The Differences

It's weird when you're in a place that you've only been to in your mind. There are things you couldn't possibly imagine as different; like smells. In your head, you can't predict the way a place will smell, so you assume it smells the same. But when you get to that far-off place you've never really been to, things are different in ways you never would have thought.

Like the way it smells after it rains. In Oregon after it rains, there is a soft aroma of pine trees and grass. It smells like peace and safety; like happiness. Here after it rains, all you smell is weighted down pollution and sadness. It's as if in the sun, the difficulties of city-life are easily masked, but the rain wipes away the illusion. After it rains here, all I can smell is the sadness and filth of a dying planet. I never thought that the smell of rain would be that powerful to me.

Something else you'd never expect to be different is the way the Earth moves beneath your feet. This is even more subtle than a smell, but just as powerful and undeniably different. Back home, you can almost feel the Earth guiding you, urging you to wander and explore. It pulls your feet towards it and persuades you to continue on your journey. In this massive city, covered by skyscrapers and roads, it is as if the Earth has gone silent. The city is always making noise, drowning out the quiet murmur the world naturally emits. You can no longer feel the Earth moving and beckoning you to follow it.

There is one last thing I wasn't truly prepared for: the noise. Now that's not to say that in my home-town there is no noise; it's just the noises are different. In Independence, you hear the sound of music blaring from the open windows of cars as they drive down Main Street. You hear the birds chirping and dogs barking. You can hear your neighbor's hose as they water a flowerbed and inevitably flood your backyard. There's that ever distant sound of the sawmill working before and after the hours they promised the town they'd work. If you stay up late enough, you can hear the train go by at 3 am. And sometimes, it's as if the world has stopped and you don't hear any noise. Those are the times you think that you are the only person left in the world, or perhaps that armageddon has begun.

In Busan, you hear the never-ending sound of cars driving by, with the not-so-occasional honk of an angry driver. You hear the subway going by and people talking. You hear music play every so often. The difference between here and home is that the noise here never ceases. You never really feel alone, which in some aspects is good. The noise here is like a never-ending wind blowing past you; it doesn't hurt you, it just never stops.

Please don't misunderstand me, I love being in Busan. I love the culture and being somewhere new. I love living an adventure and meeting new people and experiencing new things. It is just the subtle differences that make being away from my quiet farming town difficult.