The Expat Tipping Point

This past Saturday, Tyler and I met a friend at the Great Korean Beer Festival, where there were (shockingly) about 100 different Korean craft beers and micro-brews.  About two-thirds into the night, there was a Halloween costume contest, which was part fun and part awkward for everyone involved (including the audience).  At two different points during the contest, someone in costume (essentially, a sore loser who didn't make it to the final round) jumped on stage and let everyone know just how they felt about Korea.  Screamed a girl wearing a homemade punk rocker costume: "G-market!! G-market!!  I'm so sick and tired of this stupid country!!" (the former being a reference to the local Amazon here -- basically saying that the winners bought their costumes instead of making them from scratch).

While I joined the booers in getting the naysayers off the stage, I later considered the various tipping points that all of us expats have when living in another country.  I remember spending Christmas 2005 in Rwanda (my first Christmas abroad), spending the holiday with Americans who just seemed so bitter living in Rwanda ("So why don't you just leave?" -- I remember asking them in my head)

Of course, that was essentially us during our last years in India -- which is a large reason we decided to stay in Delhi our fourth year, to round everything out and not leave India feeling like a bitter old expat.  We all have stories from India on exact moments we wanted to jump into a cab and just head for the airport, no looking back.  When I was in Hyderabad, I heard about a Peace Corps morale curve that basically shows volunteers being through the roof their first year ("Everything is incredible!! What an amazing ADVENTURE!!"), crashes sometime in the first year (appropriately called "mid-service crisis" and as the graph below warns: "You may feel homesick, depressed, and helpless"), and starts to level off towards the end.  We each like to think we're unique, but we generally all follow a similar curve.

So perhaps because of that, I'm now hyper-vigilant and attuned to my feelings about Korea (it doesn't help that a friend told me over the weekend that a popular saying amongst Samsung expats is: "Korea: It's Where Marriages go to Die")  This morning was a tough one, only because I've become so accustomed to everything here in Korea being generally so easy.

I ordered something on Amazon last week, feeling extremely excited and joyous about how easy e-commerce is in Seoul.  I get an email politely asking that I input my PIN number from customs along with a link.  Well, unfortunately the site is entirely in Korean, with Google translate not being much of a help.  I email some friends who have been here a while, who all essentially say: "Yea, the Korean authorities didn't really think this through since it's aimed at foreigners but the site is only in Korean".  One friend sends me a flow chart for how to get a PIN, which includes needing an official "certificate" that can only be obtained by going to see a customs official in person (not exactly how I'd like to spend my day here).

The rest of the morning consists of small errands between work, all of which require fluency in reading Korean websites.  Of course, clearly the answer is getting fluent in Korean! (or at least learning how to navigate sites).  But everyone reading this knows I'm more impatient than that.

I think I'm taking a quick work break to book tickets to see Malcolm Gladwell speak in Seoul next Friday (incredible, but true!!)

Sure enough, the site is only in Korean and is too "fancy" for Google translate to work.  So I call the phone number, only to be given another phone number.  I speak to two different people, asking how I might buy the tickets.  The second person tells me she will text me with more details in ten minutes.  When half an hour has come and gone, I start to get frustrated.  While I'm far from my own expat tipping point, the difficulty of doing relatively "easy" tasks starts to wear me out.

And then all of a sudden, I get a text:
Since we don't have a separate English site, we're setting up a website for you now... I'll let you know the URL through email tomorrow -- Thanks.

Seriously?!?! -- they are setting up an English site because of one call?  Amazing.  Just when I start to feel incredibly frustrated, Korea does something to remind me how special it is, after all.