This relocation to Korea has turned into a vacation of sorts. There I was, in China, writing blogs about my new religion, relaxing in the afternoon sun and now here I am in Seoul with dreary weather and no motivation to write about anything. People living here seem to work too much and enjoy too little. Sure, I used to live that life too, however it’s only after stepping out of that environment that I could realize how dull it is.
To be fair, there are lots of great things about this country. If you look at it in context, you can really see how they as a people have developed. The grandparents of this country have seen so much change and dealt with it. As kids, they lived through a horrible war that tore the whole country apart, and now they drive nice cars on 5-lane streets through a city lined with tall buildings and high-speed internet cables. But I’m not a historian, nor am I a Korean studies major. I’m an artist at heart and an Australian by birth. Concrete everywhere, cars cluttering every feasible space, people bustling around with the mark of stress on their face, really brings me down. Life, to me, is more than about making money and babies.
In Korean, the same word for day is the same word for work (“Il”). This really says a lot. In English, work and day don’t even have any of the same letters as each other. This says a lot too. I do believe that to be happy, one must engage in productive work, I just don’t believe that said work should encompass all of one’s life at the expense of everything else.
But don’t listen to me, I’m currently unemployed.
Sometimes decisions have to be made and they turn out to be wrong. I think there is some correlation between self-honesty and the eventual success of those decisions. It’s never too late to change one’s mind, but breaking a pattern of denying one’s dreams is very hard to identify and cure. Those who dare to do what they dream are the lucky ones, those who are not concerned with the here-and-now and more concerned with the future they envision. In this case, work is justified and fulfilling.
I came to Korea and found myself wanting to rewind the clock and stay in China. I miss my bike, my apartment, my $2 noodles, my coffee maker and my City Shop salad. Most of all, I miss the bright sunshine which warmed this artist’s soul each day. My religion and thus the world needs me to fulfill my destiny. It needs you to do the same thing. The doing is the hard part, but there is happiness in the act and in the result.
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To me you seem to shift locations but are you getting the most from the country you are in or just the locality where you live and nothing else. To work 6 days and not experience the richness that can be found seems like such a waste. xxxPam