Interdependency
Reconciling self-determination with relationships of mutual obligation
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During senior year of high school, a friend told me that he did not believe most people changed much after a certain point in life. Probably by the time you graduated high school, he said, your personality was more or less fixed. Maybe there would be a few tweaks here or there, but who you were would fundamentally remain the same.
I have always remembered this conversation because of how much it frightened me. I wanted to believe that things could—and would—get better. I didn’t want to remain stuck in my fumbling high school self forever. (For the record, I asked and my friend still stands by what he said, six years later.)
Of course, our circumstances change, and who we are at a given moment is more than just ourselves, but an amalgamation of the people surrounding us. I went to a high school with a graduating class of just over seventy. It was small enough that it didn’t feel like you could really choose who you hung around with—those people were chosen for you, through the machinery of popularity politics (which was often tied to race and class). But in college, with an undergraduate pool of well over five thousand—still quite small for a university—I suddenly had the freedom of choice, to an extreme degree. At Princeton, it wasn’t just the number of students that necessitated choosing who or where you spent your time, it was also the fact that most students didn’t have much free time in the first place. Princeton cultivated an environment in which social interactions also had to be maximized. I learned to be intentional about who I spent time with and prioritized the relationships that energized me, which meant mostly hanging around people who were already somewhat similar to me. After four long years of alienation, I felt that I deserved to feel at ease in my friendships.
In America, friendship is an accoutrement to the self we wish to project to the world. Many of us would probably not, for instance, regard our family members to be our closest friends. Nor do I think most people would consider themselves best friends with their work colleagues. I would venture to say that for most young people today, the friendships formed during college—the point in our lives when we are, arguably, most free to explore—are the friendships that most authentically reflect who we strive to be. In America, friendship is a valuable part of self-discovery. We choose our friends and our partners in alignment with who we are or wish to become, and maintain different identities among our colleagues, our family, and our friends. This can be empowering, as it was for me when I went to college, but it can also foster the mentality that relationships are secondary to our own self-determination (a.k.a. main character syndrome).
Recently, a friend told me that a couple she met from Switzerland observed that Americans have many friends to “get coffee” with, but do not seem to have many deep, meaningful relationships. A podcast hosted by Ezra Klein featuring Rhaina Cohen construes this as a social epidemic in America—one which has worsened in recent decades. Cohen notes that in the past, and for much of human history, it used to be that communities would raise children together. Now, in part due to the legal and cultural importance placed on the nuclear family, much emotional labor and responsibility is hefted onto one’s partner. In America, the buckets we use to classify our relationships—spouse, friend, family—rarely overlap with one another. And when they do, it is almost as though others are unable to comprehend that such a relationship can exist.
While I was living in Korea, it was very common for my co-workers to make comparisons between themselves and family, saying that they wanted to be my “Korean mom” or my “Korean (older) sister.” I would spend a lot of time with my co-workers outside of work—both because of the importance of 회식 (hwesik), in which a team or office gathers like a family to eat and drink together after hours, but also because teachers at my school in Gumi treated co-workers like family. Private affairs, such as the death of one’s family member or a wedding, were publicly announced and commemorated. To not acknowledge the death of one’s family member by sending the bereaved a condolence gift or turning down a funeral invitation, for example, was frowned upon—even if they were merely an acquaintance.
The overlap between co-worker, friend, and family in Korea has resonances with language itself. In Korean, there are specific kinship words used to indicate one’s relation to another. For instance, a girl would call her older brother 오빠 (oppa) and her older sister 언니 (unnie), whereas a boy would call his older brother 형 (hyung) and his older sister 누나 (noona). Older siblings, however, call their younger siblings by their first names. (It is often the case that there are no special titles for the youngest family members.) Calling someone by their first name alone, without any special prefixes or honorifics, is a privilege. It is disrespectful to call someone older than you (or someone you have just met) by their first name, unless they give you their permission. As such, to avoid the use of names, honorific titles can have multiple applications in Korean. For example, my co-workers used the word 선생님, or teacher, to refer to almost anyone who worked at our school, even if they did not teach in a classroom. In English, “teacher” is only an occupation; in Korean, it is also a title of respect.
It is common for Koreans to use kinship terms in close friendships as an endearment. During our final goodbye, a friend in Seoul suggested that I call her unnie. I was touched by her saying this, as I knew it meant that she thought of me affectionately, even though we had only seen each other the few times I stopped by her tea room in Seoul. Other family terms, such as 이모 (emo), which is what one would call an aunt on their mom’s side, may be used to address someone who is too old to be your unnie or noona. As a child, I referred to my mom’s close friend as 이모. These slippages of language add an additional layer of intimacy in relationships, and perhaps allow for a more expansive understanding of what friendship could look like.
The culture of in-groups and out-groups in Korea, also reflected in the language, can further contribute to a strong sense of family within a community. In Korean, people often speak about people and places they are fond of using plural possessive pronouns, rather than independent possessive pronouns:
Once at a hwesik, I heard one of my co-teachers—a slightly older teacher who had been at the school for many decades—refer to me as “우리 캐미,” or “our Cammie.” My school in Korea has a particularly strong in-group identity, as it is a private school, meaning that most teachers arrive at the school and remain there until retirement. Public school teachers, in contrast, rotate schools every five years or so. As an outsider and a foreigner who would only remain with the school for one year, I was moved that my co-worker had referred to me in such a way. It felt as though she had accepted me into the school’s family.
There was a profound abundance of care within my Gumi community—much more than what I am used to experiencing in America. My host family’s grandmother accompanied me to the hospital when I fell ill and became severely dehydrated. A co-worker invited me over to her home, and offered to let me sleep over if I drank too much and couldn’t walk the five minutes back to my home. Another co-worker invited me on a trip to Ulsan, drove the entire route (two hours each way), and planned out the itinerary himself. I have never received such generous acts of service from anyone in America, outside of my immediate family and my closest friends. Yet in Korea, these kindnesses were bestowed upon me by people who I had just barely begun to develop relationships with.
In Japan, I also lived with a host family and spent an entire summer immersed within my local community, but I did not feel nearly the same level of openness and generosity that I experienced in Korea. It could be that I was treated differently in Korea because I am a 교포 (someone of the Korean diaspora), whereas in Japan—for obvious reasons—my Korean heritage would likely carry more baggage. But in fact, I found that people were much quicker to deny my Korean Americanness in Korea, asserting that I was strictly American when I revealed my hyphenated identity, whereas in Japan, people seemed a bit more understanding of the fact that I was simultaneously American and Korean (again, perhaps for historical reasons). In both countries, I lived in “rural cities” somewhat removed from major metropolitan areas.
Needless to say, even though people in Korea were quicker to view me as an American, my circumstances facilitated a very particular set of experiences and interactions, which allowed me to be accepted into a community as an insider. In spite of my homestay family experience, I can’t say the same about my time in Japan. As the resident 원어민 선생님 or native language teacher at my school in Korea—a role which lies somewhere between guest and an employee—I cultivated relationships of both mutual obligation and mutual understanding. I received many gifts while I was living in Gumi, and for a while I felt guilty, believing that I could never possibly pay back such grand gestures of kindness. But I gradually came to understand that my presence and the time I chose to spend teaching in Korea, rather than working in America, was what I had to offer in this relationship. I had an obligation to be a good teacher, in order to provide my students—many of whom would never have the opportunity to visit America—with a global outlook on life and culture. In turn, my school had an obligation to provide me with the requisite support that I needed to be a good teacher. And the only way this relationship would work was if we were both willing to put aside our fears and prejudices and have faith in each other as human beings.
Perhaps the culture of interdependency I experienced in Korea is a necessity in a country that is the size of the state of Indiana. Most Korean families live in apartment complexes—sometimes in very, very close quarters. A co-teacher told me that many people living in Seoul assume that they will never be able to own their own home, as property is just too expensive (and so, he said half-jokingly, people purchase luxury vehicles instead). I was also told that owning a family home can be perceived as unstylish, as it is often associated with the 시골 or countryside, where there is more land for individual houses. In America, it is possible to move across the country for a fresh start. This may be more difficult to accomplish in South Korea, where it is possible to travel from one end of the country to the other in less than three hours. It is therefore advantageous to make good with one’s neighbors, as community is an inescapable part of everyday life—it is firmly embedded in the politics of living.
I experienced many positive aspects of Korea’s family-oriented culture, and overall feel very grateful to have landed in a tight-knit community. I now consider Gumi to be my Korean hometown. But as a bystander, I have also witnessed the more insidious side effects of interdependency gone wrong. Right before the end of the first semester, one of my co-teachers began experiencing inexplicable health issues, likely induced by stress. For context, this was during one of the busiest times of the semester, when teachers were preparing questions for the final examination—a very stressful process for teachers in Korea, due to how aggressive students and parents can be if they get less than 100% on an exam. She took a few days off from work to visit a hospital, returned to school for one more day, and then disappeared, without telling anyone she had decided to quit. No one—not even the principal or her students—could reach her. The school managed to get in contact with her husband to iron out a few logistical details, but no one knew the truth of what had happened to her.
At first, I didn’t understand her decision to leave so abruptly. It seemed unprofessional and inconsiderate—particularly to her students. But in observing how the other teachers at my school reacted to her departure, I began to somewhat empathize with her desire for a hasty goodbye. As soon as my co-teacher severed herself from our school community, the other teachers unanimously turned against her. In the weeks and months following her resignation, they continued to openly criticize her in our office, and even managed to track down where she had landed a new job through the network of teachers in our city. I can’t speak for all of Korea, but at my school, business was personal. Maybe this is what my co-teacher had wanted to run away from.
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My decision to move across the world to South Korea was partly driven by what I now understand to be a very American desire for self-actualization. It was the ultimate push to surround myself with people who I thought were similar to me, by dual functions of race and ethnicity. I believed that by controlling for my skin, I would finally be free to become whoever I wanted to be. Yet upon arriving in Korea, I found myself in a place where self-determination seemed all but impossible. To live, I had to rely on my community and give in to the flow of life around me. I learned, again, how to assimilate.
Since returning to America, I have often thought about what my friend had said when we were still in high school. Would living abroad for one year and assimilating to a different culture be enough to shake the core of who I am (was)? Am I much changed?
I am of the belief that who we are in a given circumstance does not necessarily reflect who we are fundamentally, but a given circumstance can leave such an impression on us that it continues to shape who we are for the rest of our lives.
I am still uncovering what I have absorbed in Korea. Some of the more obvious changes are superficial, and will continue to change and evolve with time. The psychic impacts will certainly take more time to fully understand. But perhaps the most drastic change that has occurred as a result of my going abroad has been in my relationships. Although I gained many friendships during my time abroad, I also lost many close friendships last year. The first few years after graduation have been more difficult than any other previous life transition (as my friends have also spoken to), and as people adapt to different lifestyles, it is difficult to maintain college friendships—even more so, when there are oceans between you. What does intimacy look like in a long distance relationship? (Maybe a topic for another letter...)
In college, I felt secure in most of my friendships, certain that regardless of how much time we spent apart, we could always come back together and things would return to how they once were. I still believe that there are some friendships like that. But perhaps the reality is that in adulthood, most relationships are simply not built this way.
After returning from Korea, I am not sure if our friendships make us who we are, or if we pursue friendships that naturally align with who we want to be. Perhaps it is a bit of both. But I do think there needs to be a balance between the natural chemistry that exists in a relationship—the ease we feel with certain people, the “friendships that make”—and the work, or a sense of mutual obligation and generosity (the “making” of a friendship), necessary to maintain all relationships. Otherwise, friendships will inevitably come and go—and that does not seem like the basis for a sustainable and fulfilling life.