Are you still in Korea?

By Deauwand Myers

America: Land of bigness. The hamburger. The television. The endless fields of wheat and corn and suburbia stretching out in all directions. The country is a marvel; our beautiful scenery; our vastness. It's a pleasure to be home.

When you travel back to your native country, (and even if you don't), you willl be invariably asked this question in some iteration: Why are you in Korea (or another foreign country)? How long will you stay there? When will you go back?

Expatriates know the feelings of guilt, defensiveness, and being at a loss for words trying to cogently answer these kinds of questions.

Living outside of one's home country can be challenging. Language barriers, cultural differences, social norms and nuances, and acclimatizing to new surroundings can make for a challenging experience.

Having lived in Asia (Japan, China, and Korea, in that order) for most of my adult life, these have proven to be easier to manage as time goes on. The aforementioned questions are, after years of hearing them, redundant, but they offer an opportunity for reflection.

If you ask some foreigners, especially those that have been in Korea for a number of years, they will offer a variety of answers. But some interesting and familiar themes often come up:

That paper: Many foreigners come to Korea or Japan for money. The cost of living, housing benefits, and ability to save income means that there is an opportunity to pay off university debts. Simple.

The escapee expat: I have no empirical evidence to substantiate these claims, but anecdotally, quite a few expats tell me what I have periodically experienced myself: too many foreigners come to foreign countries as a means to escape.

They're escaping a hyper-religious family. They're escaping their banal existences; in their home countries, they are ordinary and average, if not mediocre, but in Korea (insert another country here), they can pretend to be extraordinary. They are exoticized and fetishized by locals in some fashion. There's an element of celebrity attached to being a foreigner in a racially homogenous society such as Korea. If you are white and male, this can be especially true.

The escapee expat is often socially awkward, weird, ethnocentric, unfinished, and obnoxious.

It's Different:

Experiencing a different culture and lifestyle is a big reason people travel and live abroad. Obvious enough, but you'd be surprised how many people find that answer suspect, incomplete, and unsatisfactory.

Academic interests, military, and family: There are expatriates doing graduate or post graduate work on Asian cultures like Korea, and so living here affords them an opportunity to study their academic focus up close and in real time.

Your post is your post; military personnel are sent where they are ordered. Civilian personnel attached to the American military: educators, contractors, and logistical staff, for example, apply for postings they'd prefer to have.

Korean Americans and Korean Canadians, for example, may be in Korea to live with family and/or to explore their cultural heritage.

Of course, there is a myriad of other reasons not included in my abbreviated list.

Which goes to the question, why am I living abroad?

Let me first answer that by explaining why I'm not in Asia. I certainly am not escaping anything. I like my family and friends and life in America.

I'm not craving attention or celebrity. I have been colored in predominantly white settings in my neighborhood, secondary, tertiary, and graduate education. The very last thing I'm looking for is to stand out or be noticed; quite the opposite.

I simply wanted to visit a foreign country after finishing school. My Japanese professor suggested Japan, and that's pretty much the end of it. I apply to positions in America from time to time. When something I really like comes my way, I have no problem in leaving Korea and going back.

Here's what else I quickly offer. Expatriates should resist the guilt trips some friends and family may put on them about living abroad. There's an accusatory and ethnocentric tone often accompanying this "why are you over there" question. The implication is that living outside of your native country is somehow illegitimate. Why, exactly? Do Americans, for example, think it's odd when they see foreigners making a life in America? Of course not. The assumption that living outside of one's native country is somehow problematic is ethnocentric. That is: the only desirable place to live is America (or some other Western country).

Why? For exorbitant health insurance? Random shootings? Donald Trump? Please. Korea (like Japan) has a lower cost of living, universal healthcare, clean, accessible public transportation, and McDonald's delivery. Not that I have partaken.

You are an adult. You don't owe long and tortured explanations about why you live in Korea. When someone asks why you're still in Korea after two or more years, tell them the truth. "I'm grown." Maybe even, "I like it."

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.