WHEN THINGS DON'T TURN OUT, SOMETIMES THEY DO...

Photo: Donggoksa in Gwangju is a small Buddhist temple at the base of Mudeung Mountain
by Susan Lee
When I turned 30, I needed a change. I got married young, and the marriage didn’t work out.  At the time, I was teaching full-time but in desperate need of a change.  I had dealt with all the pain and suffering of the separation and divorce, and needed a space to recover.  I mentioned this to a colleague one day and she had heard about a one-year teaching opportunity at a university in South Korea. She said, “If you play your cards right, you might be able to do this, AND come back to your old job.”  So, I played my cards right and the deal was made that allowed me to take a one-year sabbatical and go to Kwangju, South Korea, the food capital of Korea.
 
That year was truly transformational for me. Living in a completely different culture gave me this much needed breathing space to see things differently. The culture was traditional and I was constantly asked “how old are you?” and “are you married?” One of my unmarried colleagues made up an elaborate story about how her husband had died tragically explaining her current state of singlehood. I preferred to keep it simple and just answer “I’m 30 and single”.  This was often followed by lots of advice about how I needed to get moving.  Despite living in this traditional culture, the experience gave me real sense of freedom. I often think about what that “freedom” was that year, and here’s what I have come up with:

1. Freedom to try completely new things.  By this, I mainly mean food because I ate very very well that year and even packed on a few pounds that had to be worked off climbing mountains. Hiking was one of the great joys of life in South Korea and even though I was living in a city, I could easily get into the hills and hop from one serene Buddhist temple to another, and then finally to the amazing vista overlooking the entire city.  All of that would be followed by  - you got it -  another delicious meal of rice, kimchi, an array of side dishes, grilled meats wrapped in sesame leaves with hot pepper sauce. Sigh.
2. Freedom to experience “Chung” – which is a Korean word that cannot be translated into English. It has to do with the feeling of human warmth and connection between people in moments in time.  I experienced a lot of Chung that year with lovely Korean students, new friends, and fellow foreigners. The cultivation of Chung centers around food and drink. Being in the food capital of the country, Chung was abundant! Friendships I made during this year have remained to this day. 
3. Freedom to experience a less individualist culture. This was perhaps the most liberating part for me. Before my experience in South Korea, I had felt that my problems really *mattered in some kind of ultimate way. In the South Korean context, you only matter in relation to others. I witnessed this in the classroom, in families and in communities.  When I returned to Canada, I had to re-adapt to the Western way, but I have always kept something of this “freedom” with me. The freedom to be myself, but to not take myself too seriously; the freedom to move on from the things that don’t work out; and the freedom to chart a new course from a place of groundedness, human connections, and good food! ​