The Small Things We Take For Granted.....

.... I know I'm not usually a 'weekday blogger' because I rarely do anything outside working and eating, but this evening I feel compelled to add something to my site after an incident occured today which got me thinking.

Aside from the occasional 'hairy' moment in the last seven months (eg. obliterating my right foot beyond proper use) most things in Korea have, in all honesty, been relatively stress-free. I know that my mum will probably say that I live my life stress free but that's due to my outlook on everything, not because of a lack of stressful situations!

This evening however, my patience was tested. Trying to take some money out of an ATM at the neighbourhood branch of my bank I was slightly alarmed when after a couple of minutes standing waiting for money to come out, the screen in front of me just completely shut off, rebooted itself, and acted like I had never used it.

Puzzled by what was going on, and a little angry as this was the second time that my card had been eaten by the very same machine, I headed back to Talkster for assistance and thankfully one of my fellow teachers (who I was extremely thankful for) called the bank and asked if someone could open up the machine to get my card out for me.

After the traumatic experience of thing that I was entirely stuck I was able to reflect on what might of happened should the same thing have taken place in England.

For a start off, the usual thing to do would be to call a helpline and cancel your card and/or ask them for assistance. In Korea, the lack of any resonable amount of Hangul beyond 'hello' and 'goodbye' makes situations such as this pretty impossible to deal with.

I'm not sure if I have really taken things for granted since I have been here (even though the title of this entry suggests) or if I have really been in Korea that long that the lack of common language between myself and 99% of the population goes unnoticed. Now rather than commenting when people don't understand English, it's a phenomenon when people do actually speak words of English, and it was actually pretty poingient that when we got in a cab to go to dinner this evening that the driver upon stating that he spoke 'a little bit of bad English' was able to have a fully fluent conversation with the three of us for the duration of the drive, and not just on subjects about 'Korea' and 'Park Ji-Sung' as is usually the case.

Being in a country where everyone speaks the same language as you, I guess I now realise, is something you do take for granted, unless you are taken out of there and placed in a situation such as the one I find myself at the moment. During most days I spend time speaking to 6-9 year old students, my boss and Kevin and Charlie, and that's about it. There are countless interactions during the day with people in shops, on busses or in restaurants where nothing more than glances, points and grunts take place and I awknowledge that it is going to be pretty difficult (but probably novel) when I go back to England and don't have to speak in broken language to order something or to find out the price of an item.

When you go into a shop here and you're looking for something which you aren't sure if they sell, you are basically on your own, unless you like charades as very few people will be able to understand what you are looking for. Some resturants in Korea don't have pictures on their menus and only thanks to Anna telling us the names of things have we been able to order things in these places, they might serve things which are even more delicious than what we usually order but we wouldn't know because other than reading the word, we don't have any other details about it.

I think I have discussed before how strange it was in Thailand to be able to speak English to people, and hear conversations about me going on but I guess that the incident with the rogue ATM today made me realise again that there will probably never be another situation again that I am basically as helpless as I am at the moment.
There's so many examples in day to day life that it's actually frightning to think about the simple differences between Korean and the rest of the Western world and the language barrier plays a serious part in the reason why I imagine living here and not being surrounded with the few English speakers that I am could make things even more difficult.

I'm pretty lucky as I usually have Kevin and Charlie with me so we can fumble our way though, but without them, the lone ranger role would be an extremely difficult experience.
It's probably very hard for people to understand exactly how not being able to communicate with people on a regular and daily basis feels but I am getting enough of an experience of that for all of you, but I don't think, even in this blog I am able to convey exactly how tough it can be sometimes.

All I can say that after getting my card back, I am very thankful that people in Korea understand how challenging life can be for foreigners who live so far away from their home and don't speak the language. I can only hope that for the next five months the difficulties in the language barrier remain minimal and I am able to reflect on them with friends when I get back home!!!

Take Care

Ben xxxx

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”

Aldous Huxley