Everyone Thinks I'm Going to Die

I will comment on the details of my impending job status at a later date, but for now I need a moment to rant about a recurring problem that I seem to be having every time I tell someone that I am going to teach English in South Korea for a year. Almost everyone, regardless of how worldly and open-minded they may be has a universal reaction: “You’re going where? Oh my! Why do you want to do that?” Even when people try to say something positive, they usually say it with a question mark at the end and an inflection of the last syllable: “Congratulations? Good for you? That’s great?” One person even caressed my shoulders, looked deeply and sincerely into my eyes, and offered the encouraging words of, “It’s okay! You’re gonna make through this,” as if I have just suffered through an embarrassingly public divorce complete with an embittered custody battle. The most enlightened of the group cite a potential threat from North Korea as the reason for their skepticism…the most ridiculous think that South Korea is a third world country in Africa. While those who have been supportive have been overwhelmingly so, my psyche is inevitably beginning to feel weighed down by the throngs of nay-sayers who demand that I defend my clearly erratic and ill-conceived decision to temporarily exile myself from the country. The truth is that most people don’t know anything about South Korea, and they therefore presume that it must be a terrible, unsafe, undeveloped country. I’m not wagging my finger and shaming anyone for this because the truth, also, is that until I began to obsessively research information about every aspect of the country, I too knew very little about it. Allow me to enlighten you with a few findings:

1. South Korea is modern. – This is a relatively recent development. Immediately following the Korean War in the 1950s, the war-ravaged country was left with decimated land, broken families, and mountains of debt. The road to recovery was a long and hard one, and South Koreans paid for it by being forced to work excruciatingly long hours and suffering under one military dictatorship after another, but eventually they emerged out of it ahead in the 1990s and currently have the 10th largest economy in the world, a pretty impressive statistic for a country the size of Indiana. Korea now boasts being “the most wired nation in the world” with over 75% of the population connected to broadband at home, and internet cafes and gaming palaces an omnipresent reality in the cities. If you find yourself saying “so what,” I completely understand. I mention these facts for the exclusive purpose of dispelling the notion that South Korea is an impoverished country. It is not. Not even close.

2. South Korea is safe…honestly – I was listening to the local South Dakota news tonight, and the highlights were depressing but not unusual: rape, child sodomy, murder, armed robbery, domestic violence, etc. – Too many South Dakotans falsely believe that we hold a monopoly on safety. We don’t. If you want to play the comparison game and analyze the streets of Sioux Falls versus the streets of San Francisco, then of course South Dakota is safer. But that doesn’t exactly mean we have achieved a utopian society in this humble state. Do I feel safe here? Absolutely. Here’s why: I don’t hang out with drug dealers, I don’t go into neighborhoods that I know I don’t belong, and I don’t walk around late at night by myself when I’ve had too many vodka crans. This basic code of conduct may not completely eliminate the threat of potential harm, but it can significantly decrease it, in South Dakota as well as South Korea.

That being said, the “Dangers” and “Safety” sections of my Korean travel guidebooks are curiously bare. The reason for this is because there isn’t all that much to say. According to my friend Charles, who spent a year teaching in Daegu (a Korean city of 3-4 million), he never once felt unsafe walking around by himself and he never came across a neighborhood that he would describe as “sketchy.” Guns are illegal in South Korea, and reports of rape or civil violence are few and far between. As far as I know, no gun-wielding Korean has ever walked into a national museum and opened fire because he was pissed off that said museum was devoted to an event that he claims never happened. I might need to worry about inadvertently eating barbecued dog, but I won’t need to worry that the lack of metal detectors in my school will invite troubled students to bring weapons to English class. It seems that the worst thing that might happen to me is that a crazy driver might accidentally swerve maniacally into me on the sidewalk (evidently the stereotypes about Asian drivers are quite true).

3. The situation with North Korea is impossible to predict. – I know I can’t get around the issue of safety without talking about North Korea, and I won’t try to. Does North Korea talk a lot of shit? Yes. Do they possess nuclear weapons? Yeah. Do these weapons have the range and accuracy to hit specific locations in South Korea and/or in Japan? Yep. Will they use them for this or any other purpose? I believe it is unlikely, but I cannot say with certainty. Here is what I can say with certainty: North Korean leader Kim Jong il is rumored to have life-threatening pancreatic cancer and is not expected to live much longer. Unlike South Korea, the North does not have a thriving economy. They do not have the means and they hardly have the motive to wage war against another country at this point, particularly against a country that has more resources, more allies, and more intelligence than itself. Does this mean that I have nothing to worry about? Not exactly. But if I were living in the States, would a potential attack from North Korea still be a legitimate possibility? I’m afraid so. Like I said, I don’t think it will happen, but these things are not easy to predict. I plan to exercise caution while overseas and to pay close attention to the antics of the North, but I do not plan to suck my thumb under the covers of my tiny bed in my tiny studio apartment for a year. In the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”