Hugs & Kisses

Over the last few years, I have come to accept that my friendships with men are very different from my friendships with women. I have had over twenty roommates in the years since I moved from my parent's home, most of whom have been men, or boys as I prefer to call them. As upset as people get with my choice of words, I still maintain I am not old enough to be a woman, nor do I look like one. I live in constant fear that some truancy officer will catch me in the street during school hours and parade me back to the nearest junior high, thus I still prefer to think of myself as a young woman, or even a girl. There's less pressure this way. The urgency of deciding what I will do with my life seems to fade away the younger I consider myself. Peter Pan complex? Perhaps. In any case, many of my memories of Calgary and Montreal are filled with adventures with these one-time roommates, and other boys in my life. Not necessarily boyfriends, although of course, some of them were. And I contemplate how many of these boys have wandered in and out of my life. At moments it seemed we would always be in touch, but soon after the moving truck left with my things, I realized it was the end of era. The boys coming and going from my life were plentiful, but it's always been different with girls. There is such an air of competition about meeting new girls. You can feel it as you unconsciously size each other up, determining the level of threat. You can almost hear the criticisms resounding, thundering in the air between you. I used to think I was crazy, but I've had one too many conversations with other girls to believe that I'm the only one that feels it. The prettiest or skinniest girl in any room is immediately labelled some sort of selfish bitch, and everyone else unites in hating her. Any conversation with women about a beautiful Hollywood celebrity will more than likely head in this direction. Bitterness hangs in the air as the girls attack the target until the offending man, taken aback, retracts his comment and agrees that yes, in fact, Julia Roberts is hideous. It's always been harder for me to make friends with girls. Maybe it's the flirtation factor with men, maybe it's the tensions involved in meeting women, but this has always been. Though as I contemplate my close and strongest connections, they are nearly all women. Some of these women have been around me, it seems, forever. Alex and Thelma I met way back at St Gerard school when I was nine years old. Andrea at twelve, Carrie at fifteen. These are the closest and oldest friends, although there are still others that I know are still around, despite the fact that time and circumstances have separated us. Sometimes it doesn't matter. Lindsay I rarely talk to, but somehow it still feels like she's around. And the IMAX girls, that I still see when I go home and are always around in my thoughts- Melisa, Rochelle, Diana. And of course, there are still others, like Simona, Nouria and Heather that came along during my Montreal days. It's amazing that I've kept these women around me, given that I have such high expectations of them. It says something about them, because I'm not sure I could live up to the expectations I've set for a lot of my friends. The boys, in comparison are few and far between. None date any further back then my IMAX days, really. Even at that, Brett and Andrew are the only two that still feel present. Clay is the only one that holds on from high school. As we all pair off in varying degrees of seriousness, somehow it becomes harder to keep friends of the opposite sex. It suddenly feels more confusing. As though the absence of even the possibility of a relationship leads us to a decision that it's not worth the energy.

As I sat with Song at Krispy Kreme yesterday, I came to a startling realization. When I arrived in Korea,

I quickly realized that there were aspects of Canadian culture that I had taken for granted my entire life. I never imagined that there would be aspects of Korean culture that I would begin to take for granted after a relatively short time here. Song and I were once again discussing gender issues when it hit me. I knew that in returning to Canada I would be thrown by the absolutely obscene prices. I realized long ago that I would be overwhelmed first by all the English in Calgary, then by all the French in Montreal once I arrived there. Two hits of culture shock in a very short time. A sad part of me realized that I had begun to take street vendors for granted, and sadly accepted that I had only three more months of proper bartering time left. I fear that I will feel invisible in Canada, as I have become accustomed to the school children shouting "Oma! Oma! Wayguk!" (Mother, mother, foreigner!!) I have come to accept the middle school girls passing me by in the street, giggling, and shouting after me "So beautiful! Golden hair!" The actor in me loves the attention, as does the feminist. I love the image of an independent woman that continues to confuse and baffle Koreans. A woman who chooses to live and explore a new country alone. But when it comes down to it, what I will really miss is the warmth of the Korean people.

As Song and I discussed her frustrations of working in a predominantly male environment, and my frustrations with my little girls correcting me and saying, "No, Stephanie. Doctors are men," a subject that I had broached to provoke this very argument. Just then the other side of the Korean gender issues hit me. Male/female relations are undoubtedly quite strained. Women play the quiet, passive role and continue to seek out doctors to marry. Men have such high expectations of how their women should look that no woman with a job could ever measure up. She needs to spend all her time primping and keeping herself looking as anorexic as possible. It angers me, because both sides are at fault and neither is happy. Song is often told by Korean men that she has too many opinions, a trait valued in the west. As Song talked about her work environment, I began to understand why so many wanted to marry doctors. If I had to work under such circumstances, I would rather stay home too. There are many factors that play into this problem. Part of it is that boys and girls are separated for their entire education. Sometimes even at a University level. In a culture where gender roles strickly tell you what is proper for men and women, how can you ever make friends of the opposite sex? It's not as though the girls are registered in soccer alongside the mysterious neighbourhood boys. Soccer is still a man's game. I can't imagine the shock of entering my first University class at the age of nineteen and finding myself surrounded by men, after never having seen one in a school setting before. The separation can't be healthy. How do you learn to communicate, learn about different types of people, if the only friends you have are of the same sex? How do you know the sort of closeness to look for with a mate if you've never had a close friend of the other sex?

On the other side of these tense issues are the incredible close and honest relationships between friends of the same sex. Girls walk hand in hand in the street and don't hesitate to fix each other's hair or clothes. It's not unusual to see men walking arm in arm through the streets. Men cuddle up to each other on the subway to sleep better on the way to their destination. This sort of honest warmth in their relationships is something that we lack in North America. The physical barrier is up, but I'm not particularly sure why. In Canada, girls walking hand in hand are noticed by excited men hoping to catch a kiss, not seen as a normal part of friendship. We've just begun to accept that guys can walk hand in hand, although I don't know that I've ever seen men who aren't dating doing this. The very idea is completely foreign to us. And why should it be? What's wrong with us? Most cultures have a greeting that breaks through that physical barrier. What is a handshake, but the most distant of physical engagements? It's history going back not to the establishment of closeness between friends, but to a suspicion that the other person is carrying a weapon. In Quebec, granted we greet with des bisous (kisses on both cheeks)... but in this Quebec stands apart from the rest of Canada. Much of Europe greets with the same two cheek kiss, but the Middle Eastern countries take it a step further and greet with three kisses. New Zealand greets with a gentle touching of noses. Koreans don't hesitate to throw themselves at you for hugs and kisses. Evidence of this is seen even as children. Canadian children would never dream of asking for kisses from their teachers, but it's an expectation here. While Canadian parents get paranoid if a teacher puts his hand on their child's shoulder, or gives them a hug, Korean parents complain if their child is not getting enough love from their teacher. Why are hugs in Canada reserved for drunken nights or tearful goodbyes?

I have recently realized that I have become addicted to the saunas here. They really are one of the most brilliant things about this country, as far as I'm concerned. For five thousand won (about 5$), you get entrance to the sauna and proceed to the change rooms. Your clothes are stored in a locker and you continue on to the saunas and bathing areas. Usually there are three or four saunas, set at varying degrees of ridiculous heat. Usually one has walls and floors of jade, another has amethyst. One is just a standard wooden sauna, then the last is the painfully hot one. For a moment as I enter, I get curious stares. Not too many foreigners frequent saunas. After relaxing as long as possible in the heat of the sauna (which admitedly is not long with my Canadian ADD), I exit the sauna and take my pick of pools. Sometimes the pools are treated with herbs, sometimes not. The pools are all set to different temperatures, so you can enjoy luke warm water, or freezing cold if you're working on improving your circulation. If the saunas weren't hot enough for you, you can opt to jump into a hot bath too. Painfully strong massages are offered by jets of water that crash down on your shoulders and back at the touch of a button. A woman stands by to offer full out loofah scrub downs, massages, hairdressing, manicures and pedicures at a small cost. The best part of this experience is the openness of the environment. Women walking around comfortably naked, unconcerned that someone is looking them up and down judging them, because it isn't happening. I contemplate Canadian change rooms where women change under their towels. After going through the paces of sauna to tubs, back to sauna, you have the choice of showering or bathing in the traditional Korean way. Large bowls are filled with water and women sit scrubbing their bodies down with all kinds of scrubby things. Far from pretending not to see each other, as tends to happen in Canadian shower rooms, friends scrub each others backs and chatter away as they bathe. The few bathhouses that exist in Canada have come to be creepy pick-up joints (from what I've heard), and I don't know that we as Canadians, are comfortable being naked with so many other people. We automatically assume it's dirty for some reason. Or weird. Yet as I sit in the sauna, I think about how taking the time in the company of other women to relax and bathe seems like the most natural thing in the world, and wonder why we shy so much away from it in Canada.

Back at Krispy Kreme, I looked around me and saw the barrage of young women walking past us hand in hand and the young men sharing an ice cream at the next table. I realized that all this had begun to seem normal and the coldness of Canadian friendships suddenly hit me. Do we pride ourselves so much on our Independence that we've lost touch with some of the aspects of true friendship? Are we so proud that we can stand on our own two feet that we've forgotten that sometimes it's easier to have someone to lean on?

** As a side note, I'll be in Taiwan lying on a beach next week, so I will not be posting. Desole et a la prochaine!**