Just Jump

     Have you ever jumped off a cliff, or just anyplace high? You climb up, thinking how fun it’ll be when you reach the top, but with each step you take you feel a fear growing in the pit of your stomach. What if I slip? Don’t look down. You’re not going to fall. Just don’t look down. Then you reach the top, the whole point of the climb being so you can enjoy that thrill of jumping off it. But then that feeling in the pit of your stomach finally overtakes you, and you freeze. Even breathing becomes difficult as you worry just one little move will send you over the edge. Jumping doesn’t sound like so much fun anymore. It’s falling. A fall that maybe you won’t get back up from. Then you hear voices, the voices of your friends and family who have already jumped or are right behind you. You’re going to be fine, just jump. Even if it stings when you hit the water, just jump. You worked so hard to climb this far, just jump.

     When I reached Seoul, South Korea, waiting alone for my ride from the airport, that’s how I felt. I was frozen. I had come here as a TaLK (Teach and Learn in Korea) scholar, being paid by the Korean government to teach English to children in rural communities. I had been excited when I heard I made it, literally dancing and screaming in joy the second I got the e-mail, and the day I left for Korea couldn’t come fast enough. But then, when I got here, surrounded by a language I didn’t know and a culture I had barely studied, I really started to question whether I could do it or not. Did I climb too high?

     I have been to Asia before, China for 5 weeks and Japan for a year. Those countries I knew before I arrived, having studied their history and fallen in love with their languages and cultures long before. But Korea was always that other country, the country drug into my Chinese and Japanese history books before breaking free from their grip to continue with their peaceful way of life. I knew kimchi was all the rage, this angry red mass of cabbage and chilies being Korea’s version of French fries and pizza when it came to popularity. I knew Taekwondo was the national sport that I could have studied in my home town and learned how to kick really high. And I knew the Korean alphabet, a jumble of circles and lines. Short from that, I knew squat about Korea. But that’s why I came.

     If I’ve learned anything from my travels it’s that no matter how much you study the country, you can never really learn about it until you actually go there. And so, though frozen on top of that cliff, I knew I would have to finally jump. Maybe I had climbed too high and my landing wouldn’t be the most graceful, but I would learn from this jump. I would experience having jumped. And when all is said and done, at least I jumped in the first place. I’m a TaLK scholar in Korea, the Land of the Morning Calm. Care to jump with me?