The Tim Horton Exemption

“It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health.” 

Erich Fromm

Expats and travelers fill cafes and squeeze into restaurant booths around the world. Their tales and opinions saturate the air like heavy particles hovering over the Beijing skyline. The local culture is dissected and diagnosed by these physicians certified by their wanderlust and sanctioned by the consensus of the group and the evening's rites.

Here in Korea, we might overhear talk of Koreans' driving foibles, or the nature of Korean marital dynamics where women invariably become the family CFO and take forceful and unequivocal command of all monetary matters. You can sometimes hear talk of the local disregard for minding litter, the conversation invariably drifting off to Japan by way of comparison. "You can't so much find a cigarette butt on the streets of Japan," someone will say. And yes, likely too will be the mention of the eating of dogs, an ignominious cultural artifact that is rarely practiced these days.

On the other side we have the cultural defenders, the sympathizers who, having done their homework, herd most of the naysayers back into their culturally insensitive corrals. A Peace Corps document from the early 1970s served to remind newly arrived U.S. volunteers of the foolishness of their cultural missteps: "Korea is generally judged to be a less than developed nation. This judgment is based on many factors, but mainly those dealing with economic or materialist measurements. In the field of education, and from a Korean viewpoint, it might be difficult to accept a less developed label. If you had produced movable block printing in the 12th century, a written phonetic alphabet before Columbus discovered America, and had revered education with intensity of almost religious fervor, then you might not consider yourself less developed with regard to education."

Well, touche! And we will graciously ignore your culturally insensitive comment about Columbus "discovering"America.

Sometimes, we just need to give these cultural-dialectic, this back and forth criticism and defensiveness, a free pass; a "Get out of jail free" card like in the board game, Monopoly. Instead of vitriol, allow the prevailing westerlies to do their thing and blow the smog out of Beijing naturally.

The other night I went out to dinner with three Canadian friends. The food, drink and conversation were awesome. Somehow (am I guilty?), the conversation turned to Tim Hortons, the ubiquitous coffee and pastry franchise that adorns nearly every intersection across that grand country. Canadians forever sing the praises of their beloved "Timmy's." As an American, who has driven hundreds of miles and many hours, craving coffee and something, anything, to eat, and finally seeing a Tim Horton's on the horizon, well, it was an ugly experience. I could have been had so easily. But alas, the coffee was nearly undrinkable and the donuts, literally a cardboard substitute. Here, let some closet Canadians speak for themselves:
"They just built a Tim Hortons in the Midwestern town where I live and I would rather eat a box of donuts that I found on the side of the road than ever return there."
"Tim's could sell poop on a stick and out of Canada loyalty, Canadians would still buy." 

But I smiled and kept my opinion to myself. My Canadian friends were happily adrift in their reverie for their national symbol. Going to "Timmy's" was like a religious experience for them. It was then that I realized I had needed to take out my Get out of Jail Free Card and figuratively hand it over to my Canadian friends. Why trespass on their cultural delusion? Was I going to judge Canada as being a less developed nation because of their blind faith toward Tim Horton's? Certainly not. After all, they have maple syrup and national health-care, don't they? And besides, when our most popular exports are McDonalds and Donald Trump, I have good reason to keep my tongue.

Expats and Islanders: Adrift From the Mainland

Expats and islanders, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, have a great deal in common. Both are creatures of intention. One rarely becomes an islander, or an expat, by accident. 

The mainland. It's always there, off on the horizon. Separating itself from both the expat and the islander by space, time and distance. There's an expanse of water, often a strong current, and perhaps a gale. Sometimes, the whole of it is awash in fog.

Expats and islanders can gauge their reality by the mainland's watch: its politics; expectations; its often failing ideals.

Both live on islands of their own making. It's a foreground/background kind of thing. Expats and islanders. Each adrift from the mainland. Sometimes connected by a withered tether. Sometimes, not at all.

Islanders are a strange lot. Romantics. Artists. Iconoclasts. Naysayers. Hardier for sure, than their mainland brethren.

Expats too, strangers in a strange land, chiseled by the callused hands of culture. Adrift from the mainland. Each changing, often in different directions.

Expats and islanders. What is it that they seek? What have they found? Off in the distance.

- - -

Steve Schuit is both an islander and an expat. He's lived on Peaks Island, Maine (975 acres, 3 miles out to sea) since 1985. Recently, he's been experiencing life as an expat teaching in South Korea. 

Expats

Expats know this place...living where language and culture are often confounding. The days can be wonderful, filled with rich memories in the making. But the future always looms.

Expats here can be found plying social media with complaints and criticism born largely, I think, from the frustration of living and working in Korea. English teachers and professors, easily the largest expat contingent, sometimes chide their schools online for their hiring practices and overall treatment of foreign teachers. "It's not just Korea," a friend assured me. "Expats around the world do the same thing. It's a common phenomenon."

I found myself growing annoyed with what seemed to me to be a kind of xenophobia in reverse; a group of expats who more than occasionally give voice to what is ailing Korea, what is broken, dysfunctional, and needs to change. Their lives, they believe, would be easier, if only they were treated more fairly, more like what constitutes propriety in their home countries.

"Living abroad requires certain  measures of self-reliance
and strength of character"

In fact, satisfaction at work is key to a positive expat experience. English teachers spend many hours in the classroom or in other locations in their respective schools. If Korean schools, whether hagwons (language institutes), public schools, private schools or universities, were inclined to better understand and respond to the needs of expat teachers, many expat concerns and grievances could be ameliorated. Problems both in and out of the workplace can distract expat teachers, adversely effecting their productivity, and contributing to shorter stays in Korea.

The reality of course, is that most of us are not citizens here. We are instead simply guests, working stiffs, doing the job, contract by contract, at the discretion of our employers and on the receiving end of government policies here. We are not Koreans and we are treated differently. And we are, almost always, treated "less than" native Koreans.

Living abroad requires certain measures of self-reliance and strength of character. Each expat location has its own unique idiosyncracies. Here in Korea, while certainly less of an issue than 40 years ago, being stared at is still commonplace. Korea is also infamous for its crazy drivers who ignore driving laws and seem to abhor the very idea of pedestrians.

Denmark, currently home to more than 41,500 expats, regularly undertakes research on the unique experience of expats in that country. The country is genuinely concerned with the expat experience. Denmark, it seems, wants to leverage the added value that expats bring to their economy.  In sponsoring "The Expat Study," ongoing research authorized by the Danish government, it recognizes that "companies, research institutions, and nations must search for competence and knowledge world-wide if they are to gain or maintain a competitive advantage." The research findings include what expats there generally find positive and negative. Expats, for example, often find Danes "closed-off and difficult to form friendships with." On the other hand, they find the good work-life balance in Denmark to be quite positive. Positive and negative experiences, it appears, are inevitable.

For most expats there is that unavoidable "looming future." After living in China for many years and marrying a Chinese woman, Mark Kitto, then 46, one of the best-known foreign entrepreneurs in China at the time and fluent in Chinese, wrote about his expat experience in an essay, "You'll Never Be Chinese."  As an expat, he fell out of love with China as his fears about the increasing pollution in northern China, water shortages and issues around food safety brought his disenchantment to a head. Moreover, as his young children got older, he wanted to give them what he felt was "a decent education."

Expats, I think, can sometimes become afflicted with a self-inflated superiority. We can lose our humility and open-mindedness. I know this well and personally.  Having lived here in Korea from 1973-1975, I experienced my share of challenges and frustrations. In that era before the internet and computers, getting a letter home to family and hearing back took, at best, 4-6 weeks. Sitting on a western style toilet was a dream. Just eating a hamburger or pizza, our go-to fast foods, was not possible, unless you had a close buddy on one of the military bases. There were nightly curfews that required you to be off the streets by 9:30PM. In an environment with few westerners, young children regularly ridiculed my beard calling me "monkey." I left Korea in 1975 worn out, frustrated and bitter, swearing I would never return.

Today, Korea has an expat community of more than 1.5 million. We are clearly helping Korea satisfy their need for specialized workers, most usually in the area of English education, a critical competency for Korea's continuing leadership in the global marketplace. Like Denmark, there is an unmistakeable opportunity for Korea to better understand and respond to the needs of its expat community. But like it or not, we remain ambassadors from our home countries. Our behavior, positive or negative, reflects on the expat community overall. While there is certainly no shortage of things to complain about, at the end of the day, it is worth recalling, most of us are here as guests. "For, after all, put it as we may to ourselves," author Rebecca Harding Davis offered, "we are all of us from birth to death guests at a table which we did not spread."