the bizarre sensation that nobody was trying to rip me off. It was great, but I couldn’t help thinking… you’re all suckers! (Uhh… is that bad?)

The museums were unbelievable, and so humbling. It seems that Koreans were making delicate pottery while we were still grunting unintelligibly and drawing horses on the wall. Their National Museum is massive, allegedly built to withstand everything except a direct nuclear hit, and given North Korea’s recent adolescent taunting, that seems rational. Another spectacular stop was the War Museum, chock full of indictments of North Korean belligerence, thorough historical displays, hilarious/terrifying dioramas (see in FB photo album: North Koreans Beating South Koreans in an Unprovoked Attack in the DMZ… I swear that was the actual caption), virtual reality firing ranges and futuristic weapons displays.

Johnny and I had a great time eating our way through Seoul and seeing my old friend Marc, and then at midnight, the spell broke and our carriage turned into a pumpkin. But it wasn’t so bad coming back home. Seoul felt unreal; Kazakhstan was just a return to reality.

Everything’s great in the village now; it’s not so cold for January and work is getting more interesting by the day. I’m moving into a new apartment where the rent is lower and there will be a washing machine – talk about perfection! Sometimes, Kazakhstan definitely pulls through. And though I’m feeling supremely settled in and productive and generally happy, I’m ready to move on. This school year will come to a close, and with it will finish all of the projects I’ve been planning. After a couple months of summer, all loose ends will be tied up and I’ll be ready to leave.

And as it turns out, I will be leaving in August. Though a typical Peace Corps tour is 27 months (two years of work plus three months of training) our administration has rearranged the schedule of entering and exiting volunteers so that newbies will now come in March. When that happens, there will be far more volunteers than is sustainable for the country staff to manage. Because of that, they’re sending our group home three months early. Perfect!

I have lots of ideas of what I want to do next, but graduate school is not one of them. Though the security is tempting, I’m not ready to jump back into academia yet, even though this program seems so perfect for me. Living in America is certainly an option, though I’d love to spend some time working for an international aid organization in Uzbekistan or with an Uzbek diaspora group somewhere, given how much effort I’ve put into learning this language and culture.

One thing I’m almost certain to be doing is travelling. If you have a chance, read Vikram Seth’s From Heaven Lake. In it he describes a trip west from China’s major cities to Urumqi, populated by Uighurs and Kazakhs, and then his descent through Tibet and Nepal into India. I loved the way he described the constant but minute changes that signified one culture bleeding into another, and I want to witness it myself. Fortunately, Peace Corps sees fit to pad our pockets with a pretty respectable “readjustment allowance”, as well as offering us the option to cash in our plane ticket home (no small sum… finally, an upside to being so ridiculously far from home!). I can imagine myself “readjusting” pretty well, maybe on the Tibetan plateau with a cup of yak-butter tea.

I have to write about something that makes me so happy every time I think about it. One of my best students at college went to America with a so-called educational farming program. He left in September and was placed on a factory farm in the middle of nowhere, without any recourse for the inhumane conditions he was working in. After visiting my parents in Boston for Thanksgiving, he and they recognized that the situation had to change. All three of them worked together to overcome the many obstacles put up for them by the host program, and finally, amazingly, found him a new job on a small organic farm.

When the truth about his original situation came to light, I felt so ashamed of my countrymen for their mistreatment of a young foreigner (especially after all the kindness and generosity that’s been proffered to me here) and angry that I’d encouraged my student to put his studies on hold and become an indentured servant to some asshole. But I was also powerless to do much. My parents took it upon themselves to ameliorate his situation, despite having met this boy only once and receiving only discouragement from everyone that should have been concerned about him. In a few days he’ll meet his new hosts and, fingers crossed, start to have the experience he signed up for. I’m so proud of and grateful to my mom and dad!

Poetically (can I say that?), his family has been so kind to me, inviting me over and offering all sorts of exorbitant help to me. They are the funniest and nicest family I’ve met here, generous without being pushy, affectionate without being saccharine, so gracious. His six-year-old sister’s got perfect dimples.

To see Korea photos click here.