Challenges of living abroad

“Mama, I want to come home!” I managed to utter, after wiping the tears from my face.

It was Friday afternoon and I was finally left alone in the English Teachers office. The floodgates busted open and I began to weep. I had been holding back the tears since the morning but now at this point, I just couldn’t anymore. I had had enough! I was ready to pack my things and do what is called a midnight run- leaving without saying a word- back to South Africa.

How did I get to this point? Truth is it has been building up for a while and a confrontation with one of my co-teachers, this week, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Moving to another country and learning the culture is wonderful in the sense that it is a new experience and it is enriching. The thing is though that in as much as it has many ups, there are a lot of downs that don't make it to social media. In an effort to give you a full picture and not just a rosy summary, I have penned down a few challenges of living and teaching abroad.

Loneliness

Loneliness is real, it’s alive and it thrives in many expats’ lives. Most people will tell you to go out more and make friends and although that advice is sound and it does help ease it, it is not as simple as that. Many expats try their best to make friends and will try to push themselves to go out and engage even if they don’t necessarily want to but still it’s difficult.

I have made a few friends here who have been a real blessing to me but I still feel a sense of loneliness that is difficult to describe. During the week you mostly find yourself alone for long periods of time and you tend to only speak limited English in class or with your co-teachers. You can find yourself having gone a few days without having had a decent conversation with anyone in person. Let’s not even talk about touch – I literally get so excited when its weekend because that’s when my friends give me hugs! This is intense and causes much frustration to a person.

Language barrier

I have been able to survive here for four months without using much Korean, as Korea is becoming more foreigner-friendly, which is great. Communicating to build relationships, however, is a lot trickier. I have so many students who come up to me and want to chat but because their English is limited and my Korean is limited, we end up just having to awkwardly smile at each other. But I suppose they’ll learn more as I teach them.

A lot of the adults here are shy to speak English and so it can be a challenge to build meaningful relationships but there are those who try their best. Those kinds of people make it worthwhile. There’s this old man at work who always strikes up a conversation with me whenever he sees me and even though half the time I do not understand what he says, I am grateful for his efforts.

Co-teacher relationships

Every foreign teacher teaching in a Korean school has at least one Korean co-teacher that he/she teaches with. You conduct the class together and basically work as a team to make sure that the students are learning the language well. The co-teacher can speak English and they help translate a lot of what you are saying to the students.

I have four co-teachers and that means I have to learn four peoples teaching styles, personalities and way of doing things. Some expats have more than four co-teachers and some have less depending on the situation.

Co-teaching can be a challenge especially if you don’t communicate well and thus it can be a source of stress and frustration. I have been having some co-teacher drama lately and honestly what it boils down to is a lack of communication and cultural differences. After putting on my big girl panties and confronting the situation at hand, I have hope that going forward things will get better.

Depression

As you move to a new country you will go through phases of Culture Shock. Culture Shock has different stages: Honeymoon, frustration, adjustment and acceptance stages. These stages don’t have timelines and I think one can move to one stage and still regress to the previous stage depending on personal circumstances. The frustration stage brings about a lot of frustration, anger and bouts of depression which are apparently normal.

I have been experiencing this depression a lot lately and during those times, no amount to talking myself into a happy place can help. I rest in the knowledge that it is part of a phase and I try to seek out friends that I can talk to, which sometimes helps.

Overall, moving abroad is a great opportunity but it is not easy. Some people assume that we are on a permanent holiday but the reality is that we are not. We are here trying to live, work and embrace a different culture which is often times very uncomfortable. For the moment I have put my plans of midnight running back to South Africa on pause and have decided to take each day as it comes.