Intellectually Inferior

One of the things that I am finding the most striking about living in Korea thus far is the extremely high percentage of excessively intelligent Westerners who live here. Of course, you will stumble across an occasional idiot or an attention-seeker who insists upon doing something loud and obnoxious in public, but for the most part, the people who choose to come here to teach are rather shrewd and scholarly. Amongst the group of friends that I have fallen into, I am intellectually inferior. I consider myself to be a relatively erudite individual who possesses an above-average vocabulary and is fairly well-read on most significant classical texts. At least this is how I viewed my pre-Korea self. But I am slowly beginning to view myself as nothing more than a naïve ingénue with a formerly massive ego. While it took me an indolent four months to finish the last novel I read, my friends are reading Charles Dickens’ lesser known works because they have presumably blown through his more famous ones, and they read complex philosophical essays for pleasure. As I plug away at this blog, they are writing poetry and novels. Despite the damage that these facts have inflicted upon my sense of self-worth, I find their company to be immensely enjoyable and their extracurricular reading and writing endeavors to be inspiring. Their particular variety of cultural refinement is anything but pompous, and it frankly feels refreshing to discover mass concentrations of people who love classical literature and loathe the Twilight series. It also feels refreshing to be able to connect with people on a level that goes far beyond social conventions and superficial chit-chat. A few friends from a different part of Daegu came to Chilgok yesterday with the intention of exploring the area with me and Kelly. However, we never really got around to embarking on our intended expedition, as we started off the journey by stepping into a coffee shop and not leaving for three hours. The conversation was just too engrossing to leave it unfinished. Admittedly, I contributed to maybe 10% of this discussion, as I am not particularly well-versed in the language of existentialism, psychological experiments of the mid-20th century, and the racial and socioeconomic implications of demographic shifts in the neighborhoods of urban areas. But existing in an environment that nurtures such topics of discussion, I think I might ultimately get there…