Tea, Tea, Barry's tea!

Some of the WSC crew 

When I first arrived in Korea, I drank a lot. I felt like I was back in the good ol' Wayne, America days with my crew of Ms QueeNae, Ms. Ordinary, Ms. Tasha, Blessed, Sunshine, The S sisters, Anabanana, LeneWitIt, Mr 24, That one guy, BHK, DLee and Mr. Big Sexy (most of the picked their OWN pseudonyms, so I'm not responsible). Back then we drank our way from Thursday through Saturday. We had great fun, amazing nights and cemented firm friendships that last until this day (these friendships were not only cemented around a shared love of alcohol!!!).

However, times change. These days, there are times when I don't want any alcohol. And to be honest, that now considerably outweighs when I do! Don't get me wrong, I love a drink. I like the socialising that comes with it and I like the atmosphere it (mostly) creates. Arriving in Jochiwon was quite overwhelming. I didn't know that there was a Facebook page and when I went to the foreigner bar to meet other teachers, none of the other foreigners initiated contact. My brother was with me and after much persuading from him, I finally went over and introduced myself. It turned out that the two people I met were new and didn't realise I was new too. I got to know them quite well and our first few weeks we hung out a lot. As time went on, I met more people but the community was still quite small. Also, most activities centred around food and alcohol so I spent a lot more time drinking than I had in the previous 6 years I had lived at home in Ireland.  I'm not complaining. I really enjoyed every minute of this life but I wanted something more.

See, at home, I was used to sitting around my house, drinking tea (Barry's, of course) and chatting. With my friends, we had several game nights and dinners at each others' houses. We did world food nights, cake nights and wine nights. Some of my friends and I even did Wii dance-offs. It was great fun and our time was not mostly spent around alcohol. Sure, alcohol was involved but it was always a choice in a myriad of other drinks. It wasn't the sole reason for getting together or the one thing each gathering was centred around.  I found after a few months living in Korea that I wanted that life. I wanted a social life that allowed me to be somewhat creative, to express myself and that didn't exclude my friends who don't like bars or who don't drink.  So, last autumn, I started making dinners for my friends about once a week or once every two weeks.

Now, the expat community in Sejong is much bigger and, I think, has a lot more socialising opportunities that do not involve alcohol. Whether it's going to hike Obangsan or doing coffee meet and greets at the local coffee shops, there are more options. One of my friends, Swaglu, even organised a scavenger hunt to welcome some new people in September. Sure, we still go to Touch or some of the other bars but they are no longer the only place you need go to meet people and they are not the main social arena any more. Which brings me to my next point. As our community expanded, inviting people (outside my core group of friends) to dinner was getting difficult. Our apartments are small and it's hard to sit so many people comfortably in the space provided. I still want to be welcoming, though, and to include as many people as possible.

Tea night #2

Tea night #2

Tea night #2

I feel like sometimes I am "stuck in a hole and I want [me] to get out, I don't know what there is to see" but if I don't crawl out of the hole, I will never see what the world and I have to offer. I put myself out there making dinners for my friends. I know I can cook and that the food I make is decent but I wasn't really sure if it was decent enough to put on a plate for someone else. I still don't really know but they all eat it, so at least it is edible! I want to put myself out there even more. To open my heart and my home to everyone that I can and not just my really close friends. I know that by doing so I "might just get a big surprise and it may feel good and [I] might want to smile, smile, smile." So, in September I hosted a tea night and I hosted my second one this week.

Once one idea came, it started to shine. I found myself planning events to welcome people into my home, to include them in the things that I love and I wasn't the only one doing so! My friend, BexC, wants to do a chili cook-off, Katetastic and I have talked about a girls' wine and crafts club (that's happening next month!), some of the guys have organised BBQs and Thanksgiving dinner, and Swaglu has so many ideas coming out of her that I can no longer keep up! It's contagious. Welcoming people into your community is important with meet and greets, dinners and drinks but even more important is building your community. That's what chili cook-offs, tea nights and book clubs are for. And we have all of those in Jochiwon. We are a small community but we are a community, nonetheless. We are now more than a few bottles of soju and a chat. We have more things that bind us together than just being expats who live in Sejong. We are expats who live in Sejong who like to cook, to drink tea, to drink wine, to share our creativity and to spend time together hiking, cycling, taking photos, exploring and reading. The amount of friends I have now who love to write and who encourage each other in their blogging endeavours amazes me (Rucy, TravelThayer, Chasing Glitter and AKA to name but a few).

So, you might think I'm mad to believe that to have a real expat community is possible. You might think I'm mad to think that you can and should involve yourself in things like chili cook-offs, book clubs and craft clubs even if you are only there for a year. However, I firmly believe that the meaning of life does not come from the bottle of soju (although that can occasionally give you some insight!) but rather from spending time with others and giving of yourself. If you are willing to put out to the world what your interest are, even if it is only for a short while, you can have a huge impact on your community. You will find like-minded people and people who will really surprise you by what they are interested in. I never fail to be surprised by how many people love Harry Potter. It makes me smile every time he comes up in conversation (and we usually end up doing a round of the Mysterious Ticking Noise). So my advice is, don't lose the opportunities that Korea (or life) presents to you. If you truly enjoy doing something, see if anyone else is interested in joining you. You might be surprised to see who likes the same things that you do. And if you live in Jochiwon and you are terrible at planning events or clubs, let me know: I've got people for that!

PS. Sing the title to the Potter Pals and the Mysterious Ticking Noise tune "Snape, Snape, Severus Snape". It's also inspired by Take That's Shine.

The many thresholds I can cross

As I clatter in the door, dumping my bag and coat on the ground in the kitchen entryway, chattering away I proceed to fill up the kettle. A few minutes later, a fresh, steaming teapot sits on the kitchen table, milk in the cups waiting for the perfect brew. Each of us takes our tea at a different strength from mostly milk with a dash of hot tea flavoured water preferred by my youngest sister to the strongest brew that sits in my cup. Slowly we drift in, one at a time we sit, sisters five, chatting away. Everything is discussed at that table from the latest purchases to whatever tv show or movie we've recently watched, book we've read or music we've listened to. We've discussed politics, religion, ideologies in the same breath as holiday plans and whether King or Tayto's are best. When all seven of us kids sit at the table the conversation expands and twists even more from judging each others styles, badgering each other to make tea - even those who don't drink it(I'm usually the unlucky devil who makes it!), lamenting over someone throwing their shoes in the sea or plotting a way all seven of us can do something fun together. Holiday time is even more intense as games like Bar Talk, Spoons or Werewolf are played, competition running fierce and accusations of cheating go hand in hand with memories, laughter and a ton of fun. This is family and this is HOME.

HOME means a lot to me - it's not just the structure I lived in most of my life or a place to "shelter me when darkness falls." It's where my family is along with all the memories. However, as I have moved from child to adult the concept of home has changed. HOME - that is my home in Ireland is the one I love best, but so many other places have had that name. When I was in college, I had at least 5 different places that I called home at anyone time: my HOME in Ireland, my college dorm/off-campus housing, my aunt's house in Omaha and my uncle's and aunt's houses in Lincoln. I had another uncle and aunt in Omaha, whose house I frequently stayed at that I also considered home. The thing is all of these places were somewhere I had some roots, somewhere where "I [could] sit and gather moss".

Now that I have graduated many moons ago, the concept of home has changed yet again. Whilst there is one HOME for me, there have been many places called Home where I have put down roots and I have gathered a little more moss - the apartment in Swords, the house off the NCR, this apartment in Korea. In each way and in each place, I've learned important lessons such always pay your bills (NCR house - the people who were in the house before me hadn't paid any bills in the 6 months BEFORE I moved in!), find ways of cost saving from turning off lights that aren't being used to layering up, and roommates you like. Most importantly, I've realised that I'm a hoarder. I don't mean to be but I am and every place I live I try to downsize a little more - I don't necessarily want to downsize on space but rather on what occupies it. When I moved to Korea, I recycled tons of books and clothes. I am trying to do that again now. I recently started with cleaning out my food cabinets. I have so much stuff in there, I can't actually tell what's there - I think that at the moment  there can never be "too much view for me" or "so much space between".

The concept of home has changed even more once I started travelling it has become whenever "I need a threshold I can cross". I remember the first time I went on a holiday and stayed in a hostel - the hostel was called a "hostel" by me but over time even the hostels, guesthouses, B+Bs, and hotels I've stayed in have become "home". A friend of mine once posted a picture on Facebook called home that had a dozen or so different places labelled home. I feel like mine would have at least 30 to 40 places that at one time or another I have called home! Whilst these places don't have the creature comforts that make a home a Home, they are somewhere where you can splay your roots for little while with no possibility of "gather[ing] moss forevermore".

I have learned over the years that while there may be no place like HOME,  "four cabin walls would be just right for me" in settling down in a place on a temporary basis- but Home...Home needs a few things from HOME - a few pictures of family and friends and a bit of the auld Barry's tea. That's Home for me. When I travel, I don't bring tea with me - I am there to experience and learn about the place I am in. However, when I am in a "Home", I need my tea - it's my connection to Ireland, my way of feeling as if "someone [is] smiling from [their] chair across the floor". The other thing that I've learned is that whenever it's time for me to move from living in my Home to my own actual HOME that has the same value and comfort as my current HOME, I need a little more than "four cabin walls" but one thing will never change - I'll always need my Barry's tea!

So might think I'm mad that I can't call somewhere "Home" without the auld Barry's and you might think I'm mad that over the course of my life I've called more places "home" than I have actually lived. However, I think that Home/HOME really is where the Heart is. The thing is, at different points in time, my heart not unlike Voldemort's soul, has been split into different places. Unlike Voldemort's soul, it is only with beneficial consequences!

PS This post was inspired by a cup of tea and a chat with my family
PPS The title of this song and this post was inspired by "A million miles away" from Paint your Wagon staring Clint Eastwood.
PPS Thanks to my Mam and my Aunt for keeping me in supply of Barry's tea - I haven't found it here and as you know Korea just wouldn't be Home without it!