Well, yes, I suppose it HAS been a while...

I have a few drafts saved, but... yeah....

Anyway, THIS installment of Jen failing to understand/relate to/and especially share experiences with normal people is brought to us all by yet another expat talking about how rough it is to go home, particularly the terrible surprise that is reverse culture shock. When you've lived abroad, you supposedly come back and experience culture shock of your home, and the greater the difference between living-abroad country and your own, the bigger the shock.

My friend Alyssa came back to the US from Chile right about when I got there after about a year there. Her first post, which amused me, was her amazement over hearing so much English. It kind of... shocked her.

I have no comprehension of this.When I got back to the US, I was RELIEVED and OVERJOYED to hear English. I remembered extremely quickly that I could go up to pretty much any person I saw and ask them something in English and they'd understand me and answer in English. That was awesome. Not shocking, awesome. Something to marvel over and celebrate very, very occasionally, but that's it.

The only other time that I kind of forgot where I was was when I was on the L, waiting at a station for a train and was doing what I always did in Chile: practicing reading the names and signs at the stops in my head in Spanish for pronunciation. I was halfway through reading when I realized that no, Cermak/Chinatown isn't pronounced, "Keermok/Cheena-" it was the "town" that reminded me these were English words pronounced with English pronunciation, and I was working WAY too hard unnecessarily.

Marveling at how easy it was to use a credit card, and not be charged extra for the privilege. But it didn't shock me, and I didn't struggle with it. I embraced returning to fucking civilization.

There are no guarantees of course, but I highly, highly doubt I'll return to the US and experience the "shock" of hearing English everywhere, which is a big part of it for former expats, or forget how people acknowledge you and say, "Excuse me," if you bump into each other. I won't be shocked to see women wearing shirts cut lower than a turtleneck, people of different colors and backgrounds, particularly because it remains shocking to me that no matter how long I'm in Korea I will continue to get stares, and students I've had for 6 months get right in my face and say, "Teacher!! Your eyes are blue!!" (though honestly the latter always amuses me greatly). I think, people have been coming here to teach English for over 20 years. There are LOTS of non-Asians around. And you have movies and the internet! It can't REALLY be that amazing. It just can't. And while others have rightly pointed out that Koreans all look alike in the way of hair, eye color, etc., I never notice it, except when wondering how I'll spot the foreigner at a big metro stop, only for them to be fluorescent beacons compared to the Koreans around them, lol. So, actually, in essence, I never really acclimate to where I am, to seeing mostly straight black hair, dark brown eyes, tennis shoes and anklets worn with pantyhose and ridiculously short skirts and shorts, and Little House on the Prairie/Amish outfits thrown in.

So, yeah, maybe I need to write the single anti-former-expat-reverse-culture-shock experience, because as usual, I've read so many articles about how hard it is to get used to your culture of origins, but it just isn't true.

Except after France. I seriously thought every Goddamned person around me was yelling instead of talking like a normal person. For 2 weeks, I had a headache, and seriously dreaded going to see Gina's family the following weekend, because they ARE loud.

So, ok, maybe one or two things take you aback. But not everything, not so many things that it's oppressive and stressful and aggravating, which culture shock is.

So if you ever see any of those articles, know that I'm back here railing about how untrue it is, because despite ALL these stories about it being a thing, it is SOOOOOO not a thing.