Six Buddies and A Loner

Six Buddies and A Loner

A good friend asked me what I felt about having to say goodbye again, and again, and again, and yet again. The Koreans who came to visit us for the 12^th Globalization Training Program were about to leave for home, and he was asking what I felt about their leaving. Not surprisingly, I told him I have gotten used to it. Six buddies provide you much time for practice.

If I try to explain why I said that so unfeelingly, if I try to tell what my buddies meant to me, he would probably cringe at so cold a revelation. Probably I had seen too many of these Koreans up close and realized how perfect they were, and indirectly, how imperfect I am. Probably I was on an overdose of too many things Korean that I was so bitter I wasn’t one of them.

This wasn’t the issue really, although that guess might have something in it. To me, the Koreans are unlike what they are shown to be in television. They are not always sassy, they are not always cute, and they are not always so friendly. Just like we Filipinos aren’t so generous and hospitable at all times.

One batch of Koreans I knew were all so stingy that on outings and downtown jaunts, the buddies would go on KKB (kanya-kanyang bayad). Some Koreans, especially the women, have surprisingly strong grips that come in handy when they want to pull a prank on you, e.g., by throwing you out to the sea. There are Korean women who smoke like they do nothing else besides. There are Koreans who are frustrated by their linguistic inability so that they dare not talk when they’re around you, yet chat all the time with the other Koreans.

There are, of course, Koreans and Koreans. Some weren’t so nice, but some were. All of my Korean buddies were nice to me.

There was Michelle and Rachel. Michelle was the more talkative one of the two, since she knew more English than Rachel did. In our conversations, Michelle would often act as the translator between us and Rachel, because Rachel couldn’t talk English passably well. At the end of two weeks, I had a stash of Korean beauty products, a 1000 won bill, and our picture taken in Polaroid. Rachel, who was the least close to me, cried when we were at the airport for sendoff.

There was Jane, the one I was closest to, and the buddy I had the most complex relationship with. We spent more time together than all the time I spent with my other buddies combined. In every interaction session at night, we would always go to a different place just to talk, while the other buddies went out in groups. We spent so much time in coffee shops talking about ourselves. She was what I would really call ‘unnie’ or ‘sister’ in Korean. I had a Korean fan for keepsake, and lots of pictures together. She cried when they were about to leave.

Next come Rosa and Sophia. Sophia was the more linguistically adept of the two but Rosa also took the time to talk to me. I wasn’t available for much talking though because I was also busy with preparations for our JS Prom. They said not to worry because they knew I was busy. After two weeks, I had two free CDs of Super Junior. They didn’t cry when they were about to leave.

Last comes Merry, my ever enthusiastic buddy. She was dubbed the enthusiastic learner, always curious to learn something more, but also always up and about, and often acting like a little kid in the mall. She was the darling of all the Filipino buddies; not surprisingly, we weren’t so close. I had to share her with the others. This time, when they left, I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

You probably notice I’m so inhibited with my descriptions. I only give you five to six sentences of simple narrative statements in exchange of two weeks of interaction with these buddies. If someone asked me why at any other time except now, I would rationalize, just as I did to my good friend, that this was because two weeks was so short a time to get up close and personal. Two short weeks that were composed of only a maximum of three hours interaction per day except on weekends was too short to feel much grief on saying goodbye.

But I don’t want to rationalize. Once and for all, I want to tell myself to look straight and realize the real reason I could possible get used to saying goodbye. I don’t believe that two weeks is too short; I’ve seen people fall in love in four days. I don’t really believe in language barriers, because languages and nationalities don’t matter to people with kindred souls. And I don’t believe in excuses.

I tell you now, I just wasn’t up for it. Just as Jane’s Korean best friend Scarlett asked me why I don’t speak much, or why I wasn’t very much expressive unlike the other Filipino buddies. She said Jane just doesn’t tell me, but she would like me to be more expressive, more open to talking, in short, more someone else than myself. At the back of her head, she was probably asking what on earth was wrong with me.

It wasn’t exactly that I couldn’t talk with these people. Rather, I talked, but not too deeply. It occurred to me that I just had nothing to tell, or ask them. Slum book talk means little to someone who’s craving for deeper involvement, deeper connections.

Ironically though, I didn’t initiate a deeper connection. For people like me, this is a temperament problem. We want deeper connections, but we fail to make the first move, because someone always has to peel us back a layer at a time. But deeper connections don’t always mean honest answers to questions. Sometimes, they mean honest questions to people we find interesting, honest questions that more often than not reveal directly what we would most want to know about someone, and indirectly, what we are. Because you wouldn’t ask someone how much does he receive at the end of the month if you’re not a money person yourself.

These questions are what I most fear to ask, because they would tell about who I am. It’s not that I don’t really want people to know, it’s just that, speaking, or in my case, asking questions, is, to use a friend’s metaphor, a pouring out of the soul. And that’s what I didn’t do with my Korean buddies. That’s why I got used to saying goodbye.

In as far as the modes of communication go, writing is also similar to speaking, since it is a productive skill. And in as much as I was telling you that to me, speaking is a pouring out of the soul, writing is also the same. That’s why this article took so long to complete—because it’s a temperament problem; because it’s ironic that people who clam up on the inside would want to write so freely on a blank page.

But I’m tired of pauses, and excuses. This article is in defiance of silence.