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106,464 Views • Dec 10, 2023 • Click to toggle off description
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00:00
01:33 Food and struggles
07:21 Daily life challenges
09:55 I love living here. So why am I stressed?
12:27 Mental wellbeing challenges in Asia
13:24 BetterHelp (access to online Therapist)
16:11 Learning and Language
17:20 The hidden language....Flow
20:49 Examples of Flow
26:49 Stuck between two cultures
32:52 Your thought
Views : 106,464
Genre: People & Blogs
Date of upload: Dec 10, 2023 ^^
Rating : 4.941 (103/6,865 LTDR)
RYD date created : 2024-05-09T02:50:59.561468Z
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YouTube Comments - 587 Comments
Top Comments of this video!! :3
you were my comfort show when i lived in the U.K.! i stayed there for 6 years to study and had a hard time settling in with being by myself. I was only a 17 so I had to figure out how to pay bills, sort my savings and groceries by myself. every time i cooked i remember taking a photo of each dish even it looked a little sad. i was proud that i kept learning and pushed myself to figure out how to be independent!
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:_explore: Thanks for listening to my thoughts, hope to hear from you in the comment section!
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I get the vibe that the reason we're all here with you, Martina, is because we too share in the isolation. In a crowded room, we're still alone. Finding You and King Kogi brings us to a place where we're not alone, we all share in the isolation of single living and found others that experience similar situations. We Are Community. Thanks to You.
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I lived in Japan for the last 5-ish years of the Showa era. I have not really been back in 30+ years. I was irrevocably changed by my experience there, during a period where we didn't even have cell phones and I was still renting videos on VHS. Directions to find a place were very involved, even for the Japanese, using only landmarks (get on the last car of the train, leave via the 2nd east exit, left at the Departo, 2 blocks, enter small alley with green noren over sushi shop on left, etc...addresses didn't mean boo to finding a place, especially in the city) to find small theatres or coffee shops or vintage clothes shops (long live Shimo-kitazawa in my dreams). GPS wasn't a thing. Social media wasn't a thing. I have learned so much more about Japan since I left, via YouTube and the internet, despite having become quite fluent in the language while I was there. It boggles my mind how EASY it has all become for the new generation of travelers.
And yet, you have nailed it so accurately, what it is like to live overseas in Asia, that I feel nothing has changed at all. Thank you for this video, you made me smile and laugh and nod my head vigourously throughout.
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We lived in Korea at the same time and it was comforting to watch you navigate life, as it made me feel less alone in my experiences. I stayed 10 years, got married to a Korean man, and your last point really resonated with us. We moved back to Canada in 2018 and he's really struggled with making friends and finding his place because of people mistaking his accent for him being "simple" or "shy" or even "stupid." He is a reserved guy, but people here are often so quick to judge him without knowing he speaks Korean and Japanese fluently, has three degrees, and has a wickedly weird sense of humour. It's been so frustrating for him socially and professionally, but I feel fortunate that at the very least, I've had very similar experiences living in Korea, so I can at the very least empathize with him. Thanks as always for the thoughtful and engaging content! ❤
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I moved to rural Thailand to teach and the word "khao" (rice) is just the word for "food", and breakfast, lunch, dinner. So at first there was confusion both ways when I was asked, "teacher are you going home to eat rice?" And I'd be like "no I'm going to eat a sandwich". Blank looks all round 😅
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One of my favorite memories visiting Seoul was at a street food vendor run by a little old lady. Hubs and I wanted a chicken skewer but we didn't really know how to order or what the options were, or how to politely eat it. But this lady who spoke no english guided us through gestures and smiles and giggles and it was delightful.
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I arrived in Japan pre-smart phones/Google..no Japanese to a rural town. Immense culture shock and I know I caused stress for the locals with my weird ways & toddler Japanese. You are right to point out the impact your lack of cultural knowledge can have on others. But I remember immense kindness - my landlady delivering my mail, persimmons left on my doorstep, help when I fainted in the Chemist, the elderly waitress who delivered my lunch order every day, the ridiculous praise for my awful Japanese. Now nearly 30 years later, I know it was life changing. Of all periods in my life, it’s the most vivid and the impact continues even now - I met my husband there, I can make mean karaage, sing karaoke at the drop of a hat and importantly understand my cultural norms were challenged and transformed just a little for the better
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"It doesn't happen without effort!" So true! Finding community is SO important, no matter if you live overseas from your home of origin, or closer to it. Community is so important for our mental well-being and long-term success and health. Thank you so much for your insight and wisdom, Martina!
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I never comment on anything, but I just had to comment on this one! You're basically describing my entire life in this video, even though I havent been to Japan yet - I do live in South Korea now, though, and started watching you when I first started thinking about coming here, about 13 years ago! I started hopping around the world when I was 6 years old, and I'm turning 47 this month. I lived in Mozambique as a child and then South Africa as a teenager, and then went back to South Africa in my early thirties, going from there to England in my late thirties and now coming to Korea in my mid-forties. I loved how you described all of this delicious and excruciating chaos we live in when we are "displaced": the culture shock in the new place and then back home, figuring out the flow before figuring out the language (thank you so much for giving a name to what I've been experiencing all my life!), the isolation and how it hits different when you meet people who "get" you culturally and linguistically, the chunks of knowledge missing from back "home" - and how it somehow isn't quite home anymore... amazingly put. And yet, I don't think I could live any other way!
Thank you for encouraging and inspiring me, not only with this particular video, but for sharing your impressions and experiences over the years. So many of the hard things here in Korea were easier right away because I had seen an EYK video on it a few years ago! I'm so glad an EYK video was one of the top videos to pop up when I started searching for "Life in South Korea" in 2012 (and that video had a Peppertones song in it, and I have been obsessed with them ever since!).
TL;DR: This video is amazing! I'm glad you exist and that you are a big part of my life as an expat! ❤
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I had always wanted to live in Japan but never had any luck with JET or other ASL jobs due to how competitive it was. Then, one year the opportunity to teach in S. Korea fell into my lap and I took it (even though I knew very little about S. Korea) and it was one of the best decisions of my life. I got to live there for 2 years (then the pandemic happened and my school shut down and I was out of a job). But it was an amazing two years. A very stressful two years, but amazing nonetheless.
I'm so thankful I had other foreign teachers to help settle me in and my Korean coteachers were very helpful for the more complicated bits (bank and phone plans, etc). They all really helped make my experience so much better.
One major change I saw in myself is before I moved I was a very picky eater. But living in Korea (and visiting Japan) completely opened up my palate. I tried things I never thought i would, loved things I would have sworn I hated. I love food now and appreciate it in a way I hadn't before.
Living abroad was an amazing experience and imo the postives far outweighed the negative. If you have the opportunity, take it.
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Flow is something I totally struggled with when I first moved to Japan. I found myself getting so frustrated because although I was taking Japanese lessons I felt like communication still came off as awkward and disjointed. That’s when I asked my Japanese tutor to teach me how to say things as if I was a Japanese person, not a foreigner learning Japanese. He was surprised that I wanted to learn all the nuances of communication that weren’t specifically grammar and vocab. Fast forward 4 years and although my Japanese still isn’t great I can get by with a lot of context and understanding “the flow” 😅
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My grandma was from Lithuania and you made me realize she was also making comfort food (and I thought was just "grandma's cooking") and how happy she was when she took me to visit her Lithuanian friend and they could talk in their own language (and carry on like teenagers, lol).
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The flow and the change within one self and ones "home" is REAL. Having lived in the US and the UK altogether for a decade coming back to Germany (where I was born) during the pandemic was a true shock (my German still sounds like I fell down the stairs) and THEN going back to Croatia to see family was a welcome relief, almost a buffer of sorts, because it is so different yet again from all the previous experiences.
I've been following your journey since since 2012 now and this was such a great insight on how all this moving and simmering in different cultures can effect you. Thank you!
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Great video Martina, I just wanted to mention how sweet i find the fact that you call your grandma "baka". Along with "deka" for grandpa, it's like a sweeter, softer way of addressing grandparents than the standard "baba/deda". It's heartwarming to see that your parents taught you that way and that you continue to use it.
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That flow you’re talking about is called pragmatics/sociopragmatics and I love the way you explain in a very approachable manner. But, as a linguist and teacher, I have to add that, for example, the restaurant situation you are talking about belongs to more advanced level of language learning and, unfortunately, it is being left out due to its complexity. I used to learn Korean in a group and our manuals worked only with -입니다 -입니까 forms during the whole book number one and was really suprised when I visited a Korean restaurant and tried to flex with my superformal vocabulary haha. I guess that “the flow” is something every each of us has to deal with. At least it created more funny stories for me to share with my friends and family. :))
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What an amazing video! So insightful. It got me thinking about my grandma and how she and her family came over from war-torn Poland. I once asked her why none of us speak Polish, and she said, "We are in America now. We speak English." As an adult, I realize that the assimilation pressure was much higher than it is today, and it's still incredibly high.
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I just moved to Germany from the US two months ago. I've been following your content since early 2011, and you've been influential in my decision to take the leap! I think that a move from one western country to the next is a tad easier than moving to the other side of the world, and I haven't felt a huge culture shock here in Stuttgart. But food and language have been a struggle, and also the "doing it all alone" thing. Something as simple as going to the doctor to try to resurrect my Americam Rx's was brain-melting. I had to take the evening off from my planned orchestra rehearsal (re: community, joining a non-professional orchestra has been key for me! And it forces me to speak German) due to the unexpected mental exhaustion. The little inconveniences pile up! But everyday I'm just so grateful to be here. Even 2 months in, I think I'm still enjoying my honeymoon phase, along with starting to feel more settled. I get bouts of loneliness and disorientation, but having kickass coworkers at my architecture job (where work-life balance is celebrated!) and continuously meeting shockingly nice people (and I was warned that Germans are cold 🙄) have given me a pillow to land on.
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I’ve been living abroad for almost 12 years now (originally from UK, lived in: Australia, Vietnam, Portugal, Japan and Czech Republic) and this is one of the few times I’ve seen someone really effectively express what it’s like! It IS hard and lonely, but also so healthy to learn of ‘other’ ways to do things. I currently live in New Zealand and my word am I taking full advantage of no language barrier - I pretty much do courses or exercise classes every night of the week because it feels so wonderful to be able to understand every single word.
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@lilleblomst9534
4 months ago
Omg Martina! Can’t believe it’s been 15 years, and over 7 years since you moved to Japan! It feels like it happend yesterday! ❤ I’ve been following your journey since 2012, and I can’t even begin to explain what your content has meant to me over the years! I’m a Korean adoptee who grew up in Norway, and watching you in Korea was one of the first steps for me to learn more about Korean culture. You are the reason I started learning how to make Korean food! Thank you, Martina for making so much wholesome content, and help bridging cultures and explore other food cultures!
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