On Tuesday morning I sat down as usual on the exercise bicycle at the gym upstairs from my hogwon. Normally I don't ever look at the television hanging from the ceiling, I just bury my nose in a book as I pedal away an hour before work, but on Tuesday, I did notice the T.V. I didn't see the normal format, though, the cute girl and guy journalists laughing while interviewing a pop star or learning how to prepare some Korean dish. There was a computerized map of the United States. There were arrows and dashes and dots. Then a serious woman came on and said some serious things that I wouldn't have understood even if the sound had not been muted. And then they showed the video. And then they showed people running. And then they showed the video from a different angle. I couldn't figure out why this type of movie was being shown on T.V. at this time of the morning...normally these wacked-out American movies were reserved for Saturday afternoons. And then I noticed that there were no American actors, not even Susan Lucci. And then I noticed several Korean men standing next to me, silently watching the screen.

I hurried down the stairs to the hogwon, turned on the computer, and logged on to the Internet. There it was. I read and re-read the headlines for an hour and a half before making it back to the gym to shower and change for my first class. The girl behind the counter who normally limits our conversations to a nod and an "Onyong" looked at me sympathetically. She gave me a weak smile and then patted my arm. And then she offered me the telephone to place a call. 

When I walked into my first class that morning, a conversation class that consists of middle-aged
home-makers, the first thing that one of the ajumas said to me was, "Have you called your mother?" Amazing that despite so many cultural differences between Americans and Korean that we are so much the same. Because she's a mom, she knew that my mom would be worried about me way over here, nowhere near New York or Pennsylvania. I assured Amy that I would call my mother after class. Often our conversation begins with a photocopied headline and news article clipped from an English printed newspaper or the internet. I began to read the two paragraph news article that I'd printed out and had already read several times. I was only able to read a few sentences before I broke down, unable to continue reading. As I looked up and began to apologize I saw that every woman in the room was crying with me. With America. With the much of the world.

I have been overwhelmed with the support and sympathy I have received this past week. Students, children, taxi drivers have tried to explain their sympathies to me everyday. Some of them can express some thoughts in English, some know absolutely no English but feel a need to show me, The American, how sorry they are for me and my country, our future. 

In some ways, it is strange to be be so far away from my home, my family, my country during this crisis- some might call it a world crisis. I can't help but wonder how my country will be changed when I do return to it. Oddly, though, I don't feel removed from home or family. I am living in a country that is full of incredible people who posses no hatred towards the people or countries who wronged them in the past. I am living in a country full of citizens who feel compassion and grief for another nation very far from here. Though they do not share American blood, the Korean people have acted as concerned cousins to U.S. citizens living in their country. Maybe this is the reason I don't feel too far away from loving friends and family- I'm not.