"Tu donde vives?” asked my Spanish teacher.

“Korea,” I replied with no hesitation.

Once in a while, I tend to think about whom I am and what my purpose is, like any other quirky teen during their stages of puberty. Even though I am, “from Korea,” I often felt as if Korea was a country beyond my reach: a distant, unfamiliar place. I am a multi-cultured and third-cultured kid that is, a kid who spends their life outside their parent’s culture. Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, and a little bit of America mixed and shaped me. My experiences in these countries and cultures made me unique but made it difficult to blend in with other people.

My experiences in Korea are limited because I lived there for the first five years of my life. The only people I knew I had were my relatives. My family visited Korea for a couple of times and my emotions during those visits were the same: controversial, scared and curious. The scary feeling lasted for a long time. I can still sense the foreign air in the airport right after I land. The airport was clean and white, but too white for my liking. Everyone in the airport all appeared professional with straight faces, black shoes and polished cases. Their pale, white faces compared to my tanned skin stood out and made me an outsider. The passport lines passed quickly from what I expected. This airport was different.

My grandparent’s house was the only place our family could stay in Korea. They would welcome us inside and I would be comforted by their huge smiles and bear hugs. Even though my grandparents made me feel comfortable, I did not have fun. There was nothing to do in Korea. The only thing I did was watch Korean television shows day and night. I had no friends to meet so I just sat down and stared at the TV. From breakfast through dinner I would go through all the channels and watch everything I desired. Despite the laser beams from my mother’s eyes and multiple lectures, I refused to move.

Every once in a while I had no choice but to go out. During those times, the subway was the most efficient transportation. At that time, the Korean high school students would be on the subway returning home. In grade 6, the high school students intimidated me. Girls had on makeup: white porcelain skin, eye lined eyes and lips that were bright red. They came in and grabbed a seat with a smartphone in their hands and swore in almost every sentence they spoke. As a youngster, that frightened me. The amount of swearwords and the way they looked and talked were all a scare to me.

Going outside in Korea was a nightmare to me. It was quite evident that I was different. The color of my skin and not up-to-date hairstyle affected the way I saw myself. I began to watch more TV and spend more time in the house than outdoors. I felt alone and began to undervalue myself, despising the fact that I was different than others.

After I came back in Indonesia, I felt relieved. Although the places in Korea were modern and the foods, delicious, Indonesia was my home. In Indonesia, my friends, and traditional foods soothed me inside and out. The culture shock I experienced in Korea seemed to abate after a few more visits. I learned that swear words and scary high school students weren’t everything in Korea. When my family was late for a flight, some polite people tried to help us get to the station on time. Even though they were strangers, they helped us kindly, leading the way to where our station was. I learned that Korea was not different than any other cultures but was special in its own way too.

The scare that I experienced lessened because I grew confident in myself. Even though I did not “fit” and “blend in” with other people in Korea, I appreciated myself and that altered my view of Korea. I learned that although I was different, I should respect myself just the way I am. Being “different” does not mean that I am weird; it just means that I am one of a kind: special.