For a few months now, when people have asked me how long I’ve been Korea I’ve been telling them, “Seventeen years.” It just dawned on me today that as of June 5, that became accurate.
Seventeen years. I remember sitting in a bar in Itaewon, Seoul, near the beginning of my second year, talking to a guy who had served in the same unit I was in. He told me he had been here for six years. I was in awe. Six years seemed an eternity.
In 1996, as a civilian and just beginning my sixth year, a friend invited me out one night with a group he liked to hang out with. I was a veteran expat by then. At five years, you start to get the, “Wow, five years!” response from people you meet. You know people who have been around longer, but you get that air of superiority, a certain kind of self-importance, from meeting people who are still wet behind the expat years. The guys my friend introduced me to that night became regular drinking buddies for a few years until we all drifted apart. What struck me that first night I met them, though, was that two of them had been in Korea for seventeen years. My ego dropped a few notches.
Seventeen years. It was inconceivable to me at the time. They had come to Korea in 1979. I had celebrated my 8th birthday in 1979. How could anyone stay away from their home country for so long, without actually immigrating? Why would anyone ever want to do that? I was having the time of my life living in Korea, but it all had to end some time. No way would I stay for seventeen years.
Yet here I am. These days, I see the same expression that must have been on my face back then when I tell the young American soldiers and civilians I meet how long I’ve been here. There’s the widening of the eyes, the vacant expression that briefly passes across the face as the mind tries to conceptualize seventeen years. When you’re in your early 20s, seventeen years seems like an age. Of course, once you’re on the other end it seems like a flash in the pan.
It’s very rare now to meet an expat who’s been here longer than I. Oh, they exist for sure. But I know a number of them already. It seems the longer people stay, the more they drift away from the regular foreigner haunts. I spent countless hours in Itaewon through the 90s, the only district in Seoul that specifically caters to foreigners. I lived there, I went out clubbing daily, I shopped there, ate there… These days, I rarely go to bars in Itaewon at all, and only shop there because it’s hard to find my size anywhere else. When I do go out, alone or with friends, it’s almost always to areas where there are fewer foreigners. The longer you stay, the less you have in common with the Itaewon crowd. You know the city and the people better than they, speak the language (usually) better, and are more at home. The magic of Itaewon has faded away and you become set in your ways. As such, it’s rare to cross paths with old timers you don’t already know.
Another anniversary is approaching next weekend. My wife and I will be celebrating nine years of marriage. That’s something I still haven’t quite gotten my head around. In my mind, it seems I was in Korea for a long time before I met her. We met back in ‘98, when I had just completed my seventh year. When I sit down and contemplate it, it makes my head spin. The past ten years have been a blur, while the first seven seemed an eternity. I know that’s mostly to do with age, but it’s still rather unsettling.
I’ll keep responding to the ‘how long’ question with ’seventeen’ for a few more months. I generally bump up around December or so. In the past, it was cool going from four, to five, to six, to seven. Now, I dread it. I’ll be saying eighteen, then nineteen, then twenty. I comfort myself by thinking of the guys my friend introduced me to back in ‘96. One of them is long gone, but the other is still here. Next year will be thirty years for him.
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