I open the door and enter the Plex. There is a line at the counter waiting for card check-in. Even though there is a line, the guy at the counter asks with his smile on his face each person, “How are you?”or “How’s it going?” And he swipes the card and waits to hear the each person’s reply. Two out of four people reply “Good” and the others reply “Fine. And you?” Then, it’s my turn. I don’t know him and never met him before, but I reply “Good. Thanks.” Very general, habitual but kind of meaningless answer. I rush to multi-purpose room where a yoga class is being held. I try to open the door but it’s locked because it’s 12:07 pm. Most of the instructors of programs that the Plex offers close the door 5 minutes after start of the program to not be disturbed. Today, I am late and cannot take the class, so I head to the hall.
When I enter the hall, I feel stuffy, humid and warm air. Even the fans are puffing out warm air like heater with buzzing sound. I go upstairs and get on a treadmill, turn on the machine and start to walk. With my back straight and my face facing front, my eyes get lost in the empty space, not knowing where to stare. I start to regret. Today, my whole body is stiff, so I really want to take the yoga class and stretch my body. I should have run and I shouldn’t have wasted my time at the library. I stayed in the library watching the announcements screen about events being held in O’Neill library. And I waited for elevator at the Maloney hall. Because I was late by a very few minutes, I regret that I could have saved my time from all the situations little by little. Every single moment I spent on the way to the Plex seems to be time wasting even though I know it was all my fault to be late. But I keep blaming surrounding environment, not from me. Wouldn’t I have saved time if the guy at the counter said nothing and just swiped the card? Why did he say that? He didn’t know every person he encountered but he asked how they feel. Why did he repeat the meaningless words and waste time?
You would be familiar at being asked “How are you”, but not to me. Because I am an exchange student from Korea, I have experienced two types of gym, one at Boston College and one at my home university. And I am more used to Korean type gym. In Korea, if you ask someone we don’t know about her feeling, he might look at you strangely and ask, “Why do you ask me that?” Then I started to recall the memories of the gym in Korea. The guy at counter wouldn’t ask people. Then, couldn’t I save my time? The situation would be different. I wouldn’t spend time at the counter and I might have made on time at yoga class.
Bump!
My eyes move to man who was lifting the weight and mistakenly dropped it on the bar. And he was startled all of sudden and sighed. The noise brought me from distracting thoughts-thoughts about the past that I can never repeat. I tried to focus on my exercising but I couldn’t stop myself from comparing the situations with Korean and American gyms-how was the gym like in Korea.
To get out of from the thoughts, I start to look at others voyeuristically. The Plex hall has two floors: On first floor, there are three tennis courts surrounded by running track and various muscle making machines, weights, universal machines and butterfly machines. On the second floor, which is only one third of the hall blocked with middle-high fences so we can easily see down from second floor, there are steadmills, cycling machines and stepmill machines. On the left side of hall, five girls and a boy are using cycling machine listening to music individually. But strangely they move in the same rhythms. On the right side, there is a mat and on it two girls are doing planks and side lunges, looking at their phones hoping the time flies. And downstairs, about twenty people, 40% of them are women and 60% of them are men , are using weights and muscle making equipments.
I still can’t stop myself from comparing the scenes in BC with the scenes in my home university. I feel that something was different from my university and start to look at the hall. And soon I realize that more girls are working on making their muscles and their body more curvy. I start to recall my home university. In Korea, the equipments that helps to make muscles are mostly used by men – women are 10% and men are 90% of all, and the girls usually work on making their body slim, usually doing aerobic exercise. What a difference!
Why don’t they work on making muscles? Soon, I realize that I had adapted to new environment because I posed question about my home country’s usual scene-I got used to US scene. At that second, I feel I am looking at my home country from new and foreign perspective, not Korean’s view. However, that point of view is not American’s view either. If I were an American, I wouldn’t feel strange at scene and couldn’t have noticed the differences. It may sound strange but at that moment I feel I don’t have Korean’s view but also not totally American’s view. I am just in the middle of both, little bit lost, not sticking to previous view. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Then, how should I live? To live in US, should I change my point of view? I want to adjust to new environment perfectly because I can learn a new culture and as worlds become closer to each other, knowing how to accept other culture will be very useful to me. Or Should I just stick to my original view because I am staying here for few month? But will it be possible? I learned new cultures and got new point of view from staying here, so when I go back to home country I will start to look at Korean culture with different point of view. However, I don’t want to lose my own identity and to be a person who doesn’t belong to any cultural community.
Then should I start to behave as I did in Korea? Or how far should I change? The world is changing and is starting to mix many cultures. People are working and living in other countries, most people would feel the similar feelings that I had. They face cultural confusions and so mixed cultural identity. To live in this changing world, how should we behave? How far should we change to adapt to new environment?
Tomorrow is another day 