My Christmas holiday in Korea is now coming to a close. It has been an interesting time. It was not a relaxing trip. I've spent none of it traveling and all of it working. But I never expected I would be able to do anything differently. The most important thing is that I've been here for Ahreum as she's started her new job at Hyundai Steel. So far her work in the legal team is challenging, but certainly rewarding. She has about a year and 11 months left. So there is a lot of learning left. I can tell she is warming to the work, and I know this will be an experience that will important for her wherever she goes.
But I've also had a lot of time to think this weekend about what is valuable in life. There have been stressful moments on this trip. In some sense I feel more like I'm living in another country, if briefly, than going on a holiday. There are always unanticipated highs and lows with such an experience. I know that living in England. England is not Wisconsin, and Exeter is not Janesville. Neither is Korea or Seoul. But one can't anticipate all the differences. Some of them are architectural, some of them are cultural, some of them are personal. I can't say much about the way Korean people live, after all I can only observe the bare outward forms of behavior. And I can't stress enough that it is my apprehension of the human interaction around me that pops up on the radar. This is necessarily subjective and distorted.
There are people who move around namelessly everyday as I study here in Gangnam. Nameless, and almost faceless. Other than what I notice about their clothes, all I can tell about them is that they happen to be in Gangnam at a cafe for some reason or other at a certain point in time. In a previous post, I speculated about what they might be up to. But when you get right down to it, that is just speculation.
So from this position of rationality, one would expect a certain amount of detachment from a visitor realizing these things in such a foreign place. Generally speaking, I think I have remained so.
But there are other things which differ in different lands which are more substantial. Some of these bring great joy to my heart while I'm here in Korea. The willingness of friends to journey great lengths to meet me, their warmness and generosity are above and beyond what I would expect at home or in Europe. And when one meets a friend of friend, they are almost always willing to treat the new acquaintance with real interest. Interesting, it is the introduction which is important. Strangers would not be so amicable to someone who introduced themselves sans mutual friend.
Other differences have been painful. I don't want to talk much about it. Though I put a little of my personal life on the blog, I don't take this to be a space for airing these sorts of feelings. I guess I'm getting over it, and the details seem meaningless to me. But I do want to write about how there is a certain sense in which people of different cultures have to be willing to work together to get along. That's what lets Ahreum and I click together. We have disagreements like anyone else, and in our case some of these come down to different cultural expectations. If this turns into a binary situation (my culture trumps yours) or we just become unwilling to try to grasp where the other is coming from, the gig is up. But Ahreum and I don't do this. I think our mutual Christianity helps here. We both believe that Christian love, not romantic love, helps us overcome these differences. Sometimes we realize they don't matter, sometimes we see they are hugely important, but because we both value reconciliation above cultural peculiarity, we always work out a compromise.
As I was saying, all of this falls down to a disposition, a form of love. If we draw lines in the sand, make sides, accuse, nothing will be solved. Understanding doesn't come automatically. It requires work. And consequently a willingness, a desire to be reconciled.
But what happens if someone one is desirous to be reconciled with uses cultural difference as an absolute criterion of exclusion. What if, behind it all, they simply don't want to put in the effort to understand. You are fundamentally different, and that's it. This is a very challenging position to be in. One can take one of at least two positions.
One could say, that when another is unwilling to be open and understanding, that it is pointless to try. In this case the closed mindedness of one results in the same closure in the other. This is a very natural reaction, especially if the closed mindedness is hurtful.
The other reaction might be to say, even if you seem to be unwilling to approach the issue with reconciliation, even if you really are so obstinate, it will not change the way I see it. I still want to figure out what is at the root of the problem, deal with it, change, be flexible. The second option is considerably harder. It requires a broadness of heart which is difficult to maintain.
As a Christian, this is a challenge that matters. In the first case I say, I will be forgiving, generous, loving, but only if those I might behave so towards will be the same. Upon this view, a true Christian need only feel charity toward other true Christians. As for others, stoic indifference is the best they should expect.
But that won't cut it. As it happens a true Christian can't have that attitude and actually be magnanimous, equitable, and judicious in a Christian sense. This first attitude causes one to fall into an insidious form of judgementalism which may even be worse than the unwillingness of the other party to reconcile. This is because this less obvious closed mindedness is disguised by an outward semblance of philanthropy. One tricks oneself into believing one has actually born the disposition one has in fact elided. One has become self-righteous without knowing it.
Now given the situation, it may look like a molehill is being elevated into a mountain. And in a certain sense that is right, but not in the sense that might be expected. The problem with self-righteousness seems to be that it can't easily distinguish between things that really matter, that are substantive, and things which are comparatively minor. It may be true that the pigheaded attitude may be vulnerable to the same flaw. Neither seem to partake in reason just as neither appear to exude charity. But it is the added bamboozling of the self that I judge to be worse than simple obstinacy.
All of this reminds me of St. Paul. He promised to show the Corinthians a better way, that of Charity. It is to easy to withdraw our charity and plead that we have done our best. But when we are actually tempted to do something like that, our charity is needed even more.
I've spent a lot of time studying conceptions of charity, but most of the time, with most people I meet, my outward friendliness doesn't require any serious exploration of the subjective experience of that study. Among other things, this trip to Korea has forced me to think a little more about that. It will be obvious that I have felt a little emotional pain while I have been here, but there are lessons in all of our experiences, so long as we are willing to learn them.
Once more into the breach,
Ben
