Bonding and Re-bonding

I sit at Incheon airport, a place that has become strangely familiar to me over my time in Korea. Even though I normally only spend a few hours here with each visit, I find that there is far less change here than the rest of Korea. Restaurants and shops have largely remained in their same places. The procedures are generally the same. The process of arrive, check in the bags, go through security, go through immigration, find the gate, wait for the plane, then leave gives me some small comfort in the otherwise moderately stressful act of travelling.

For this visit, Kris and I will be returning to South Africa, mostly for her best friend’s wedding. I say mostly so as not to offend all of the South African-based friends and family that we will see while we are there. It’s also to see all of you, I swear!

This will be the second time that we’ve visited South Africa since we left for Korea and I started this blog. Last time was for our own wedding, and for a much longer period of time. With this visit, we will be staying for less than two weeks, and trying to cram in as many lunches, brunches, dinners, board games, Ultimate games, family meetups, and general socializing as we possibly can in that time. In our last visit, we had a much more relaxed social timetable, because we could afford it. We also were lucky enough to see a large portion of the significant people in our lives at the wedding.

While things might not have changed too much at Incheon airport, a great deal has changed in our family and friend situation back in South Africa. My entire immediate family will be working outside of South Africa before the end of this year. Kris’ mom has moved out of their long-time family home. Over our time in Korea, we have lost contact with many of our friends back in South Africa, with each year causing more friendships to fade from vivid experiences to sepia-toned memories. This is the nature of life. Situations change, and you have to adapt to your new environment.

However, we are excited to return and get in touch with everyone that we might have neglected to video chat or message in the past few months, or even years. We will undoubtedly have many a story to share with each other. There will also be those that we cannot meet up with, whether that be because of scheduling problems, distance, or even just sheer forgetfulness. Maybe this will cause a few more friendships to lose their luster, or maybe agonizing over the missed opportunity will be the splash of colour that livens a bond that was dulling.

Kris and I are both excited to be returning to the place that was once the only place we called home. Our lives are more diverse now, and we will be leaving our Korean home for a while to nestle back into our South African one. Oh, and eat our body weight in biltong, Cadbury’s and Gino’s.

Board Games: The Universal Unifier

Gaming is a pastime that permeates almost every aspect of who I am as a person. I play games to relax. I play games to challenge my reaction times, logic, and emotions. I play games to tell stories. I play games to have stories told to me. The most social way that I play games is to have some fun with others. These games most often take the form of card or board games. Whether I play with my family, my friends, or my students, I find that games are a way to bring people together, regardless of circumstances.

Everyone has to start their gaming life somewhere. For most, this was playing simple games like Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, or Bingo with their family. I am no different. I remember many weekends spent at my grandmother’s house trying to outwit my cousin and brother in order to win Monopoly. A board game or two were always present on family holidays, and a pack of cards was always at the ready. Anecdotes of hotly-contested games formed part of family banter – “Yeah, but you still couldn’t beat me at Monopoly!” was an oft-used retort to expressions of superiority. And yes, we played Monopoly to death.

As I grew older, particularly when I entered university, the door into the true world of board games was opened to me. All around me, dozens of games that I had never even heard of before were played and enjoyed. I took one last mental look at Monopoly and dove in. I played games of all sizes, lengths, complexities, and themes. I hunted for Thunderstones and Munchkinned my way to level 10. I became a successful, profitable bean farmer and laid train tracks throughout Europe. I planeswalked and fought giant monsters. I even fended off cannibals in a little house on a hill. I did all of this whilst bonding with friends that I keep in touch with to this day (although not as much as I should!).

When I landed in Korea, I thought that the attitude towards board and card games would be different. In the land where League of Legends and Minecraft reign supreme, I held little hope that my students would even want to open a game that wasn’t an app on a phone or computer. I should have rather remembered the experiences that I’ve been lucky enough to have throughout my life. When I first showed my students one of my board games, their eyes lit up, and I saw my young self in them. Now, board game lessons are a highly effective reward for good behaviour and work ethic.

Life without board and card games would be a lot less interesting. They bring people together like nothing else. Just this week, I have already had one board game night, with the potential to have two more before the week is over. Every time I pick up a game, I think of all of the memories that I have made with that game. If it’s a new game, I am filled with the giddy anticipation of what is to come. In my next post, I will list the games that I couldn’t live without (it will be out this week, I swear!). Until then, play more games!

We Went to a Land Down Under

The drama with obtaining my Australian visa was worth it. More than I could ever have thought possible. What, for me, was meant to be a little break from the rush of teaching children and generally being an adult in Korea turned into one of the greatest moments of familial bonding that I’ve had in many years. We laughed. We cried (in happiness). We drank more consistently than I’ve drunk in a long time. And every moment was pure happiness and contentment. I could not have asked for more from a holiday.

After our less-than-ideal travel to the wonderful, bureaucratic country that is Australia, Kris and I greeted the James family, my relatives. We briefly discussed the inconveniences that had plagued us along the way, Australian border protection, and general pleasantries, before we went to bed. The next day meant the arrival of my mother, father, and brother from South Africa and belated Christmas on Boxing Day. I couldn’t wait, but I slept like a baby hopped up on sleeping pills out of relief at arriving safely.

The moment I had been waiting for for many months approached rapidly. We drove to the airport (back so soon after it all) and waited for my immediate family to arrive. While we waited, we entertained ourselves by people-watching the rest of the inhabitants o the airport at that point in time. One young girl in particular struck our attention. She was clearly an enamoured young lass, holding a sign that read something along the lines of ‘Paulo ❤ Anita; I cannot survive another day without you.’ The sincerity of her placard and her clearly eager face intrigued us. We wondered if the mythical Paulo would ever show up. We were so fixed on Paulo and Anita’s love story that we simply shrugged off my own family’s arrival, staying in the airport to wait and see if Paulo would arrive. He did. They kissed. It was cute, and then a little gross. We left. That moment of intense emotion felt by others has managed to stay clear in my head, even when the host of my own happy memories from the following days blurred together. Funny how that works, really.

The all-too-short time we spent in Australia was filled with more happy moments of bonding with both my immediate family and the James family. Here is a shot of us all, enjoying the aforementioned belated Christmas dinner.

We ate. We drank. We went on a trip down to the boonies in the Southern part of Western Australia. There, we drank wine, jumped off of jetties, and looked for kangaroos.

That poor rental bus.

For some context, I have met the James family in person only twice before. Both times have been in South Africa. Between their two visits, we have kept in contact and banter through Facebook. I would not have considered myself to be too close to them before the trip. After the trip, however, they rank amongst my closest friends, and we have all agreed to try and remain in much better contact going forward.

Oh, and we did finally meet kangaroos. Kristen was braver than I was. And more smooth.

While it was a refreshing to bond with the James family, some of my favourite moments were those brief periods of time I was able to spend with my mother, brother, and father by themselves. Whether it was talking to my brother about his plans for his current studies and plans for the future, talking with my mother about the rest of the South African family, or discussing my father’s work life, I treasured each second of personal time with these three people that I have known for my entire life (or, in the case of my brother, four years short of my entire life). I miss many people, but none more than them.

I could spend thousands upon thousands of words describing every moment and experience we shared. I could ramble about listening to awful Australian rap as New Year’s approached. I could rave about Australia, and how I now understand why so many South Africans choose to move there. Most of the time, I feel like words are at least equal to pictures in their ability to capture the experiences of my life. For my trip to Australia, I am not nearly a good enough writer to depict how blissful, joyous, raucous, and simply fun it was to be with those I call family. For now, I leave you with one picture, taken at a craft beer house, and a new horcrux of happiness for me. This is what happiness looks like. This is how I spent my entire break feeling. These are the some of the indescribable people I spent it with. I hope that all of you lovely readers are lucky enough to experience joy as pure as this. 

Sport or, How I Learned to Socialize Whilst Sweating

I sit with most of my body aching at present. My shoulder is sore. My calves are tight. My back occasionally reminds me that it is not at tip-top performance either. Finally, my throat is hoarse, and my voice gaining husky sultriness and quiet awkwardness in equal measure. Why is this? Bonding over sport, namely Ultimate and rugby. There were losses. There were wins (although these were fewer). Most importantly, friendships were formed or forged even stronger through the simple acts of playing and watching sports that we love together.

In school, I found sport largely an odd phenomenon. Sure, I played sport all of the way through my schooling career. I was in the 3rd cricket team in my final year. I batted at number seven at earliest, and bowled one over per game if I was lucky. I occasionally latched on to the optimistic thought that my fielding was that good, but most of the time I realized that I was profoundly average. The sport that I enjoyed the most in school was hockey. Although I did not achieve a higher team placement than cricket, I felt like a more integral part of the team than I did in cricket.

My first truly great sporting experiences lay on the hockey field, but on the club level. When I say club level, I do not mean the kind of club level where the players are all sporting six-packs, there is constant training, and my team is expected to win the title each and every year. I mean the kind of club level where the players are all sporting six-packs of beer, there is no training whatsoever, and the team is expected, well, to hopefully remain in the same league and not get relegated.

It was great fun, and I had many happy memories from my club hockey days. Some of these great memories came from on the field, but the majority arose during the shenanigans that took place off of the pitch. One memory that springs to mind most often is the one and only time I have seen my father truly drunk. Here is a picture from that night.

Doesn’t he look majestic? I was a year or so shy of legal drinking age, and fairly responsible. I ended up driving us home, because he was incapable of doing so. It was a night I will never forget.

Whilst hockey was my first foray into social sport, I feel that I truly found my outdoor sporting community in Ultimate Frisbee at Wits. Everywhere else, I had felt a little bit of an outsider, for one reason or another. I was too slow. I was too young. I didn’t drink enough. The list goes on, and many are likely to be overly critical perceptions from my mind. But in Ultimate, while I wasn’t the most integral part of the lineup, I still felt like part of the team to a degree that I had never felt before. Some of my strongest friends from my days at university come from the Ultimate team, despite me only playing in my final year in the university. I even played with my supervisor for my Honours thesis project whilst doing my thesis. Witsies will always be there to jol (have a good time for all of you not from South Africa), and that is what I loved about Wits Ultimate and the Ultimate community as a whole – everyone simply wanted to have fun.

This feeling continued into Korea, where the emphasis on the community is even more intense, especially in ROK-U, the main league in which I am playing now. ROK-U is largely comprised of expats from countries as varied as Russia and Canada, with several stops off in South Africa along the way. As a result, when game weekends are planned, so are organised social events for the teams to mingle and grow their expat connections within Korea. Ultimate people are great. Everyone is a little weird, and no-one cares, because you are all there together, in a strange country, playing the game you all love.

This past weekend, there was a two-day game weekend in Daejeon, which is pretty central in Korea. At one of these parties, the South Africans in ROK-U all bonded by staying up until 2am to watch our national rugby team, the Springboks, suffer a narrow defeat to the rugby juggernaut that is New Zealand. It was a heart-breaking affair, but I will never forget the sounds of a handful of South Africans (some more drunk than others) screaming at the top of our lungs at a television screen in the corner of a bar. It really was one of those special moments.

So, to everyone looking to meet new people, try sport. I’d say try Ultimate, but I may be a little biased. I am sure there are many sporting codes being played really close to you that you never knew existed. You don’t have to be serious, or even fit. I most certainly am not. Just get out there. Spend a little bit of time away from the digital overload. You won’t regret it. Not even when everything aches on a Monday evening and you have to carry heavy shopping.