Beneath a ceiling of stars, on a floor of soft sand, a campfire’s gravity bends time and space. A mass of native English teachers convene on 명사심리, a beach on 신지도. The 외국인 (foreigner) experience ceases to be a clash of culture; now a momentary intermingling of beings bound by common language, experience, and drink. A Tupperware drum keeps time for a guitar and voices that bellow lyrics-like a tribal chorus. Comfort clad foreigners howl through the smoke and dance familiar dances. The rhythm and setting are unmistakeably comfortable.
In this foreign place the firelight’s a temporary embassy, yet the ambassadors don’t show for nationality or politics. The details vary, but these human motives are often social in nature. This was my primary objective for living/working abroad-interact with people and understand new things first hand. However, there’s a threshold for one’s ability to relate in a foreign experience, given limits to change/time. Language, culture, politics, and varying levels of understanding can all be barriers. In the the warm halo of campfire many things are familiar. Newness is negligible, intimacy is enhanced.
Fish, fuck, eat, sleep, fight, speak-It may all go down harmoniously like a romanticized version of the wild. I may conveniently enhance my understanding of the 외국인 experience and the world. That being said I will not (cannot) give up the newness (the foreign). After all, most conversation around the campfire emanates from the 외국인 experience.
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