On the back of a scooter, soju in hand, we zipped across speed humps through narrow, paved roads behind buildings, on our way to the apartment.
It was, I admit, the first time I had ever been on a motored bike for a great distance. Well, it really wasn't a great distance, but it was certainly the farthest I'd been on any bike.
I was trying to branch out, meet people, get to know those I'd drank with at Zio Ricco's on Wednesdays. Some people were hanging out at a house on the other side of Hadaedong. Or was it another name? Time will blur the lines a bit.
It was cold, I do remember that. I remember the haze, that constant companion that floated into the light like an endless mist. Korea being the size it is (really small) with as many people that it has (a whole lot) who drive cars (a lot of them) and who worship at the temple of technology, it's easy to see why there would be a slick of pollution to coat everyone and everything.
The soju is cheap there. It should be, that's where it comes from. A sort of watered down vodka, it's easy to drink, even easier to get a hangover because it's so easy to drink. Three bucks (well, 3,000 won. Who knows how the currency conversion has changed since 2005) gets you three bottles. That and a pack of Dunhills and I was ready to go.
One of the other teachers, we'll call him Elliot because I honestly cannot remember his name and will likely never, said he'd pick me up from the main road because directing me through the backroads to the apartment could get a bit confusing. I grabbed my booze, my smokes, my coat and headed outside.
Did nature once live in Jinju, South Korea? Of course it did; it lived everywhere at some time or another in history. But, in many parts of this mid-sized city (350,000 is by accounts rather diminutive for Korea), nature has long since been swept underneath concrete, asphalt and steel. Sure, there's Jinju Castle, there's the outskirts, where Bettina and I walked and found ourselves at a roadside restaurant that also had bungee diving from 50 feet up in the backyard. But, in Hadaedong, there were a lot of buildings, a lot of roads, and its own peculiar, mysterious charm. I sometimes wish I could go back today and explore it thoroughly.
Smoking is hard when you're freezing, and one hand is holding a paper bag with booze, the other trying to keep its grip on the cigarette. Shivering most of the way, I passed by the "toastie" place, the little fast food restaurant that makes sweet tasting egg sandwiches on white toast. I remember sitting inside of the small, white, plasticy eatery while the kindly middle aged woman made my sandwich, her husband offering up a bit of small talk in what little English he could muster. I returned the courtesy with as much Korean as I could muster, which wasn't much.
The circular heater, which resembled an oscilating fan with a heating coil in place of a fan blade, buzzed and whirred heat onto its recepients, which were myself, the husband, the woman and their teenage child. Most people went up to the window on the side of the restaurant to order their sandwiches.
I passed by the bike shop, where I'd paid $60 (60,000 won) for a pretty nice bike. It was a bit heavy, certainly a lot heavier than what I had rode back in the States, but it was solid, and it certainly was good enough to transport me and Estevez on a great trip around Jinju, which led us to Shinandong, the movie theater, and a viewing of War of the Worlds that rattled my already tenuously hinged brain.
Getting to the intersection for the main road that sliced through this part of Jinju, and over the bridge to parts unknown took only about 5 minutes. Nothing else, besides those two businesses, really interested me. There was the school I taught at, the high school adjacent to it, the P.C. Bang at the end of the road, the bread shop next to it, and the chicken place that sold, likely every other chicken place, significantly overpriced food, but the rest of the unnamed road was relatively unassuming, uninteresting. At least, that's how I perceived it at the time.
I crossed the highway and walked into the light of a Hyundai-operated gas station, waiting for a few minutes before "Elliot" puttered up on his scooter. I hopped on, clutched my soju in one hand, his waist in the other and proceded to go on my first motored bike ride through narrow, paved roads behind buildings, on our way to the apartment.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Friday, June 01, 2007
Hey, Esse
When I first transferred to Alfred University in 2001, I didn't smoke. It was amazing, to me at the time, that I could go on a six-hour drive from Middletown, NJ, to Alfred, NY, and all the while not smoke, not even want a smoke. I had done so when me and Buz had driven up there to see the campus and speak with the folks there. I had done so when we drove up there again, his busted blue 1987 Buick Century hauling most of my life in its backseat and trunk. I didn't really give it a thought.
I had smoked for seven years before quitting in the summer of 2000, after my mother had died. While her death had not been directly related to the smoking she had herself done on and off for at least forty years, I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. So, one morning, after coming home from my midnight shift at the Amoco across the highway, I smoked my last five cigarettes in my pack of Marlboro Lights, one after another. I coughed, I gagged, I nearly puked. Yet, as the quit time of 7 a.m. loomed, I smoked on and on, telling myself to remember just how bad it felt, how bad it would feel if I kept smoking. And that was it. I was finished with smoking.
So, despite having not smoked for over a year, I still considered it pretty remarkable that a person who once couldn't wait to get out of my bed so he could get outside and have a smoke could now go six hours and not even think about it. Well, maybe just a little thought.
Me and Buz spent the night in the dorm room, then transferred all my shit to another single occupancy dorm because the school had placed several of us in the living room instead of our own bedrooms. That following afternoon, my suitcases mostly unpacked, my new life ready to commence in western New York, I hugged my brother good bye and told him I'd call from time to time. As soon as his little sedan disappeared from the horizon, I walked over to a couple people standing by a car and asked for a cigarette.
And so it went in a similar fashion as I unboarded my Singapore Air flight bound for Seoul. Having been awake for the better part of 16 hours in the air, and up the previous 13 or so hours on the ground before, I was more or less wiped out. Once I boarded the bus from the airport, which was supposed to take me to the bus depot, which would take me to Jinju but I only made it into an unknown downtown area of the city, I was wide awake and ready for a smoke.
Once the nice Korean man who saw the nervous looking foreigner struggling with his three suitcases on the staircase and offered to take him the several subway stops to the depot left, I searched my pockets for the money that had been exchanged at the airport, walked over to a vendor more preoccupied with Korea's turn in the World Cup on TV than with working, and asked for a pack of cigarettes.
The very first cigarettes I smoked in Korea were called One, and they tasted like air. Still, the oral fixation was pleased, and nicotine was flowing through my pores. I felt human again, if only for a little while.
However, for the next 39 days, my cigarettes of choice bounced between Dunhills, a British smoke that had a nice enough punch for when I really wanted to destroy my lungs, and Esse, a cigarette in a slender, green (if I was enjoying the menthols) soft box that resembled Virginia Slims. Yet, as a guy smoking them, I fit right in. These thin little "feminine" smokes that your mother or that somewhat creepy middle aged lady at your office prefered but was considered too womenly enough for a man's tastes, was perfectly acceptable in South Korea. And, they tasted pretty good, too. Of course, that wasn't what I was thinking whenever I put one out, then lit another one, and another, and another. Nothing tastes good in excess.
Sometimes
In my mind
I think about Korea
And the cigarettes I smoked
stubbed
lit another
outside my balcony
that stank of sulfur
and soap powder
and cold
When I think of Korea
all I think of is cold
a sensory imprint that won't go away
unless I visit
when its boiling in un air conditioned apartments
that are infested with ants
that cling to the edges
of the ondol heated floors
covered with cheap linoleum.
For now,
I smell rotten eggs
wet cigarettes
cheap beer
and kimchi
but all I feel
is cold.
I had smoked for seven years before quitting in the summer of 2000, after my mother had died. While her death had not been directly related to the smoking she had herself done on and off for at least forty years, I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. So, one morning, after coming home from my midnight shift at the Amoco across the highway, I smoked my last five cigarettes in my pack of Marlboro Lights, one after another. I coughed, I gagged, I nearly puked. Yet, as the quit time of 7 a.m. loomed, I smoked on and on, telling myself to remember just how bad it felt, how bad it would feel if I kept smoking. And that was it. I was finished with smoking.
So, despite having not smoked for over a year, I still considered it pretty remarkable that a person who once couldn't wait to get out of my bed so he could get outside and have a smoke could now go six hours and not even think about it. Well, maybe just a little thought.
Me and Buz spent the night in the dorm room, then transferred all my shit to another single occupancy dorm because the school had placed several of us in the living room instead of our own bedrooms. That following afternoon, my suitcases mostly unpacked, my new life ready to commence in western New York, I hugged my brother good bye and told him I'd call from time to time. As soon as his little sedan disappeared from the horizon, I walked over to a couple people standing by a car and asked for a cigarette.
And so it went in a similar fashion as I unboarded my Singapore Air flight bound for Seoul. Having been awake for the better part of 16 hours in the air, and up the previous 13 or so hours on the ground before, I was more or less wiped out. Once I boarded the bus from the airport, which was supposed to take me to the bus depot, which would take me to Jinju but I only made it into an unknown downtown area of the city, I was wide awake and ready for a smoke.
Once the nice Korean man who saw the nervous looking foreigner struggling with his three suitcases on the staircase and offered to take him the several subway stops to the depot left, I searched my pockets for the money that had been exchanged at the airport, walked over to a vendor more preoccupied with Korea's turn in the World Cup on TV than with working, and asked for a pack of cigarettes.
The very first cigarettes I smoked in Korea were called One, and they tasted like air. Still, the oral fixation was pleased, and nicotine was flowing through my pores. I felt human again, if only for a little while.
However, for the next 39 days, my cigarettes of choice bounced between Dunhills, a British smoke that had a nice enough punch for when I really wanted to destroy my lungs, and Esse, a cigarette in a slender, green (if I was enjoying the menthols) soft box that resembled Virginia Slims. Yet, as a guy smoking them, I fit right in. These thin little "feminine" smokes that your mother or that somewhat creepy middle aged lady at your office prefered but was considered too womenly enough for a man's tastes, was perfectly acceptable in South Korea. And, they tasted pretty good, too. Of course, that wasn't what I was thinking whenever I put one out, then lit another one, and another, and another. Nothing tastes good in excess.
Sometimes
In my mind
I think about Korea
And the cigarettes I smoked
stubbed
lit another
outside my balcony
that stank of sulfur
and soap powder
and cold
When I think of Korea
all I think of is cold
a sensory imprint that won't go away
unless I visit
when its boiling in un air conditioned apartments
that are infested with ants
that cling to the edges
of the ondol heated floors
covered with cheap linoleum.
For now,
I smell rotten eggs
wet cigarettes
cheap beer
and kimchi
but all I feel
is cold.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Really, truly crazed... or just a little bored?
I took a picture of myself on the morning of my departure from Jinju, South Korea. It's a little dark. I neglected to turn the flash on.
It makes me think about how far we can willfully take ourselves mentally. Sure, I could have made the most of the situation I was in. But during the time I was in the situation, I didn't want to. And so, I proceeded to find a sharp thorn in every rose, every bad piece of fruit in the fresh batch, every reason to not wake up in the morning.
I wonder if I was really, truly crazed... or just a little bored?
Sometimes, I have to will myself from this computer, the bed, the immobile casual coma. Even now. I don't think I'm the only one. I'm just only one without television. Well, me and my housemates.
Of course, I had cable when I was in Korea. Even had scrambled porn. And, I spent numerous nights up late enough to see scrambled porn, and every possible boob (or was it an elbow) it had to offer.
On this morning, December 24, 2005, the day before Christmas, I was up early. Daniel, the guy who would replace me as teacher at Oh Sung Sik, slept in what had once been my bed. I had spent the night sipping soju with Madeleine, from Canada, and the Irishman. I cannot remember his name. Forgive me, it'll come to me later.
The three of us spent the night traipsing around. It began at a bar I had only been to a couple times. My last night, following Noraebang with Emily (my director), her son, Daniel, and Oki and Suzie, the other two Korean teachers, that might have only been the second time I had been to this other bar.
Anyway, it started there. We sat and talked. Drank. I was broke. Remember, I'd just put about $1,000 of plane fare on my credit cards. I wasn't in a particularly spendthrift mood. But, I still drank some. It adds a haze to the gaze of the evening.
Anyway, from there we walked. Others drifted to beds. We drifted to the apartment building both Madeleine and the Irishman lived in. In the section of town I cannot for the life of me remember either. I'll find out in editing.
We drank soju. Mostly me and (shit! I almost had his name) the Irishman. Madeleine took a sip or two. She hated the stuff. We talked and talked and talked. And talked some more. What was going to happen next.
Jason! His name is Jason!
I wonder what Jason and Madeleine are up to nowadays? Madeleine packed it in about two months after I did. She just didn't like it. I remember her saying as much, as we sat in a Pizza Hut (awful version of it. They put CORN on pizza there. And it's the size of a small, but the price of a large. Because, over there, it IS a large. Maybe that's why they're not as fat as us). We looked out to the street and she remarked, "If there wasn't Korean writing on the window, I'd swear I was looking out at a street in Toronto. I didn't come here for that."
Jason, I imagine, stayed his full year. He seemed the type that would do that. Very nice guy, I'm so sorry I forgot your name.
After talking for hours, our eyelids a little droopy, we headed out for food. There was a restaurant open. All night. It made no sense to me, even now. A bit surreal. No one was inside but one woman. The proprietor? The cook? I think she was one and the same. Got the cheapest thing we could order. Some sort of stew with a piece of chicken in it. Or was it duck? I can't remember. And, of course, delicious appetizers.
By the time we finished eating and went outside, the sun was beginning to rise. It was 6:30. Emily would be coming to pick me up from my apartment to take me to the bus station by about 8:30 or so. And I still needed to pack much of my stuff.
Jason said his goodbyes and went back to his apartment for some much-needed shuteye. Me and Madeleine stood outside a few minutes more, chatting. I'd liked her. We'd talked constantly a couple nights before, the first night I'd met her. Who knows if anything would have happened had I stayed?
We hugged and said goodbye. I said, be good, and maybe, if she's still in town if and when I decide to try and Korea another go, I'd look her up.
I e-mailed her a month or so after I came home and never got a response.
I hailed the next cab that found its way down this quiet road. At this time of the morning, it took a few minutes for one to come by. When I got back home, which wouldn't be home for much longer, Daniel was asleep in what had been my bed for nearly two months. The TV was on. CNN World, if I'm not mistaken. It was after 7. I started to pack.
Four suitcases became three and things would have to be sacrificed. Daniel didn't come with that many suitcases. He would need towels. Done.
It was pretty fucking cold in Jinju while I was there and that damn ondol heating never did work very well. Comforter? Done.
Buz had gone out of his way to ship my courderoy "pimpin'" coat over. And besides, I hadn't even taken it off yet since I'd gotten back to the apartment. Casual black peacoat? Done. That one still hurts.
And who the hell knows what else got sacrificed. All my learn Korean books. The Sexual Life of Catherine M. I'd just started getting into that.
Daniel murmured a good luck to me, shook my hand, and rolled over and back to sleep. I grabbed my lighter and pack of smokes, my suitcases, and headed outside.
It was just after 8 o'clock. Emily probably wouldn't be there for another 20 minutes or so, but I was restless, weary, and a little crazed (or bored?).
I lit my fourth cigarette. I'm only guessing on that number, but trust me, it's likely true. Or I'm being nice.
Inhale. Exhale.
I pulled out my camera. R. had gotten this for me to take of my adventures. My travels and experiences in Korea. Well, I'm almost out of here, so I should probably take a couple of shots, shouldn't I?
Inhale. Exhale.
I pressed the button and turned it on. The morning was in full flower and I wanted to make sure the shot had adequate mood. I didn't need an excess of flash that the auto function provided. I never did learn how to play with the cameras functions.
Inhale.
I took the shot.
Exhale.
Emily arrived in her Hyundai utility van about 5 minutes later.
When I look at that image, the one on the left, I don't know if it was the total lack of sleep, risidual effects of a night full of drinking soju, a little bit of craziness, a little bit of boredom. Or all of these. Or none of these.
I really don't think it was boredom. It couldn't be. Because, everytime I look at this picture, it kind of scares me. And boredom rarely has the power to do that.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Donkey Fried Chicken
My memories of South Korea are sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. It all depends on my mind at the time, and whether or not the events that took place were strong enough to warrant memories 1 year, 5 months later.
One night, after a particularly heady bout of alcoholism at one of Jinju's finest watering holes, a few of us not yet ready to call it a night headed out for some more beer and chow. While Jinju was a city, plenty of its eating establishments did have a curtain call somewhere in the vicinity of midnight, leaving us with not as many choices.
Walking the distance in the cold of December was beginning to wear off my buzz when we stumbled upon, in all its deliciousness, Donkey Fried Chicken.
No, I did not mean Kentucky Fried Chicken. See, this is Korea, not Kentucky, and the colonel didn't get his passport stamped at the airport. But, the donkey did, and he's got a heaping of greasy-ass chicken for your drunk ass to tear apart. Very greasy, very greasy.
Oh man, just the thought of it now is making me salivate.
One man was working at the Donkey. Working is a bit kind -- he was lounging behind the counter, sipping beer, watching television, probably wishing he was somewhere else. Hey, it was 3 a.m., after all.
The four or five of us -- myself, Estevez, the guy from Canada who played guitar and wanted to start up a Dave Matthews/Decemberists styled rock group to play at Zio Ricco's with me until I decided to haul ass back to the States, and a couple other people who, I apologize, have disappeared into the mental ether, slogged through our pockets to come up with enough dough to get ourselves an order.
One thing you must know, chicken is prohibitively expensive in Korea. Not just at this place. Several occasions (but not many, again because of said expensiveness) I wanted some, and the only time it was of a reasonable price was a chicken sandwich I got on a lark at the only Popeye's in Jinju. So, who knows how truly chicken that chicken may have been. A foreign teacher could bank thousands of dollars during a one-year stay, so long as they drink only in cheap bars and eat primarily gimbap (sushi, which you could get for a buck a roll). Have a steady diet of fried chicken, and you're bound only to break even.
Despite the price, when the five or six pieces came out of the deep fryer and onto our paper plates, we tore into them like wild animals. Between gulps of Hite beer and the numerous wipes one had to do to keep the copious amounts of grease from running down one's chin, it was drunken ecstacy.
We weren't done. With a few dollars remaining, we ordered a smaller portion of pieces and waited. Discussed teaching. Discussed some of our malaise about being there. Remember, it would be only a week or so from this point where Estevez would start a chain-reaction of teacher exodus, resulting in both he and I leaving within a week of each other, followed by a few others in the coming couple months.
Once the second order was out of the fryer, our non-English speaking friend behind the counter took a delivery call. And, yes, he let the four or five drunk foreigners watch the store while he was gone. It's a different world over there.
After he'd returned, after we had scoured each piece of chicken for its remaining meat, we left our Donkey Fried Chicken, only to encounter a couple of older, noticably drunk natives pounding away on what can only be described as a cross between a pinball machine and one of those Friendly's restaurant lobby attractions where you use the little mechanical arm to grab a cheap stuffed animal from the machine's bowels.
They were having a ball. So were we. Feeling bold, one of our crew decided to play along with the gentleman, and soon we were all cheering someone on for some stupid prize in a rusty machine, outside of a Donkey Fried Chicken on some quiet, moist street in downtown Jinju, South Korea at around 4 a.m. The memory of it is quite surreal.
Truly, I do not condone overabuse of the spirits. But if you cannot help yourself, I advise you to find a Donkey Fried Chicken. Words cannot express. And, hopefully, a couple of intoxicated Korean men will be waiting outside for you.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
"Love is an illusion"
It's so cold in Korea.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but for some reason, it came as a mild surprise that it would be as frigid as it has been here the last couple days. I certainly didn't prepare for it. My peacoat is, at best, an early November coat. Wait a minute, it is early November. It's so cold in Korea.
Listening to Jasmine affect a slight American accent is amusing. In Asian countries, she told me, all of the schools want American English. The books supplied are written in American English, so colour is color, neighbour is neighbor, and so on. Being from New Zealand, it somewhat annoys her, and rightfully so. Of course, if this was Prague, then I might have to put on British airs for them, since non-native English speaking places in Europe prefer that. For Prague, I think I'd accept it.
Look at her. She seems to really be enjoying herself. That's why she's coming back. She told me I could not, under any circumstance, mention her return to Emily. Honor, respect and all of that are highly valued in Korea. And saving face is of the utmost importance. To have your teacher leave, only to come back 6 weeks later and teach at another school in Jinju, in the same section of town no less, would be mortifying. I suppose I could understand that, unless all parties sat down and discussed the situation and Jasmine was able to explain her issue -- she really was going to leave, but then I accepted the job. What could she do, she wanted to come back. So, I keep my mouth shut.
When the children are good (even when they're not sometimes as she's just had enough of them), Jasmine takes them outside for play in the little park behind the school for about five minutes. Five minutes seems like nothing, but the children lap it up. If they're really good, then sometimes they get ice creams from Top Mart down the road. 30 cents a pop pops and they are gaga. Kids are kids are kids, no matter where in the world they come from.
My hands hurt from the wind. Even with temperature below freezing, the kids hoot and holler as they're turned loose. Some do go to the swing set and slides, play little games. A few of them see this as they're chance at escape. Freedom! No more will I be shackled to my desk in that little room. No more shall I have to learn English! All I want to do is play!
So, they escape. Until their next classes an hour later.
Some of the children have classes all day long. First their regular studies. Then they come here to Oh Sung Sik for an hour. Then they go off for Math lessons. Others still, have classes in addition to those. Diana, a girl of 11 who looks more like she could pass for 15, with a mind that could pass for 25, is up at 7, in school by 8. After regular classes, she's off to private lessons, all evening, with Oh Sung Sik being her second to last one, at 9 p.m. She's home by 11:30, with barely enough time to brush her teeth before she passes out from mental exhaustion, only to have to do it again the next day. It seems a little extreme for a child barely a decade old. Then again, her English is some of the best in the school.
"Jasmine teacher, why are you leaving?" one girl asks.
"Well I have family at home. I'm going there to see them."
She's also going to see her boyfriend, who had been in another part of the world, teaching. They'll be coming together, a beautiful reunion. They haven't seen each other in months and, likely, won't see each other for many months still, after her brief layover in the mother country.
I ask her how they stick it out. She says it's love. I'm feeling a little petulant. Perhaps it's nerves. Perhaps it's that I really want a cigarette but Jasmine says it's frowned upon to smoke around the kids. I think about the mind and perceptions and how, if someone really wants to change their minds -- whether toward feelings of love, hate, or indifference -- they can. I say love is an illusion, almost without thinking, and am surprised it has passed my lips with such bitterness.
"No, it's not," she says.
She looks at her watch. "It's four o'clock," she says to me. "We can leave them here, they all live right around here."
She waves. "Goodbye, kids!"
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but for some reason, it came as a mild surprise that it would be as frigid as it has been here the last couple days. I certainly didn't prepare for it. My peacoat is, at best, an early November coat. Wait a minute, it is early November. It's so cold in Korea.
Listening to Jasmine affect a slight American accent is amusing. In Asian countries, she told me, all of the schools want American English. The books supplied are written in American English, so colour is color, neighbour is neighbor, and so on. Being from New Zealand, it somewhat annoys her, and rightfully so. Of course, if this was Prague, then I might have to put on British airs for them, since non-native English speaking places in Europe prefer that. For Prague, I think I'd accept it.
Look at her. She seems to really be enjoying herself. That's why she's coming back. She told me I could not, under any circumstance, mention her return to Emily. Honor, respect and all of that are highly valued in Korea. And saving face is of the utmost importance. To have your teacher leave, only to come back 6 weeks later and teach at another school in Jinju, in the same section of town no less, would be mortifying. I suppose I could understand that, unless all parties sat down and discussed the situation and Jasmine was able to explain her issue -- she really was going to leave, but then I accepted the job. What could she do, she wanted to come back. So, I keep my mouth shut.
When the children are good (even when they're not sometimes as she's just had enough of them), Jasmine takes them outside for play in the little park behind the school for about five minutes. Five minutes seems like nothing, but the children lap it up. If they're really good, then sometimes they get ice creams from Top Mart down the road. 30 cents a pop pops and they are gaga. Kids are kids are kids, no matter where in the world they come from.
My hands hurt from the wind. Even with temperature below freezing, the kids hoot and holler as they're turned loose. Some do go to the swing set and slides, play little games. A few of them see this as they're chance at escape. Freedom! No more will I be shackled to my desk in that little room. No more shall I have to learn English! All I want to do is play!
So, they escape. Until their next classes an hour later.
Some of the children have classes all day long. First their regular studies. Then they come here to Oh Sung Sik for an hour. Then they go off for Math lessons. Others still, have classes in addition to those. Diana, a girl of 11 who looks more like she could pass for 15, with a mind that could pass for 25, is up at 7, in school by 8. After regular classes, she's off to private lessons, all evening, with Oh Sung Sik being her second to last one, at 9 p.m. She's home by 11:30, with barely enough time to brush her teeth before she passes out from mental exhaustion, only to have to do it again the next day. It seems a little extreme for a child barely a decade old. Then again, her English is some of the best in the school.
"Jasmine teacher, why are you leaving?" one girl asks.
"Well I have family at home. I'm going there to see them."
She's also going to see her boyfriend, who had been in another part of the world, teaching. They'll be coming together, a beautiful reunion. They haven't seen each other in months and, likely, won't see each other for many months still, after her brief layover in the mother country.
I ask her how they stick it out. She says it's love. I'm feeling a little petulant. Perhaps it's nerves. Perhaps it's that I really want a cigarette but Jasmine says it's frowned upon to smoke around the kids. I think about the mind and perceptions and how, if someone really wants to change their minds -- whether toward feelings of love, hate, or indifference -- they can. I say love is an illusion, almost without thinking, and am surprised it has passed my lips with such bitterness.
"No, it's not," she says.
She looks at her watch. "It's four o'clock," she says to me. "We can leave them here, they all live right around here."
She waves. "Goodbye, kids!"
Gojae-do, the first meal
Everything tastes so clean and fresh in Korea.
If there is anything I will take with me when I leave next week, it is that. The food tastes so clean.
Things are made and prepared simply. The beef strips we are about to enjoy at this little restaurant on our way to Gojae-do, my director's hometown, has been lightly marinated in what I imagine to be a simple soy mixture. The raw meat is placed on the hot rocks, where an audible snap and sizzle accompany the wisps of smoke that immediately rise. Meanwhile, as I listen to Emily (my director), her brother and his wife speak in Korean, I work my way through the side-dishes.
For a person who loves options, nothing beats a good Korean bevy of side-dishes, or banchan. You have the basics, the ones that practically come with every meal -- kimchi, of course. Radish kimchi, some form of tofu, a little steamed egg. Then, depending on how many of you are eating and the restaurant where you've decided to eat, there will be other delicacies -- bean sprouts, various nutty seeds, marinated seaweeds.
Emily's brother deftly snatches a piece of raw garlic from one small dish with his chopsticks, smears it with some mild bean paste from another dish, then places the whole clove in his mouth whole. His satisfied look and nod of approval as he crunches through the piece tell what no language barrier can hold back.
Of course, despite the lively chatter, the laughs, the goodness of the meal and Emily's occasional "are you having a good time?" followed by her brother's admittedly superior English and his inquiries as to what I did in the United States, this day is not a simple visit to their childhood home. It's a last ditch effort to keep me from returning to mine.
Two days ago, I woke up early, as I have most mornings since coming to Korea, in a panic. I smoked my last few cigarettes within the first half-hour. I don't even bother sitting out on the cold enclosed balcony where the washing machine is to smoke anymore. I don't even bother using a proper ashtray. My apartment at the moment probably has at least a half-dozen makeshift butt depositories, formerly known as glasses, plates and nasty, sludgy beverage cans.
I smoked those last few Esse's and went down the road to get another pack. The old woman in the small shop knows me now. She says "Esse?" and I nod my head, pay her the 2,300 won and unwrap the pack to enjoy its first smoke.
Problem is, I no longer enjoy them. Enjoyment has long since been replaced with a frantic need to fill an invisible hole, made wider, it seems, by each passing second that R. does not call me back, does not send an e-mail. By each passing second at the hagwon, where a 40 minute period can feel like 10 hours, and each puzzled looking Korean child's face staring at me, seeking an answer, is enough to make me nearly lose my mind.
Two days ago, I did.
I made the call. Singapore Airlines. Give me any flight you have before Christmas. What? $800? I don't care, just get me the fuck out of here.
Steve's gone. R.'s gone, it seems. I'm gone, it also seems. What else can I do? I can't stay here, right? I can't stay here. I'm going out of my fucking mind.
Emily's known this for awhile. The language barrier somewhat masks things, masks our emotions, but she's known I wasn't particularly happy, particularly comfortable. I pulled this on her once before, saying I was going to leave. We talked, with Okee as English to Korean moderator. We worked it out. And it seemed like I was getting better.
But, I wasn't. And now, Emily was trying one last ditch effort to convince me there was still much to explore, much to taste, touch, smell and experience on this little pennisula. First, we're getting off it.
Gojae-do ('do' meaning 'island') is about an hour and a half from Jinju. The drive is long but comfortable. For all the people in this tiny country, there are long stretches of road where you just don't see anyone. Don't see anything besides a couple of traditional homes, mountains and acres of rice paddies. It's a far cry from New Jersey, where every open space has either been preserved or, if not, filled with townhomes and overinflated starter castles.
I peel a piece of beef from the hot rocks. It sticks. Emily shakes her head and says "not done yet." I place the meat back on and search for another, this time without sticking.
Besides the wide lettuce leaves at our table to place the meat into, we have sesame leaves, which I do not recall seeing at Woojeon in Edison. They're common here, served with all our galbi and bulgogi-style meals. Their taste, without question, is one of the few things I believe will always remind me of Korea. It has been in Korea where I first tasted them and, no matter where I may taste them elsewhere, to me they will always take me here.
The meat rests in the middle of the leaf. I take my chopstick and move it along the bottom of the little bowl of mild paste, then move it again along the top of the meat. I take a few bean sprouts, a little rice and put those in, too, fold the whole thing up and take a bite. Delicious.
Emily, her brother and his wife keep talking and my heart sinks despite it soaring a moment ago from the food. This is what has commonly happened during my time here. A brief, exhalting joy would lift me up from my seat, only to have an equally crushing decline sit me right back down. It feels manic, it feels unhealthy and it feels like something that isn't going to go away in three months.
R. told me several times I need to give this three months. I think she got tired of repeating herself because I haven't talked to her in almost a week.
I take a clove of garlic, smear a little paste on it and chomp on it. It's certainly an acquired taste.
If there is anything I will take with me when I leave next week, it is that. The food tastes so clean.
Things are made and prepared simply. The beef strips we are about to enjoy at this little restaurant on our way to Gojae-do, my director's hometown, has been lightly marinated in what I imagine to be a simple soy mixture. The raw meat is placed on the hot rocks, where an audible snap and sizzle accompany the wisps of smoke that immediately rise. Meanwhile, as I listen to Emily (my director), her brother and his wife speak in Korean, I work my way through the side-dishes.
For a person who loves options, nothing beats a good Korean bevy of side-dishes, or banchan. You have the basics, the ones that practically come with every meal -- kimchi, of course. Radish kimchi, some form of tofu, a little steamed egg. Then, depending on how many of you are eating and the restaurant where you've decided to eat, there will be other delicacies -- bean sprouts, various nutty seeds, marinated seaweeds.
Emily's brother deftly snatches a piece of raw garlic from one small dish with his chopsticks, smears it with some mild bean paste from another dish, then places the whole clove in his mouth whole. His satisfied look and nod of approval as he crunches through the piece tell what no language barrier can hold back.
Of course, despite the lively chatter, the laughs, the goodness of the meal and Emily's occasional "are you having a good time?" followed by her brother's admittedly superior English and his inquiries as to what I did in the United States, this day is not a simple visit to their childhood home. It's a last ditch effort to keep me from returning to mine.
Two days ago, I woke up early, as I have most mornings since coming to Korea, in a panic. I smoked my last few cigarettes within the first half-hour. I don't even bother sitting out on the cold enclosed balcony where the washing machine is to smoke anymore. I don't even bother using a proper ashtray. My apartment at the moment probably has at least a half-dozen makeshift butt depositories, formerly known as glasses, plates and nasty, sludgy beverage cans.
I smoked those last few Esse's and went down the road to get another pack. The old woman in the small shop knows me now. She says "Esse?" and I nod my head, pay her the 2,300 won and unwrap the pack to enjoy its first smoke.
Problem is, I no longer enjoy them. Enjoyment has long since been replaced with a frantic need to fill an invisible hole, made wider, it seems, by each passing second that R. does not call me back, does not send an e-mail. By each passing second at the hagwon, where a 40 minute period can feel like 10 hours, and each puzzled looking Korean child's face staring at me, seeking an answer, is enough to make me nearly lose my mind.
Two days ago, I did.
I made the call. Singapore Airlines. Give me any flight you have before Christmas. What? $800? I don't care, just get me the fuck out of here.
Steve's gone. R.'s gone, it seems. I'm gone, it also seems. What else can I do? I can't stay here, right? I can't stay here. I'm going out of my fucking mind.
Emily's known this for awhile. The language barrier somewhat masks things, masks our emotions, but she's known I wasn't particularly happy, particularly comfortable. I pulled this on her once before, saying I was going to leave. We talked, with Okee as English to Korean moderator. We worked it out. And it seemed like I was getting better.
But, I wasn't. And now, Emily was trying one last ditch effort to convince me there was still much to explore, much to taste, touch, smell and experience on this little pennisula. First, we're getting off it.
Gojae-do ('do' meaning 'island') is about an hour and a half from Jinju. The drive is long but comfortable. For all the people in this tiny country, there are long stretches of road where you just don't see anyone. Don't see anything besides a couple of traditional homes, mountains and acres of rice paddies. It's a far cry from New Jersey, where every open space has either been preserved or, if not, filled with townhomes and overinflated starter castles.
I peel a piece of beef from the hot rocks. It sticks. Emily shakes her head and says "not done yet." I place the meat back on and search for another, this time without sticking.
Besides the wide lettuce leaves at our table to place the meat into, we have sesame leaves, which I do not recall seeing at Woojeon in Edison. They're common here, served with all our galbi and bulgogi-style meals. Their taste, without question, is one of the few things I believe will always remind me of Korea. It has been in Korea where I first tasted them and, no matter where I may taste them elsewhere, to me they will always take me here.
The meat rests in the middle of the leaf. I take my chopstick and move it along the bottom of the little bowl of mild paste, then move it again along the top of the meat. I take a few bean sprouts, a little rice and put those in, too, fold the whole thing up and take a bite. Delicious.
Emily, her brother and his wife keep talking and my heart sinks despite it soaring a moment ago from the food. This is what has commonly happened during my time here. A brief, exhalting joy would lift me up from my seat, only to have an equally crushing decline sit me right back down. It feels manic, it feels unhealthy and it feels like something that isn't going to go away in three months.
R. told me several times I need to give this three months. I think she got tired of repeating herself because I haven't talked to her in almost a week.
I take a clove of garlic, smear a little paste on it and chomp on it. It's certainly an acquired taste.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Visualizing Korea 1 year, 5 months after leaving it
My eyes open.
It's definitely not time to wake up yet. The sun isn't out. At least, what sun I can see beyond the apartment adjacent to my own.
No children holler in other apartments. The light of my oscilating heater casts a strange glow over the length of my living space, concentrating at its heated core, concentrated on me.
It has now been only a few days since arriving in Hadaedong, Jinju, South Korea and already I am having regrets. Regrets about accepting a job without knowing full well if I could handle it, about moving so far away from home, regrets about not knowing enough Korean (really, any Korean) to function at least half as well as I did in the States.
That last part is important for someone whose life is language. Whose life is words and speaking, communicating, either by mouth or by the keystrokes of his computer. Whether writing poems or stories, text messages or e-mails. Whose life is a language not widely spoken in this part of Korea. That language is like foreign currency; your money is no good here.
I lift my feet out from underneath the covers and slide them across the linoleum floor. The ondol, or "under floor" heating hasn't seemed to work much. I find it totally strange. The concept originated when there was no such thing as modern heating, and Koreans would heat their rooms by placing very hot rocks underneath the floor and soaking them with water, causing them to steam, which would heat the room above. This translated into their heating apparatus of today. Yet, I am not totally convinced of its capabilities. I turn it up and wait for it to work. An hour passes and my feet are still cold to the touch of the floor. Yet, when I go to sleep and wake up in the middle of the night to pee, as I have just done, I am sweating from head to toe, unable to free myself from the comforter fast enough to switch the oscilating heater to "low" and wash the sweat off of my face.
I slide the door separating the living space from kitchen space. This floor is not heated by ondol, and I regret leaving my slippers by my bed.
This slipper tradition is something I very much enjoy about Korea. It's very clean. It's something I've thought about incorporating into home, where the rugs are always mottled with dusty dirt, bits of sand. I've thought about, but never pursued it for more than a day. Here, it's drilled into your brain as something you're supposed to do. And I'm ever the complying conformist.
The thought of home causes me to pause in the doorway between the kitchen space and the bathroom.
Home. It's only been a few days yet it feels like I've been away from home forever. How dramatic. Forever and forever and forever!
I try to tell myself to stop being such a pussy. This is an opportunity of a lifetime. People in your position would be crapping themselves with glee, John! And here you are pining for a girl who you've only dated for six months. You only dated for six months. You two broke up, remember? You're here with her blessing. Tear-filled. Ever the questioner, you tell yourself she'll get over it, it's not really love. It's lust, nothing more.
But, it doesn't stop my mind from racing, from wondering what if I had stayed. Would I stay with her? Or would I think about the Korea in my mind, not the one I am experiencing right now, in the dark apartment, with the smell of that afternoon's rather unfavorable seaweed dish mixing its odor with other, unidentifiable odors that are a cross between pollution, soap and the off-gassing of wood work.
Odors that are unmistakably Korea, that I wouldn't be able to not smell in my mind and not be transported 1 year, 5 months into the past.
I think about Jasmine, the girl I've replaced, sexually. She's a gorgeous New Zealander with long, straight, blond hair, full lips, a cute accent and a bit of a wild streak. At least, that's what I imagine her to be like in my dreams. She's gone back to New Zealand for Christmas. Several weeks early. Her family isn't expecting it. She will get to the airport, be picked up by someone in the know, head home and "surprise! surprise! Aren't you all so wonderfully surprised?!"
She'll soak in her home land for a little over a month. Let her figurative hair down, her belly out. She'll relax in a world that is so familiar and comfortable with her family and friends. And then she'll go back to Korea, to teach at another Hagwon on the other side of town. Our director doesn't know it. Jasmine didn't know it either until the papers had been signed two months before and I was a go. She wanted to come back but I was already coming. What was she to do?
She wanted to come back. She wanted to come back. At that moment, with my head resting itself against the side of the bathroom entrance, all I can think of is how I wanted to go home.
I didn't even give it a proper chance.
It's definitely not time to wake up yet. The sun isn't out. At least, what sun I can see beyond the apartment adjacent to my own.
No children holler in other apartments. The light of my oscilating heater casts a strange glow over the length of my living space, concentrating at its heated core, concentrated on me.
It has now been only a few days since arriving in Hadaedong, Jinju, South Korea and already I am having regrets. Regrets about accepting a job without knowing full well if I could handle it, about moving so far away from home, regrets about not knowing enough Korean (really, any Korean) to function at least half as well as I did in the States.
That last part is important for someone whose life is language. Whose life is words and speaking, communicating, either by mouth or by the keystrokes of his computer. Whether writing poems or stories, text messages or e-mails. Whose life is a language not widely spoken in this part of Korea. That language is like foreign currency; your money is no good here.
I lift my feet out from underneath the covers and slide them across the linoleum floor. The ondol, or "under floor" heating hasn't seemed to work much. I find it totally strange. The concept originated when there was no such thing as modern heating, and Koreans would heat their rooms by placing very hot rocks underneath the floor and soaking them with water, causing them to steam, which would heat the room above. This translated into their heating apparatus of today. Yet, I am not totally convinced of its capabilities. I turn it up and wait for it to work. An hour passes and my feet are still cold to the touch of the floor. Yet, when I go to sleep and wake up in the middle of the night to pee, as I have just done, I am sweating from head to toe, unable to free myself from the comforter fast enough to switch the oscilating heater to "low" and wash the sweat off of my face.
I slide the door separating the living space from kitchen space. This floor is not heated by ondol, and I regret leaving my slippers by my bed.
This slipper tradition is something I very much enjoy about Korea. It's very clean. It's something I've thought about incorporating into home, where the rugs are always mottled with dusty dirt, bits of sand. I've thought about, but never pursued it for more than a day. Here, it's drilled into your brain as something you're supposed to do. And I'm ever the complying conformist.
The thought of home causes me to pause in the doorway between the kitchen space and the bathroom.
Home. It's only been a few days yet it feels like I've been away from home forever. How dramatic. Forever and forever and forever!
I try to tell myself to stop being such a pussy. This is an opportunity of a lifetime. People in your position would be crapping themselves with glee, John! And here you are pining for a girl who you've only dated for six months. You only dated for six months. You two broke up, remember? You're here with her blessing. Tear-filled. Ever the questioner, you tell yourself she'll get over it, it's not really love. It's lust, nothing more.
But, it doesn't stop my mind from racing, from wondering what if I had stayed. Would I stay with her? Or would I think about the Korea in my mind, not the one I am experiencing right now, in the dark apartment, with the smell of that afternoon's rather unfavorable seaweed dish mixing its odor with other, unidentifiable odors that are a cross between pollution, soap and the off-gassing of wood work.
Odors that are unmistakably Korea, that I wouldn't be able to not smell in my mind and not be transported 1 year, 5 months into the past.
I think about Jasmine, the girl I've replaced, sexually. She's a gorgeous New Zealander with long, straight, blond hair, full lips, a cute accent and a bit of a wild streak. At least, that's what I imagine her to be like in my dreams. She's gone back to New Zealand for Christmas. Several weeks early. Her family isn't expecting it. She will get to the airport, be picked up by someone in the know, head home and "surprise! surprise! Aren't you all so wonderfully surprised?!"
She'll soak in her home land for a little over a month. Let her figurative hair down, her belly out. She'll relax in a world that is so familiar and comfortable with her family and friends. And then she'll go back to Korea, to teach at another Hagwon on the other side of town. Our director doesn't know it. Jasmine didn't know it either until the papers had been signed two months before and I was a go. She wanted to come back but I was already coming. What was she to do?
She wanted to come back. She wanted to come back. At that moment, with my head resting itself against the side of the bathroom entrance, all I can think of is how I wanted to go home.
I didn't even give it a proper chance.
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