I went to the English service at Nambu Church for the 11 am service. I go late most of the time because I prefer my own praise and worship style. I try to focus on the lesson and think about how to apply it to my life. Many people are happy to see me and whisper how much they would love it if I attended every service and on time. After service we eat lunch together and I chat with the different members.
Unfortunately, I'm thinking "I am not really comfortable with you and not sure I enjoy chatting with you each Sunday as if we are friends." My definition of friend isn't so light. I accompany my Chinese teacher that comes to church to practice English, to Gangnam Joongang Church. They don't have any English services, but at 2pm there is an abundance of young Koreans and we try to listen to the sermon as much as we can. We have downloaded bibles to our phones that have dual language capabilities, but as we all know, in church you aren't reading the whole time.
We finish the service and head down to the church cafe like always. We sit in a group consisting of us two, a 2nd Chinese teacher that joins us for this church's service, a Korean guy that apparently loves languages, the pastor's wife and the pastor. The chit chat is fairly minimal but the pastor and his wife express that they'd love to see me at more services. They are very friendly people and I enjoy them being there, but we can't quite communicate, because I don't really have much to say in Korean...to them. I'd prefer to discuss the sermon of the day or life battles and my personal bible study time but that just isn't my level of Korean...speaking anyway.
The pastor then calls some random kid over around my age and tells them to talk to me since their English is good, as they are students that study in Australia, the U.S., etc. We talk a bit about what they're studying and they welcome me and ask about my hometown, etc and then leave.
Today is when I couldn't lie to myself any longer.
1. I do not enjoy chit chatting with people that have no intention of doing so in the first place. If we don't talk outside of church, I don't consider you a friend that I need to commit to a schedule of being available for each service to chat about non-service things.
2. I do not enjoy people seeing me in church for the past couple of months, not greeting me and explaining that they live/study in my home country. I know many will want to bash me for that line but here's the thing. Korea is a "I'm sorry I don't speak English so I won't talk to you" culture. It's also a don't-introduce-yourself-wait-until-you-have-mutual-friends culture. On top of that, it's a don't-acknowledge-that-person's-presence-until-an-introduction culture. (Not as in they are rude to foreigners, as in this is seen as rude and strange in their culture.)
3. I don't have any friends in my city. After my one left to finish her MA, good luck, I have no one. The Koreans I salsa with here seem determined to ignore my interest no matter how much Korean I speak to them. Then again, they are in their 30's and possibly can't be bothered. My Chinese teachers work at night and on Saturdays, so we don't have much time to hang out. They are awesome people and my age, but our schedules don't fit. The foreigners here are so against brown skin that I can't attend all the parties they have and such.
Overall, I'm not liking my thinking about staying on for a second contracted year. Maybe by being honest with myself I can pull through. Afterall, I'm not lying to myself about enjoying my schools 90% of the time. My soon to graduate 9th graders included. ^^ Good luck babies~~!
