Homecoming

After considerable discussion and outright nagging by my parents and my doctor, I have made the decision to come home. I did it with mixed feelings, not because I don't want to leave this god-forsaken peninsula, but because I didn't want to leave this way. I don't like the idea of not finishing what i set out to do. Probably I'm too hard on myself -- since I so consistently flog myself into working on things I don't care two figs about.

At any rate, I'm done feeling bad about this one. Today, the day after the pivotal decision, I started looking forward to all the things I miss about home -- but they are not the things that I thought I would miss when I left. I always thought of myself as a die-hard urbanite, but the complete inundation of the city has shown me otherwise. I long to walk in Great Falls again, to put my feet in the water, to not hear the constant rssshh-shhrrr of traffic day and night. I miss space, personal space -- the kind you get in a society where there aren't three people crowded in every square foot. And I miss taking a deep draught of air and not hacking on some foul taste. Of course, I'm looking forward to the normal stuff too -- good food, seeing friends again, and buying for pants that fit.

There will be things I'll miss about Korea too, hard as that is to believe. It's been liberating -- getting out and away, meeting people, partying a bit (bear in mind that I never partied in college, the time you're supposed to do it). There were plenty of bad times, and I'm not proud of the way I acted sometimes, but I learned from it, and like Vegas, what happens in Korea, stays in Korea. But I made friends, I learned about myself, and all that good stuff, but I find I'm not particularly ready to sort it all out and talk about it. I'll need some time, I suppose, just as with all other experiences. Hence, I plan to carry out this Korea blog for a little while longer after I get back -- as a sort of repository for memory and a way to think my way through the things I've seen and experienced. But none of you have to read it (not that anybody reads it now), since I doubt it will be particularly interesting.

Going Down

Lately, I've been scared to ride the elevator in our apartment. For the past two or three weeks, once I enter the elevator and punch the button for my floor, the doors creak shut in agony and the elevator drops for a second or so before it catches and continues. I age five years everytime I ride it. I keep expecting that the maintenace people will fix it, since they seem to be working hard on everything else and dropping by the apartment in the early morning to check our utility use.

There are two elevators, but one stops only on even-numbered floors and the other only on odd-numbered ones (we live on the fourteenth floor). I could run down the stairs a flight and take the other elevator since it isn't quite as temperamental, but I think there's one or several alcoholics living on the odd-numbered floors because that elevator usually has piss or vomit decking its walls.

The elevator has become increasingly morose, so that now when it's light out I take the stairs. I only have a little over two months left, so odds are good that I'll survive the elevator -- only to get hit by a car or motorbike on the sidewalk. Galen can have my music collection.

Some Photos of Itaewon's Back Streets

Leanne and I originally intended to go see the War Memorial yesterday -- here we are sharing Leanne's iPod before we found out that the memorial is closed on Mondays. After that discovery, we had lunch and ended up wandering off the beaten path in Itaewon, taking photos.

It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN! na na NAH nah, na na NAH NAH NAH . . .

It's a Nice Day For a White Woman

Leanne and I went out and about last Friday, getting our hair done and shopping for an outfit for a date of hers. We ended up in Itaewon (as per usual), and again, acting to form, stopped for a drink at Gecko's. I'm still abstaining, but Leanne wanted a glass of wine.

Although we started out at a table, Leanne soon got bored with just my company (I was pretty tired and cranky) and wanted to move to the bar. We had run out of badly dressed people to pick on in that little corner, and there were some loud-mouthed idiots playing pool a few feet away (5:30 PM: "Come man, chug! CHUG!), so we squeezed in at the bar next to some older Caucasian-looking men on the left and some Korean girls on the right. After a few minutes, a few of the seats to our left cleared up, and an middle aged fellow started engaging Leanne in conversation. The man told us that he and his friend had left Canada ten years ago because their then-president had been too conservative, and had been out here ever since (and here I thought it was only in Washington that people started bragging about their political allegiances right off the bat).

I could tell that he was pretty blattered -- when he asked me where I was from, and I answered, "Washington, D.C.," he intoned, "Ah! Duh capital!" as if he had just discovered the meaning of apples. My response just flowed out of me: "No shit, Sherlock" (I find it remarkably easy to play the disaffected and cynical harpy -- a glimpse of the future perhaps?). At any rate, he didn't notice, I was just being smart-mouthed. His friend also started chatting, and once he found out that I was going to grad school for art history, immediately decided to play the intelligent and cultured traveler. He asked me what periods I was interested in as way to tell me himself what his tastes were. A bad idea on his part, since I actually do know what I'm talking about to a certain extent. Of course, he likes Renoir and the Impressionists (barf), but then went on to tell me that he was really interested in the music of the time (Romantic). He pontificated away, trying to awe me with his awareness of high culture, I suppose -- unfortunately, I too knew what he was talking about, and knew that he was wrong. Even the manner in which he stated things, for instance: he told me that Romantic music was "twelve-tone" (wrong), and of course couldn't support the contention when I started asking questions.

At any rate, Leanne and I were polite, and finally the dynamic duo turned back to their own conversation. We chatted away until the first fellow (the drunk one, not the pseudo-intelligent one) came up and stood between the backs of our chairs. He turned slightly towards Leanne, and said, "You know, you're a white women." Leanne and I looked at each other. I was smiling slightly and finally said, "Yes, I'm aware of that." At this, he stepped back about half a foot and replied, "So I've got no use for you." He paused slightly while I waited for him to finish, and he continued, "It's all about the Asian woman." Even though a ready reply sprang to my lips (one of the few times I did have a good comeback, he tottered off too quickly for me to speak.

Anyway, for your amusement, I'm writing down some of my comebacks:

"You know, you're an old, fat, and stupid douchebag, so I've got no use for you."
"Really? Funny you should say that, because neither Asian nor Caucasian women seem to have much use for you either."
And my personal favorite: "Fuck off."

At any rate, I mention this anecdote because it so clearly evokes the covert sexual expoitation that happens here, and is one of my major beefs with Korean and Western cultures. Let me backtrack a little and explain:

On the Korean female side of the equation:
There is a nasty little prejudice about unmarried women over thirty. So, since it's incredibly shaming for a woman to be single past that age, once Korean women start hitting 28 and 29, they start getting desperate (for men, of course, age is attractive, so they have nothing to worry about). Hence, some women start coming over to Itaewon and other foreigner bars on the pull. Of course, it's probably a more attractive option than the booking clubs.

(I'm going to digress a second and tell you about booking clubs, since it's another sickeningly exploitative custom. Booking clubs are only for Koreans, and what happens is that a bunch of guys get together and rent a table in one of these clubs. Girls walk around, and when one of the men sees a girl he likes, he has a waiter go and bring her over to sit down and drink with the men. I suppose it's not complete prostitution, since the women don't get paid, but it's a prime recipe for date rape (I know an absolutely chilling story about a date rape started in one of these, which I will not relate here in a public forum. Suffice to say that it turned my stomach -- and I've heard some nasty stories in my time)).

Back to the subject at hand -- many of the men here came in order to fulfill certain fantasies about Asian women. The women are gorgeous, and usually subservient to men in a way that Western women generally aren't. So men get to fulfill this banging-Joan Cleaver/geisha-fantasy that frankly turns my stomach. There are huge cultural differences, but the sort of behavior from men that Korean women put up with -- the constant battles to seem young (both physically and emotionally), the kowtowing to male belligerence, obnoxiousness, and sometimes outright cruelty -- is, I think, not a healthy expression of gender relations. And since that's the behavior they put up with from Korean men, before they get desperate for a husband -- any husband -- they are ripe for the picking by white men on the prowl (of course, I suppose that some of them just want to get laid -- they're doing their own amount of "picking" -- I'm not going to deny the choice that these women have). So a fat, old, and disgusting man like our friend at the bar can have his fill. Although no women back at home would touch him with a ten foot pole, he can get with stunningly gorgeous women without scarcely lifting a finger.

Of course there are plenty of white women who decide to take Korean men (or vice versa). I haven't thought so much on this subject, since frankly, I'm not interested in being treated like a Stepford wife, but it's been made fairly clear to me that Korean men find Western women devastatingly attractive. Some of it is the lure of the exotic, much as it is for their white counterparts, but there is also a clear perception that white women are "sluttier" than Korean women (could've fooled me). Most of that is because of American media -- and this is not to criticize said media -- which portrays women sleeping on the first date or not far thereafter, or just having quick and meaningless sex with strangers.

Certainly all of this is changing, and I'm making very broad generalizations here. More and more women are in positions of power in this country, and less and less (I hope) bend to the will of the males. But while I'm painting a rather unfocused picture here, the gender imbalance is still a nasty backdrop with which many women here (white and Asian) experience in Korea. I'm certainly not using all of the evidence at my disposal to prove my point, as this epistle is getting pretty long as it is, but will be happy to do so in response to questions and comments from you, my readers (if I even have any, which I doubt). Anyway, let me know what you guys think.

A Moveable Feast

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." -- Ernest Hemingway

"I drink only to make my friends seem interesting." -- Don Marquis

When I first came to Korea, I had all sorts of high-minded ideas about constructive things to do here. I was going to write an analytical blog about globalization as seen from the ground here in Korea, I was going to travel to different countries, the works. That is not what has happened.
For one, I don't have much time to do research or travel. Until this Saturday, I worked six days a week, and even at relatively short hours, I find teaching children stressful and exhausting. It has its rewards, I suppose, and I like the parts where I actually manage to teach the children something, but I tend to come home from work absolutely shattered. Second, it's a little difficult to write about globalization from the ground. Actually, that's not quite right. It may be easy enough to write about extensions of idea, power, jobs, and whatnot through increasingly global fora, but it's nigh impossible to do it when you don't speak the language.
Perhaps that's not quite right either. What I'm tentatively getting at is that while I can talk about the experience of being foreign in Seoul, and meeting other foreigners here, and what I see and where I go, I couldn't even begin to discuss Korea's place on the global stage, and the part I and other English teachers play in it. I don't know enough yet, for one, and for two, I'm not writing from a vantage point where I can look at those issues clearly.
What it comes down to is this: when I boarded the plane at Dulles (was it Dulles airport?), I intended this year to be more of an intellectual journey -- much like my years at the University of Maryland. Instead, I have found that a more personal exploration has taken up my time and energy. I met people, I went out drinking (an activity I more or less eschewed during my college years), I got seriously depressed and stressed out, I recovered, and I got physically ill. I lived.
To justify myself (because for some reason I felt the need to do so), I used Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" as a template for my experiences here. It's certainly not the first time I've projected literary experiences on to my own life, and it won't be the last. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I would fall in love with a certain character or mood from a book and use it as an example of who I wanted to be and how I wanted to act. When I was seven, I wanted to be Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes (you can imagine how my parents felt about that), when I was ten, it was Doc from Steinbeck's Cannery Row who caught my fancy, and when I was fifteen it was Holden Caulfield (I know, how conventional of me -- it was the least embarrassing of the identities that I assumed at the time that I could think of).
Before Hemingway appropriated it, "moveable feast" was a Christian term, used to describe a holy day that moved in response to Easter's assigned date. For instance, Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent), is always forty days before Easter, so it's date must be moved every year in response to Easter's date. Hemingway, of course, used it as a term to describe a "party that was on the move" (quote from wikipedia), but -- and this is an entirely unresearched and not very carefully thought out opinion -- I'd say that Hemingway wanted to evoke the sacredness of such an idea to describe the depth communality of his life in Paris as a young man.
I read A Moveable Feast more than a few years ago, but it remains one of my favorite books (I realize that some of my more politically correct friends may take issue with me for my affection for Hemingway, and I readily see the misogyny, the racism, the homophobia -- but he remains, to me anyway, one of the best stylists of a certain generation, and his books carry a certain melancholy without sentimentalism that I've always found very compelling. And for the record, while he may have not seen as clearly and tolerantly on some issues as I would like, he advocated peace and compassion, which is alright by me). At any rate, the lives of the Lost Generation in Paris always seemed rather romantic to me, instilling a yen for travel and a bohemian lifestyle.
Maybe it was that yen that provided some of the impetus for coming out halfway around the world. I always wanted to lounge about in coffee shops and work, go out drinking with smart friends and have interesting discussions, and the like. But has Korea fulfilled that desire? Certainly at times it seems that way -- I get loaded and look at all the oddball characters I'm meeting, the surreal experiences, and have the occasional interesting conversation. But I think that I found more personal fulfillment at home, in discussions with my father or at school, and in academia -- even though I have some great anecdotes for when I get home.
I don't think that I will ever be really able to replicate in any genuine way the world I see when reading Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and T.S Eliot. Most people my age got drunk and go clubbing, dancing, raving, whatever -- which I'm not really all that into, although it can be quite entertaining from the sidelines (I'd rather just hang out at a bar, or go to a concert). Even among others like myself who would find that sort of bohemianism entertaining, it's too self-consciously "hip" -- like half of the population at art school reading Anais Nin (it's not edgy if all of you are doing it, you douchebags). And I'd like to say that I could do it without pretension, but I fear that that's past my abilities at coolness. In the end, I'm too misanthropic, too critical, too diffident and awkward to pull off that sort of thing.
But there have been other things, I've found here, which I'll discuss in a later blog. For now, it's time to take my doctor-prescribed fiber and deal with the results. Certainly the past month or so haven't seen much of any kind of socializing -- any that has been done has involved me staying sober (because I'm sick and exhausted) and watching my friends get drunk. Amazing how retarded they are when you're not drunk as well, and how interesting and intelligent when you are. I should drink more.

"Everybody should believe in something: I believe I'll have another drink." -- Anonymous

89 Days

The countdown has begun!

I have only 89 days left until I board the plane back to DC. I'm pretty excited about going home -- not only because I'm homesick and sick of Korea, but also because I'm looking forward to starting graduate school.

Tanya told me that she started to get really excited about going home when she hit her hundred day mark as well. And now Tanya has left (she boarded a plane to Australia this afternoon), and my first, and best, real friend that I made here is gone. I do miss Tanya, but her leaving is also a sign of how close I'm getting to leaving myself, so my feelings are somewhat bittersweet. Tanya was always a bit of a rock for me -- I always found that speed with which foreigners made strong sttachments here somewhat off-putting and bordering on the fake. When the pool of possible friends is limited to the microscopic portion of the population that speaks your language, you tend to be willing to hang out with just about anybody (at least at first). Tanya was never like that (and for my part, I genuinely liked her right away), and her rather acerbic approach to life here always made me laugh and feel at ease.

Anyway, three months to go -- there's still so much I'd like to do here. I haven't seen that many museums, or art galleries. I haven't saved as much money as I should've. I haven't done a whole lot of research, either. What I have done is party and drink. And now I'm sick, and scrimping so I have money to pay my medical bills and try to save some for school and relocating myself. So I may not get many chances to do a whole lot more -- though I hope to do this Mud Festival shindig in July. I suppose that when you actually live somewhere, even if only for a year, you lose the tourist impulse. The mind turns to the everyday details of eating, working, and sleeping, and you end up watching TV in the flat on your days off, since that's what you do at home (I suppose I should avoid using the generalized "you," since I have many friends here who aren't like that at all, and who go out and sightsee). I have done a bit of sighteseeing, and hopefully now that I have Saturdays off as well, I'll do some more. The fact is, I just get too tired from teaching children all week that I tend to crash on the weekends. Like I said, daily life.

At any rate, it's time to wrap this up and go to bed. I have to wake up early tomorrow for more medical hoo-hah.

The Yellow Dust That Rubs Its Back Upon the Window-panes.

Two Saturdays ago the yellow dust season began in Seoul. Winds blowing across the Gobi Desert carry the sand into Korea and through Seoul, most days turning the sky a pale mustard shade (or, as we say in Korea, "museh-tahdeh"). TV ads on the Armed Forces Network warn us off the dangers of yellow dust -- telling everybody to keep the windows closed and stay inside if possible.

I don't notice it that much, except for having nasty drymouth when I wake up -- though I wonder if it's contributing to my lingering stomach issues. Soon, I'm told, the yellow dust will cover our TVs and furniture, combining with the black soot that already settles on just about everything and demands constant dusting.

It's odd, I suppose -- but I sort of like it. There is something exotic in the yellow sky and the soot. The inconvenience even adds to the ofttimes delicious thrill of living abroad. Most of the time, it doesn't even occur to me that I'm living on the other side of the planet. I forget that the street signs aren't in my native language and that people staring at the colour of my skin and face isn't normal. Now I'm used to handing people things with both hands and bowing slightly, and saying "anyangeegaesaeyo" when I leave. But every so often, I get struck by the weirdness of living here -- and I enjoy the excitement of traveling and the enjoyment of the exotic. I realize that I haven't seen my family for nine months and that the person who will get off the plane in Washington D.C. will be somewhat different from the person who got on last July.

I suppose that I have a bit of the Orientalist in me, that I enjoy the exotic and thrill and tension of difference. it's the weird things that I love here, but even the things that are the same (like cicadas and shitty weather) are similarly entrancing, simply because they are the same in a different place. Even frustrations become a joke later on, as foreigners congregate and share our battle stories (I don't mean to applaud closet racism -- after all, I hate how things amass into a monolithic "us versus them" mentality, but the recognition of difference is unavoidable. I am travelling, I am a tourist, I really haven't the faintest idea about what's going on, and much of the time I feel helplessly alienated).

But in the end, I think the stress has gotten to me. I keep getting sick -- nasty colds, gastroenteritis, and now a series of headaches and dizziness that has cut down my normal functioning levels to a bare minimum. I've taken cabs to work ever since I got gastroenteritis, and I don't venture out of the apartment during my off-times. I do only what is absolutely necessary to do my job, and now I'm just waiting it all out. Either Korea or I has to break -- and there's not much time left, since I go home in three months. How can I enjoy Korea if I can't leave my apartment?