The Immigrant Experience/A experiência do imigrante

I try to always remember how incredibly lucky we are here in the SK. We have a stable job with a reputable employer (by hogwan standards, anyway), a wonderful apartment, a salary that covers our needs, and access to pretty much all of the amenities that a person could ask for. People here are generally very polite, and we can almost always communicate what we need through smiles, hand gestures, and the collection of useful phrases I have memorized in Korean. People are patient with us, and we never feel endangered. We have everything we need.

Still, being in a strange land far from home has made me do a lot of thinking about the "immigrant experience." Growing up, I always thought of myself as sympathetic to their struggles, at least on principle. After all, my mother is an immigrant; I went to school with immigrants, including several who were not permanent and sometimes even illegal; and I even dated a few. I tried to be patient with people that didn't speak English very well and respect those who were trying to eke out a living - aren't we all doing that in some form or fashion? - but beyond that, I didn't think much about it unless I was embroiled in some kind of political debate with my college classmates. Back home we argue about immigration reform and government policies and border security, but how many of us have actually walked a mile in those shoes?

I had my first moment of "culture shock" yesterday, when Joel and I went to the bank to open an account with our first paychecks. I asked around at work, and all of our Western co-workers recommended us to the same bank. They assured us that there were multiple English-speaking customer service staff members who could help us open the account and even help us set up wire transfers to our bank in the U.S. So on Tuesday morning, armed with our envelope of cash, our passports, and our American bank account information (and, stupidly, not a dictionary or phrasebook), we walked into the bank.

me: Annyeong haseyo!
Customer Service Rep (CSR): Annyeong haseyo!
me: Yongo haseyo? (Do you speak English?)
CSR: shakes head
And then I freeze. And I look at Joel, who looks back at me. I look over to our right, where the bank employees in the office to the side are working with Korean customers. And then it occurs to me that we just walked into a bank in Korea with no preparation, expecting someone who speaks English to be able to help us. And then I feel like the world's biggest idiot.
me: Uhm...
CSR: Ah, do you want...open an account?
Joel and me: Yes! Ne!
So we sit down and begin to fill out the paperwork. He hands us each several forms, and (through asking someone on the phone for the English words) indicates where we should fill in various pieces of information (at which point I realize that while I have memorized the school's address, I still don't know our apartment address - I can only tell food delivery drivers which apartment we are in). Our very polite and patient customer service rep puts everything into the computer, has us put in our PINs, and hands us some kind of bank booklet. Then he indicates that we are finished.
me: Uh, how do we get bank cards?
And then another bout of broken English and hand-waving ensues, at which point we figure out that this very polite man has opened not one, but two checking accounts, one for each of us. And then I start to get upset.
CSR: This way please!
So we get passed off to another rep who sets up a bank card for my account (Joel currently has an empty bank account with no debit card) and deposits our cash. We say thank you, take our umbrellas, and walk out.

And then, in the rain, I started to cry.

Not because we have two bank accounts, or because we only have one check card, or because no one spoke English, but because I realized that I assumed that this man would instinctively figure out what we wanted, even though - or maybe because - we couldn't communicate it to him. It was the first time that it really hit me that I cannot do the most important things - financial things - here without help.

Since that moment, all of the stories that I laughed about growing up - the one where my mom went to Bering's asking for hookers (when she was looking for hooks to screw into the wall), or the one where my father's Peace Corps host family waved spoons in his face and screamed the words in the hopes that he would somehow absorb them - came flooding back to me. I remembered standing in line at the post office at my university while the Chinese grad students struggled to understand the forms they had to fill out to send packages home while the postal clerks yelled at them and abused them. I remembered Joel's stories about standing in line for almost an hour at the post office in Italy for stamps, only to discover at the front that it was the wrong line, or Krystal's tales of navigating the Chinese postal system and having absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. (I haven't yet screwed up the courage to go to the post office here.) I thought about how Joel and I struggle to distinguish Korean vowels from each other for our language classes while remembering people back home complaining about immigrants not learning English. In a short amount of time it has become very clear to me why immigrants form their own enclaves in foreign countries with doctors, bankers, lawyers, waiters, and employers that they can communicate with both linguistically and culturally. Without help from someone, we are exposed to an often hostile system, we are unable to communicate what we need and are therefore helpless, and we are utterly alone.

Obviously, our situation here doesn't come anywhere close to the migrant worker, or the refugee, or the undocumented alien who has just crossed the river or allowed his visa to expire to try to find a better life. But now we have real insight into what it means to be at the mercy of your employer (however benevolent and well-intentioned) not only for your livelihood and your health insurance, but also for the roof over your head and your right to be in the freaking country. It's terrifying, and we don't even have a family or anything major on the line.

But at least now we have not one, but two bank accounts.