People We Love:Lanae

This week’s People We Love, is about Lanae from Chasing A Tale and The Ex-pat Table. 

I met Lanae years ago in Seattle. I kept her caffeinated while she managed an art gallery. Years later and continents apart, we connected.

How did you end up in Korea?

There are years of backstory to how I ended up moving to Korea, but the simple answer for what got me on that airplane – was a broken heart. Not the simple kind of boy-meets-girl kind of of broken heart, but the complicated broken homes, broken lives kind of broken heart. I was exhausted and I had lost all hope that life could be anything but violence, anger or pain. I had to break the cycle of misery.

The reason I chose Korea as my escape pod, though? I’ll never fully be able to explain that. I always thought I would move to Europe or head down to Latin America. I had no interest in Asia in any of its forms. It just kind of happened. My family would probably put most of the blame on Hulu.

What was your plan for Korea?

When I moved to Korea, I moved here to live as a Korean. I didn’t come here with any consideration that there would be Western things. I chose a small, rural school without other foreigners, bought lots of books on how to learn the language and got on an airplane.

Mostly I was excited to have time only to myself. My dreams were of a lonely isolated life, and blog after blog online promised me it was inevitable…. however, it was a dream that never came true.

For reasons I can only theorize on, my experience within Korea has been dramatically different from anything I’ve read about online or from people I’ve met – except for those that chose to live in Korea as residents instead of ex-pats – those people understand what I’ve been through.

Can you elaborate on that?

I find myself feeling like an outsider with my own people. I don’t understand their observations, my life doesn’t reflect their values, my choices aren’t in keeping with theirs. Of course, I’m not Korean either. No, I’m something in-between. In short, I’ve effectively fallen in love with someone I’ll never be allowed to marry. Whose family will never fully accept me – but to be honest I don’t really care. I’m happy to “live-in-sin” between countries just to be near something that brings me this much happiness.

Sounds like you really love Korea…

My love for Korea is because I understand how Korean’s live. It’s so similar to my life in Alaska it’s not even funny. Because of these social similarities I think I’ve been accepted here much more than many ex-pats and because of this acceptance I feel an intense protectiveness. I don’t want the lifestyle I have always loved taken away from me AGAIN. It is tiring to watch Western culture try endless to convert everyone into being as miserable as they are, but it seems to happen everywhere.

Agreed. The farther I’m away from America, the more I realize what a miserable culture it has. I feel like you and I live in between. We’re not tourists, we’re not expats, who are we?

Exactly. I didn’t move to Asia to be a tourist, I basically moved here with the intention of making it my life – good or bad. I hadn’t even considered the option of how Western people live here – always a tourist. I’m not an ex-pat. I am an immigrant. Not saying life won’t change that, but I LIVE in Korea. This is my life. There is no “home” to go back to. Most ex-pats come to Korea for a moment. They have no real, long term interest in what it has to offer, and – quite frankly – we have very little in common despite being from the “same country”. They are young, living “without consequences” and waiting for “real life” to start someday in the future.

I’m not on a working vacation. This thing here that’s happening right now, this IS my life.