Yet Another Musing About Exchange

Everyone tells you how exchange is going to be “the best time of your life” or how it’s a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

What no one tells you though, is that exchange is like pandora’s box — or at least it was for me.

A "Pandora's box" is a metaphor in our modern languages, and the proverbial phrase refers to a source of endless complications or trouble. In my case, it means a box of randomized balls.

The Truth About Exchange

When I came back from exchange, everyone asked me “How was Korea?,” and I often just hastily answered “it was fun” or, if they were more than an acquaintance, I would truthfully tell them “it was exhausting.”

Now, you might be asking, “This girl went on exchange almost a year ago, so why is she still writing about it?”

But that’s the thing — exchange is like an onion. As time passes, you realize more and more things about the experience; you go from thinking about the people to thinking about the experiences and then reminiscing about the places. Every time a new photo pops up on your feed, whether from friends you made there or friends who just travelled there, you’re brought back into the sense of who you were — who you used to be, somehow still are, but at the same time, aren’t anymore.

You’re left questioning at every stage of reflection, wondering when your discoveries will ever end. That’s why it’s like Pandora’s box: every time you think back on those memories, you don’t know what new realization or feeling might come at you. It might be sadness at the fact that you can’t return back to that point or happiness that you met such great people, but nothing changes the fact that it’s hard to grieve. So hard.

For me, this grief manifests itself as a big thinking block in my head, like a tumour. I can’t bear to look at some of my past photos or even re-hash my 2022 highlights because this is more than just a “5-month experience.” Exchange was like a decade of memories being expedited into a 5-month process. It’ll take me weeks to mourn one small memory, let alone ponder and process upon all the memories in between the memories I have photos of — from the comforting silence spaces, to the chance encounters of new people I met, to all the questions of the “What Ifs”.

Exchange has been a very powerful tool; frankly, it’s been both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing that I lost myself through over-indulging because now I’m able to better know what I need in life and face the problems that I was avoiding during exchange (such as self-healing and grinding towards my career). However, it’s also a curse in that it haunts me wherever I go, whether it’s the people asking me about it, or the way that I can’t interact with Korean culture the same way again.

Wherever I go, somehow exchange manifests itself there. Take for example, going to a Korean restaurant. Normal people would usually say “wow, the food’s so good here.” Or if you’re my mom, she would say “I can make this at home.” But for me, going to a Korean restaurant makes me say “wow, I remember eating this in Korea; it’s so much cheaper there.”

It’s the way that, for many of us exchange kids, part of ourselves will always be left behind in Korea. It’s that sense of FOMO when you see your exchange friends live on without you. It’s that daily routine you had there that you can’t exactly replicate the comfort of here. It’s the way you found beauty in all places there — in the architecture along the streets, in the way the flowers bloomed, and in the way everyone dressed so well around you.

It’s the way how my ear is always silently listening for Korean speakers in any public space I enter, looking for the opportunity to connect with someone who will understand that side of me and be able to personally connect with my stories about Korea.

Moreover, it’s the way how I documented everything as best as I could back then, but it still wasn’t enough. Despite having a vlog camera, a blog, a journal, a film camera (two actually), and my cellphone, I still wasn’t able to document the most important things: the simply daily life, the pockets of “just existing in peace,” and the laughs I shared with friends.

It’s the feeling of never being able to turn back time and replicating those exact memories ever again. And sometimes, it’s not even exchange that I miss but the feelings during exchange — of romance, naivety, security, bliss, excitement.

Mind you, I’m still very much connected to my exchange friends. In fact, with some, I’m even closer with them now that we were during or before exchange. However, the biggest thing that people don’t tell you about exchange — and what I hope you can takeaway the most from this — is that exchange doesn’t end when you fly back home. Both the good parts and the bad parts — the grief, the new friendships, the ghost of who you were, the memories — follow you back home. And maybe you don’t need that emotional load on you (or maybe you do). But one thing’s for sure: there’s a lot more than what meets the eye when it comes to exchange.