Category: Expat Tales

I scoured blogs, watched k-dramas, and listened to an unhealthy amount of k-pop before moving to South Korea in an effort to prepare myself for all the cultural changes I was bound to experience. Although that research wasn’t wasted, there are certain things I wouldn’t have ever learned had I not moved across the globe to call the land of morning calm home for a year.

If there’s one thing that Korea obsesses over more than kimchi, it’s coffee. Seriously. Walk on any street in Korea and you’ll find a coffee shop on every corner. I once asked a Korean friend why there are so many coffee shops in Korea, and his answer left me speechless. “Coffee is cool. If you’re a guy or girl, you go to a coffee shop and drink coffee alone to look cool,” he nodded his head agreeing with himself. So, there it is. The answer to why coffee is such a hot commodity in Korea. Young Korean girls and guys are making coffee cool.

Want to know about living and teaching (and eating) in Taiwan from someone who is currently doing just that? I thought you might. Here’s an interview with world traveler Kelly Chapeskie from Ontario, Canada. She moved to Taiwan through Reach To Teach in late 2013, and is currently living the dream in Kaohsiung. She’s funny, talented, beautiful, and an amazing teacher as well as a fantastic writer. And I’m not just saying that because we’re friends!

Because there is literally no end to the books that inspire us. And that’s kind of the point. Books transport us to places near and far, fathomable and fictional. Captivation first grows in our imagination. Then, the really good books, the ones that matter to us, may actually blossom into more than just words on a page, but words which spark a travel flame.

Too often we rally against those who are different. Their differences are the fodder of our hate while our lack of understanding and empathy is the very oxygen breathing life into the flame of indifference, unkindness, and disregard. When we become comfortable with the idea of placing people into inferior categories, the substance of our differences can adopt many faces: cultural, racial, sexual preferential; gender, occupation, shape, fashion. Doesn’t matter. Our prejudices will hone in on the divisive and equate it with the negative, the wrong, and the less than.

Korea’s trees are beginning to become full with lush green leaves again, flowers have bloomed and happily line every sidewalk, and the long days have a bright, happy luster that was missing only a few weeks ago. All of these changes can only mean one thing, spring is here! As happy as the news that the bleak Korean winter is over, it always comes with the dreaded knowledge that allergies are only a tissue’s reach away.

In the previous episode of 5 Reasons You Should Learn Chinese (found here), we made it abundantly clear that learning at least a little Chinese can really help you in a variety of situations when you go to China (or Taiwan). If you move to China, you’ve no excuse!

Committing to travel is no small decision. In so doing, you open yourself up to the influence of those completely different than yourself. In a sense, you are inviting significant change into your world, an admitted fear by many and unavoidable constant for all. The only way to combat that fear of the unknown is to go for it. Make it happen. Take the step in front of you.