Pros and Cons
If you haven’t noticed the change on my left-hand sidebar from “Currently in Jerusalem” to “Currently in Seoul”, let me state it more directly: I’m not in Jerusalem any more and I am back, temporarily, in Seoul. Due to some circumstances, I’ve wrapped up my life in al-Quds or Yerushalayim after five months there. It’s been three days since I’ve been back in Seoul and I’ve noticed some jarring differences between the two cities. Here is the list.
Pros (of being back in Seoul):
1. Family
2. Korean food
2. Let me say it again: KOREAN FOOD
3. Not being the only Asian in town (or not being stared at or sexual obscenities screamed at me on a daily basis)
4. Amazing service. I don’t need to scream and intimidate bank tellers, shopkeepers, bureaucrats, and waitresses for services I should rightfully be getting without having to harass them.
5. Public transportation
6. Being welcomed. In Jerusalem, I’ve continually needed to justify my reason for being there. As a non-Jewish, non-Christian, and non-Muslim Asian who is not a migrant worker nursing an elderly Israeli woman, many Israelis were puzzled at my reason for being there. Because (in their logic) why would anyone who is not Jewish, Christian or Muslim want to be in Jerusalem?
Cons (of being back in Seoul):
1. Not having my friends in Jerusalem
2. The doom demanding conformity to the Korean ideal
3. Freezing weather
4. The lack of quiet only heard during Shabbat
5. Jerusalem artichokes
6. The lack of diversity. In Seoul, many neighborhoods look and feel the same, with the same franchise restaurants and coffee shops in buildings with almost identical architectural designs. In Jerusalem, there is so much richness and layered depth on every street corner, ranging from the people frequenting certain neighborhoods to the architectural nuances.
Jetlag and Time Zones
I never recovered from my jetlag. No, that would be a misleading statement. I never was jetlagged because I never stopped operating on Eastern Standard Time. Since returning home to Korea, I have consistently been going to bed at 3 or 4 a.m. and waking up at any hour between 1 to 4 p.m. Of my sleeping hours, 7 a.m. has proven to be the most painful. I stir from my drunken doze with a clothes hanger poking at my waist, thanks to my sister who mistakenly (?) tosses the hangers onto my bed.
So why have my day and night been literally turned upside down? Mainly, for two reasons: one, all the newspapers and blogs that I read (The New York Times, Guardian, Haaretz, Jezebel, The Daily Beast, etc.,) get updated at nighttime in Seoul; two, my friends all operate on GMT or EST, which makes nighttime (in Seoul) easier for scheduling Skype sessions. I could just wait for the newspapers when I wake up in the morning but I don’t have the patience nor the twisted pride, to wait to read what everyone (on the Eastern Seabord and the Western world) has read hours ago. Plus, it makes keeping up with the blogs infinitely hard, when comments to comments and reblogs to reblogs are made by the hour. I’d rather stay up to track the growing comments than to wait to see everything that everyone has said about it, like a soldier who got up too late only to find the battle fought already by everyone else.
Sure, it feels mildly numbing to wake to the sun setting. But you know what? I’d rather suffer than to skip out on seeing 1st Ave and E. 46th St., thanks to [redacted] Skyping with me on the balcony of her office at the U.N.
