Asia

Reassembling your life

I spent most of the day today emptying boxes, arranging furniture, and putting away belongings in our new home.  I also went out to run some errands and eat lunch at a local Korean restaurant, a welcome respite from unpacking.  I didn’t realize how much stuff we own until I started going through all those boxes.  I repeatedly asked myself questions such as, "Why did I ship that?" and "Why did I ever buy this?"  For example, I found out that I accidentally shipped a miter saw that I have no intention of using while I’m overseas.  Somehow, I ended up shipping just about all the boxes previously stored in my garage, and now I have just about every home improvement tool available to me in a home that I do not need to maintain or improve.  If our place has a problem, I just need to call someone in maintenance.  I don’t need to be a handyman like I was when I lived in my own home.  I have all the tools I don’t need, and I’m missing some that I need.  I don’t even have a hammer yet.  My rusty ol’ hammer will come in a later shipment.  In the meantime, I’ll have to hammer nails to hang photos and prints using a heavy-duty wrench. 

I almost bought a new hammer at the store today, but I decided against it.  I already own one; why do I need two?  At first I justified the purchase by telling myself that my own hammer is rusty (accidentally left out in the rain), but I managed to convince myself not to buy it.  I’m glad I said no.  My family has become rather minimalist, partly out of necessity and partly out of desire.  When you live and work overseas, you don’t need as much as you need as a suburban American homeowner.  Too much stuff can be overbearing, and our life has been much too cluttered over the past few years.  We are planning to get rid of as much "junk" as possible as soon as possible to help unclutter our lives.  We want to keep only what we need or really want and avoid becoming transient packrats.  It will take some time.  We have to use up much of what we have bought–like those multiple bottles of laundry detergent–and sell or give away what we cannot consume.  We will still store some items away for our eventual return to the U.S. and for special occasions such as camping and Christmas.  We don’t have much storage room here, but we’ll find creative ways to put it all away.

Boxes and more boxes

Our first shipment of household effects from the U.S. arrived here today.  Our new home is in shambles now that boxes are stacked everywhere.  After work I spent some time opening up some of them and arranging our belongings in our new home.  However, many still need to be emptied.  This is the first of three shipments from the U.S., and it represents the bulk of our possessions.  This shipment is full of our belongings from our former home in the Seattle area that I have not used since I left Seattle early last year.  The other two shipments consist of everything we used while living temporarily in the Washington, D.C. area during training.  I can’t believe how much…stuff…we have collected over the years.  Moving abroad made me realize the value of living a simple, uncluttered life. 

Our belongings are a very welcome addition to our new home.  As is often the case with moves like these, we received several unanticipated items, including a sofa chair that we didn’t intend to ship to Korea.  We also received some items that were already included with our home, including a microwave and ironing board.  Many of the extra items will go into storage, but we need to figure out what to do with larger items such as the sofa chair.  We also need to figure out how to tastefully combine our belongings with the ones provided to us.  For example, our sofa pillows are lovely shades of green and white, but the furniture is blue and beige.  There is just no way to tastefully combine these colors into something aesthetically pleasing.  Consequently, the pillows and other mismatched items will probably go into storage here until our next move.  Unfortunately, we don’t have much storage space and will have to get creative with our excess belongings.

I’ve spent the last few days at work meeting my new colleagues and getting to know my new job and new team.  I also joined an hour-long Korean course for the first time.  My Korean is really rusty.  I thought that I would have ample opportunities to speak Korean in Seoul, but so far I haven’t been in too many situations yet where I needed to speak it.  Now that I’m here I realize more and more just how much Korean I still need to learn.  In the afternoon I had the pleasure of meeting some Korean youths and talking to them in English (and a smattering of Korean) about the U.S., Korea, U.S.-Korean relations, and Korea’s future.  I encouraged them to continue promoting awareness of Korean culture and that Korea can be at the forefront of Asian political and economic cooperation, as witnessed by the rising popularity of Korean culture throughout East and Southeast Asia.  I am glad that they were a receptive audience.  It will likely be the first of many opportunities for me to interact with Koreans.  I would like to speak more Korean, but I fear that I will not be able to explain technical terms such as "economic integration" adequately in Korean.  For now I’ll focus on peppering my speaking with a few Korean sentences.

Angyeung haseyo from Korea

Greetings from the Land of the Morning Calm!  I finally have an Internet connection and am back online again here in Korea.  It’s been awhile, I know.  I really missed having Internet access, although I have to admit that it made life much simpler for me.  It reminded me of what life was like before DARPA developed the Internet and Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web–life was much less complicated back then.  Now that the pipe is back on, it’s time to dive in again and complete all those tasks online that have been waiting. 

We arrived in Korea and were met by both the cold weather and the warmth of people who have bent over backwards to make us feel at home here.  Our arrival could not have been more pleasant, a welcome change over our experience in transit.  I am also glad that Korea has many of the conveniences that we took for granted in the U.S.  In many ways Seoul is not much different than what I expected.  It resembles many other large East Asian cities.  In the past year, however, I’ve learned about the uniqueness of the Korean nation.  It is definitely not a clone of other Asian countries, although in some respects it shares some similarities with its neighbor, China.  This place is both new to me and yet at the same time like a familiar friend.  I’m looking forward to exploring it more soon.  Alas, we have not yet ventured far from home, but once the weather warms up a bit and our car arrives we’ll try to travel farther afield.  We’re looking forward to visiting the entire country during our brief stay here.

We are now fairly healthy.  I still have a head cold roaming between my ears, nose, and throat, but my wife and son have almost completely recovered.  (Apparently the mild pollution isn’t doing me any favors.)  I’m doing a better job adjusting to the time difference than my wife and son (Korea is 14 hours ahead of Washington, DC).  My son still gets up at 4 a.m. and heads to bed much too early.  People here tell me that whenever you arrive in Seoul from across the Pacific Ocean it takes about one week to get your days and nights turned around, and it about three weeks to feel completely recovered.  I hope it will happen sooner than that!  I need to shake off the jetlag and get to work.