Seoul Searching October 2010 – Of Pandas and Raccoons

It’s amazing what we remember from high school. I don’t remember most of my math lessons,I promptly forgot all of my science, and I don’t think I really even bothered learning French. Then there are times when you’re sitting on the other side of the world, and a World Issues lesson pops into your head.

We were asked what it would be better to be like; a panda, or a raccoon. Naturally, people said panda. They’re cute, and they don’t eat garbage. Everybody seems to love pandas. At the end of the day though, a panda is pretty much useless as a species. They are incapable of adapting. They live in one type of environment, and eat one kind of food. We need to protect them simply because the panda doesn’t know how else to live.

On the other hand, there is the raccoon. It can live anywhere. It can eat anything. It has been able to adapt to almost any environment thrown at it. Back then, I saw myself as a panda. I didn’t like change, and liked to be comfortable and in my element.

It wasn’t until after university, when I began living overseas, that I truly understood this lesson.

When you go to another country, be it for vacation or to live, there are two ways to approach it. You can be the panda bear, staying in your Western style hotel or apartment, eating your Western style food, searching out your fast food and your Costcos to keep all your comforts from home. And if you live like the panda, you wonder where your money is going, because being a panda is not cheap.

Or, you can be a raccoon. You can find out where the decent places to stay are, you can talk to locals (or at least try to) to find out the places to go, and the foods to eat. You can be adventurous, promising yourself to try everything you’re able to at least once.

The other day, when I was in the grocery store, this lesson came flooding back to me. I could remember, years ago, shopping in Japan, desperately hunting for food I recognized so I could eat it. I ate pasta. A lot. In Korea though, I’m cursing the fact I don’t have a rice cooker, bored of spaghetti. I had fries for the first time in two months and hated them. Pizza without corn on it seems strange. My sense of fashion has changed completely, and I honestly couldn’t tell you who’s popular in English pop music right now. But my iPod is loaded with Korean pop music that I love to try sing along to at noraebang (karaoke.)

Maybe I am more raccoon than panda.