Skiing near the DMZ

I first learned to ski in the Berkshires when I was about 10 or 11 years old. That girl could never have imagined that nearly 40 years later she'd be on slopes in a part of the world she'd never heard of.

So, going skiing this past weekend was another "first" among my experiences in Korea. Like most things here, it was relatively small and crowded (compared to the US, of course). Even so, it was a lot of fun.

I'm fairly certain I was the tallest woman on the slopes. My new ski clothes are a men's size large. I've decided that Korean sizes are kind of "make believe" and don't get stressed about the labels (i.e., "men's large") too much anymore. It's like the way the money looks like Monopoly dollars. All those additional zeros make the bills look like pretend currency. I don't get as excited about being a multimillionaire anymore, especially as the won loses value against the dollar.

But I digress.

This is a picture of me with one of my hiking club friends, Milan, taken by another hiker, Natanya.

Milan's a chemical engineer from the Czech Republic, by way of Japan and England. Foreigners I meet here who aren't teaching or connected with the US bases often have bios like his--lived in several countries, working on contracts (business or engineering mostly) with Korean corporations. In his case, it's Hyundai and a Vietnamese company who've hired him and other engineers from a British/American group.

Natanya, the photographer, and I keep crossing paths here...the Seoul International Hiking Club, the Seoul Vegetarians Club, and we even ran into each other at the Passover seder on the US base in Seoul last spring. She also teaches and is a self-described "army brat" who lived in Korea and then Germany as a child.

Foreigners network socially here differently than in the States, in my experience. I mean, because we're outsiders and want some sense of community (except for those who've married Koreans and settled here), we search one another out based on criteria that wouldn't be so special back home.

For example, Natanya recently introduced me to a Canadian teacher living here in Suwon, Tracie, whom she'd met at a veggie potluck in Seoul. Simply living in the same small city and being English speaking vegetarians was enough common ground for Tracie and I to want to meet. Back home, if I heard there was another English speaking vegetarian, over 30, living in my city, it'd hardly seem extraordinary, obviously. Here, I felt like "Wow! I've got to meet this person. We have so much in common."

It's different for people who have a built-in community if they're connected with the US military or embassy. But for us teachers, especially us middle-aged ones and those of us outside of Seoul, it's a different story.