For some reason I cry more at work than I do at my apartment. There must be some kind of weird psychological barrier that stops me from breaking down into the weepies in the privacy of my room, and instead only allows me to in front of a dining room full of guests and servers. Stinging tears shan't be shed unless an onlooker is present, and humiliating sobs can't happen as I sit despondently in front of my desk at home.
It rarely bothers me that communication is bumpy and getting the full meaning of a question across can take some verbiage maneuvering. I don't get frustrated by it much here any more because I know its just a question of phrasing it in such a way that they understand...but today I lost it. My new rotation in Shang Palace so far has been rather unwelcoming overall, and I feel entirely too awkward to even pretend like it doesn't bother me. Normally, the colleagues are just too shy to talk because of the language barrier and they don't want to sound stupid in front of me. Also, normally I smile at them and try to engage them enough to wear them down past feeling shy...but the return of my social encouragements have been few and sometimes rather coldly received. I smile at people to let them know I'm hoping they smile back, and maybe we can say hi the next time, then later chat about our favorite foods or something. I smile because I need the people around me to help me and I rely on them so much to make this experience fulfilling and worthwhile...so when I get a deadpan look back, or they look away from me with no warmth at all...it hurts more than I ever expected.
It's true that so far, my first few days anywhere have always been a little awkward and there's that warming up period, but I only have two weeks here and I feel like it would take months to break the ice. Maybe right now I'm just over sensitive, and these people are no different from my awesome friends at iCafe, room service and Nishimura, but folks...I'm tired. I'm tired of putting myself out there until someone meets me. Four months of smiling brightly at strangers, making eye contact with people that only stare back is wearing me down. I just want that easy going banter I had with my first rotations, and the quick grins instantaneous to me when I saw a friendly face.
If I've learned one thing from this experience, its that I don't know if I could survive outside of my comfort zone of friends and fellow workers of home. I mean, I've survived this long and mostly because of my roommates and the outgoing workers that came to us first. However, I can't imagine living in a foreign country, by myself, working at a place where I couldn't communicate fluently with my peers. I might've mentioned once or twice that I'd be interested in working abroad but today, I'm not feeling it.
(So wait til next week and ask again)
Honestly though, I'm just tired. I don't work all the time, or have late shifts, but expending all the energy to communicate and appear calm and collected everyday is draining me. And yes I just got back from vacation, but I think a culmination of all these feelings over the past few months, has finally sank in.
Also yesterday was the hotel outing and we hiked around a mountain.
The way I'm feeling now probably has something to do with that, among other things.
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