33 weeks

Considering my dad just emailed me a 34-week-birthday wish to whisper to Gracie tomorrow morning, I figured it was time to stop procrastinating on my 33 week blog post...

It's definitely been an interesting couple of weeks.  First, winter has officially started in Seoul.  Not that I can complain... New York may have Indian summers, with high temperatures lasting through September, but Seoul has the longest (and dare I say, most beautiful) autumns -- with dramatic reds and deep oranges, and crisp cool weather -- requiring only a light warm coat -- through late November.  Here are a few photos from playing tourist in Bukchon in early November:

And then, just as I remember from last year -- bam!  The beginning of winter and frigid cold, right around Thanksgiving.  This year, it happened on Thanksgiving Day itself -- the temperature dipped suddenly, and I had the most magical prenatal yoga class, watching huge snow flakes falling outside.  Of course, since India basically trained me to stop looking up the weather, I generally dress for whatever the weather was the previous day.  Thanksgiving was not a good day to do that, and I found myself fighting the good fight against a sore throat and cold for a good week after the wrong wardrobe choice.

So now I happily sport my size large Uniqlo winter coat -- it's bright white and my Korean teacher calls me 눈사람 ("noon saram", or snowman).  I don't mind, since it keeps me warm and somehow even though I'm all bundled up, I'm still able to get subway seats (this is a very new phenomenon and only started happening around the same time that our guy friends started saying things like: "WHOA! You look like you're due tomorrow!" or "Wow, I knew you were pregnant, but I didn't know you were THIS pregnant!")

And while it's usually easy for me to complain about being sick, it's amazing to have friends that remind me what's important.  Last night, I got an email from my friend Robert, organizing a night of meditative reflection of the past year and setting intentions for the year ahead (this is in NY... I don't yet have friends like this in Seoul.... yet!)  I wrote him back saying what a year it's been for both of us; I remember skyping with him in January -- he was just telling me about this awesome girl he met just before the holidays, and I talked about our excitement to start a family.  He got engaged the day before Thanksgiving.  

His email response to me was a one-liner: "It's been a year! :-) we are so fucking lucky."

Cheers to that.  So what comes to mind now, especially reflecting on the last couple of weeks, is around community.  It's something that those close to me know I've been complaining about and generally frustrated by since I moved here.  But something shifted once I got pregnant in the spring.  It was like this parallel universe opened up, where generally things were still the same on the outside, yet there emerged this sense of understanding, belonging, and community (I remember I also felt this way when I got engaged -- it was as though I entered this "secret club" where people just started treating and relating to me differently -- especially my parents' generation).  

And that's when I realize how lucky I am to be... well, right where I am.  In the high-rise complex I live in, there are at least five other expats who are pregnant and/or just had a baby over the last year.  One recently organized a weekly playgroup in our building (which feels more like the moms playing, as usually the babies generally seem to sleep), and another had families over to her place last weekend to teach baby massage (is that a thing in the US? -- it's huge here!).  Last week when I was feeling icky and sick, my friend Anna, who lives three floors above me, came over with a giant pot of chicken soup and small oranges for Vitamin C (nothing like that comes close to neighborly care in NYC!)  Tyler and I babysat for another friend her first weekend home with their new baby (his older brother, however, wanted nothing to do with us; a direct quote between the 2-year old's angry tears were: "We can tell our new friends to go BYE-BYE!!"); while another friend and I constantly text about our doctor's visits and just about everything else.  As I headed to Anna's apartment in my yoga pants and slippers to return her pot, it occurred to me that this feels a bit like college -- with all of us going through big life changes together (though staying up all night clearly has a different connotation these days!)

The interesting thing about Korean culture, though, is that there's an enormous divide between strangers and friends.  There is absolutely no such thing as "friendly strangers" here.  In New York City, the band is much more narrow.  Sure, I've never had a neighbor bring me chicken soup.  But neighbors (whose names you surely don't know) also hold the elevator door open for you and offer to lend a hand when you're carrying heavy groceries.  Not so in Korea.  Elevators are silent as libraries, and no one makes eye contact (a common fight I hear between couples where one is Korean and the other is American is how the American keeps striking up conversations in the elevator or generally talks too loudly in them).  Once you somehow become friends (which I must say, seems extremely rare), you are truly friends -- we met one of our neighbors, and we've since been to her daughter's wedding, over to each other's apartments numerous times -- her daughter even worked with Tyler to get us our TV from the US -- no small feat, which took literally a month because we kept accidentally returning the TV on the Korean-only website...

But until then, even though you live in the same building and therefore share something in common, you are a stranger, and the "friendly stranger" rules I'm used to from the States no longer apply.  For instance, no one holds doors open for anyone else here -- whether this is an elevator door or the main door when you're carrying lots of groceries (or as my friends tell me, pushing a stroller).  In fact, I often see neighbors pushing "door close" on the elevators as soon as the elevators open on our floor -- even though we are standing right outside to get in!!  Alas, silly me thought this might change with pregnancy.  I was in our lobby and the elevator door opened; there was one man inside, who looked at my belly and then made eye contact, as he pushed a button.  Given our eye contact, I assumed he was holding the door open for me.  As the elevator doors closed directly on my belly, I realized I had made the wrong assumption of which button he was pressing.  Of course, when I told this to my pregnant friends here, all of them had the same story!  

One of my friends -- who incidentally is one of the most laid-back, confident, and chill moms I know (which is a huge compliment in my book), tells the story of how she literally broke down in tears going to her doctors appointment, 38 weeks pregnant and carrying her toddler's stroller up the subway stairs, with everyone stopping to stare but no one offering to lend a hand.  The extremes are much more stark here than in a place like NYC -- where I can't imagine a neighbor helping us procure a TV for one month, but where there's also no lack of friendly strangers to help carry a stroller up subway stairs.  My friend Selene from NYC told me that she realized she's starting to show because strangers smile at her on the street.  Even when I was barely showing in September, as soon as I stepped onto a subway car, someone would immediately offer me their seat.  Here, well... they say a picture is worth a thousand words (as context, these "pink" seats are actually meant for pregnant women):

So what I'm realizing is here in Korea (and I suppose everywhere else too), "micro"-communities matter.  Perhaps because we're outsiders to this culture, community is what you make of it.  And with the holiday season kicking off, I'm realizing that as much as I still feel like an outsider here in many ways, I'm also starting to feel like an insider too, in the ways that seem to most matter -- those involving friends, starting a family, and creating a tribe.  A big part of that has been entering this community of moms and will-be-moms (which, as I'm learning, is far from one defined group -- a recent Facebook post I sent inquiring about night nurses sparked lots of debate and dissension -- one can see how mommy wars begin!) 

So with that, I'll end with a few pictures of our community here and holiday celebrations from the last couple of weeks -- first, an incredible expat Thanksgiving feast hosted by our pastry-chef friend, Alana and her husband, Dan; and this past weekend, an ugly Christmas sweater party (with the most amazing mulled wine and hot chocolate) hosted by Agnes and Michal -- also expecting their first baby in 2016!  Here's to community, new traditions, and the start of an incredible holiday season!