it's been settled

I discussed it with my host mother, and realized my sneaking suspicion was true: she doesn't see me as an adult. I think living in a homestay after four years of college is something like being forced to revisit your teenage years, except perhaps you're wise enough to realize the stage you're passing through and thus properly meditate on it.

I'm not claiming that I am an adult, even though by the end of our conversation I still wasn't quite sure what excluded me from the category, besides the fact that I'm currently living in a homestay. She seems to think that being married, and the attendant responsibilities, is what makes someone an adult. When I asked about adults who weren't married, like a few of the teachers at our school, she just said that they had few responsibilities, but wasn't very decisive about them. She was very persistent that I wasn't an adult though. She did say that she wasn't an adult at my age either, but the reasons she gave were that Korean youth don't move out of the house until they are married, and when she was my age she was working, but her parents were feeding her and taking care of everything else.

All I know is that my obtuse sense that by coming to Korea I was postponing something turns out to be true, as well: I've gone from being financially dependent on my family for college, to being fed and sheltered by someone else. It seems I'm keeping adulthood at bay, without really wanting to. But maybe I can't say that, or at least claim that I've only postponed adulthood for one more year, until we have a proper definition of adulthood. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.