Living as the minority

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  Hanam, Gyeonggi, Korea Rep.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Its so interesting to live as the minority for a change.  Yes, in El Paso I was a minority of sorts, but that is of course still completely different.  Korean people have great pride in their race and culture, so it is a very homogenius place.  As a blonde, I stick out even more.  I have to say that even though there are times when I know I am being watch and talked about, I love the experience of living as a minority.  My entire life I've been in the majority, the norm in my life.  Even in El Paso I lived on the west side which is where a majority of the white middle class people lived.  As I have grown into adulthood, I have become much more aware of my character.  As a person I hope that everybody strives to be as good of a person as they can be.  For me that involves accepting and loving my fellow man and basing my ideas about people on the content of thier character versus their appearance or circumstances of life.  As it says in the bible, it is easy to love people who love you and are kind to you, but your true colors are shown when you choose to love or reject those who do not love you

My memories of home

.  Unfortuately, I don't think many of us are truly challenged by this in our safe worlds.  Sure there have always been people that didn't like me and people who have not been kind to me and I hope that I have still loved them, but I know there are times when I reacted by emotion, rather than understanding.  The experience of living as a minority has allowed me to understand much better the importance of looking to the essence of the person. 

Also, for me, living among all "foreign" people has meant that I don't have the luxury of secluding myself with those I am most comfortable.  Instead, I have had to open myself up to something completely different.  Because I barely speak any of the language, it is my actions that are judged.  It is my tone and my smile, laughter, or deference in respect that are being judged.  It has opened my eyes in ways that they couldn't be opened before.  I am dismissed by those passing our fliers and am ignored in the elevator or on the subway.  I am sometimes (though rarely) given looks that definitely don't disguise the negative thoughts of the person.  All I can do is try to show through simple acts like holding the door or bowing to somebody, that I am a not a threat.  So here I am, a person that is far from perfect, but has the best of intentions at heart and am being judged in no way by my character.  So how many times have I dismissed somebody because of the way they look, or the language they are speaking?  How many times did I miss an amazing experience because of my own biases and fear?  Surely its happened once or twice. 

This has allowed me a lot of time for self-reflection and communication with God.  I'm sure that this is the right place for me to be now, because I am learning lessons that I never could have learned had I not taken on this adventure.  I've started paining in order to try to collect my thoughts and express myself non-verbally.  I've attached several pictures I've worked on.  Please feel free to respond to my thoughts with your own.  I miss you and love you all.

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