Caitlin Anderson: Another Mundane
When people say that traveling will change you, they're right. It'll change you, regardless of where you go or what you do, but that doesn't imply that it's necessarily a transcendent experience like I'm sure many think.
It's not necessarily getting up and stepping out the door to see a huge culturally-important parade on the street that makes you rethink life, it's not necessarily like converting to a religion, it's not even necessarily going out and doing something selfless and coming home a better person.
It isn't something out of a fantasy novel, or a sensationalized movie. It's so much more important than that.
The way going to South Korea changed me wasn't just opening my eyes to the wider world, or discovering parts of myself I didn't know about yet, or spending time with strangers, though all of those did happen... the things I notice most are what I see in my everyday life.
I didn't live too much differently, on a large scale, than I did here. I would go to classes during the day, then return to the dorm and talk to friends on the computer about what I'd done lately. Of course, I got to other cities several times, but when you're in a new location the real adventure can sometimes be in just seeing what's around.
The cities there are incredibly walkable, and public transportation is timely, clean, inexpensive, and very easy to find and get to. I know a lot of people here lament not having great public transportation like many other countries have, but it becomes a whole other issue when you spend months with access to just about the best public transportation you can get. I could go from the dorm in Gwangju to a nice hotel in Seoul in about three and a half hours for about as much as it'd cost to fill a tank of gas here. Granted, South Korea is very small - just a little bigger than South Carolina - but what transportation do we have here? Amtrak, Greyhound, planes, and maybe an alright bus in some of the bigger cities, and a lot of it is pricey. You're expected to drive here, the cities are built for it, and if you don't have a car then people might assume that you're not doing too well.
But there, I'd often take the bus to a store, or to the movie theater, or to a restaurant. Most people use them; you won't find nearly as many cars around there as here. But, predictably, that made them be rather packed during peak hours, which were much of the day depending on where they were coming from or going. I'd sometimes find myself standing smushed between four people, hardly able to reach the bars to hang onto, or sometimes even just trying to stand straight with nothing to brace to, and others would be doing the same. And honestly? It's beautiful. It's human. I was always steeped in the intricacies of life, not just hollering at someone on the highway because I can't see their face or understand what they're up to. On those buses, we'll all get there the same time.
I miss it a lot, it's made me crave to go on what little public transport we have here for that feeling of getting somewhere without myself or a buddy being behind the wheel. I took an Amtrak for the first time a few months ago to meet some friends at a convention, and it was wonderful. It was a little scary, kind of icky, a little frustrating, and wonderful.
In the stores themselves, and in the restaurants, it was similar, but not the same as here. They have McDonalds there, and I'm guilty of having gone there, but it was interesting to see the differences. One notable thing was the prices - they factor in tax there, so if something says it costs 2,400 won (~$2) then you will be paying 2,400 won. Also, they handle making food differently; they do something to their fries there that they don't do here, and it's the guiltiest thing I miss, and their sodas all use cane sugar. Good for Coke... hated it for Sprite.
But the most interesting things weren't in the big chains, they were in the smaller restaurants. Kiosks - thank goodness, since I don't know much Korean - were in most restaurants, even small ones. In hindsight, it could be because of Covid, but I wasn't complaining. I was able to go to so many interesting smaller restaurants I would never think to go into here... they were everywhere! It's made me curious about the smaller restaurants here.
When I'd get back to the dorm, even in the comfort of that little room and the plaza "outside" the building (the building sort of surrounded it), things were different. There was a curfew, unfortunately, and you had to apply for time out of the dorm.
But it wasn't just negatives... they have a pretty good focus on recycling, too. They do a lot of recycling there, you may know this already. I had to separate my trash into food waste, plastics, metal cans, glass jars, etc. and place them in the right bins, or else I'd get weird looks from the dorm staff. Eventually, it became less of an obligation, and more something that I felt good doing. There's something very psychologically liberating about disposing of less waste.
Coming home, I felt guilty disposing of plastics and cans - they should go in the recycling! But nobody taught me here how to recycle properly, so I'm left still wondering how to do it, and too busy to figure it out. In the end, it made me think more about how much I throw away. All from just having recycling bins available and understandable in a way we don't quite have them here.
In general, it was mundane... but it was ANOTHER mundane. It was everyday life, but in a different language.
I think the most important part of my experience, though, was that intentional adaptation. Part of that journey adapted me without me having to try, but some of it was a lesser scraping for survival - not the kind where you worry about having access to food, but something a bit more subtle, something that takes the mind rather than the muscles or instincts.
It was learning phrases in Korean like "one chicken skewer please", or navigating the apps the locals used to find transportation, or finding out which food places had electronic kiosks so I could order without stressing too hard. It's rewarding in a way that finding berries out in the wilderness might be, but it's with the benefit and the joy and the wonder of learning how to navigate another culture, another part of the world, becoming a part of that place. Every time I got a hotel room, or found a new restaurant I liked, or went in a store and found something novel and cool (like a bottle of tiny pieces of paper inside of little capsules that looked like pills), or even just said "annyeonghi gyeseyo" ("goodbye", literally "stay peacefully") to a cashier when I left a store, I felt incredible, like I could take on the world, like I was thriving. There's a sort of confidence you get when you travel, in all those little successes, that's in short supply in a familiar environment. It makes you feel strong.
We're human, we're adaptable - we're all the same species, and if they can live there, you can visit, and you can find joy in what people take for granted, just the way people who visit here take joy in things we take for granted. It becomes a part of your soul, it makes you bigger, it gives you another home for your heart you wouldn't otherwise have.
Somewhere in my heart, I feel like I have a home there too now, that I left a piece of my soul there, and I'm sure it'll be the same when I travel in the future. I lamented at first about having left that piece of me behind, but now that the grief has settled... I'm glad it's there. It just means I've lived a little more than I had before.
My travel changed me, not through some grand act or intense experience - though those do have their value! - but through everyday life making my soul a little bigger, a little more open, and opening my mind to possibilities that I hadn't thought to prod at here in this little town.
Caitlin Anderson is a Computer Information Systems major with a minor in Cybersecurity. She went to South Korea in the spring of 2022 for five months, and is expected to graduate in the spring of 2024. After Lander, she wants to get into IT or game development, and is currently spending some of her free time working on a solo game development project.