Expats: The Lost Holidays
A couple of months ago I posted about a dilemma most expats eventually face. I promised more posts about expat issues. The topic of this post is not what I had in mind, but it’s a great one to revive the expat series as it’s very relevant.
As I write this, it is 2 am KST on Friday, November 24. Thanksgiving day is over for the Americans in Korea. Back home, on the east coast, it’s just getting into swing. This year, I did nothing to celebrate the holiday. It was a normal day. My wife and I had fried chicken for dinner, watched a couple of episodes from our ER Season 3 DVDs, and then she went to bed. I made some phone calls to some family members back home, caught up on current family events, updated them about me, and wished them all a Happy Thanksgiving. This is a typical expat holiday.
Living in a foreign country inevitably means giving up some favorite holidays. Thanksgiving is a North American thing (October in Canada, November in the US). Christmas is global, but is celebrated differently around the world. In the US, the commercialization of the holiday season has caused it to begin earlier and earlier as time has passed. When I was a kid, the Christmas decorations at the department stores all came out the day after Thanksgiving. Now, I hear they are out much sooner. The Holiday Season stretches from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. It’s a very festive, happy time.
In Korea, not so much. They celebrate Christmas, sure. But it’s a one day holiday and there is very little hype beforehand. Some hotels and corporate offices put up decorations a couple of weeks before hand. Every year in Itaewon, a district in Seoul popular with foreigners, the Hamilton Hotel hangs several strand of lights vertically in the shape of a Christmas tree. One of the shopping districts downtown is usually pretty festive, with lots of decorations and Christmas music blaring from the shops. When I want to feel at home during Christmas, that’s where I go.
Christmas isn’t about Christianity to me. It never has been. For me, it’s about family and friends, sharing and giving, helping and hoping. Thanksgiving Day used to be the beginning of the happiest time of the year. Now, Thanksgiving Day marks the beginning of the most depressing time of the year.
When I was younger and still new to Korea, it wasn’t so bad. My first three Holiday Seasons in country were spent as a US soldier (with the exception of Christmas of ‘93, when I took emergency leave because my grandfather was dying). We did the turkey and ham, secret santas, egg nog, the works. After that, I had several part- and full-time jobs on the Army base in Seoul, so there was always atmosphere and food to be had. Often, several expats would get together at someone’s house for a party, or home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner. But as time wore on, the memories of Holidays past became more distant. I stopped working on and lost access to the Army bases. I began to miss the atmosphere of the Holiday Season back home. I missed the family dinners. I missed decorating the Christmas tree and gathering together to open presents. I was never one to be homesick, but I found myself being exactly that each Holiday Season.
If missing one Thanksgiving or Christmas is difficult for you, you’ll never survive as an expat. It’s nice to tell everyone that you’ll come home every year for Christmas. The reality is, that’s not a promise you can always keep. Finances aside, work is a big factor. In Korea, as I mentioned above, the Christmas holiday is only one day. An English institute where I once worked gave each teacher 5 days vacation every year. The catch was, we had to all take it at the same time when the school closed for a week in the summer. One Christmas, four or five years ago, a Canadian coworker invited my wife and I to join him and his girlfriend at his apartment where he cooked a Christmas dinner of spaghetti. We had a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake for desert. It was a pleasant way to spend the evening, but I still felt homesick. But short of breaking our contracts and losing our jobs, there was no way either of us could get home for Christmas.
It’s very important as an expat to build relationships with others in the local expat community. They will come and go, but during the times when you feel lonely or homesick, particularly during these lost holidays, they are the rocks you lean on. They keep you sane, keep you grounded, and can help the difficult times pass more easily. There’s a certain amount of loyalty among expats, even those that don’t know each other so well. Your best friend could leave tomorrow, never to return. It’s almost like all of your friends have terminal diseases and could die at any moment. The long-term expats understand this. They’ve lived with it for a few years. I think that creates a special bond that none of us would experience were we to spend our lives around our hometowns.
Were I single, I probably would have spent most of last night at my favorite bar, and would likely still be there now. I’ve spent a few Thanksgivings and Christmases that way. I would share the holiday with expats I know, and with those I don’t. Sure, you can walk in any bar in America and a bunch of happy drunks will wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. It’s not the same, though. The expats in my favorite bar wouldn’t just be a bunch of drunks, they would be a bunch of drunk brothers and sisters. Even people from countries that don’t celebrate a particular holiday are still happy to celebrate with you.
So if you are considering taking the plunge and spending a few years in a foreign country, be prepared for the lost holidays. The homesickness will come eventually. Maybe not the first year, or the second, or even the third. But it will come. It can also come on more personal days, such as a family member’s birthday, or when someone from back home tells you they’re getting married or having a baby. On any of these days, spend some time with other expats, even the personal days that only affect you. They’ve all been there and they all understand it. They’ll keep you from feeling alone and will cheer you up. The hardest part, though, is all on you — you still have to go to bed.
Technorati Tags: expats, Korea, Thanksgiving, Christmas, holidays, family, friends, homesickness, loneliness