Son,
This world loves to continually beat me over the head to remind me that, however small I imagine it to be, it is still much too large in comparison. A couple weeks ago your mother and I made a stop in Jamsil at Quizno’s. It happens to be a semi-authentic slice of home that we have the pleasure of patronizing every so often while we’re in Korea.
We sat down with our Italian on wheat and I brought over some pickled things from the sadly barren condiment bar. We ate for a bit and started to sift through our plans for the remainder of the day. An expat couple happened to sit down next to us, and I didn’t think much of it. After all, it would be strange to make a big deal every time we saw other white people walking around.
“HEY! LOOK!!! SAME SKIN COLOR! THAT MEANS WE CAN BE FRIENDS, RIGHT?!?!”
Though you have to somewhat walk the line because you also don’t want to be that expat who doesn’t want to associate with other expats, because he is convinced that he was the first foreigner to ever have the idea to teach English in a foreign country.
“THIS IS MY COMPLETELY UNIQUE EXPERIENCE THAT I WILL BE ABLE TO LORD OVER OTHERS WHEN I RETURN TO THE STATES!!!”
So I was sure that this experience would be in line with past. We would both just do our own thing and pretend it wasn’t fun to eavesdrop on each others’ conversations, a rarity in a foreign country.
Then the man sitting next to us turned and said, “Your names are Dan and Serenity, right?”
Umm…yes?
Ultrasounds Mixtape 