My little epiphany

 

Now that I live at the top of a hill, I’m able to run as much as I want without shin splints and it’s been amazing. I’ve been out there since winter ended but, as it’s gotten hotter, I’ve switched to shorts & a tank top, which feels AMAZING out there in the sun.

Because people don’t really run on the streets here, I get interesting reactions from Koreans every time I run. Sometimes people get super excited for some reason; they smile, give me a thumbs-up and yell “Good!” in their precious little accents. Other people look at me like I’m crazy, some people stop me and ask me where I’m from, a few make eye contact and smile, and some just ignore me. Anyway…

A few months ago, I was out there just doing my thing, working hard, feeling great about myself and about being outside. When I got to the top to do my burpees after one of the laps, an old man was outside his house working on a motorcycle. He gave me one of the dirtiest looks I’ve ever gotten and then immediately got up and came over to talk to me. Of course I couldn’t understand the words he was saying but I stopped what I was doing to listen and watch his gestures so I’d be able to figure it out. His facial expression and intonation were a typical whiny tone of Korean that I’ve never been a fan of. He kept pointing at me and then pointing down to the other side of the hill and I finally figured out that he was trying to tell me about a little park over there with workout machines. I thought…Okay, he just sounds whiny because he’s speaking Korean but he’s actually just trying to help me. How nice! So, even though he had slightly annoyed me, I bowed all politely like we do here in the ROK and explained with gestures and one-worded sentences that I was running here because I wanted to run up a hill. He looked confused but I wasn’t going to suddenly learn how to explain it in Korean so oh well. It was time for my next lap!

When I made it to the top and started my burpees, the look he gave me was even dirtier than the first. He was pointing at me and this time sounded angrier than whiny. The first thing I wanted to do was punch him in his old-man face because I wasn’t doing anything wrong and he was yelling at me - again. FINALLY I gathered from our little game of charades that he didn’t approve of my choice of outfit. (Keep in mind that showing shoulders is not quite considered appropriate, especially by older people, in Korea.)  Once I knew I had offended him just by wearing my normal clothes, I knew we wouldn’t come to an agreement so I just kept running but did my burpees on a different part of the hill.

Situations like this happen all the time when you live in a foreign country with a language barrier but I had a little epiphany afterwards. Thinking about how I felt during the whole thing, I realized that it was a good metaphor for any kind of problem I’ve ever had with other people.

At first, we had a misunderstanding – I knew he was upset with me but I didn’t understand why. This was, first, because of the language issue. However, even after I understood what he was saying, we still didn’t understand where each other were coming from. He was offended because I was wearing something that he’s not used to seeing. I was offended because I was doing something that’s normal in the country I came from and, until he’d started yelling at me, I’d been feeling all proud of myself and happy to be out in the sunshine.

In the end, whether it’s a language barrier or a difference in background or any other aspect, I realized that all the problems I have with other people are the exact same. We’re all trying to do our best but a failure to understand other people seems to be the root of every problem. Having realized this, I knew it was my job to put myself in his shoes and realize how uncomfortable I was making him feel. My first reaction is to say that we should compromise but, while that would be nice, I know I can only control how well I understand another person; so rather than wishing that others understood me, I need to do the only thing I can do which is try to put myself in their shoes to understand them. I’ve been practicing since but still have a long way to go.