Sensations

I have attained a heightened awareness of several of my senses since arriving here. Each one is constantly being presented with sensations that it has never encountered before which is undeniably disconcerting, but has revealed to me the depth of elasticity that my senses contain.

For instance.

Everywhere I go I hear unfamiliar sounds. Obviously, the language is the most noticeable: vowels that are somewhere in between our vowels, those used in German, and nothing I've ever heard before; consonants that sound like you took a break for air half way thru one sound and then said the second half with the first half of the next. (R-L, anyone?) But then there are more. Such as the elevator talking when you get to each floor. The sound of an engine not slowing down for you. And someone asking you in Korean, "What the **** are you doing?" Oh wait...how did I know that's what she said? Because now that I can't understand the words and the unfamiliar sounds, the tone, urgency, and pitch of the sounds all mean more than they ever have in the past. I hear less, but I hear more at the same time.

The scents are for the most part either very similar or very different. Cars smell like cars. People smell like people. Sewage smells like sewage. Food smells like food - tho I never quite know what to expect. The biggest surprise to this sense is the location I find those familiar scents.

Sights are similar in some ways. I see people, streets, food, cars, signs, clothes, stores, maps, water fountains, trash cans, decorations, cash registers, speedometers, eating utensils, souvenir shops, and even McDonalds. If I stop thinking for a minute I can convince myself that I'm back in America. But look closer... The people are all dark and small with dark hair. The streets are for the cars - they always have the right-of-way. The food is normally unrecognizable. (Don't fall into the trap of thinking it's not...) The cars are almost exclusively Hundais. The signs are in Korean. The clothes all look familiar, but the style is very unique. The stores are all little shops, normally convenience stores that sell everything. The maps are also in Korean. The water fountains are actually just water-bottle-filling stations. The trash cans are all color-coded. The decorations are not "Asian," they are normal. The cash registers read in the 1000's for a cheap meal. Speedometers are measured in kilometers per hour. (I an't explain the astonishment I felt for a split-second when my friend's Mom was driving at 100...Kph. Right.) Eating utensils, well, you can finish that one. Souvenir shops sell everything from hair bows to flags - Korean flags. And good ol' Mickey D's. Finally something I'll recognize, right? Wrong. I have no idea how to say "McDouble" in Korean, let alone to read it. And for the final blow to thinking that the sights predict deep similarities, McDonalds doesn't sell Parfaits here.

Big boo.

This brings me to the sense that normally feels like it's overloaded, numb, or reeling. Don't get me wrong, I like Korean food - much of it is healthy, tasty, creative, and down-right nommy. But imagine with me...you go to your favorite restaurant, you order something you've never ordered before, and it comes out looking like nothing you've ever seen before. So you take a sip of water to steady yourself, but it tastes oddly metallic. *shrug* It's still water, right? Finally you dig in and brave a bite. It's good. You chew, then swallow. Then go for another bite because you liked it. But wait...why did you like it - you can't for the life of you remember what it tasted or even felt like in your mouth. So you take another bite. It's good again. Then you swallow and once again you have no idea what you just ate.

If you've never experienced this before, it's probably almost impossible to understand. But suffice to say that much of the pleasure of eating is the anticipation. After 3 weeks here I am getting better at predicting and remembering hat my food will taste like. And even texture is becoming less of a surprise - tho still a huge factor. Two days after I arrived here, I was given a drink. It looked healthy so I took it. It tasted good too. I drank some and liked it so much that I wanted that taste more and more. But I couldn't bring myself to drink it. Why? Because there were jiggly chunks of something suspended in the somewhat thickened liquid. No matter how many times I told myself that I liked the taste and wanted more, I drank hardly any of it, and it was so strange to my mouth and stomach that it almost made me sick.

Food is, however, the only new texture.

I've realized that I have not only a powerful sense of touch, but one with an incredible memory. I can look at a surface, feel in my head what it will feel like, touch it, and only feel slight differences. Granite feels like granite. Wood feels like wood. Bathroom door latches feel like bathroom door latches. (Although you turn them left to close them here, and right to open. Think about it.) This has turned out to be an immense comfort. Not only do the things I feel feel like home, but because this sense experiences so little that it doesn't remember or can't predict, it holds onto the things that I used to feel at home, but can't feel here...

Sam's hair.
My own pillow and bedding.
The last hugs I got from my siblings.
My car keys.
A quarter.
Cooking utensils.
The way my floor feels under my feet.
Mashed potatoes.
My doorknob.

And the biggest comfort of all, Sam's hands.