If you’ve read my previous post on birth traditions in Korea, you might remember that for Koreans, it is essential that both mother and baby are kept very warm during the postpartum period. I’m not sure how long this lasts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s until the baby is not a baby anymore.
Last week I started using a different carrier to put Eleanor in for walks around town. Unlike the other carriers I have been using, this one lets her feet dangle freely. It’s working much better because it’s less hot; the other ones have been making both of us sweat and it’s no good to have your baby wake up and start squirming and crying because she’s too hot! Aaanyway…
So the first day I had the baby in the new carrier, I actually had an old lady run across the street to loudly inform me that the baby looked cold. Apparently from across the street she had seen a tiny bit of skin exposed between Eleanor’s pants and her socks, which set off her “cold baby” radar that I needed told off and my baby needed poked and prodded all over. Now I’m sure her intentions were noble, but first of all I couldn’t understand her, secondly, she was basically yelling at me, and thirdly, she was all up in my face and I am not comfortable with a random person trying to stick her hands on my baby’s face. Unfortunately my Korean sucks, so all I could really do to communicate with her was say “no” in Korean, “she’s okay” in English, and turn and walk away.
Yesterday a similar thing happened, but it was actually a little humorous to me, too. We had gone to church in Jeonju and were waiting for our bus home. Unfortunately it seems that on Sunday nights, we always miss getting a bus by less than five minutes and then have to wait half an hour. Then we have a 45 minute bus ride, then we have to get the baby fed and settled. Anyway, the same thing happened this week, Eleanor was fussy and tired, so my only option really was to walk around the bus station with her in the carrier, trying to calm her down, knowing that she’d fall asleep once we got rolling on the bus.
As I sat down on the bus with her, she started freaking out even more than she had been and started crying loudly. The woman in front of us on the bus turned around and started staring at us over her seat and muttering something, then decided to come around and bent over and started examining the baby, I guess to try to help? And then, seriously, the FIRST thing she did was to point to a tiny gap between the pants and socks and tell us Eleanor was crying because she was cold. Willy ended up telling her “don’t do that” which was probably a little harsh (again, better language skills would be helpful), but for us it just adds to the stress of the moment when people seem to think you need told how to take care of your baby. (We’ve also had people approach us when the baby’s crying and excitedly say in English, “Can I see your baby?!” Um… isn’t it obvious now is not a good time…?)
Everything ended up okay, Eleanor took a bottle (which she had refused 5 minutes before) and quickly fell asleep. Another older woman kindly smiled at us and encouragingly gestured that yes, the baby was sleepy.
I understand that things are different here and so I’m not even that surprised when something happens that would never happen at home. But it still is frustrating trying to deal with it in the moment, and the frustration gets compounded when you can’t clearly communicate with the people who are trying to “help.”
There’s a big struggle with living in Korea that I haven’t written specifically about here that I want to address. If you’re considering moving to Korea, or anywhere else overseas, you’re probably going to have to be okay with becoming more dependent on other people.
I think even if you moved to another English-speaking country, you’d have struggles adjusting to how things are done compared to what you’re used to, and you might end up needing a friend to show you around so you can figure out how to navigate your area and take care of errands and such. That need is amplified in a country where you can’t speak the language. In the case of Korea, I also can barely pronounce words, let alone know what they mean. I obviously need help in doing anything more than going to the grocery store.
This was pretty difficult for me at first because when we came to Korea I was 6-7 months pregnant and I needed to be seeing a doctor frequently. As such, when I met Koreans who could speak English, I ended up having to ask for their help sometimes without knowing them very well at all. This made me feel like a rotten person, because if someone at home did that to me, I would probably feel like they wanted to take advantage of me and didn’t have much respect for me as a person, only an interest in having me help them through my language abilities. I also really, really value being independent, and have always been that way. Having to ask someone’s help for a simple task like telling a taxi where to take me was irksome. Guilt was another thing I felt; is there anything I could do to “make it up” to a new friend who was helping me?
There have been a few things I’ve learned along the way that have made me more okay with asking for help.
1. I do have a legitimate need for help from my lovely Korean friends. There’s no way I could just skate my way through going to the doctor’s office, giving them my personal information, seeing a doctor, learning to order things from Korean websites, etc. Maybe if I had been studying Korean before coming, that would be possible, but considering the circumstances, I cannot always get things done without their help.
2. The Korean friends I have are very aware of our situation (coming to Korea to live and have a baby) and are willing to help. I don’t think there’s ever been one time that I’ve asked for help and been told “no.” They know that I am away from home, can’t speak the language and don’t know the system. In fact, most of the time, if I ask someone for help, it’s after they’ve initially offered to help me with anything anytime I need it. This was especially true around the time of Eleanor’s birth, which was a huge relief.
3. I don’t need to stress about “paying them back.” I had a talk with one Korean friend about this once because I felt like I had asked her for help sooo much and I was tired of doing that to her. But (though she had a hard time explaining exactly what she meant) she told me she felt like I was her little sister whom she was helping to take care of and watch out for. Though I don’t know the social structure in Korea super well, I think that it contributes to the situation. In the US we are all about a perceived sense of fairness, but I don’t think it’s quite the same in Korea. That said, I do make every effort to not take advantage of the relationships I’ve formed, and I try to have purely social interactions with these friends whenever I’m able - treating them to lunch, buying them coffee, making plans with them on the weekend, etc. I also think that, in the case of those friends who helped me a lot during pregnancy, they get a lot of joy from seeing Eleanor happy and healthy and getting to interact with her.
So, would I ever rely on people at home in the same way that I do here? No way. But I could not survive without those relationships here, so I have had to change and adapt to my situation. And there’s little I can do to make it up to them, so I have to be okay with that. Maybe the biggest gift I can give them through this is to stay humble and be willing to help someone the same way if I ever get the opportunity. It’s hard being new somewhere and I think keeping that fresh in my mind makes me a much more humble, kind and courteous person. We also are much closer with Korean friends here than foreigner friends. Chalk it up to living in a small town, maybe, but I feel like I’ve had a better experience here and learned more by having a little less of a foreigner “bubble” than some people have while here.
It’s amazing how quickly and how slowly time passes simultaneously. In some ways I can’t believe Eleanor’s been with us for almost three months, and yet it seems much longer at the same time!
We had a wonderful visit from my parents recently which passed by in a flash. They got acquainted with Eleanor, sampled lots of Korean food, and blessed me by changing diapers and feeding her. She was a little moody at the end of their visit, which could have been attributed to any number of things, but may have just been caused by changes in daily routine. I’m now working to get that back in balance and figure out how best to help her be happy and well-rested.
Eleanor is truly a joy to have with us. I love playing with her hair and touching her soft skin, which is getting pudgier every day (currently the number of chins she is has is about four). Her gummy smiles are adorable and endearing and light up a room. Her mobility is getting better all the time, especially her head control. Today I had her on my shoulder to burp her, and she turned her head 180 degrees and craned her neck past my face so that she could watch her daddy cross the room! We are trying to make sure she gets some tummy time in, but it can be challenging since she doesn’t like it and will face-plant on the surface she’s sitting on when she gets tired, which gets her upset.
While I, the mom, definitely get smiles the easiest, I think she’s starting to really notice and love having her dad’s attention, too. I think of her as a “spirited” baby - not always easy to handle and sometimes fussy, but in the same measure, sweet, engaging and curious. I think she will be full of surprises as she gets older.
People on the street sometimes stop in their tracks to look at her when they notice her and the most common thing said about her is that “She looks like a doll!” which is apparently a very big compliment. I think many people here have not often seen a non-Korean baby so she is quite an attention-getter. Sometimes we show her off when people seem interested, sometimes not. There are moments when literally every other person on a busy street shows interest in her so we can’t always stop when people want to look at her. Personally I also appreciate when people actually ask to look at her or make eye contact with me and smile, vs. just staring at her/me and then mumbling something about a baby. Either way it is such a new feeling to be a minority. I wonder to myself if people would pay us much attention at all at home. It’s a constant adjustment to feel like there’s a spotlight shining over us, especially if she’s crying while we’re at a restaurant or something.
Eleanor is approaching 100 days which we are quite happy about. Now that she is getting bigger we seem to gradually be getting less “your baby looks cold” comments and looks from older women, and being able to tell people she is past 100 days will be nice since they’ll be more accepting of her being out in public. It’s also getting much warmer out! I’m getting a little worried about how hot it will be this summer… really hoping she’ll quickly get good head control so I can move on to a different carrier. Right now the ones I have that fit her are too small/uncomfortable or too hot!
