The Expat Experience

This American Life this week features Americans in China. It brings back a lot of memories about the expat experience, particularly that of toeing the line between being informed and judgmental. I admit, I'm a little ashamed of the things I wrote about Korean culture when I first started this blog. I leave them all up because I think, more than anything, this is my (public) diary of my experience. I wrote those things because I was frustrated, far from home, and naively thought that I understood Korea.

Two things in the podcast really stuck with me. One was an expat who wisely said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that you will continuously discover things that shock and offend your western sensibilities, but you can't "dwell in the land of indignation." The other was some writers poking fun of expat blogs, all of which are "arch and condescending." This is true. It's very difficult, maybe impossible, to avoid being condescending as an American living in Korea. There are so many things--abundant plastic surgery and an obsession with appearance, rampant sexism, glorification of conformity--that are jarring to us. Either we rage against them, as I often did, or accept that they're the product of a different set of values, an otherness. And once we start defining people as "others", we're toeing a delicate line, with racism and ignorance on the other side.

So how does one avoid dwelling in the land of indignation and writing an entire culture off as inscrutable? I don't know.

Foreigners add value to every society. The perspectives they provide contain truth, though perhaps truth shrouded in ignorance and condescension. It was a very interesting role to play for awhile, and I find myself missing it sometimes. Don't get me wrong, we're still foreigners of sorts. I guess I have never lived anywhere where I felt like I really belonged. I could certainly poke holes in Hawaiian culture (I never will, the wounds are far too raw) or North Carolinian culture, but there is nothing quite as alien to me as Korean culture. It really was quite a ride.

Memorial Day Weekend

Well, the weekend has been packed with adventures and misadventures. On Saturday, X and I went to the leeward side in search of sunshine. Seriously, it was in the 70's and windy over here! We biked through Kapiolani Park and headed toward the beach, where X promptly crashed. In true three-year-old fashion, he urged me onwards, let me set up our towels and change his clothes, then said he wanted to go home. In true "asshole parent" fashion (thanks, La!), I told him to lie down on the towel and went swimming.

Riding his bike

Looking at ducks

On the beach

On Sunday, we saw the Maunawili Demonstration Trail. Despite the snore-inducing name, it was quite nice. We only hiked a mile in, then turned around and came home. You don't have to make a whole lot of effort to get a nice view, which works for X and out-of-shape Bobby.

There was a moment when, in a shady...well, I don't know what you call it. The Koolaus ripple, so you sometimes hike in what looks like the folds of a blanket. Anyways, we were in this shady ripple, it was chilly, and X started having a conversation with someone. There were a lot of the prayer stones that I would see in Korea around. I was very creeped out, as we haoles have some bad history with the native Hawaiians, but X told us that "sir is happy" so I guess it was all good.

Setting out

Nice view

in front of a water tower

Overlook

Helping X get down the stairs

He's 3, in case you were wondering

Sunday evening, an hour after Bobby left for work, I rapidly realized that I was coming down with this bug that X had. Excellent timing, as I had to wrangle X for the next 24 hours unaided. I caught him sticking his hand in the toilet and licking it, which may explain why he's been getting sick so much recently. Kids are germ factories and should be hermetically sealed.

Happy Memorial Day!

Everyday Superheroes

Note: A little background: in the Marine Corps, the library is in the same department as the Education, Transition, and Personal Finance departments. I witnessed this amazing struggle to rescue this marine from his own mistakes a few months ago and was inspired to write this. I have since seen more and rewritten this countless times. It's time to let it go into the ether (before this note becomes longer than the piece itself).

To often, people say they support the military when in fact they extort them, use them as a political tool, or provide no support aside from that empty phrase.

I am continuously humbled by the lengths my coworkers will go to to help our men and women in uniform.

I have witnessed frenzied, last ditch efforts to back marines out of loans that are unfair and for-profit schools that are even more unfair. Efforts, might I add, that only try to save these marines from the bad decisions they make despite countless attempts by my coworkers to educate them on the proper ways to find work, education, or financial stability.

They are all intelligent and educated and driven by a desire to make life a little easier for our uniformed service members. They work long hours. They make peanuts.

Too often, federal employees are written off as overpaid bureaucrats who waste government money. There are certainly those folks, too. But what I see around me are true believers. No one thanks them for their service. And yet, here they are, day after day, refusing to give up.

Mornings

Why do small children have to get up with the sun? We have done everything we can think of to block X's knowledge that the sun is rising. We have blackout curtains over the window and white noise to drown out the bird chorus. Nonetheless, this morning he was knocking on our door at 5:45. Often when he gets up too early we will bring him into bed with the ipad to collect a few more winks. Alas, it was not meant to be today. He found a youtube video of fire trucks driving around with lights and sirens on and played it over and over at high volume.

Work is tough. I am 95% burned out, commuting past beautiful seascapes to work long hours. Sigh. Summer reading hasn't even started yet! This weekend, I am NOT going to the office and we will be going to the beach. Damnit.

Ben Parker Elementary, where we make our weekly farmer's market run.

This kid is fearless. This is a 30 foot slide.

Meeting characters at the Hawaii Book and Music Festival.

Rolling down the hill with the kids.