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David Moynihan
For Tom and Josh
We must be ready to receive every moment of discourse in its sudden irruption; in that punctuality in which it appears, and in that temporal dispersion that enables it to be repeated, known, forgotten, transformed, utterly erased, and hidden, far from all view, in the dust of books.
Michel Foucault, "The Archeology of Knowledge"
No matter where you go, there you are.
Buckaroo Banzai, "The Adventures of Buckaroo
Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension"
Kim Jae-Won, Seoul Korea
Many passenger come here. This place is full very often. You can stay. I go get Mr. Kim. Later. You rest. What is your name?
I am Kim Jae-Won. Traveller call me John. Traveller teach me English. I no go to school.
I like to travel. Never go. You travel? Travel where? You can work here. There is teaching. Many traveller teaching.
Room to stay. Stay here long time. Like many to stay. Many friends. Many new friends. I like to keep friends. Don't forget about me.
There is place you can go in Korea. Many place. Some place I cannot go. They no let me. American still say no Korean allowed. Is OK. I no can drink.
Traveller drink. Many traveller. I stop say many. My English not so good.
I try to learn more. Friend tell me to read. Many books I find. Left here at table. English book. French book. German some time. Other book I no take. English book I take.
Keep book in my room. Treasure. Is my. Like to treasure. I no read. No like read Korean. No can read English.
You stay here. Many friends. Other place too. Other place full. I live other place. Live here too sometime. When summer. Very full. Live small room. Very small. Traveller call it coffin. No like coffin. Smell bad.
One traveller live in Coffin eight months. He is hero. Very crazy. Some say saint. Mrs. Kim say he very cheap. I work Mrs. Kim. Work with Mr. Kim. Mrs. Kim is very cheap.
Always she say you money pay.
You money pay. She no like you no money pay. Traveller like Mrs. Kim. Like her, she have money. She have you money. Help you job find. Or no. Used to. Now they rip down advertisement. Many on wall. Some say bad instructor. Bad Hogwan. I no know. No can afford Hogwan. No go university.
When you come here you talk. Everyone talk. Even traveller no stay here. Come talk. Sit at table. Drink. Talk. I like talk. Listen.
Treasure.
Daniel S., East Orange, New Jersey
The thing to remember when crossing over is to stay loose and flexible. No rules really, just what the guys before the metal detectors feel up to doing, and whether or not they like you. There's always some way around things, never bribe unless absolutely necessary, and then only if the price is right; there'll be others after you.
I was stopped by Seoul immigration once on my third visa run of the year. The guard asked me what I'd been doing here for nine months, and what I planned to do. I said Korea has four seasons. I'd gotten here last Winter, stayed the Spring, made it through Summer. Now I wanted to see the Fall. He nodded, let me through.
Been a long time though, teaching here and heading there. After a while the luck runs out. Figured I'd cover my bets, get the permit for Taiwan, just in case. Guy at the consulate saw my application, looked at me, smiled, said "New York huh?" and gave me one month. Non-extendible. After this I guess I'll have to wait for the other dragons to rise, or else learn to work with my hands.
There were other options. I did it the usual way, decent college, hot girlfriend, good job. Selling stuff, but I made thirty, thirty-five a year. Guarranteed. Room for advancement. Moving up. It was this one night, I'm together with her. We finally set a date.
I remembered that story, the Businessmen's Diary:
Got up, ate breakfast, went to work, came home, had dinner, fucked the wife, went to sleep.
Two years later: Got up, ate breakfast, went to work, came home, played with kid, had dinner, fucked the wife, went to sleep.
Ten years later: Got up, ate breakfast, went to work, came home, yelled at kids, had dinner, read a book, went to sleep.
I thought to myself "hey, wait a minute, what are you doing? Is this it? Everything? Do you even want it? Success?" Then bamn. Before you knew it I'd sold the car, apologized to the folks, skipped out on the girl, and was on a plane. Like that.
Been travelling pretty much ever since. Some time off, now and again, see the family, wander around New York, give up on the whole thing and head out again. Couple a days ago they had a geography quiz in the Korea Times. It wasn't so much that I knew where every city was and how to spell it. Problem was I'd been to every one of those places, had native instruction in pronunciation, Alexander wept when he saw the airline schedules and knew there were no worlds entirely un-reached by Boeing or at least Airbus.
After a while you start to wonder what's left. All the hassles you go through, lying to this or that immigration guy, head down, palms spread in the gesture, playing the Asian game with corrupt Chinese officials. Even got to Mongolia before the travel book folks. Guess that's a victory. Found out about that guy who worked so hard to get to Tuva. Died without hitting it. Felt for him. Now Tuva's so accessible you just walk across. Wanna stay? I've got a fourteen-year old fiance who can get you a spousal visa. Too bad there's no reason to stay; people aren't as friendly as they are in Mongolia, though the food is just as bad.
Can't honestly say that I aimed for this. Probably thought my travels peaked when I was seventeen. And ended. Graduated high school, then spent the summer bicycling around Europe. Finished the thing, boom, next day, gone. No beach week. No loss, month before, going to this party, theater group, I'd driven a couple of other students. Sort of a race to see who could get to this place first. Nobody ever drove with me again. That was a good driving day.
So I blew'em off. My time. Started to party. Now entering Leichtenstein. Now exiting Leichtenstein. Met some girls. One good one.
Bar. In Germany. Name was Olga. Of course. She's thirty, thirty-five. Had this roll around the belly. No problem. Everybody's got that. Funny chick. So I leave with her, put myself into her hands.
At first I try to work it in the car, quick off and then off, a strategy that's worked. She likes it, I think, but then:
"Is no good. No good. Must go home."
It's okay, she wants more. What did I know? And I figured a free breakfast in the morning saves you from machine-grade bratwurst...
We get to her place, I'm with her in bed. We're going at it. Or I am. She stops.
"Is no good. No good. Must try bathroom."
I'm okay, I mean what the heck? We go to the bathroom, there's this huge tub, jacuzzi, home-made. Or something, never saw a bubble. She fills it up, I'm standing there, naked, looking at this portrait of her in the nude, right over the toilet. Sure. Of course.
So we get in the tub, I'd lost interest, but I find it again real quick. Seventeen. She's a little relaxed, seems like maybe she's getting there, but then:
"No good. Is no good."
I'm wondering where we can go, outside or something? But then she brings out these gravity boots. His and her. My size. Or close enough. I think.
Then I'm standing on the ceiling, still naked, but it turns out that these things aren't quite my size. The buckles are eating into my ankles, my toes don't quite fit, and of course I'm not wearing socks...
She's next to me, on the ceiling. All the blood rushes to my head, I'm dizzy, my feet are going numb except for the parts that hurt, they begin to hurt more. A lot more.
Olga's got me, she's doing all the work, sighing. But suddenly I'm not okay with it. I'm really just in a lot of pain and not paying the proper attention to the situation below foot.
So finally, I have to apologize, tell her I can't. At first she doesn't notice. Then, through the moans, she notices only one of us is broaching ecstasy. Tears are dripping from my eyes onto the carpet. I notice blood running up my chest.
Finally I'm out of there. Got home within the week.
Gave up on Europe for a while. Gave up on travel for a while. But it's like with the boy scouts, first time you go out have to have a miserable time camping. Every time after you're gonna love it and want more.
That's how I started, it was a breeze. Then boom. I've done it. One hundred coutnries. Three hundred women. But there's no point in a hundred and twelve. And four hundred sounds like bragging. Start to remember how it wasn't so instantaneous, how I felt those lingering little pushes as I began to lock myself into things.
Keep trying to tell myself there's more to see. Could head back the East Indonesian Rainforest. Still haven't been to India, though I've skirted the border a time or two. There were months, entire months when every day I ate nothing but mandu and a corn dog. When you ordered the mandu, it was expensive enough that you could feel comfortable asking for more Kimche. I'd already lost all the weight I needed to. The hotdog was just luxury.
Then there was dorm bedroom six. I didn't sleep there. My roommate did many a night. Lot of luck at the Daewon.
Starting to think, late at night, about the "Now what's?" Before it was the "What if insteads?" or "Aren't you missing?" I'm content with myself, feel no loss for the life I've chosen. No regrets beyond those girls I should have made it with when young.
At this new point though, I start to wonder, who am I beating? People can tourbus it and hit thirty or forty places in two years. I would hate to be them travellers who live on nothing. Buddha paid for the ferry. Drugs aren't doing it, I've done enough.
The time comes when you want the steady income. Security. Future. A hot wife who's ten or fifteen years younger and does what you say out of awe... I hit on a really fat girl the other day, there were other chicks in the place, I wasn't drunk, but it didn't matter to me for any more than the basics. She had a lousy personality too. Two more years I might not catch myself in time.
Thinking of learning to be a carpenter. Wood. Nails. Those wierd level things. Some place in the deep South where I can listen to Bob Seger and have my neighbors come over every day because they know the AC's always on.
Then I remember I haven't really been to South America yet, and if I take a contract with an apartment I can save... Thirty years of work is all you need for social security or a pension. I've got seven left to go yet. Besides, life'll never be over for me. Dad's pop got thrown out of a nursing home once, he'd slept with all the female patients. Life begins at eighty.
It's something any artist could tell you about with too much detail, staring at the world with all it's potential, for a time you start to feel stuck. Nowhere to go, no reason to get there.
Travelers block.
Adrian S, UK
Not that you won't always find people with more information than yourself about travel times and prices, but this one chap, Jeff, made it into an art form. Dare say he must have memorized the entire British Airways schedule for North East Asia. Quite solid in his role as the man to go to if you need flight dates for Katmandu via Kuala Lumpur. And, he was good at Jeopardy.
He had a girl with him. Believe or no. Americans. In the back drop I liked watching him use her. I believe they call it the race card across the Pond. Koreans and blacks don't get along, you see. Not that they do in Japan either, but after the Nippon Minister fellow spoke up on laziness and other genetic qualities, my understanding was every educated African Americans sped swiftly into a dealership, exchanging the Acura for a Cadillac, so the Japanese have become extremely polite to Hottentots all the sudden.
In his defense I've heard similar stories from other blacks here. Can be quite a chore finding work, often you have to go through religious channels to discover students and schools that are open to the many colors of life. But it can be done, after all, black GI's run Itaewon's dance floors and back alleys without throwing a punch or making collections. It's just that where a white foreigner could find teaching work in a day, a black chap discovers it might last as long as a week. Though of course by waiting that long, you can more easily find wages that are suitable to your training.
Jeff certainly waited to find work. Waited and waited and waited. Then after fifteen days he told Alicia he needed to go get a Visa. Alicia the gentle dear, who'd already been here for him, hustling her charms to make a living on the Hogwam scene, gave him the money he needed for a quick trip over to the Phillipines.
Now of course we'd already heard about Jeff in the Phillipines. Half of Seoul knew about Jeff in the Phillipines. The other half was trying to save to go and one day be Jeff in the Phillipines. Jeff loved the Phillipines. It was, after all, a former US colony. Too dense a twit to understand you play with the prostitutes at home, abroad you seek out the little boys, if caught you pretend you were playing football and you leave the bird with family and friends, otherwise you're paying for two hotel rooms, possibly three at the end.
Story ran that Alicia just got sick of watching Jeff going out to party all the time. Even though one dollar spent like eight and the man was too cheap to tip, he was still cutting dramatically into their savings. The poor dear never got to Jakarta to see a live young goat fed to a Komodo dragon.
I didn't want to shatter her illusions and tell her all the Komodo's were indolently obese from years of excess kidding. That was wretched wasn't it? Forgive. Actually I believe they ate older goats. Past milking. But the lizards couldn't move, they were that full. I didn't want to hurt Alicia by saying this. She was already living with a sated beast.
Fell for her of course. Me and the group. Look back later you never understand why. More important, though, was Jeff on return. He was a nice enough chap in his way. Mostly harmless, not an athletic bone in his body. One young drunk clearly stated that we ought to just beat the bloody Hell out the man, but he dropped out of the stakes early.
Wish I had that much of a mean streak sometimes. She was a girl who could listen to you. Never mind if it was smart, never mind if you repeated yourself over something borish like a sot. I waxed on about how I appreciated Shakespeare. Couldn't quite work that at home.
I have got to tell you, I found myself falling in love with her so much that I spent all my time with him. I wanted to understand him, see how his mind works. The lucky chaps never realize it. I suppose that's cliche. But the most obvious discoveries in life hit hardest when they cross over into your face. Till then they lived only as crochets in Grandmum's quilt.
He wasn't so bad. If you were a man. Round about the middle, and up in the brain. You really weren't threatened by his budding imperialism. Not quite the man to storm the beach at Normandy. Though he might shamble onto it with a tour group.
Dreadful fellow. Sought rewards for things. Immediate gratification. Told me he was going to law school, not to work revenue or something. Already terribly taxing. No, he wanted to join the foreign service. The US has such things. No one knows why. They can all just be pretty much as rude as they like, little countries like France still celebrate when the under assistant chief secretary for horse meat processing comes to call.
He didn't want to serve anywhere good. Like Moscow, Paris, or London. I suppose he was partial to Manilla or Bangkok, but that's how things go. Trying to make his way in the world, there's some sort of exam you need to take for this thing. Couldn't really understand it, but in the process of studying, he became quite good at stating the obvious with sublime authority. All sorts of girls you can get with that.
It was entertaining to watch. The knowing nods he imparted when informing the group that Tokyo's Narita Airport was an expensive place to fly out of. Icelandic Air is a cheap way to get to Europe. It's more comfortable to travel business class than coach on Asian airlines. And would you believe Israeli customs can be quite thorough for colored passengers arriving from Cairo during Ramadan?
The man's ramblings were insipid. Tedious. Known. And worst of all, recurring daily. At one point he even mentioned that it was a good idea to keep a xerox copy of your passport... just in case! At least there was an Australian girl nearby to give thanks for his sharings. Might have smacked him myself had he repeated that one.
All of it though: What's a good way to keep documents? Fanny Pack! Largest city in the world in terms of area? Anchorage, Alaska! When he did his Japan visa run, he wanted us all to congratulate him for not spending the night in Fukuoka. He wouldn't spend the twenty-five dollars on a guesthouse, let alone the seventeen for a bathouse. Blissfully he had to shut up on that one when another chap started flashing photos of the Anti-Mongol Great wall, some shards of which still stand near Dazaifu, ten klicks East of Hakata, two dollars by bus from the ferry terminal.
And on and on. Danger travel to Jeff was breaking the rules by running the wall some two months after Checkpoint Charlie came down. Cultural travel was achieved through rote memorization of famous art treasures stolen by the Nazis and currently held by the Russians. The only journeys he really knew about came under the heading of hooker travel, though for some reason he wouldn't let us know about that.
I have to say, spending all my time with him and Alicia, I'd become curious. At some fundamental part of me I wanted to know which was better; Quezon City in the Phillipines, Phukett in Thailand, Wainchi in Hong Kong, those Karaoke bars we'd all heard about in Taipei, or maybe something in Seoul itself?
Only response when I slid sidealong into the topic was, "Yeah, them Korean girls is pretty. Very Pretty. Some might say beautiful. But you know a beautiful black girl in Los Angeles lost her life when them Koreans caught her shoplifting. Loaf of bread. Poor sister."
Strange to find the whitest man you've ever met discussing at length the troubles of color, stranger still to find a hypocritical reprobate refusing certain services because of some past disagreements among others in the species. Americans seem to stress getting it back as a virtue. Though in his defense, that sort of situation would be hard to understand in terms of payback; who gives it to whom?
After some months I left that pathetic love triangle. Wishing that some one had had the courage to thrash the man. Justice came though, in another form. Alicia's brother, Howard, Howie, Hal perhaps, came in the picture. He was going to make good money teaching, then travel. Young chap, spent his money in the first week on beer and... excitement.
Then Alicia had to support him. Jeff was angry. Very angry at the immaturity of such a young man. Couldn't for the life of him understand why anyone would put that kind of a burden on family. Howie or whatever was a man now, after all.
None of us bothered to bring up Jeff's second trip to the Phillipines, when he'd tried to get a Korean Visa, but couldn't. After a month. When he'd forgotten about the lines. Afterwards he was also angry with Alicia. For not being willing to pay for a third trip...
Course you couldn't blame her. What with the popularity of Manilla at that point, you couldn't get a direct flight from Kimpo. The planes had to pass through Bangkok, for an overnight stopover. And Alicia just couldn't afford to provide spending money for that extra day, Jeff might after all need a good massage.
Wonder how much she knew about it. Never understand some people. They have this world in front of them, jammed into their faces everyday. Then there's some other place. Where hope and love live. I never reached her there.
Tyler E, Los Angeles
You see some of these people, and they just don't know what to bring. I mean it's obvious. If you're a real traveller. I'm a real traveller.
Most of these folks. Man. Fat. Fat men. Fat women. Fat kids. All they want out of here is shopping. Cheap clothes. So they can spend the rest of their money getting fat.
I'm not fat. I lived in China for three years. Taiwan. Taiwan's China. Everybody says so. But I know it. I speak Chinese. And man, it's like you can't get respect for what you know.
People just don't act like they know who to listen to. I tell you, there's no respect anymore. Everyone's so full of themselves. Fascists. I mean it.
Huh. Like a guidebook can tell you anything. Man though, those people. They have the life. I mean, walk into the hostel, say hey, I'm from Lonely Planet, boom, don't have to pay for the dorm. I'm saying, they're the ones who get the luxury.
At least they've been around. I kept running into this young guy, until I left that dump he stayed in for a place that was real. And he, like alright, he was a smart guy.
I don't like smart guys. Wasn't to smart. Didn't know what the UDA was. Huh. Like I'd even talk to anyone till I knew that.
But I was impressed with Korea. I mean, you're not doing anything, they come up for the jobs and find you. And you're making a hundred bucks a day.
He was like, "you've never made a hundred bucks a day?"
I really don't like smart guys.
Man, always poking at me, like when I don't have the money to drink, he makes sure people know it. I mean, I'm everyone's friend. Who wouldn't like to help me out with a beer. Smug little prick.
I'd have beaten him up. Just looking at him, I was ready to lose it. Lucky for him I'm crippled. My arm, yeah, threw it out. It was when I had to face these three guys, they had my passport.
I wasn't gonna wait around for another passport. So I took care of things right there. Shoulder or no. I told them if they didn't give it back I was gonna get'em, I flexed my collarbone in their direction.
I can travel.
I know what light is. Yes. I don't need all that extra garbage. It weighs you down. Every pound you carry over what you need, that's less comfort. Won't hear that anywhere. But I'm gonna say it to you.
Because I know. You look at the date on my passport, I'll let you, you can tell. It's full. I've been places. You got that? You should.
It's when I'm polite to women, like I need to be, like they deserve it. That's when you can see I'm special. That's when it's most obvious. Anyone can get it. First thing I do when a woman walks in here: tell her if I think she's carrying too much. Just the kind of guy I am.
But they act like they just can't appreciate it. Huh. Like they're empowered. You know the type, going to go out, bust their ass at a shit job, act like they get awards for paying the bills, wanna marry a rich man but have their own money too. Huh.
Then turn around at forty, packing thirty extra pounds, and discover all the sudden that the thing they wanted most out of life was a couple of teenage kids to control. Too late. They'd tell you I was immature.
Huh. Women. Funny. These Korean ones, they're out to use you. Or me at least. Want that new passport. Stamp with their face. "I love You! I love you! I love you!"
Two years later she's got naturalized status, and you got a divorce from the nearest no-fault state. That's if you don't have money. Huh. Then I guess they go and buy the shitty car with the best advertising campaign. Look down at you for taking the bus.
Like watching the old ones. They're too fat to fuck. But they're getting off on touching kids the way you never could back home. States are lawsuit city. And at night they chase down the nearest 19-year-old GI they can find.
They're better than the young ones. Sign a contract. Get no money. But an apartment with TV. Put on 20 pounds, hit the bars once a month when payday comes, then it's back to the apartment and TV.
Go home and all your friends call you the adventuress.
Frailty is a given, but Shakespeare overlooked folly as the name for women. Erasmus knew. But he wasn't all that. Great modern writers, you got to look to Homer. You know Modernism?
That punk kid acted like he did. We talked about it. Once. Fuck. Acted like Hemingway could write. I told him Turgenev could write. Hemingway wasn't fit to Turgenev's boot.
People who don't know stuff like that. How can they live? What's the fucking point?
Kid told me he was sure I could work in any bookstore in America. Least in New York. Work in it, Hell, I'd be managing the goddamn place. Have to, just to get something worth reading in.
He asked me one time if it worked. What does he mean "if it worked?" There's no act. I'm like this. You don't know how hard it can be if you're smarter than everybody else. People get jealous, they won't just let you be.
That's why I don't get attached to things. They let you down. You possess only that which will not be lost in a shipwreck. I made that one up. You know I'm a good writer. Only thing stopping me from the book is time and money.
Never get bogged down, not with kids, not with things, not with people. I wandered back into the Daewon this afternoon. The kid was finally leaving. Should have seen him, man. Had a heavy backpack, sleeping bag, and this duffel bag, big enough to stuff a mating pair of Hanguks in.
He's got all these people around, taking down names, addresses. I hear him, he's saying he'll try to keep in touch, but likely he'll move around for a while.
I just hate him. He's such a total dork. All these people he hardly knows, coming up to say goodbye. He's making like it's a big deal. I say if it's such a big deal, why doesn't he just carry them along. After all, one more ton can't hurt, now can it?
He gets this smirk on his face that I'd have knocked off if all his buddies hadn't been there. Then loses it, stares at me cold. "Yeah Steve," he says, "it's probably too much. On the other hand I can dump shit or give it away if things get heavy. Your load seems rather pemanent."
I don't say nothing cause I'm so sick of him, trite humility packed with homilies. He hadn't been away from home long.
Frank Trout, Seattle, WA
There's a way to get by when you don't have the rent. What you do is, you visit a little market in the alley past the bathhouse, and pick up a small yogurt drink. Give that to the Kims, make it real formal, like a birthday present to your dad the week after you crashed his Mazda on the way home from a party on school-hook day, and that's it; they know you're thinking of them. You'll be good for a week. Maybe two. No need to hide out during daylight hours. It's like a hundred won, maybe twelve cents.
I don't hold the record for non-payment. That belongs to this Danish guy. Badass alcoholic, worked for a school that paid him exclusively in nights out, or the odd case of Soju when they didn't feel like dealing with him anymore. He finally got deported, lucky Viking bastard. His embassy covered the ticket home. But he split without giving the Kims two months back rent. That's why they always make Danes pay in advance.
Shouldn't feel too bad about not being on time, unless you're on extra friendly terms with the rodents. Have to confess none of the mice liked me, when I got bored I'd tease them with cheese on a string. After I saw them learning to pounce I looked for a new game. Tried to convince the cockroaches to join my side, you know, able to coexist peaceably on the food chain. Didn't work out, they hardly view my species as being particularly adept at survival. Not that I blame them, if humanity can't exist without a McDonald's on every corner, how can we last a billion years?
Three-hundred-seventy dollars a month for a place no Western women would be caught dead in. And they don't let us bring in Korean girls. Not my problem, having a girlfriend already. Sure, she's Korean, but Kyopo. In English she told the Kims she was Japanese. They let her in as much as she wants to come now. Like that's real frequent.
She lives with her dad, or does for the moment. Great introduction I had to this place, we get into the country together, all the shit we have after six months in Cambodia. Her dad picks her up in a limo, the chauffeur gently loads all her stuff into the trunk. I'm left having to stuff everything onto a bus by myself, then lug it all down through the underpass to get here..
Do have one benefit, all those travelers outside, coming in from somewhere hip and heading to that new place. You might say it's cool, knowing there's a world to be visited. On the other hand since I was already digging myself a major hole in terms of debt to the management, last thing I needed was bullshit heaped on top of me.
If you've ever woken up at some point in your life and wanted to be miserable, this would have to be on the top ten lists of places to do it. Some people say Lahore is better for spiritual angst, but I don't know, seems to me they're just in love with the name. For raw pain though, c'mon, remember when the shower had no hot water that January? Or when the new trash law got passed and Mr. Kim started burning all the styrofoam because he didn't want to pay for the extra bags? At like fifty won apiece?
Then you get to go to work, teaching rich kids. Or in my case at the English language section of a basically totalitarian government's propaganda voice. Every one around seems happy and bustling, glad to be alive in a time like this, passengers crowding the subways in sophisticated fashions, the way it must have been in New York in the twenties.
One thing though, you know you're out of it. Every minute you spend in this joint drives the point home. No matter how much you learn of the language, how much you make for entertaining, how easily you slide into the customs, you're still foreign. You're not a part of things. Other. This place just makes it easier to remember...
It didn't need help finding out I was outside. My girlfriend recently underwent a stomach operation. Little problem in the area just above the groin. Not so much now, beyond daily stresses, but in a few months... it would've been a big deal. This was her third such operation in the time that I'd known her..
I was sitting in the clinic lobby when her dad came in. He knew. Never mind how he knew, lord of a manor, castellan of the mountain fortress, constantly on alert for barbarian assault, he sees all. The old man informed me that if this had happened only twenty years before he'd have seen to it that I was never heard from again. How I was supposed to feel didn't matter. Outside. I was told I should count myself lucky there were no brothers. Great. What I needed. Thanks Dad.
Everything with her. A beautiful, intelligent woman. They don't come along often. So you find yourself sticking around. Even though you're not part of her world. Mother the most successful Asian woman in America. Or just about. Father sitting on a fortune in his native land. She's educated at schools so expensive that you couldn't have afforded eighth grade.
But on an athletic scholarship you transfer to the same college as her. Can't afford the basics, not for life there, but you're so far out of the loop that doesn't matter so much. One girl likes you, thinks you're from the wrong side of the tracks. Fifties. The rest of her mind's filled up with nineties bullshit feminism for rich chicks who didn't just want to stay and home and fuck poolboys. Her world's shattered when she finds out your dad's well-off enough to travel.
But you stick with it. And with her. And you find one afternoon that she's a virgin, before you know it the relationship goes on to another level. You're not prepared. And there are fights Breakoffs, anger, the first operation comes in a semester that you both agreed would be a good time to spend away from what you've known.
She's living in Chicago. You hang around campus at first, sleep with twelve women. She finds out. You move West, bum around Berkeley. Find a job. Lose it. Lose weight. Lose it all. Then you go home and discover she's been calling. Inquiring. Wondering.
You start to think about everything you've had together. The two of you get back together, you get the cash to do that last little bit for a scrap of paper. She's with you. Think you're thinking about it. Roommates. Couplehood.
She finishes. So do you. You find out she's had another stomach operation. You weren't consulted. Then she's off for the far East. Cambodia. Working on a paper. Working on a heroin addiction.
You've done a lot. Everyone's done a lot. She's doing it daily. She's been doing a lot of somethings for a while. You're alone. You work as a house painter. But you keep wondering. And saving up. Suddenly you got a name and a reference, and the two of you are close enough to being together. You're shocked when you see her, but you're the only employee of that organization that isn't doing it too. And these are all the strong folks, the ones you used to envy.
Somehow right there in the middle of it, she stops with her problem. Just lets the whole thing go through a quick three nights of sickness. Vomiting. You're there and you start to think that you can never be this close to another human being for as long as you live. You wonder if you want to.
The two of you stick with it, walk through the Killing Fields, get the money together for a quick ride elsewhere. Flight through Thailand, quick trip to where her dad lives. You expect to teach, but suddenly you're working at the same job. So is she. Different papers. She does tops out all previous scores on Tetris. Your free computer time is spent creating and destroying Civilizations.
You laugh for a while, her salary is half of yours. But she changes jobs fast. It's taken you three months just to get paid. Suddenly she's got a better job, one with a future. Her byline's in a number of papers back East. Interviewing isolated heads of state. A friend asks if she wore the nose ring. You don't know.
But you wish you did and things are getting better. You've learned to cope. Everything still gets to you, back away from the drugs is back to the crazy ideas. The stupid ideas. You let things go. Your own situation looks up. Slowly. Money's here. You remember a goal of crossing to thirty at some point in your life.
The jealousy you feel is pointless. Bottom line you hate newspapers. Hate everything about them. The only means you find appropriate for disseminating information is through your own cult. Only then will they learn. Only then will they understand. The knowledge that is important shall be passed to them, all irrelevancies will be discarded.
You've already dismissed this as a kid's dream, realize that maybe talent matters after all. You're together more often then ever. Pilgrimages to Buddist shrines on weekends. She watches you teaching Korean kids to cheat at basketball. On Fridays in Itaewon you conspire to make sure that love is still present by jumping after other people and waiting for the partner to come between, or jump on someone else.
So it goes. Things are okay. You're moving into a real apartment for the first time in your life. The rent is less than the Yogwan was. But a marker belongs, to show you were there. And what you went through.
Then you're gone. Nothing's changed. But at the same time everything has.
For the first time in your life you're fine with it.
Kathryn G. Oklahoma City, OK
Asia is always a feast for the eyes, Seoul's got great examples for the diet. You never know what the day might bring you to look at. I've kept an index of places for viewing, my ability to blend into the walls, chameleon-like, whenever Korean girls enter the room has left me something of a watching expert.
I should have married Jerry Falwell.
The experienced observer will always start off at Namsan. There's that grand old tower at the top of the near-mountain, it's cheap to get to, and while you're there you can see the million or so new housing units they've put up since last week.
Then a quick trip on the Green number two line. People-seeing comes to the fore here. Early mornings are jam-packed with businessfolk making their way in to another hard day. Little later and you can see the schoolchildren, brisk and boisterous in their smart uniforms. Jabbering and bouncing off the walls after an overly-chocolate breakfast.
Later still and the Ajimahs seize the way, off to market, or just off, keeping themselves occupied til the kids get home from school. At night there's partygoers of all kinds, later the drunken returns. I don't get so much pleasure out of this.
Back to the Ajimahs. They know where to shop. Forget the department stores, it won't fit, and anyway you can get it cheaper through a soldier's wife on base. But the markets. Oh, the markets.
They're gorgeous, in their cramped warehouse ways. My mother used to talk of a downtown garment district, one they all marched through, picking the stuff up from the same street where it was manufactured.
Floor after floor of textiles in some places, food in others, near Yongsan base, piles of electronics. Never mind the goods, what's fascinating is what goes on behind the stalls. Entire families living their lives in a shop niche the size of a large restroom at a fast-food restauraunt back home.
Next to them, another cutout full of another life. And another and another, through three halls on eight floors in six warehouses. And that's just by the eastgate -- Tongdaemun, there's a southgate, plus any number of smaller ones.
I never get tired of seeing. The men with the soju and interminable games of go and yaki-sticks. The women with their gossip and their stares, sizing up a likely foreign customer.
One of the best places to shop of all is near Dongguk University. A huge covered stadium. But Seoul already has those big gyms, over in the Olympic park. So, the whole stadium is nothing more than a blackmarket shopping area.
It's fabulous, there are even some Chinese, no doubt not legal. On the subject of sports, you never know who will be practicing at the big gyms. It's a lot of fun. I'm no fan of baseball, but there are reasons to go.
One game I went to, there were all the men on the field. They were playing baseball, or soccer, maybe sumo, not sure, but they didn't take up my attention. It was the fans. There were two groups, really. Two sets of fans.
Out of a whole stadium, packed with spectators, only two sets moved, one for the home side, one for the visitors, though I found out from my friend that both teams were from Seoul, and played in the same park.
It's confusing. But anyway, the two groups of fans had coordinated dances, singing, cheers, skits that they did, names that they would shout when one side was in some way favored over the other. Than they would finish, the fans, and rest.
The other group of fans would take over, go through their dances, singing and skits. Then the first group.
In the meanwhile, the other 30,000 or so people would do or say nothing. Not for three hours. Not a word. It was all so splendid.
The only sport people really get into here is organizing. They march from Pagoda park in Insadong, right near the center of the city where you are never allowed, if Korean, to go without your best clothes.
From there the crowds move down to the Blue House. Koreans are never imitative, they thought up the design by themselves. During this march, they pass by a number of fast food places in Chongno Sam Ga.
The best fast food place to watch the riots is of course the Hardees. It has a third-floor dining room. I wish I could take my students there. If they would only think of me as someone you could invite to the after-school affairs. It's too bad.
One boy teacher told me that I reminded him of his fourth-grade teacher. I hate fourth graders, too rambunctious over here with all the pressure they have on them, just starting in at age ten, plus of course the hormones, but I asked him if he had a crush.
No, he said, though he did try to help her carry things and keep the class in order because she seemed somewhat frail and out of her depth. I'm not frail. I conduct classes with myself during the protests of Chonga Sam Ga.
"Is that truck burning? Is that truck burning?"
"Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It is on fire."
"Are they beating the students? Are they beating the students?
"Yes, they are. Yes, they are. They are pummeling Korea's future."
"Do we smell tear gas? Do we smell tear gas?"
"Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Our sinuses are inflamed."
"Is he shooting rubber bullets? Is the rubber bullets being fired?"
"Yes, he is. Yes, he is. We'd better duck."
The boy, the one I spoke of, said he knew that. Said he was sure I could take care of myself. I can't even seem, really, to pass for needy. It's a problem. No one notices long enough to see what's wrong or isn't about me.
Just that my clothes fade away.
I shouldn't complain though. In life there are pluses. Sometime after my conversation with him, actually, after the man-child went home. I call him that because no man ever sees me here. But anyway, after he left the bust came down.
It was a new class.
"Are they rounding up everybody? Are they rounding up everybody?"
"Yes, they are. Yes, they are. They are taking away everyone except for teacher."
You see, I was there in the Daewon when the illegal instructor class of 1996 was pulled. But even though I sat down at the table with everybody else, they didn't even think to demand my name or occupation.
I'd been teaching here illegally for nearly two years, private students saw paying me as a neccessitty for merely for stability's sake, and the hogwans I'd licensed out to had always had this nasty habit of forgetting me when raise or bonus time came.
So, in all honesty, I was the most guilty one there. But the police just looked past me, grabbed poor Mrs. Kim's entire weekly food bill, and marched them out, with firm, but gentle authority.
Too bad, really, that so many of them were taken off, I tried to see them, I guess, but when I waited in line for them at the jail, line of one, just by the office, no one noticed me enough to get in.
With everyone wondering what had happened, I suddenly found myself with an audience. People noticing me. First time in years.
Jaques Morey, Quebec
Ze people in Kwangju are wonderful. Zey have ze spirit and great pride zat comes from such a marvelous history and exposition of culture. No one else in Korea has culture. Zhey borrow trends from China, like Canada gets it's business from America, puts a different label on it and call it a national treasure. It's all economy. Pressure of economy is what passes for a nation.
Kwangju is terrific. Phenomenable. I chanced to teach there. English, of course. Even ze sons of old Paekche have much to learn before zey can take zeir place as citizens of ze world. Many of my students were involved in ze protest movement. Zey could not often meet me after class. No matter how much I hoped or asked, they could not. But sometimes, like on teachers day, together we outed and drank, as brother men. As citizens of ze world.
You are under observation zere. Zey want to make sure you as ze foreigner never see. Kwangju city is alright for foreigner to view: big, ugly, concrete and glass. But in ze countryside, where you see ze farmers struggling, denied access to tractors and other things, still some of them working in ze fields with zeir hands and simple tools, zeir wives and chilren besides zem on ze small paddies zat run into terraced hillside.
I bought a bicycle. Japanese, mountain bicycle. I looked like a tourist. I saw Kwangju. I watched zis great people as zey struggled. Abandoned by ze Seoul government. Left behind as ze economic force pushed on.
Not zat zey didn't protest. Of course zey stood for zeir rights. Kwangju people have always been ze first to stand up for zeir rights. ze fight for Korea against ze Japanese began here. A little girl waved her little flag and spoke in little words for big freedom. ze Japanese killed her. But ze people here. Zey fought on. And kept fighting. For twenty years zey were fighting. Until ze Americans showed up to finally defend ze land, with great American timing. After so much desecration. And so much loss of life. And now ze Americans want to bankrupt poor Korean farmers. Great friends. Great, Great Friends. We all love zose Americans. Zey are here to help you.
But also I love zese people for another reason. Zey didn't just start fighting in 1921. Zey go back so much further. When ze Japanese invaded for ze first time, no longer satisfied with zeir piracy, and looting raids, zey took ze mainland. And destroyed whatsever zey could. Not so much remains of Old Paekche. Much thanks to them. Bastards. All Asia know it. Friends to America. To conquer all. With zeir economics. Together Japan and America conquer all. Zey think
But zat first invasion. 1591. One man from Paekche, a sailor. He knew ze Portugese gave ze Nipponese guns. Pyongyang was blind to change zen. Zey thought ze Ming would protect. Ze Ming were 16th Century Americans when it came to protecting. But zat man, Yi-Sun-Sen, he built ships. Ze first iron ships. Zey went out and sank every Japanese boat in ze water. For his great work ze Court dismissed him. Until 1597, when ze evil neighbor knocked on ze door once more. With only 8 vessels he sank two hundred.
Fired. But now he's got a statue in Seoul. He is proud of it, I'm quite certain. Of course ze farmers were left outside to rot during ze invasion. Ze marauders stealing zeir daughters, taking zeir wives as men were forced to look on. I know zis. Everyone does. Not zat Kwangju was used to getting anything different.
Ze Mongols invaded Korea. Twice. Zey were aiming for Japan. All ze people of Kwangju paid zeir taxes. Ze Court rewarded zis generosity by setting up armed camp. On an island just offshore. Ze Mongols were afraid of water. Ze Court was afraid of being men. Ze people of Kwangju were not afraid. Zey were to busy dying. Dying while their daughters paid. Dying while their wives and sons paid. Zey chose to stop dying.
Zey took to ze hills, left zeir land. Many times zey would leave zeir land. Taxes got too high. People starved. Like in France. But no revolution. Later zey tried. In Seoul and Pyongyang zey tried. But it didn't happen. Zat was much later, long after. Even before the Mongols, there were problems. Paekche was a great kingdom, region to itself, like Albigensais. Zey had great trade. Zey trade with China. Zey trade with Japan. From China they took art and writing, to Japan zey gave pottery. Buddism. Even an emperor, some say.
Paekche conquered Silla, went far north. Later SIlla conquered Paekche. Later still Koryo conquered Paekche. But Koryo favored Silla. Zey dressed Silla. Spoke Silla. Married Silla. Some from Kwangju went North into Parhae, centuries later, many went to Vladivostok in Siberia.
Kwangju will stand. In 1960 they stood against Rhee and his heir. In 1980 against Reagan and Chun. Many died. 1980, Chun had gunships. Kim Young Sam has been no better. I know. Zey know. Everyone knows.
Ze people of Kwangju will stand. Zey are smart, fierce. Clever. Zey will not give in. Now, if only they could understand someone must lead them, someone must teach them. But as zey say; "Il n'y a pas quel qu'un du monde qui sont parfait." Or so I must console myself. Strange, zey won't talk to me on the street. I am lonely....
Park Soon-Yi, Seoul
If you want know about bad things, horrible things, there was a person to go to, I liked him first, but now I call him Magic Man.
It wasn't me who name him that. Another guy, Miguk, told me later about ability of his. He say Magic Man could just sit at table, and everyone around him sigh, stop, think about all unpleasant thing in they life.
But you know I just like to look at him. First. He customer. But he just smile at me, not grab at me like soldier. Soldier grab all time. No like soldier.
So yes, Magic Man seem different. Not mean. I went out with him. Should have gone out with soldier.
I don't think he ever had girlfriend. You know? I mean, like I want to kiss him on first date, but I don't want to kiss him because he expect me to kiss him. And first date was the best.
We didn't talk so much. We were just at movie. He seem to like movie, though he talked about movie, how it was bad. Was just movie. Fun. Not bad.
But then I had to go home early. And I didn't kiss him. But I told him I wanted to see him again. Second date.
He was mad. Second date was not fun. Not fun at all. He wanted to talk all about Korea. About bad Korea.
I know bad Korea. I grow up here. Remember when everyone got around on bicycle. Long time. Now, no one have bicycle in Seoul. No one except merchants. And most they have motorcycle.
But Korea to him was not bad. Not job. He no have bad job. Work as editor for Yonhap. Job pay good. Very good. For foreigner. When he tell me about being cheated, I no believe. He tell me before, when ask me out, about nice apartment he get.
I no see why he say Korean all criminals. Some Koreans criminals. Some very bad. Many Korean good. It happens. We honest. Peaceful. Not like China or Japan. You no lose money to Korean, maybe to prostitute, maybe to pickpocket. But not so bad.
He tells me about restauraunts, they charge him too much. I think he get too upset to easy. I think that. He seem like want to be something, want to get something, some kind of gift. I think he want to be center of attention.
That why he talk so much. About so many bad things. It get annoying. I no want to hear it. He seem different first time.
So I don't expect to hear. Always hear from angry foreigner teacher. And foreigner engineer, business foreigner, they too drunk for me, and too rich, they get many girl.
I don't think either foreigner. No like Korean man too much. So I date Magic Man, again. But I make him take me out to nice restauraunt. I think I should have good food, wear nice dress. Especially he may angry me again, so I walk out, leave him with big check.
I know already be bad.
Third time he make speech. Has angry laugh. Like biting. Tell me about how still no plans to repair Song Su Bridge, not even pull up wreckage.
So new to hear. So different. Not hear like that everyday on television. He tells me about Taegu. Explosion. How no gas maps exist for Seoul.
Never been told that. He only one, can say to me that. As young Miguk friend say, when I ask him he drunk, not.
Hear that all the time. Watch trial everyday. Company say they do better. Company heads, they apologize. He tells me about murder. New murder of parents by child for money. He much smarter than me. He know everything about murder in my city.
I know so little about murders in his city. Where he from. There are too many murders there. I can't count so high in English. Can never know so many people killed.
We no have third date. I find out from other people that no one like him. I feel stupid for ever liking him. But one time I protect him.
This much later. Long after. After dates. He no come in my bar after I say I sick of him. Can't see him anymore, he make me sick.
But I hear from other foreigners, they say they going to beat up Magic Man. Someone tell on foreigners. They all going to make leave.
People think it him, because him get mad when no one talk to him anymore after they tired of him. They say he common, like other him, and other him do thing like that. How it happen.
But so many. I think it can't be him. He coward. I know men. They mad like that, they no have girlfriend, they coward. They only take out on weak.
You no weak, they no bother you. So I say Magic Man can't be one. He not like that. Not have the courage. He not dangerous. Just mean. Just boring. Just man not have girlfriend.
So, they stop hitting him one day in parking lot. Because of me. I no like see man hit. Or see man hurt. Just want see him go.
Hear later he did. To Taiwan again. Or Japan. I don't know. Maybe he'll find a girlfriend. Not be mean anymore.
Not be annoying.
Ariel S, Vancouver
What they say about cuisine is true, you know, try something once, you'll never go back. Well, maybe not just once, but after a while... don't worry about it though, even if you do find yourself sticking to one thing, there's still room for infinite variety.
It's no joke when a man hands you a big piece of dried squid. That's our version of a dog feast. They tie it in to fertility and cycles of the moon and women's voluptuosness; all the good crap that folks back home pay thousands for in the name of clinical assistance in conception.
The squid thing, Ojingo, it's supposed to be private. None of my Ajimahs ever gave me the real story on it. Had to scope it out in a hurry 'cause the guy who passed it along wanted to see me that very night, and he was gonna take me to Seoul Land over the weekend.
So the head of my school gave me the skinny. Really it's meant for after marriage but prior to the production of that all-important son. Guy must've thought it was Spanish fly or something. Lord Knows what's on Korean porno, though hair's still absent.
Anyway, I go out with him, we eat, walk, bar, Karaoke, and it's okay, he doesn't get too bombed, and of course neither do I, not on the first date, bad form. He ushers me home in a cab. Nice, Gold Deluxe, spent quite a bit though I heard later 300,000 Won's the normal tally for a night with a Korean girl. But still a good chunk for my salary at least.
So I invite him up to my place, just for coffee, check the fellow out. I leave him at the door while I go get changed, this dress I'd bought didn't quite fit right and anyway I wanted to get into my robe, so I come out and there he is, standing in the doorway, arms stretched wide his pants down around his ankles, looking at me and saying
"Oh Aliceana, I'm here! I have IT! I KNOW what you WANT!"
So I go "Hey, Kim, put that little Peeter Tweeter back in your pocket and take it outside." Jesus Christ, man must have been thirty years old. No sense of foreplay whatsoever. Gotta get better porno's in this town, and not just with hair shots. Hate to say it but Japanese men are much more interesting, least they can play it from the samurai angle. "Whoopai!"
They're not all like that here. Just the older ones. Or maybe that's cause I'm finding the younger ones more attractive. My last flame was under instructions not to return until he brings me a copy of Paul Simon's greatest. No understanding of irony, and so sweet. Bet he's still scouring Itaewon for it at this very moment, hoping I'll let him back in once if he can obtain the right present no dice.
Met him at this bar, went with a woman who handles some students of mine. Her and me are sitting there, and she's psyched at the action. What's not to love in a club where both the revolving flash balls and the suits worn are clearly authentic, both having seen fully constant use every Friday since 1974.
I'm at the bar, a little bummed watching over her as she lives out her disco fantasy. But I don't want to split, 'cause everyone needs a little encouragement, and anyway she's so new to this she might actually fall for one of the sharks. Nothing wrong with that, but you never want your comapanion going home with somebody lame on your watch. Before you know it they'll fall in love and name kids after you. A growing reminder of your inability to keep someone else from choosing the uncool.
Suddenly, a tiny little hand slides a dish of pickles and salted fish over to me. It's attached to a lovely arm and the sweetest eyes I've seen in a while. Before you know it I'm kissing him up, right there on the stool. No words. Nothing. Feel his shoulders trembling the whole time so I put a few bites on his lips. He tenses, permanently I think. It's great. I want more.
But then I decide to play with him a little bit and ask him his name. Kim something. Shocker. What's he doing? Student. Where? Pause... Seoul. Seoul National? Grateful pause. Sigh. Personal Reconstruction. Yes. He is a student at Seoul National University. This is year two. What is his major? Major? Major? No answer, but I love being lied to so I reel him in and offer undecided. Yes, he says, my major is undecided. I know what kind of job you get with that vocation so I tell him Western women don't like men who can't decide and he's turned pale and is about to run away.
I smile, make him sit down, force feed him a pickle. Quick wave to my friend and we're in a cab, him sitting as far from me as possible, I even pay 'cause I'm thinking he's really poor. Then we're at my place, I calm him down with a cup of green tea, offer him a bowl of Ramyen to take his mind off things and get rid of some of the nervous energy, then tug him along to the bedroom when his fingers shake too much to keep the noodles on the chopsticks.
He stands perfectly straight when I take his clothes off, arms so rigid I worry his shirt will tear and I'm about to try and remember the pressure points I learned once until suddenly clueing in he ease up. His thing is ready and I'm just loving him 'cause he's so cute and such a little soldier. Afterwards he tells me he's fourteen.
I'm a little stunned, but I walk into the kitchen to collect myself and then come back this with box of POCKY sticks one of my younger students gave me during teachers day. I really feel bad after this, I've hurt him. I know better. But I smile, try to make it seem okay by eating a few of the revolting chocolate-covered grease things. He's not hungry, so I rack my brain for a man's diet, return with a plate of nuts and rice crackers, while I'm stuck chowing down on a box of the repulsive candies.
Live and learn. I really like him. But his mom made me stop seeing him. Real polite, embarrassed, teachers are God and all, not to mention I was preferable to the alternatives. But she wanted to note possibly that maybe I in my enthusiasm might in some way perhaps be responsible for somewhat curtailing slightly his studies for the all-important high school exam. This through an interpreter. I figured screw it, worst comes to worst he'll have to go to the American school, they've got enough cash for it, and he'll get to eat cheeseburgers and fries like he likes. But I wasn't sure I could stay with him through the acne.
Maybe I'm already getting sick of him. It happens. Used to teach in Hong Kong, hooked up with a local businessman. He was great, took me out for everything. I mean even breakfast; designer Yum Cha. Plus he had two subsidiaries in Toronto and Hongcouver so I was sure it wasn't just the Visa he wanted.
But it got a little sick. On the one hand I loved the nights out and the clothes he bought me, but all the really nice places had Siberian white tiger balls on the menu, and he could afford it, and even if he couldn't have he would have mortgaged the limo to chomp on Panda gall bladder. Plus whatever else he wanted from the wait staff; it was all for sale. Little sickening, but of course we weren't going out together every night. I'm just glad I got out before placental meals became de riguer.
So I split that scene even as the wages improved. Now I'm hanging with these guys. The smell took a little bit to get used to, but these days I'm a downright Kimche junkie. You don't want to get close to me on subway mornings either.
Diets will change you, I haven't been with a Western man, in, well never mind. It's like I haven't been with a Western man. Who on earth would, they're fat, not in the bodies maybe, but fat. Minds coagulated with bullshit.
Everyone of them talks about how they'd never need royal jelly to increase performance. Like Wheaties is enough for six hours of non-stop non-arrival. Jeeze, sex really takes that long. You know it might seem as though it's gone on a long time... in some cases forever like those banquets where more and more of the same bland stuff is served as you get progressively less happy and feel more trapped despite the free drinks, but good or bad it turns out the time spent is little more than you'd need to munch some quick Gok-su at the streetside stall of your choice, presentation included in your estimate.
Did try crossing back over with one of 'em. An American who'd gotten more Zen than Zen. Liked the fellow, not liked, but we were equally caught in a cycle of admiration and repulsion. He took me out for Phillipines dining, like his wife there might make. I showed him a couple of good spots where he could buy me a quality seafood dinner. When we didn't piss each other off too much we'd kiss goodnight, I learned to tolerate the shape of his mouth.
Conversations were deep, in a way they can only be while grilled eel and straight sashimi are served. Over excess soju I got to telling him how even though I wasn't sure I could get into the taste of his dick I'd probably be able to survive one night with him. Not missing a beat he nods and tells me that while he figures that evening'd be high stress and without much joy because of the unpleasantness... yeah, he could see his way through to it on a last night in town.
But of course they never leave their wives for you, so despite the tender endearments I ended up contracting with a Hogwan next to a University halfway down the Inchon side on the red line. Lots of privates, spot's close enough to an agricultural center and the seaport to make for cheap high-quality dining. I've learned to enjoy Kalbi in a multitude of different flavors, various sites around that lately I've been introduced to.
Only regret is, seafood ain't cheaper. Students here are too poor for the major Universities, let alone for a good night of moon-ah, the best available in octopus dining. Not that I mind, even in a limited setting the varieties are phenomenal.
GB, Oklahoma City
If you're looking for action there's all kinds of red light districts going on. Youngdonpo gu, Chongyangi, Itaewon, and everybody's favorite, Texas, near Mia Sangori station. All kinds of wacky shit flying by, major thrill just running through in a cab. In Itaewon on slow nights you have to rush past obtrusive Ajimah's with their twelve-year olds locked up inside. It's against the law for a prostitute under sixteen to advertise her services publicly. Asians.
With those options available, services for every budget, perhaps even installment plans, sooner or later you'd have to figure on everybody getting experienced. Especially since the gratis market's pretty hot. Everybody wanna go stateside. But let me tell you, there's always an exception.
There was this one guy I knew had a job as the conversation instructor for Asiana Airlines stewardesses. Twenty-nine year-old virgin. Earnest little motherfucker, always trying to "make friends with a lady." Talk about your diabetic in a candy store, dude ever got a piece he'd go right into a coma.
We were roommates, I helped him with a real place to stay for a while. He'd blown it with some other buddy. A Swede, or maybe a Norwegian, some Viking anyway. Probably couldn't handle it, watching the success. Tall blonde ranks second behind Black GI's who can dance on the chick scale, third if you count sumo wrestlers and other cultural commodities that I just don't want to understand, but well in front of four-foot eleven, half-breed Kyopo's who ended up with the worst of both features.
Nice guy though, whatever that's worth. At least until he started getting into his victim thing; "I've gone out of my way for you...." I mean dude, we're not fucking. And the girlfriend's the one who cleans the place so just chill and wander off.
We weren't roommates for long.
Maybe I'm not sounding too respectful, but Jesus, a nine-year old in East St. Louis knows more about certain aspects of life than you do. The only time you go that far out for a lady is on the one day of the month when she out-tenses your ass but you want to keep hitting it so you get real nice.
I wasn't the first guy he proposed it too, a quick visit to Chongyangi, "'Cause he needed it really bad!" But I figure I must have been the first dude to even take his shit seriously. He did find me my first good job, months back, even though he's still stuck with low-paying deals like the Asiana gig. He networks, but manages to stay outside his own system. Poor guy, all the Korean chicks who run Hogwans say he has an accent.
And then man, that job of his. Class after class of Korean stewardesses. Chosen for height, beauty, and submissiveness. Knowing they're gonna get fired at twenty-nine, so they better make every year count. I swear, the thought of those women, with those bodies, those faces, in those outfits, looking down at his sorry ass going "song sang nim, helppuh," keeps me up on lonely Thursdays.
Sometimes when I was hung over and he lived here, I wanted to scream at him that what he really needed to do was sit the fuck down with twelve hours of spliced professional wrestler philosophy followed by Harley Davidson and The Marlboro Man plus any three Linda Fiorentino movies. I'd have mentioned my thoughts to him, but let's face it, he'd probably think we were going out together on Saturday night. Right after payday.
After my experience with him any time I think I'm being too nice to a girl I turn around, say "No. Shut up. We're going home." Might cost me relationships but at least I got my confidence. Jesus Christ, the one time before this that I did take him out we got together, I find a small willing chick who might have matched him in terms of negative readings on the relaxation scale. Dude's so glad to be part of the group he insists we all play quarters. I mean I read Beer Games One Two and Three myself but we all gave that shit up in the eigth grade along with Duran Duran and Transformer dolls.
He still has a Transformer doll.
Anyway I was pissed so I sunk seven shots on him. He's bombed, little not-drinking guy after all, and that's it. She's flustered, fears booze or at least lack of restraint, and is gone within the hour. My old lady takes her away with a glare at me so I ditch his ass, leave him to find a cab, and just get rocked in Itaewon.
It's while I'm there that I try to figure out just why it is that he can't head to the standard red-light district. I mean c'mon, former soldier, navy-boy kinda, in Seoul it's Itaewon, in Pusan Texas Street, in Inchon Inchon. We're talking closed systems here. If one of these girls starts spreading a disease, Yongsan's gonna find out about it and have her taken out of circulation real quick. That's just the way it go.
The girls in these parts are like hookers in Nevada, kept clean through act of Parliament. Wouldn't be surprised if you could check the ones inside the brothels for some identification and recent medical history. Or not. I don't know. I got red hair, green eyes, attractive appearance and money. I'm not saying I'm Brad Pitt, but I ain't so lonely I end up pulling the overnight at Kinko's. Anymore.
But you gotta figure it's a better risk then trying to go overly native. We've all heard about what goes on in them places. Or rather what doesn't go on. There's maybe six spots you can buy condoms in this country. All of them bathrooms on the Orange line. Texas is on the Blue line, Yongdongpo, Inchon, and Chongyangi on the red. Figure approximately the same amount of planning goes into these evenings as goes into Subway installation safety. Give or take.
Then you throw in the tours. Start in Taipei (Seoul if you're coming from Tokyo), then Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manilla, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali, and finish up in Istanbul. (Or so some of my kids once told me. Turkish Baths...) You want you can substitute Kings Cross in Sydney for Western Style entertainment. Those on a budget can choose the Cheapie Phenom Phenh/Saigon/Hanoi option. Either way, it's every day a new country, every night a new brothel.
A safer course of entertainment would be to simply hang out in the bathhouses of San Francisco with a big sign over your ass that said "fuck me." Vasoline optional, bleed if you wish.
Maybe it's 'cause I was pissed at the girlfriend. Mayb_e the whole thing was more of a cheap thrill than I admit. Or maybe he reminded me of the little brother I always wanted to beat up, humiliate, and occasionally be nice to in exchange for slavish devotion. But finally I got so sick of feeling his libido wane through the thin walls of our not quite modern apartment that I looked him in the eye and said "How much cash you got?"
He's psyched, so he looks down, around, outside, then back at me and says "800,000 Won." I say take a quarter of that and let's head out. To get into the spirit of this thing so I make him eat dog. I'm feeling like Nicholson in "The Last Detail," Sam the Lion in "The Last Picture Show," Mary Magdalen in "The Last Temptation of Christ." I just prayed it wasn't "The Last Seduction." We're in the back of a deluxe cab, (He paid.) when I look over and scream out "Gonna make you a man tonight boy! Whooo-ooo!"
Immediately he takes up howling with me, beta dog to my alpha. I want to reach over and smack him, but it occurs that this might well be the only way I'll ever expunge some of the contents of that charged di-lithium crystal of nervous energy, so I just let the dork bark on. It's cruise time on Chong-ro, our cabbie so freaked he floors it, running the light past Tongdaemun on the way to the Golden Lotus.
I figure we have to hit a barn, high turnover so he doesn't worship it for life. Then I start to realize that one of us is standing out, to the tune of six-feet five. The crowd gets a little ugly so I move as far away from the windows as possible. The professionals express their disapproval by pounding their cigarette lighters against the glass case. Found out later that to a chick they figure all foreigners have AIDS. Least on the busy nights.
To be honest I've seen a couple of sores and Lassie's begun to disagree with me, so I turn to him and in my new role of pimp indicate that he oughta choose, Lone-Ranger's stuck but the trusty Native Sidekick can still get off. He's looking at me, and for a minute I believe that he expected me to go all the way inside with him to provide coaching, guidance, and technical support. He's back to being nervous, but at least done with the barking. I figure we need another coaching session.
I tug him by the wrist to a Royal Jelly stand. Drop the six thousand and make him drink the whole thing. Then I tell him he's gotta choose, we don't have all night. He looks at me, still nervous, but I think I see almost a glimmer of pride in his eyes. Some hidden fire that may have been there all along. I think to myself what we really need is Robert Bly, but then I remember I hate poets.
I tell him "Look, find a pro. Someone that's not too young, but still pretty. Then it's just a matter of getting undressed, lying down, leting her take care of everything. Anything you want to touch, touch, you're paying for it, and if it's not okay, don't worry, she'll stop you..." His eyes are absorbing the data like I'm dispensing Launch Codes. I think to myself that what he ought to have done was just tell every woman he ever met that he was still a virgin and be patient because sooner or later one of them was going to be turned on by that. But it's too late and if this goes wrong... he's even more fucked.
As if by instinct he nods, turns, points. There's a window full of aerobicized types. They're actually wearing spandex gear. The one he wants has eight inches and thirty pounds on him. I say "Good! Go! Be in a cab right out front." For encouragement I fuzz his hair, send him off, hail a taxi, yoge the driver with two ten-thousand notes, and stare at the Ajimah with a daring eye.
He walked in proudly. Not once hesitating. Before the door closed I could see him pointing over to the one of his choice. I figured I'd finally have a normal roommate. But then I got to thinking.
Happens sometimes, no matter I try to avoid it. But all the sudden I'm nostalgic. That first girl, when I finally had it. Don't remember her name, Pam, Amy, Kelly... none of these. Not too sure what she looked like. Just remember I treated her like shit. Treated most of'em like shit. Consistent.
Get to thinking like we've been making too big a deal about this stuff. That what with the averages, there's going to be a few guys on the downside. Suddenly I realize what my boy needs to do is hang out with Christians. There's a shitload of'em, and the women there, they'll never hurt him. He'll have to marry it, but really that's just about what he's into anyway; monogamy ain't the worst, time comes to judge yourself and stop letting the guidebooks do it for you.
Then he's racing out. Four minutes by the cab's clock. Shit-ass fucking smile, somehow a teeny little bit relaxed. I tell him we're going out for steak and beer, then throw in that he ought not to talk about it. He smiles, like he already figured it that.
Then he tells me he's worried, feeling bad for me, wanting to know if I'd like an Itaewon girl. He'll treat. I say nah, wouldn't want anyone to see me.
"Yeah," he says, "me too."
Of course, after he got the guts up to start going in on his own I couldn't deal with him. Fucker was so cocky. Smug. Day before I moved out I popped him one.
Kathleen R, San Diego
There are laundromats, nearest one's a bus stop followed by a subway near the universities. Five thousand Won per load, washed dried and folded. You just have to know where to find these things. Older middle-class Korean women make for wonderful sources of information, it's a great thing to talk about in class too.
It's funny, the way you can get lost in this culture. Have to know who to trust. I've seen so many young men wandering around, confused and woe-begotten, almost want to head over and give them a hug with your advice.
I've learned my lesson. Over time. Never get in a man's line of sight when he's staring at a Korean girl. He'll cut you off like a New York taxi driver, with a couple of chosen expletives to make even an old girl blush. Mostly with shame. When my husband left me, he said it was because I was too clinging. Wonder what his next wife said when she left him.
I'm not completely without male friends. Anyone can have a soldier. But the teachers, businessmen, sometimes they'll come to me. Looking for trust. Failing that information. In a few cases a green card. I'm something of a know-it-all. That's why other know-it-alls can't stand me. Or me them.
But if you spend all your time chasing young women... well they just aren't taught the basic things. Especially the wealthy ones, who comprise the bulk of the allowable females. For food they shop at the Hyundai deparment store. For clothes they shop at the Hyundai department store. For Appliances they shop at the Hyundai department store. Travel plans are booked at the Hyundai department store. A good Korean lunch is served at the Hyundai Department store. Dry Cleaning is picked up every day at the Hyundai Apartments. Foreign men are in Itaewon.
They aren't women so much as consumers. But that's only the rich ones. Small classes in the afternoons; English, pottery, painting, fashion design for those with designs on fashion. Take the kids from Yogwam a to Swim center b. Bored beyond belief. We all know what goes on, western men aren't too shy. Some make a point of sleeping with every student possible. And the school heads turn a blind eye; it keeps the students happy as long as the wealth is shared.
I can't stand working for schools anymore. In my new incarnation I'm semi-retired. So I started taking privates. Lots of them.
Money's the same, and you're your own boss. Sort of.
The women I took the classes over from, she never let me know what I was getting into. Walking into each apartment for the introduction, tea became gathering became family meal, with me as the entertainer. Of course.
They got three hours out of me, had new acquaintances coming in to meet the teacher. Seemed to feel like I'd be Sunday's regular entertainment. So I was only able to put an end to things the following session. They acted hurt. These women are great at bargaining. Masters.
I've learned from them, even going into stores back in the states, you'd be surprised how much you can bring the prices down, if you only ask. My friends just sit back and roll their eyes, but I do save, and anyway what have I got to lose, the respect of a salesperson? I'm training them for when they take that big jump into automobiles. They ought to thank me.
On your own you don't have the same pressures of community. You get to that point where you start to figure things out for yourself. For better or worse. But no one's judging you, finally. Big cities are anonymous, huge cities where you don't speak the same language and barely know enough about how to use chopsticks are another story altogether.
Particularly if you move around.
There's a story people tell about me, bad enough that I had to leave Itaewon alone for a few months till things died down. It was after I moved out of my old Yogwan. I'd spent months trying to get the Kim's to give me a new room; good place, same price. It was up at the Sung Doo, where men are men and mice more timid, not to mention the Orange Line's ten minutes closer.
It's true that I was caught, walking past the same guards every day at the same hour for half a year can make even the most trusting people suspicious. But I know this place, honest. The issue here is probable cause.
I'm a US citizen, our government frowns upon their government taking innocent foreigners in. It's not Japan, the only Americans in jail here are GI's who've cut it up overmuch with prostitutes. I mean that quite literally. So when they took me in, I certainly didn't panic.
I'm not that kind of person, I was in Cambodia some years before the UN. Even took the train to Ankor Wat, though not in the front car. I trusted that mode of transportation more than I believed in the Chinese-maintained airplanes of the time.
The whole point of harassing one foreigner is to get that person to give up the names of other foreigners who are also teaching illegally. And yes of course they hate it most of all when you take privates, not because of the taxes, nobody seems to pay that, but rather because they have no control over you, and this is a system where the government likes to get as much control as possible. They put engineers up in hotels here, first class, anything rather than have foreigners see poor people.
So yes, I might have been in trouble, but it's not as if I thought for a moment that giving up anyone else would have let me stay in the country. I just sat there through the interrogation, told them over and over again that I was a traveller, here studying certain aspects of pottery. That takes some months.
Of course they didn't believe it, but there was nothing anyone could do about it, and after they left I packed and split for another place I knew about, three stops down on the red line. Nobody bothered me then, nobody's going to bother me about it again, they'll find some other slob to pick on when the time comes for a crackdown, and that's just how it goes.
But before you know it someone starts this story about how I turned on the investigators and shouted out "Why are you bothering me, there are so many other people here who work illegally, I'm just a traveller, etc." There's no way on earth I could do something like that, particularly when there' no benefit for me.
That story took hold though, I swear. Anytime I went into places with other teachers, they stared at me like I was un-clean, a leather-worker perhaps, and this was Pyonggyang 1750. Word spread.
Even at the British Council Library, where I went to hide and watch movies alone, people would slam books in my prescence and leave. I ended up speaking with Mormons and Witnesses in an effort to keep my IQ up, something no one should ever have to do, and even one of them made a hand-washing gesture in my line of sight before swiftly leaving the room.
Things faded as the story got recycled, that's in my favor at least. And of course illegals don't stay here much longer than travel money acquisition requires. But still, to have to go through that period, word for word the tale repeated in overly falsetto impersonations of my own voice, well, hmm, let's just say if I had to do it over again:
If I'm going to get that dirty then I'm jumping in the mud. There's just no benefit for those who do otherwise.
Lee Eun-Jin, Seoul
In Korea when wife goes to husband she is lost to family. Mother chooses son-in-law. I forgive her when she learn not like him. Not her fault.
Friend I have who married for love. Her husband work in Suwon. He live there. She still love him. Love him more. But wish she see him. Sometimes I hate her.
My husband stays at home. With me. We don't live in apartment. We live in house. His father house. He is Beksu. Or not now. Now he works. But usually. Beksu. He do not work. Father rich. Mother rich. They all live in house. With me. My daughter.
I don't like living there. It is Seoul. Old but new. Not nice. Not like apartment. All my friends live in apartment. Hyundai apartment in Apkujong-Dong. It is nice there.
Husband and I used to live in apartment. He worked. We were young. It was okay. I had friends. Young neighbors. Now I have no neighbors. Only family. Next to us is business. Office. Many office. Around us. Father in law say office want house. House worth much money. Son will spend. Husband will spend. I know. Not soon. Not good to wish. Beaten if I wish. Husband beat.
My mother talks to me. She not live in Seoul. She live in Taegu. Rural. Big house. Family is farmer. She chose my husband. Friend suggest. She approve. We married. Happens much. Old way. No like old way. My daughter no marry old way.
Is a problem. Seoul. Korea. Not enough daughters. Ten too few. Every hundred. Ten too few. People talk about this. My daughter will be strong. Popular. I teach her. Be strong. Popular.
Like in America. Husband and I live in America. He study Pharmacy. Chemical. He was pharmacist. Medical. I no like America.
There are too many black men. In Baltimore where we study, live with family. My husband study. Study with black men. He no like. Husband finish. Graduate. Leave America. Leave Baltimore. I was happy.
Husband start business. Two years. Husband business fail. He say I make him drink. I no make him drink. I give him drink. He ask for drink. I no make him drink. Husband no go to work. He drink. Father wonder. Husband mother say I no good wife. My mother say I no good wife. Husband have younger brother. Younger brother head family company. Younger brother not live with us. It is good. My daughter have her own room.
Husband family say I talk too much. Say I nag. Say I have sharp tongue. Husband family say many things. Say nothing about my husband.
My daughter is beautiful. Very smart. She studies piano. Art. Music. I let her play basketball. Meet friends. She say boys no let her play basketball. They let her play basketball in Baltimore. Daughter want go to America.
I tell her no. Not America. Go to Canada. Australia. England. She love America. Love Basketball. Love Michael Jordan. I not sure. I worry. My daughter soon be sixteen. She go to America. Husband say. I hear stories. Other friends say stories. Bad stories. I worry.
Drugs in America. Black men in America. I tell her be popular. Not like popular in America. No like daughter be popular in America. Want her be safe. Not safe on basketball court. Know baskeball not safe. Watch movies. Daughter I love. Want her to play racroose. Other girl play racroose.
Daughter not like racroose. Not like big stick. Not physical enough, she say. Say woman play basketball in America. Play good basketball. No play with stick. I tell her women in America play racroose. In Baltimore they play racroose. Must play racroose elsewhere. Daughter say Michael Jordan no play racroose. Charles Barkley play racroose. In college, he play racroose. But Charles Barkely very fat. Daughter no want be fat. Daughter beautiful.
Husband no tell daughter basketball bad. Husband do anything daughter ask. Sometimes I like daughter when she make Husband do anything. Sometimes I no like daughter. I love daughter. Sometimes I no like daughter.
I no beat daughter. Never beat daughter. Other women, they beat daughter. They beat son. Son be bad. Wild. I know son be bad. I no want son. Husband want son. We try have son. I try make him happy. Make son father happy. Make son mother happy. I only have daughter. Then no have daughter. Husband family say I failure.
I know I no failure. I tell mother. My mother. She say I no failure. I tell her about husband. Tell her what husband say. Mother say I no failure.
First when I tell mother about husband she say I too young. Need grow. Need wait. Need be quiet. I be quiet. Husband say more. I no be quiet.
Husband say I have sharp tongue. Husband family say I nag too much. Then say I not nag enough. Then say I not nice enough. Then say I let husband do too much. Husband family nag.
I tell secret. I cheat on my husband. Not once. Many time. I had affair. Friend of mine tell me about place. Club. Dance club. Not like Itaewon. Not like Apkujong-dong. Quiet club. Open in day. Many women go. Korean women. I go.
Not alone. Friend go with. Friend dance. I was shy. Afraid. My English not good. No Korean man in club. Only American man. Western man. Man come up to me. American man. Older. Older than me. Older than husband. Bald. Husband no bald. I think man look like Fred Astaire.
He ask me to dance. I feel like Audrey Hepburn. I no dance like Grace Kelly. Am not princess. But I alive. So we dance. And dance more. He say I dance well. He teacher. He say never been there before. I say daughter come home from school soon. He smile. Nod head. Ask will I be there? I say of course.
Next time I meet him I cheat on my husband. He very nice. Name Richard. I tell him he look like movie star. He tell me I too beautiful for other people to see. He say he want me for himself only. We go to hotel.
I was nervous.
Next week we meet again.
Next time we go to hotel.
This go on. Many months. We meet at club. Go to hotel. Other Korean women do same. I know other women. We don't say. Neighbors talk. Our children. Our husbands. Our family.
One day police close club. I lucky. I no there. I no know Richard there. Richard teacher. Richard might be elsewhere. I no know. Other clubs. Other women. I no go again. I get very nervous. Police. Family. Husband no suspect. Husband mother suspect. I think I too happy.
Daughter go to America soon. Husband father decide. Husband father pay. I think okay. I want daughter go to America. No. But I want daughter no marry Korean man. Kyopo man yes. No Korean man. I tell her it okay, she go college in America. I tell her not study hard for University Exam. Tell her play basketball. Go dancing. It our secret.
She make me promise. I have price. I make her make me promise. She no study. I tell her I yell at her when she no study. But I no yell at her. She say she know. Her promise me is she no marry Japanese. I no like Japanese. They smell. They food no good. She promise me she no marry Japanese.
I tell her soon I divorce her father. Soon. After she marry. Or finish college. When I divorce husband she no can marry Korean. She know. She smile. She say "okay!" I like okay.
It will okay be.
Eric W, Moorehead, Minnesota
You'll find the Korean countryside is set to spooky, dabbed with gloomy, and smothered in eerie. On moutainsides, jet-black barbed-wire fences give off an angry red with the dawn. Funny thing is I came here for a personal rebirth of rationalism. Used to teach art in China.
Talk about crazy. Ordered streets or no, photograph of Beijing at rush hour could double for a great rendering of chaos in action. That town only had ten million. Three years I was there.
Saw this burg from the north side first. Went trekking up through Changbaishan nature reserve. Oversized hill the Koreans call Mt. Paekdu. 3000 meters, at the top a mirror lake. Old volcano. Ancient times, dragon would fly out. Believed it. Modern times are still dangerous, cross the wrong line Kim Il Sung's boys 'ould fly out.
They don't seem to understand camping in Pyongyang. Lucky, I didn't have to go there. Big statue of the great leader. On every block. Call it post-dictatorialism. Better yet neo-lame. There's other sculptures, folks.
Danger didn't get to me. I dated one of my students down Peking Way. Neither of us had a care in the world, apart from the strong possiblity of our blood spattered long Tiannmaen in a performance art piece of the power of the red.
Didn't fade to black, she graduated, married a cadre. Think I was in love. Thought that before. She was better with brushes than I'd ever be, not like here, where they all study calligraphy in prepre-school.
On the other hand, most Americans fail art.
Wandered through the hills myself a time or two. Even in winter, only 2500 feet to the top. Korean men dot the land, decked out like yodel geeks, lederhosen and walking sticks, bottles of water, 62 days worth of dried food in the quite fashionable packs.
Dig those guys though, cool in their way, especially if you don't bring lunch. And they'll you alone if you wish to contemplate, what more can you ask?
Wanted to hit Soraksan national park. Never got there. Kind of a story. Time I was offered was Spring. Cherry tree-time. Blossoms all aflow. Traffic to the park backed up roughly six hours. Place closed at seven. Thought I'd wait till later in the year. But there was no later. Regret on my part.
Did something you'd think I'd outgrow. Israeli dude, Shai, slipped the border with fifteen tabs. Extreme low-grade, wouldn't fly at Helena middle, let alone a Garcia band parking lot, but for Seoul what the Hell. And it had been eight years. Tolerance can go down. Or flashbacks flashing hard might take a nothing day and make it all seem worthwhile.
Always heard Israelis were big time users. Government supposedly funded a war on hashish shipped through in diplomatic courier packets. Course that's great rumor, but in '82 it sure was easy to score hash where I was. And only in '82.
Anyway, dude has done his time on the drug scene. Figured it was all cool. Half-pint, but probably kick your ass smiling like you was a Lebanese civillian. He gave me the story about Manilli Province in India. Ashram where the swami provided bongs. I knew Goa was out, so with his info I thought the boy wasn't much of a fakir.
But somewhere somehow, in his travels through that blighted desert of a billion people nation, the kid got his hands on The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. Or so I thought. May have been the Bio of Timothy Leary. Know it wasn't Fear and Loathing. Anyone, Abram's son turned into one beat Merry Prankster.
He was so into himself as guru. Had the whole thing set, he and a friend on a mountain, decorations, late train in, party all night, early train out. Somewhere on the red line, one of twenty stops in a horseshoe between Suwon and Inchon.
He had all the hippy dippy trippy shit. But it'd been a long time. I was bored. Lonely. And hey, you have to do something lawless and insane in each and every nation. Right? How else can you know if you still got it? Sounds dumb to me too.
Originally there were supposed to be fifteen participants. But as it became the cool thing to do everybody knew about it. Then everybody cool backed out. Of the original go-getters, only four dropped, one guy and his chick just split for Itaewon, that left me and Shai.
And six others. All of whom would rank high on my Korea top ten listing of people you would never want to trip with. Like one through seven.
Dug the ride though, we nourished properly, together. Dropped properly, together. Sat as one on the subway. Marched in formation to the site. Even helped one another climb the Hill.
Give the dude some credit, our location secret, non-strategic, and one of the relatively few hilltops in the region that wasn't paved. Perhaps the old boulders on our camp prevented it's settlement. The thing was certainly inappropriate for terraced farming. And anyway with the winds blowing in off the coast it would've been too damn cold for settlement.
I was a little troubled by the shaped stones. But they seemed crushed. Broken. Could easily have been wind-formed. By then I couldn't have told you if they were part of Stonhenge itself.
We hung, danced, drank tea. Shai looked not too bullshit in his robes and wrist drum thing. That's a lie, he looked totally bullshit, but I was polite. Crazy string, streamers, incense and dreamers, grand ole Kumbaya. I was actually enjoying myself. Great to let go, though my Seoul job was hardly a bad one.
The master of ceremonys ripped off a tree branch, slammed it into the earth. Made some speech about marking the great things we did here. It mauled my Zen, wanton destruction can do that, but the two chick six guy thing would seem to prevent an orgy, and Shai seemed to far gone to get laid.
I let it pass, slipped out of the dance when the circular motions of our linked group had me thinking hokey pokey. Guess that's the point where sanity returned. Wished I'd seen something cool. Or at least interesting, like maybe decaying ghosts who's spirits came to haunt the living out of rage.
Already I was thinking what the glen might represent to natives. I thought I was getting 'noid. Knew myself well enough to dismiss it as annoyed.
Then the spray cans emerged. Boy might've had Ken Kesey down, but as US pop culture goes, I'm all for David Carradine. When you walk the rice paper try and leave no trace.
"Acid Party Acid Jazz." No rhymes. No pictures, though I could have provided. No wit of any kind. Just "Acid Party Acid Jazz." In technicolor. Every stone and tree on the block bore the mark. Shai'd been there long enough to at least write it in Hangul.
This was near dawn. On a Sunday. Holy enough sort of event for the townspeople to take a little walk. Up the mountain. To a small ancient gravesite and shrine. The stones were like the Dolmen found near Kyongju city. Silla had been here.
In honor of the royal house of that nation, learning as I had the great warrior spirit, I turned and fled. Shai and the rest also got away. For a day or two. In a setting that serene, that otherly natural, foreigners stand out. Especially dreadlocked foreigners with paint stains on their hands.
Somebody shoulda told that boy about the mark of Cain by now. I crashed in a new friend's place on the other side of Seoul. After a few weeks I picked up the last paycheck, dealt my records for a mountain bike and ferried myself to the flatlands of Kyushu Island. Shai and the rest got to encounter a new landscape. For a few weeks.
Blair T, Chelsea, UK
To get your hair done can be something of a chore. Where you might end up going is to this wonderful woman who works off the Yongsan base. After she lets you in and does a marvelous job on the cheap, there's just time enough to visit the pharmacist.
They have a few such places around to serve westerners. But only a few. Oral contraceptives are still not legal. Wonder why, they must have heard when we get the pill in us we start screwing right and left. Let us in the pubs and we all become Barflies.
Everything isn't bad here, close friend toured the country with her three kids in tow, they got a separate room, and she never had to pay. Even in the bathouse they just let her little boy in, teased him quite silly the ladies did. No doubt he'll be scarred.
You do have to watch it when packs of men are crowded together near you. Pinching galore. It's never as flaterring as they think. I refuse to take jobs that put me on the trains at rush hour. Deal with them in the morning, fresh stench of kimche, teeth all unbrushed, why yes, it's the perfect time for me to get to know you, isn't it? Bring that bloody hand here again and I'll crush it like the tiny worm within your trousers. Yes thank you I would like a seat now.
You can mark them down as culture, but it's not as though the foreign men set any kind of example. I recall one girl, American, of course. California of all things. Quite the charmer, beautiful if you like that, and so nice I couldn't hate her.
She strolled into hostel like flat-toned southern bell, and before you could cliche they were all over her. One chap tossed in his jacket, another helped change money, third one gathered luggage. I was sitting nearby with Susan, wonderfully dreadful New York girl, loved her sober, worshipped her drunk. And we're watching them together, and it was keystone cops, they were about to get into a fight over who could carry the heavy suitcase.
She had a boyfriend. In the Phillipines. He's still in the Phillipines. And in the hearts of all the lads there, he could stay on that island for life. Always a wonder with girls like that, how it is they pick just the absolute worst.
Not stupid. Knew her Spanish. Better than me. Had traveled, went right to work teaching at some job some guy some where some how got her. Before the day was out. Then she got to have fun on the night scene. Never a drink. Or maybe just one.
She didn't dance much. Didn't tease. Didn't play. And didn't ever seem to reject out of hand. The boys had a pool started on her, could have made myself quite a few quid by placing it on none. They never get that, and somehow we still call them men.
I was lonely my last night there, of course, but it was worth the adventure, just to watch. Pressure was about to be put on the Queen bee. The herd had been culled, only a few stallions remained to duke it out for the title.
I'm serious. They were going to fight. Every one of them educated. Australians sure. Americans by definition. But fine British lads? And even a Canadian?
The drama was performed at the Hollywood bar in Itaewon. That's one of the better clubs on the scene. There's dancing, soldierboys are priced out, and the slew of older bar girls keeps most of the men off your backs. Also it's a good place for hash.
The bar girls were lonely that night. No tipping at all. One chap was too drunk to see the object of desire before him. All the Korean ladies made him dance and held his gaze, at least until he stomped their tiny feet with his boots. Then they just gathered round, listening to his troubles. What could be understood of them, which I gather wasn't much.
Anyway, round the final curve there were four bunched tightly together; Tom, an American, Sloan, a Texan, Rick, a proud Canucker, and Peter from Londontowne. They swarmed the innocent. Pressuring her with infinite politeness, and their squiriming listenership. They were all victims, it seemed, but not one had the level of passive-aggressiveness required to make her feel needed enough.
Tempers flared whenever she hit the floor to dance with the drunk. Or whenever chance strangers wandered over to introduce themselves. Rick and Sloan duked it out on Itaewon ro. In the future he won't mess with Texas. I sat at the DJ station, chatting the night away with Tommie, a Korean with soul.
Tommy showed me how to dance Techno the Korean way, so I watched myself in the mirror and wiggled my ass repeatedly at the crowd. Exhibitionism for the truly self-conscious. My real introduction to the situation came towards the end of the night. The girl, Alicia was her name, wandered over as I attempted to recover myself and think of ways to seduce Tommy that I'd quickly become too bored to try, and asked me to be her escort home.
It was nothing like that. For either of us. I went to Day school, she to a Christian academy. Or college. Whatever Americans call these things. And over the course of the night her entire entourage had abandoned her. Leaving her angrily, with rekindled pride. The look of wonder in her eyes, how shocked she was, rang true to me even though in the course of an evenings conversation I was to learn that this happened to her all the time.
Men of course need someone to protect. Her Doll's House was made acceptable by the petting and primping she would be allowed to dish out. The following morning we went to bathouse together. I wanted a cheap massage before the return flight, she wanted to get away from the inevitable early morning apologies.
The boyfriend was coming back, of course. They always do. When the money runs out. Or the heart gets broken. Or they realize so few of us are that docile. Looking at her body as the Ajimah scrubbed away, I knew she was rounded, not one hard edge to her, the eyes could never wrinkle up into a frown or a glare. And even the anger would pass swiftly, what anger there was.
On return some time later I heard more of the story. From the drunk, who'd apparently been involved in one such relationship previously. Seems the boyfriend, who was black, plead racism as a means to not work. There would always be a plea, though the fella was smart enough to make a statement with some use in it. He made a return trip to Manilla on a Visa run. Then came back in debt and without a visa. She wised up, paid for a trip to Japan.
They're still there, one working, one not. He'll be getting himself together soon though, I'm sure. They always say they will, but in his case it could happen. In a town like that, with sex so available, legitimate conquests, with all the attendant difficulties to overcome, are harder for men to find than scruples.
He had to have been a little afraid with his girl knowing so much of the day to day crowd. Or not. Could be he's used to it. She didn't lead on like she was getting sick of him. And yet if you talked to her she could seem like a bright girl. Continually enthusiastic. Mental age around seven. Trapped in the body of your mother.
Tina S, Victoria Island
Companies here will help you stay together. Makes them think they're secure, let's you have your own place. It works out. Ought to put adds in the newspaper, currently accepting economic refugees Canadians only need apply.
Screw the Americans, we keep hearing about jobs. Recession's what we hear about back home. Big recession. Worst since 29. But when the election gets through Ontario it's over, so it's over.
Joe and I had had enough, there's only so much one can do with tourism. My job as a therapist got slashed, government cutbacks. Thank you, Ottowa.
We had friends who came here, lots of them. Joe was all for trying it. Some people he knew from school, animators, they were living the dream. A boy's dream.
I wasn't as hip to the notion. I mean, the few times we go out, we're always in relatively hip bars in the middle of a red light district. It wears. It wears quickly.
Figured hey, why not, where I went to school we were taught geography. Gives us that edge, aye. But god, these men -- you know, they can be so disgusting.
Really, I mean that, wretched. And the girl who coordinates our school, she makes around half what we do, just for our white faces. I feel for her, but there's that drop. What about me? And besides, what can I do... give her some of my money.
It's the aloneness. I start to hate to go out. Can't handle the drinking. Everyone here is an alcoholic. Every one. OK, not the animators, they can score hash. But everyone else.
And the jobs, I mean, repetition is nice, but you're class number 14 for the boys, once they hit the senior age of 10. They're angry about it, so angry. I've only seen that kind of rage in kids from really bad homes, these are kids from the best houses of all, their parents make plenty more than they do in Toronto.
But it doesn't matter, not unless you get into the right university. Nothing matters except the right university.
Someone told me that 20 percent of Korea's GDP goes for private teachers. That someone was happy, pulling down almost 100,000 Canadian. She sent all her cash to a bank in Hong Kong, no taxes there. That could be me too, she said.
I told her I'd think about it. I confess I didn't really like her, don't really like being so mercenary, but you have to... you really just have to.
When we first got here, Joe and I worked different places, money was kind of tight and a job's a job. I hated where we stayed. This sleazy dive, unstable, totally unstable. Felt like it was going to burn down at any moment.
I worked mornings and afternoons, women and children first, foremost, and fully uninterested. Joe was in his suit, heading out for evenings, late evenings. The school we started out with, Korea English Hogwan, they loved to send us places. They were great at it.
Got to know the city, Joe and me, he was teaching at actual offices. Made three times more per hour than what I was making. Of course. You really have to know people before you can get the dollars in.
I didn't see him not much at all. It made me nervous, he was with these men, they just, they went out every night. Together. For life. Wives and children came along on company vacations, that's about it. Rest of the time, a Korean wife watches the kid, studies, English, painting, and fashion design. Though they never get into it professionally, or almost never.
Some of the people I met, I had to talk to people when Joe was gone. They were all coming in from somewhere. Nepal, Thailand, the Phillipines, India. Drug havens. So much of the stuff, it was unreal.
And they would work. Day and night. Hours on end. For two, three, maybe four months, get enough cash together, and go back to the Phillipines, India, Nepal, or Thailand. Great, huh? That's them all right.
And don't get me wrong, they were happy with that kind of life. Most of them wouldn't change it for the world. But come on, spending 10,15 years that way. What then?
I mean, all of them, sitting around, thinking about how much it would cost, so that you could go somewhere, and have the cash never run out, it's insane. Totally insane. Why would you want to waste your life, I mean, I don't really like my job, it's not what I want to do or whatever, but it's --
I've talked to friends who worked with Americans. Cooks -- chefs mostly. They go on and on about how when they go to the states, they can't stand it. The sheer lack of professionalism. The way that these waiters, they think it's all a joke, they let the food sit while they run to the bathroom and get hooted.
I think I can understand that now. It's not just Americans, though I confess they seem like the vast majority of these -- people.
I don't visit them anymore. I worry that something like that might infect me. I've thought that Joe was getting along with the culture. He really came home late sometimes. And I had to go off early.
It was just like that. Not together. I envisioned myself staying this way with him for three years. That's how long it's going to be, three years. And I worried we would never see each other.
I thought about going to church or something, there's that community here. But luckily. Well, there were school holidays. We had some time off, together for once, and we went on these interviews.
It takes a little while to learn to play the game, but suddenly, you know, we had taught the whole Side By Side sequence, at least to book four. We were experienced, could stand in front of a class and talk slow, not to mention letting the students talk. And we weren't gonna flake out in a heartbeat.
So Joe and I are together. Finally. He told me something that he did with his business classes a few months ago. He promises he'll never do it again. I can't take life alone here, and I just knew he was up to something like that anyway.
So there it is, whole lot of suffering, boredom. Singularity. And you just have to stay with it, 'cause there's no other choice. It's what you do.
Keith B, Toronto
You never need to worry about your belongings if there's only Koreans around. It cuts down on the frettings significantly. Nope, money, passports, prize possessions are all gonna be there for you, even if you walk away for a minute. Your life is assured in that regard.
But you can forget about the sinuses. Just write'em off. I mean it. If it's not the Kimche smell in the morning, it's the burning plastics brought on by the new law, the particulate matter sweeping in via the Yellow wind, the post-chemical weapons pepper spray residue plastered on the walls of every underpass after a demonstration, the just pretty goddamn unsanitary conditions here.
It gets to you, and I mean you got enough going on. All of it there in front of you, classes, students, students not liking you, students liking you but school heads not wanting to pay, the authorities if you don't have your passport with you that day.
There are risks you take just walking down the street. And I mean it's not a big deal, lord knows, Toronto was dangerous, eh. And Vancouver, any big hockey game was a disaster for downtown. Especially if you had to work late and couldn't trust the security guard.
I just came in on a fluke. Spent some time with this girl, but this girl, her husband, Japanese-Western, can't work, and the last thing that's smart is to be in the middle of it. She was nice though, gave me money, lots of it.
Or it seemed like a lot, it was Japan, and lots go away quick. They go away quick here too.
You can't tell, from the outside, whether a place is cheap or not. You hear the stories about groups spending an average of $200 a night per person, and that's not for a holiday. Korean girls expect that much.
You get a little uncertain though, with them, I mean do they want you because they love you, or is it just that they'll stick with you for the card and then split. I don't think I could deal with that.
And the bathrooms, I mean, the plumbing can't handle toilet paper, so you have to put it in with the rest -- it's troubling, even getting near that wastepaper basket.
You don't know who you're going to be with either, I mean, some of these people, these travellers, they've been too far inside their own minds, and you start to think they'll never come back to the land of regular folks.
I've seen it before. There was this one summer I worked at a hostel in Calgary. This was when the oil boom was just kicking in. You had all kinds of people coming through, just -- you know, fortune hunters.
There was no kind of planning to it, no real insights, just a take it as it comes. That's so crazy. The risks. It's just -- and you know when things start going wrong, they're gonna turn on folks, it's not like they know you -- they don't have problems just raking you over.
You don't know even with the people who seem OK. There was this guy, and he seemed pretty responsible, you know, so I asked him to hold onto this box while I went on my visa trip to Thailand. It was an OK trip, I stayed with a friend's family and didn't have to visit the rougher streets.
But this guy, I think he didn't mail that box. I mean, maybe you can't trust the post but it was in-country, and it seems like things like that don't get screwed up. I'm not sure. But it bugs me thinking that maybe somebody out there knows what color socks I wear.
So I was stuck in Pusan, where it's warm, but you have to watch out for the Russian sailors, seems like they're everywhere if the signs are any indication, and my clothes, I was short of wardrobe items, it's that way.
Don't want your students thinking you smell, but the fabrics, I mean, nobody here seems to conceptualize 100 percent cotton, let alone truth in advertising, but that's another story. You know you're gonna get gipped in the markets, so you don't have to worry about it, and at best aim to minimize the damage. That's the way it is.
There's all kinds of troubles just waiting, I mean the food itself, you can trust McDonalds, but all you're getting is carbohydrates and fat, and that can get really bad for you. That's all the fast food around except for Lotteria, at least in Pusan, and any place that serves a terriyaki and rice burger is just one I would avoid, thank you, no.
The other restauraunts, there's no national bureau of health standards that I can see. Down the street is a woman who sells omlette sandwiches, and her egg mix, she plops it together in the morning, and that's her mix for the day.
We're on the water, so you know there are some tiny insects that seep into the stuff, even if she is swatting away the big ones. Sometimes I think you're just better off eating all that stuff, Koreans don't seem to mind, but then again they do walk down the street wearing surgical masks, even though the last demonstration was weeks before.
Sometimes I think maybe they're on to something I'm not. But there are many others who wear no such thing, and it's apparently just something you do to keep from infecting others. Though of course the masks are burned.
If you don't want to deal with people, you can take cabs, but let's just not even talk about that, I've had so many bad experiences with them, it's sad.
I guess you start to wonder what it's all for. But you can't just have your youth ripped away and become old, there are happy old people but they're seldom the ones who never went anywhere. I just don't know.
It's like life is on the wide stairs where there's nothing to hold on to.
Daniel P, Adelaide
Everyone knows fighting from the movies, right? Got Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Michaelangelo and Donatello, so many greats. Forget it, heavyweight boxer beats all of em. Bruce Lee's the best of the century, moved his hand an inch, shattered your ribs. Other nine got names like Tyson and Ali.
Maybe a sumo could fight. Hear the stories about walking Gods. Can't say as I believe they move faster than you'd think. But a boxer... They get in there on top of you, match you blow for blow. And what they can't block they take on the chin and keep fighting. Put more hours into the gym than a whole rugby squad.
I studied the arts. Lost of 'em. Korea you pay couple hundred thousand won. Less if you're blonde. Nothing if you're blonde. Hapkido, Kumpo, Judo's around. They're fun. Keep you in shape. Nice guy over around the corner's teaching Aikejitsu. Samurai yeah? With wooden dowels for swords. But there's never a broomstick around when you need one.
You ever see them fight, you'll know another story. They say Segal's the toughest one around. I like Aikido. Pleasure sport, got all kinds of girls taking it. But I was in one class, guy's telling me long as I hold onto his hand, he can take me down and break me.
"Mate." I says, "that's great. But what if I let go? You're still trying to twist around on me so I'll turn and blow you into smithereens with my fist, then kick at your balls and bite your kneecaps off." He didn't have an answer. I ended dropping that class. They say when Segal walked into the Japan Aikido federation, every gocsing on every had bow himelfs down. Hollywoods at the front door. Learn to tremble, it's the pope, yeah?
Not against movies. In Adelaide they're putting up a couple of studios. Like to get a script together, go be the next Mel Gibson. Got the looks for it. Or so me women tells me, and I'll not be hearing nothing from you.
Didn't always like fighting. Or I did and then I didn't. Wasn't a little boy in school. Always the biggest and strongest. Then me mum sent me with her down to Sydney. Long way from London. The worst in me class there. Everyone was afraid. Took the milk money, yeah?
In Sydney wasn't so much at all. Loads of Turks coming in then. Groups of tens and twenty. Talking to each other. Smelling real bad. Like you wouldn't believe. Kept to meself. Till the day late in my school career. I had it out with one of them. Got into a fight with this guy. Beat him. Took his girl. Like a man would, yeah?
Turns out his brother's the leader of this gang. Before noon next I was moved to Adelaide, time to work me for a living. Went to the army. Lost some teeth in the desert. Love to brush them now. You too can learn. Then finally I took me Ford galaxy, drunk beyond imagining, revved it down the highway, real upset at this stipper I'd been seeing. In love with a whore, always had a big head, you'd think I could find something to fill it up with.
Let me tell you I was pissed too. They got me in, locked me up, put me away. 7 months. It was a tough camp though, yeah. Boys were becoming friends with men, never mind how the bargain was struck. I remembered me boxing and started a working on it again. They let me alone, I was taller, stronger, none of them were Turks.
This old guy was showing me how to box. He was old. Real fellah, murdered someone he said. I believed him. But I worked with him. He could teach me quite a few numbers. Yeah?
One day I'm talking to a mate. Short timer. Like me. It's been awhile for all things so I says to him, just talking,
"Mate, all these guys here are crims. They murder, they rape. You and I aren't supposed to be here, no, that isn't how it should be I can tell you. We're not crims. Just young. Drinkers. Went a little wild."
Everyone there knew who I was with. So they let me be. I got to mouth off. Big man. Didn't know word came to my boxing partner. Woulda shut up then. Stupid yeah, like people got so much else to talk about in that place.
I go into the gym, and I'm holding his bag, like usual for him, yeah. He lets' me hang on, asks me if I'm warmed up. I tell of course. So he swings right around the bag, aiming for me jaw. I duck, back away. He's after me, still swinging. I'm moving, backing, ducking, praying, whatever. Just trying to keep me few teeth.
And my mate's mad. He shoves me into a corner. And it's over man, yeah? Going to be in sickbed for a while, hold me calls. Hope I can walk before me rehabilitation ends. If not, tell her I loved her. But instead of a ko my mate just stares at me. Not a word, just a stare.
"Sorry," I say. "Didn't mean it."
He's still staring.
"Really. Nothing I could do. Want to change it. Let me make it better. Please mate. Forgive me yeah?"
"You not so much better than a crim now," he says. Real quiet. I figure I've hurt him.
"Oh I'm sorry mate. Just me bloody mouth. I using it too much, yeah?"
"Yeah. Yeah you have. Had another mate like you who mouthed off. Wanna reckon what happened to him?"
"Think I know mate."
"Yeah, think you do. I was ten years younger I wouldna stopped. You do it again and I won't."
"Sorry mate. Be quiet again, like I was in school. We had Turks."
"You had Turks... I know those Turks."
We were back to mates. That's when he started teaching me how to fight. Really fight. He'd been in and out of jail since he was 13. Is the truth. Next four months I learned more than anyone ever taught me. Gave me some courage. Got out and went to Uny, but it got dull so I came here.
Still some studying, that's when the other martial arts come in. Like the gym they let me use, if nothing else. Free time in there, see a Korean guy, got his shirt off, squatting and stretching, showing it, yeah. Then with one hand I lift the bar he's straining for. Can't be no more than 1.5 meters tall, seventy kilo maybe. Why you trying, mate?
Don't got to worry much about people who study this stuff. Usually they just learn enough to get themselves killed. I'm in this bar with a new girl, the guy walks up to my table.
"Tae Kwon Do!" He says.
"Daniel," I say. "Glad to meet you, Tae. Or is it Do?"
"Tae Kwon Do! Tae Kwon Do!"
I'm getting real sick of this. Fast. But the girl's there... Finally he spills a drink on me and I lose it. Right there. On the floor. Twenty seconds. I'm revved up and his friends come.
Still don't let me in that bar. Gotta learn to be more relaxed. Don't seek the fights, that's another mate back home. Huge. 120 kilo easy. Big guy. Crazy. Take on whole gangs.
Didn't lose. Didn't lose for years, still kicking at forty. "Calm down mate," I said. "They'll stab you in the back."
"They did, he replied. Blade broke on the bone. No damage."
Be real rough for him though when the guns start coming in. America, yeah? We're all in love...
Meredith Q, Columbus, OH
It's easy to make your way into the scene here. Right around Itaewon, there's a number of clubs, if you know where to look. I've heard about other places, but this is where you're most likely to be welcomed. Some places don't let you in. The men at the door are sometimes very... difficult.
I remember one time, just following a crowd, they didn't notice me, already drunk and I was unobtrusive. I stuck with this group down three dark alleys, well away from the main settings, going through ever-narrower passageways, 'till finally we reached a gate. Some kind of password, I was hoping for "swordfish," but I didn't catch it and they were sent in. I pushed the same button, a guy came out, grabbed me by the wrists, and pulled me through some side door, shoving me out right on Itaewon-ro next to the Burger King. Never could find that place again.
Some folks are friendly though, but if they're taking foreigners, that usually means they're taking soldiers. Those guys are gay, but they're still... soldiers. We just don't have that much in common.
What helped me was the international friends network. They told me about a few places, and before you know it, there I was with my own girlfriend. I swear, before the end of the night we were already cursing each other out in Korean. Learned a lot more than you ever could from a taxi driver.
It's hilarious, I mean, I've heard about other countries where it's better. Japan, Hong Kong maybe, Thailand for men. But here, everything people do is just like the fifties. I be boyfriend you be girlfriend. And that's it. It's like what, did your father teach you to be gay?
Women have so far to go in this country; some of the ones I've met tell me that they lost their career because they just turned twenty-nine. Now they can't work or marry. The only one with spirit told me that all she does now is go out to clubs and date black GI's. Her dad pays, and will till he dies, after which her older brother must support her. Go, sister!
Other ones though, that rate of abuse is awful high. They don't even know it's okay to fight back, or else divorce immediately. Don't keep reciting complaints to mother, she just tells you to cope. My God, the work I'm just gonna have to do!
Least I'm making money, right away my new student lent me enough to cover my rent for a month. I'd only known her a week. That's so much better than the last place I was at.
I was in this vegetarian commune, out in rural Ohio about a hundred miles from Cincinnati. I was so excited to go there, couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks after my friends told me. I mean there they were, women! Knew they were just gonna be making it.
By the time I got into it though, me, here, ready, willing to labor, and just smiling all the way, they'd already made the divisions. Anyone there at the beginning, they gave a master status to. They didn't have to do any work, just got to live good on canned food, with clean clothes provided. Anyone in later, well there was this other status of drone.
I was the only drone.
Nobody else bothered to stay for long. When I got there it was nothing. Whole time, they hadn't put it together. I cleared out the space for a garden and planted beans, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, just so there'd be food. Fed some chickens because they were willing to eat eggs. And wanting to, yuck.
Did the wiring so there could be light on the second floor of this old place where everyone was staying. Cleaned everyone's clothes, not that much happened to make things dirty. Who do you think was needed to knit togther a line strong enough to keep linens from falling into the cracked earth?
And the whole time I kept asking them, come on, can't we put this thing together? If everybody pitched in, we could get this place going! There's so much land to farm, front of the place needs painting, I was working on a fence so we could keep cows for milk, but there's only so many hours in a day!
I wasn't asking them to boost my status, though I did get sick of being the last one to be served (by me) and the last one allowed to speak (if at all), I was just expecting everyone to chip in. It was a commune! But instead of improving things, making it a place where women could spend the rest of their lives, the one who owned, Lita, well I knew she was just thinking to herself about how much the developers were willing to give her for the place.
After I gave them two thousand to help cover the property tax, and got no appreciation, I had to leave.
Then I was in New York City for a while, and I felt like my God, this is what everything's supposed to be! The lights, the action, everything, I even enjoyed the clubs. But they were still in my face, after me because I didn't go to the right college, because I didn't talk the right way, or learn to talk their way. I couldn't be cool with cyncism, I kept telling people don't be bitter It's SO tiring.
Finally had to leave there. So many of those women were gay just because men liked it.
Here it's not liked. Or maybe it is, lots of Korean men have seen Sharon Stone. Though they might not understand it. But I can walk down the streets with my girlfriend, arm in arm, and nobody looks, it's natural. Every Korean girl walks that way with her girlfriend. Men here don't know that women have sex drives. Cultural clitorectomy.
The guys here understand sex drives. American guys. They just take advantage of it. Won't do anything to help a woman in return, just move on to the next, no consideration.
Sometimes it's ridiculous. I was walking down the street with a friend once, it's late, he, I, and this other girl had had a few beers at her place, when all of the sudden I see a crowd of young Korean men, all drunk, watching this single girl, obviously out of her mind with booze that they'd forced on her, being pulled along by another Korean guy who was almost as wasted as she was.
I didn't understand what she was screaming, her Korean was slurred, but it was obvious, to anyone, that she was asking him to help. When she stumbled he kept walking, so she pulled at his leg while his friends stayed and watched.
I just knew a gang rape was about to happen, so I looked at the guy I was with, and he was big, much bigger than any of them, told him what was going to happen, and asked him to do something.
He just looked at me, not even considering, stared into my eyes, and said "Tick Tick." Then he kept walking. The nerve. So I screamed at him, told him to take another look at the couple some fifty feet behind us, and the other crowd of eager men some seventy- five feet further away. If he couldn't do something, that was his choice, but I sure as Hell was going to let this thing go on..
He looked at me, funny. Maybe he'd never met a women who stood up for herself before. He was sensitive maybe, but you never know. He could have been THAT type. I guess he was about to say something to me, but all the sudden as taxi comes up, and then, shamed, I imagine, a few of the guys who'd been standing off, and one who'd been closer to the couple (coaching, I'd imagine), got religion and helped slide the girl into the cab, giving her money and the driver an address.
It was lucky for that cabby to come along just then. Normally they don't go down side streets, staying on the main roads, the nearest one of which was five or six hundred feet ahead of those folks.
I was so worked up and pissed off, that I just split away from that guy I'd been with, never saw him again, then got into a cab and went to my girlfriends apartment. She wasn't there, but her roommate was. And before you know it the two of us were right there making love on the carpet.
We were still in bliss when my girlfriend came home. She looked at me, stunned, upset. She asked if we were still girlfriends. I said yes. Of course. The smile returned, puzzled, maybe. But OK.
I'm really starting to like it here. I know this one will last.
Walter H, KC, MO
You know with these little countries, man, it's like ranking ninth is the biggest deal in the history of the universe and prove positive in the right-thinking racial superiority. Worst part is, I've had to experience the whole spiel first hand.
It was after the '88 Olympics, when I began journalizing for a career, that I started to have a bunch of the guys from the other papers come up for a chat. Free English lessons, you know. But man, when it got to sports. Everyone here was so happy.
Korea placed fourth in medals overall. And I mean, one guy after another, they all came over to me, talking about how this country was now a major power. How they were strong enough to stand up to anyone athletically as well as technologically. Got to the point I became so sick of it that I finally turned around on one of them and said "Hey wait a minute, you're talking ping pong. Domination of micro-tennis doesn't turn you into the LA Raiders."
Besides, even though they were fourth, they were like a way distant fourth. Twelve, thirteen medals, tops. But everyone, even my wife kept talking about it. It's like yeah honey, so how come I can dunk on half your national team?
Not that I ever said that. Not to her. I'm not sure it's even love anymore. Been married too long for any feelings to hold me in check. Word of advice, never marry a woman with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
She's put me in the hospital three times. For some reason or other. Never seems like much afterwards. I tell the army docs I hurt myself drinking. They look at my record, see that it's there. Give me stitches and let me go, then I'm home and we make up. 'Till next time.
You can't make a woman like that understand. Won't listen to anything she doesn't want to. Dangerous situation. Any time I try to talk about 1949, the sacrifices we made. The fact that we didn't have to make them. That we didn't even need to be here. Like she cares.
All she does is go back. Japanese invasion. "You said you'd protect us! You said you'd protect us! Now we can't trust you. Now we have to protect ourselves."
I mean she's droning that shit on and on at me. Just have to try again and hope maybe she'll be practical. US has to remain neutral by law. Japan sneak attack 1941. US starts kicking Japanese butt after Battle of Midway. Takes Saipan in 1944. Takes Okinawa 1945. Seoul is a fuck of a lot closer to mainland Japan than Okinawa. And after Okinawa we gave up and just nuked the place. So sorry honey, we were a little late. Next time we have to go and win a war we don't want to fight, we'll remember you people are first.
Crazy fuckers. Peace loving. After the US started really getting involved in Vietnam, the Johnson escalations, we called for other nations to send in soldiers, make it look like more of a multi-national force, appearance sake. So we send to Seoul, hey guys, do us a favor and give us some troops. Not too much, you know, more then Fiji but less then Canada. Whatever you can spare.
So of course the government smiles and offers fifty thousand armored units in preparation for an additional force of four hundred and fifty thousand. They figured after Vietnam was conquered, we'd team up and head through Laos, Burma, China, and then finally get to North Korea.
OK, I admit it's got its charms, if only to break up the monotony. But shit, there's a problem when the top drink among kids is Einstein milk, garranteed to boost IQ. Huh, they graduate as many people from college per capita as the U.S., round 10 percent.
Great, but we send half our population to university for a year, and 95 percent of them have a better standard of living than a typical Korean University graduate. Plus nobody drops 20 percent of family income on cram schools. Unless of course they're Asian.
Our cities are dirt poor, and we still have better wage equity than these guys. Huh. That's the way it go. I'll tell you. I got sick of it. Sick of it all.
I'm a certified EMT. Facing my wife across the breakfast table, with her and building up blocks of ice quicker than the flags were rising at the Panmunjon peace talks, I start to think like maybe I could find work on an oil rig, or in a forestry camp someplace.
I can't take it any more, or she can't take me, or both. But let me tell you, I was the one to pack a bag and walk out the door. Pay month. Yogwan time. I didn't mind it, got to be close friends with new people.
She was all about how I'd be falling apart and drunk, like I can't lick that better than anyone here. I thought mostly of the humiliation she'd have to be taking from friends and neighbors and the mom-in-law who went on in native speak about how the sister's husband was a big man, with his company job and huge house in a nice suburb in the states.
Yeah. Great. Loneliness sucks, but one thing I'll say, sure did like walking into the bathouse for my morning shower. Perks you right up to know if she's cheating on you, she ain't really cheating on you.
And I didn't fall apart without her support. Not a bit. Found a place for keeping my clothes clean, hit the bars but only with left jabs, not right hooks. Made it to work on time. They even said my performance improved.
Better even than the new kids they were hiring. Idealists who might bust ass for a month, but not two.
So, I meet up with her, and we are both ready to gloat. She's not looking to humble, and I ain't looking to crack. Then we get to talking. There's stuff we -- well who the hell else am I gonna take to watch the soccer game with Japan on TV at the base?
Something to be said for always wanting to be on the bus, in the know, with the group, and anyway it's being left out that kills you. Yeah, we're back.
Seven-year itch lasted a mighty 26 days. How's that for wild? You get pretty self-righteous looking at the strivings of others, when you're automatically a somebody just for skin color.
That ain't all of it. Guys leave their wives here all the time. Months on end to spend with mother, if mother ain't with 'em already. Going totally alone is more rare. Before I split, longest anyone stayed out was two weeks that I heard of.
After me, the new folks are pushing it to at least a month, maybe two. I still have the bathouse.
Julia F, Toronto
It can be quite a search for those unique devices. The pill's not enough here. God knows where most Western men have been. I know it too well. But they get in your face if you seek other options.
Seems like every time you say you think an Asian man's attractive, all the western guys give you that look and then maybe some speech about size. Don't see where they get off, you know sooner or later they'll all hear that line, "Is it in yet?"
This one teacher I knew though... Wierd, but different. Maybe just too young. Or maybe... I don't know. I never understood him. Besides the basics.
The guy actually thought I'd go to bed with him after he told me he was leaving. It was funny. Really. He didn't seem to understand what might be wrong with that. I couldn't get through.
I liked him, admit that. He seemed so stable, you know? Whatever happened, it wouldn't faze him. You need someone like that. Especially here.
He was young though, like my friend Rodney. Maybe a little older than Rodney. But same kind of guy. I'd tell him something, than the next day he'd ask me about it. He'd remember.
I guess he thought he deserved something. We could have been a couple, but he was too cool. And too young. He never asked me out. I'd pull him along from our school to a coffee house. Maybe with students, maybe not. He never really talked.
There I was, giving him everything, where I was from, my parents, my brother and sister. Night life in Toronto. Old boyfriends, ex-fiance. Marty, my lover in Prague. Never said much about where he was from. States somewhere. Got a feeling he had it rough.
He couldn't talk though, you know? Like there was something missing. Something pretty basic. He just didn't seem to know, couldn't express... anything. I swear he's the kind of guy who'd be starving, watching you stuff yourself at a banquet, too ashamed to ask for food.
I really did like him. He calmed me down. Any time I had a problem, he'd be there, help me, try to explain things. It'd work, sooner or later. The staff started looking for him whenever I threw a fit.
After a while I got to seeing just how special he was. So I took him out. Asked him to show me around the neighborhood. Bought him dinner. Helped him learn Hangul. I took him up to my apartment, he met my roommate. She talked while I showered. Then I took him into my bedroom and we tooted. Some good hash I'd scraped up. He just sat there, looking at me while I babbled. An hour passed, me talking, him sitting there. I gave up and sent him home.
Week later I took him out again. Night clubbing. He lets me know, when I push him to order a drink, that he doesn't have any money. Like none. If he'd mentioned it at my place I'd have had something to give him. But no, he wouldn't do that. So instead I slip him about 30,000 won, but I'm pissed so I wander around, talk to about twenty guys. Ask this one guitarist out. He just sits there, nurses his drink, talks to one friend. I ask for some of my money back so I can buy the guitarist a drink or two. He hands the cash back. No questions, no comments. I start to feel bad. But I'm still angry so I take off with an old friend from back home. We're going to smoke. Darren, my friend, doesn't know him. He waves goodbye, says he's got enough left for a cab, but it looks to me like he's walking home. He lives at least fifteen kilometers away. It's raining. Yellow wind season. He might lose his hair. I'm so pissed at him I let him go.
I started to like the guitarist. Korean guy. Stable. But he can't go through a night without the bottle. After a week I call it off. I just don't need that kind of grief here. I want to feel free. He says I'm the kind of woman he could marry. I tell him he's already married, to the sauce. I don't want to be number two.
Back at work I dodge him. Really, I feel bad. He was kinda pathetic when I last saw him that night. Like a dripping puppy dog, only more accusing. He's not at work so much, very few hours. In a month and a half he's gotten thinner. Looks good though, and he's still big.
Michael, that's his name, got talkative one night. Funny thing, we weren't out together, I'm set up on a date with this animator friend. Still, the other guy, Craig, he's wandered off for some reason. And all the sudden I see Michael at the bar.
He's just pouring back drinks, 1800 won a pop. I meet him coming back from the bathroom. I ask him what makes him so happy. He looks at me, smiles, say he's gonna be able to quit our school soon:
"The motherfuckers will have to get on without me!"
I'm wondering who's gonna have to take his hours, I'm the only other teacher. "You'll give notice, right?"
"Fuck that. After what they did to me. Fuck'em. Let me tell you how much notice they'll get."
I'm really worried. He has morning classes. "What did they do? It's not fair to the students."
"Fuck the students. What they did is send me off to Japan on a Visa run, then waited 'til I came back to tell me that my hours were being cut from thirty-one to six."
"Wait. Why'd they do that?"
"They hired this new foreign teacher. She's on salary. No big deal, I mean who minds an eighty-percent pay cut."
"New teacher. Michael I."
"Forget it. It's okay. Actually I've had fifteen additional hours over the last two weeks. A lovely little girl comes in for three hours a day. She's great fun to talk to. Her dad and brother have both been sexually abusing her. Fortunately after today she's gone."
"Wait. Why did you?"
"Because I was about three weeks behind in my rent. So I wandered into that room with her every day. Watched her as she got a little bit angrier, little bit more frightened. She somehow manages to have a boyfriend, chap who treats her the way her family does. I know this, and there's nothing I can fucking do about it. So fuck'em. I've got other work."
"What kind of work? Teaching?"
"Newspaper. If all goes well, a newspaper. No notice, no phone calls, just read my fucking byline."
"Michael, what about me, I can't take all your classes. They overlap."
"So? At least you could eat!"
"Are you angry with me. Is that?"
"No, I'm not angry with you. They wanted to screw me, you were there. Great fun isn't it."
"Michael, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I thought you had other work."
"I do now."
He was so far gone I had to leave. Sarcastic. Negative. I ended up going home with Craig. He was a nice guy. It was okay. But neither one of us thought much... It ended that night.
I'd still see Michael at work. I kept waiting for the schedule change. It changed, every day it could change, but he never upped and quit. Something probably went wrong. He never said.
One morning I got a phone call and found out my father was sick. Dad's heart. He's not young. And it's happened before. I went to work, used their phone a couple of times to call home. No answer for me, they'd try to keep me posted, but it's a long ways away.
Like magic Michael showed up at seven. One late class. We got out of work together. His eyes were just what I needed. Gentle. Calm and crystal blue like a lake beneath a glacier. Without my asking, he accompanied me. Home, we waited.
I sat there, trying to call. Couldn't get through. He just leaned up against the wall on the other side of my bedroom. Then I got a feeling. Dad was okay. I trust my feelings. And he just stayed, strong and stable.
I dimmed the lights, gave him some hash. Put my favorite Chris Isaak tape on this junky old player. His eyes never left me as I burned the incense. He didn't do anything. I thought it was the music.
So I changed the record, played this old Sol Tae Zee cassette I'd been given. Maybe it was too angry. There's this one song where the singer is really screaming. I asked Michael what he thought of it. He smiled, said it was probably some kid who'd just failed the university exam.
That brought on the giggles. I laughed, switched back to Chris, asked Michael didn't he think it was funny, the two of us here. He shrugged, didn't say or do... anything!
I burned some more incense. Passed him another joint for a quick toot. Then when I picked up the cordless for one last call I looked over at him, said "Oh Michael what am I going to do with you, feeling like this?" He laughed a little strangely. I gave up, put away the receiver. Couldn't get through.
Finally after an eternity of nothing I decided to send him home. We hugged after he put on these crazy hiking boots. I smiled as he struggled to kiss my cheek. That was all he did. Lonely night.
Then a week later as we're drinking in a bar he tells my new friend that he likes me. I mean Jesus Christ, are you by chance related to Andrew Jackson? Ready to start shooting after the war's over? Where the fucks your timing? Half of me wanted to jump on him right there. The other half wanted to break bottles over his skull. Two, maybe three cases.
I wasn't even sure if it was true. I was leaving before him anyway, so as I reached to grab my purse, I came into contact with him, equal parts tender and Professional Wrestler. He holds my arm and starts kissing my hand, moving his way up my wrist. I can't believe it even as I lean over for our first kiss. He looks at me, incredible eyes. But it doesn't make sense and anyway I decided only to think of him as a friend to lessen the pain. So I tell him I'll see him later. A lot to think about. He nods and lets me go.
Days pass. I still can't make up my mind. Nothing from him. Not a word, not a comment. He can talk. On something he knows he fucking lectures for hours. But he doesn't, not about himself.
It's insane, he knows everything there is to know about me. All I know is he's tall, blonde, pretty smart, and doesn't know how to dress himself. The guy hasn't had a single pair of trousers that he's bought here hemmed. Wears t-shirts with his one sport-coat like it's Miami 1985. Doesn't eat healthy. I lay out a feast of veggies and all he grabs is meat and cheese. And money, he doesn't have any. Not a cent. Whatever he makes he spends at the bar on Saturday.
So of course I really fell for him. But he never said it, not a word. I only found out he liked me through hearsay. Finally after a week he meets me in Itaewon. Looking forlorn. Especially lost. He'd been teaching at this college in Suwon. Up every morning at four-thirty to make it to class by eight. They owed him a million won, enough to put him over the top.
He didn't get paid. It happens. He probably didn't speak up. That can help. I mention it. He tells me about breaking a chair in the office. I feel for him. But I remember my night and leave him sitting to dance with this saxophone player. Out of breath later, I ask him if he's mad because I hadn't... decided. He just looks at me. Those eyes. But not a word. Couldn't get through. I hugged him. You don't want to hurt a friend.
I figure I can't keep him on a leash forever. So I take him up to my apartment again the very next evening. We smoke, and then there he is, leaning against the far wall. Not coming close to me. I'm amazed, how much I can trust him. But the timing's wrong. I've got to take a trip, in six weeks I'll be gone for over a month. This college North of the city. Better job, more money, campus apartment. I don't want to think about him when I'm gone. I don't want to think. I'll be in Jakarta with my backpack.
I know from looking at him that he'll still be there. The timing. So I wait for him, just once, to say something. Of course not. I tell him it can never work. He just looks up, little trace, accuse. I ask him if he hasn't had many experiences with women. Nod no. Quickly I tell him that I don't mean I won't fall in love with him eventually, but the time... Long speech. He just sits there.
Ready to throw my ashtray at him, I ask him to speak up. Silence like that no woman can trust. He smiles, says an old friend told him that. She figured one day someone, somewhere, would say the wrong word. That'd be it. Post office. His response. A classic.
"I told her yes, but I'd go beserk in a different way. Lose it all in a laundromat, taking hostages and refusing to come out until my whites got whiter and my brights got brighter."
He came alive when he said this. Like he knew it was going to be funny. But as I laughed he withdrew again. I told him humor was great, but not in a relationship. Sometimes you have to be serious. He sat there and looked at me. Wind-up toy.
I kicked him out when he still hadn't said anything twenty minutes later. Said I hoped we could still be friends.
Curt nod. Maybe I got through. Week later I find out he went slam-dancing. Week after that he tells me he's leaving. Just like that. Less than a month, little to pack. Job in the states somewhere. Mostly he hungers for meat and cheese.
I didn't believe it. Still don't. Seems like he should be available when I need him. Someone to come home to after a wild night out. Someone to make it safe. Even now when I pick up the phone... of course there's no answer. Not even a number. Or an address.
Worst part was, he figured nothing had changed. Whatever I said, he'd still follow, tagging along. Same face, stone.
We'd go out, I went out with him a lot during the last few weeks. One Saturday I came to work stressed. Been out all night dancing. Lost my keys. It was raining and I didn't have my coat.
He stayed with me, forced me to take his jacket. Man smell. He coaxed a spare out of my roommate. Together we went to a locksmith, then a post office, then a coffee shop. At the locksmiths he convinced the guys to duplicate it. Sat there with his arm around my shoulders, shirt dripping wet. Little smile. I told him I'd miss him. Bigger smile. When we got to the coffee shop I hit on the boy behind the counter.
He smiled as the evening went on. I took him out to dinner. We drank together. Soju. I made eyes at this table of Koreans. They came over. I half heard him making a joke about women with one of them. Pissed, I looked at him, told him to keep drinking and spit it all out. He closed up, switched to coke. Couldn't get through.
His last day I asked him, flat out, was he leaving because of me? He looked into my eyes, nodded. I've never felt so flattered. We'd agreed to drop acid that evening. He'd set it up, his first time.
I finally went to his place, total dive. There were two other guys from back home sitting at the table. Both of them blonde. And big. We four went out together. Even on the 'cid he just sat at a table. The two newcomers danced with me. I was attracted, they were like night and day. But bonded at the hip. Stable.
They both got a little nasty with me. I'd been good for a long time. Too long. Michael just sat there. Eyes accusing. I told him I didn't want to hurt him. First time he reacted, snorted, shook his head. Must've been the 'cid.
I felt put upon. He was so -- certain. Like he had any right to expect anything. I'd made no promises. It was my decision. He just kept looking at me.
"I didn't promise you anything. Michael, you know I didn't promise you anything."
Suddenly he looked lost. Young. A child. I wondered if he would cry.
"No." He said. "No, you didn't promise me anything." Accusing glare.
"Michael, I have to ask you."
"Yeah. What?"
"Do you have any condoms. I didn't bring any and I don't know where I'll be tonight. Chai's coming up and something's gonna happen. I feel it."
"You feel it."
"Yeah. It's a wild night. Not one for friends. Sorry it's happened this way. But I didn't promise you anything."
"You've mentioned that already."
"You're right. I have. Be my friend. Help me."
"It's not a night for friends. You said that."
"Come on, Michael. Who else do I have to ask?"
"All right." He reached over and grabbed my sack. Took something out of his pocket.
"How many? How many did you give me?"
He held up some fingers. "Two? You gave me two?"
He turned his hand over, I could tell he'd been finger-counting, like the Koreans do. Thumb was one.
"Three! You gave me three." I leaned over and hugged him. He caught me tightly for a second.
"Three," he said. "But..."
"But what?"
"Nothing. Your life."
I was gonna ask him what he meant, but there were enough other things to occupy my mind. When I looked for him again, he was gone. Out of my life. Never did see him again.
I started to feel mistaken, dropped those impulses with a quick fat one I rolled on my own. He'd made his decision. It wasn't anything I could do. Besides, he was so sweet, watching out for me even now. Girl needs a protector. It was like he'd validated it. And it was a wild night.
But when I took them both into a hotel room, I couldn't go through with it. Lucky thing. The condoms he gave me were Korean ones. They fit okay, still haven't met John Holmes no matter the claims.
But the skins were weak, and couldn't protect well, one of my new friends had read. I was glad he told me. I was sure I was in good hands. So we just cuddled close and passed out for the night.
Kim Won-Il, Seoul
Chai has turned his Itaewon club into a center for Korean Rock and Roll. There are few musicians in this country who could claim to be superior. But my brother is a hard man to love. Some would argue that I shouldn't even try. He neglects his duties.
Our mother did not much approve. Chai never studied. It reflected badly on me. As the older, we would both be brought to face the teacher. I had to fight for him. He never fought for himself. That is my responsibility. Chai let me do it for him.
He would not let me help him study. Studying... he did not care. Every knows it is important to study. And to show respect. But the times have changed. Even here. Old ways are forgotten. No one cares. It is sad.
I've changed. Chai changed me. Fifteen years ago, he acted badly. Had been acting badly. I was hard at work. Exams. I wanted to go to the University. I wanted. Chai was not going to class. Our mother was called. Father had died. Years ago, he died. For this we were pitied.
Our mother came in, to defend Chai, to scold Chai. I know not. I was in the same school as Chai. He was given warning. He had to go to class. He did not. I went in with him, one last time. The teacher expelled him. Chai was never to return. I was beaten. Badly. Father dead, Chai was my responsibility. I had failed. My duty. I deserved to be punished. I did not say a word.
My teacher respected me. Gave me credit. Said he was glad I had come to understand. Then he failed me. Everyone failed me. I did not graduate. I did not go to the university. People in the neighborhood talked.
I was angry. Angry at mother. Angry at Chai. Angry at school. I thought of death. I wanted to hurt Chai. Like he had hurt me. There was nothing in my life. Chai avoided me. He was lost. His world. I knew he drank. With friends. I didn't know what friends. No one did.
I followed Chai. To meet him. To meet his friends. I knew not what I would do. He knew I followed. He on his bus. I on the bicycle. In Seoul, we used to all have bicycles. The bus was slow. It went to Itaewon. Chai was not supposed to go to Itaewon. No one was. Not a student allowed out. We were here to study.
Others served the soldiers. Not us. We were proud. The soldiers wanted houseboys. Prosititutes. They would teach you English. You could go to America to learn that. In America you would get more respect. In Japan you would get more respect. The soldiers had no respect for us. In the papers we would read about how little respect they had for us. We gave them prostitutes. The soldiers would hurt the prostitutes. Even I, a boy, knew this.
Chai got off the bus in Itaewon. I saw him. He was the only Korean boy. The rest were soldiers. Girls. Old men who begged. Young men who sold. Sold drink. Sold girls.
Some people nodded to Chai. He went into a shop. I stood behind and saw. He saw me seeing. He laughed. I wanted to hurt him. There was nothing that he said. He got a case. I know it now. A guitar case. I still have it.
Chai left the shop, the girls there smiled at him. Chai smiled back. Of course there were girls. He indulged in girls. I had never indulged in girls. And I was Kibun. If Chai were to pass the University Exam.... There would never be a university exam.
For a moment I was angry. More angry than I had ever been. I was ready to kill. I saw nothing. There was nothing. Then a girl was at my side. She said my name.
"What?"
"Chai says he'll be in that club there, later."
"What?" I still did not understand.
"Chai say he'll be in that club, later. You come with me."
"Come with you? Who are you?"
"You must come with me. I am Chai's friend."
"His girlfriend?"
"No. I wish. Not his girlfriend."
"Where is Chai. I will take him home. I will take him out of here."
"Chai is not going anywhere. Not tonight. Unless you go with me, you will never get into the club. They do not let Koreans into the club."
"They let Chai in."
"Yes. You are silly. Of course they let Chai in. Let me get you a drink. You need a drink."
"I do not need a drink."
"You need a lot of drinks. I will get you one."
"What is your name?"
"Eun-Jin."
"Eun-Jin, I am just here to take Chai home. He has embarrassed his family."
"You are embarrassing yourself. You are shouting. People are staring."
"Let them stare. I don't know them."
"Relax. Come in."
I did relax. I went in with her. She smiled. I liked her. Later, we went out. She was my girlfriend. Later still she went to America. I miss her.
I met her friends. We had drinks. I liked them. For a little while I was not angry. I forgot. But I remembered school. I remembered the time I had spent alone. I remembered what Chai had done to us. To our family. Our mother's shame.
"Where is Chai?"
"Patience."
"Enough of patience. Where is Chai?"
"You are not relaxed. You must wait."
"I cannot wait. I have waited too long. Where is Chai?"
"Very well, we will go."
To a club up the hill she took me. Past the prostitutes. The soldiers were everywhere. It was Friday. They all looked so large. I was afraid. Eun-Jin smiled at all of them. They didn't bother me. Some of them were laughing.
Inside a doorway, we walked up the stairs. The people were loud. There was drinking going on. Smoking. Harsh voices. I was afraid. Chai sat in front of the club. With musicians. They were black. My brother was sitting with black men. I saw him sitting with another man. A Japanese man. My brother was with blacks and Japanese. I had missed out on the University so that my brother could sit in with blacks and Japanese. I was ready to Kill.
Eun-Jin took my arm and sat me down at a table in the corner. The Ajimah came over to kick me out, but Chai smiled at her. "Kibun!" He shouted out. The Ajimah smiled at me. Got me and Eun-Jin drinks. I wanted to pay her, but I had no money. Eun-Jin handed her money.
The club settled down, the performers played. My brother Chai played. It was American music. Rock and Roll. But Blues. BB King. Jimmy Hendrix. Eric Clapton. My brother looked like Eric Clapton. I didn't think this. I thought he looked like my brother. But Eun-Jin told me this. And so did the soldiers around me. I didn't understand them. But they said this.
My brother played his guitar alone. Nobody else played I hear him, heard the way he talked. He spoke to me then. He spoke with his guitar. He could not speak to me otherwise. I was Kibun. He was to listen.
His guitar told me what I knew. I could never have passed the University exam. There was no point even if I could. I hated to memorize what was old. It made no sense. He knew it made no sense. And he was sixteen.
I was not sixteen, I was older. Wiser. And I had to make a choice for myself. I had to leave this culture, this culture of our ancestors. The Americans, with their soldiers were right. The Americans could sit together with Japanese. They could sit black and white. They didn't care what the neighbors thought. They were the future. I forgot the protests.
Chai is the greatest guitarist I have ever heard. All Korean musicians know him. When he was nineteen he went to Kyoto, to study the Blues. Later he worked in the clubs of Tokyo, Osaka, Taipei, and Hong Kong. For many years he has travelled.
I have travelled little. I started working, the same club as Chai. The Ajimah's liked me, I was honest. I forgot the company system of my country. I became part owner of clubs here. American GI's who wanted an honest man. They had to have a partner. They didn't want to bring in their wives. I was one they could trust.
Now I own this club with Chai. He is still a great guitarist. Others have gone on in Korea. Kim Gum Mo is more famous. Sol Tae Zee has worked with musicians in America. Chai will never be like them. He has not the control over his life that he has with his guitar.
I think he may have peaked that young. He drinks now. Drinks so much. Each morning I find him, on the floor of the club. I am not Kibun now. I cannot tell him what to do.
He told me, once. Told me with his guitar. His guitar has told others. They have told. That is music. Music unlike the folk songs of our ancestors. Folk songs not so different from China or Japan. Though we try to say.
I do not hate my brother. I love him. As brother to brother. That is good.
Sloane S, Austin, TX
There are any number of temples and such for enthusiasts of Mahanya Buddhism to explore further. Koreans say they love Christianity above all, but the Yin-Yang in the flag makes this place a great source of info on Son, known as the Japanese Zen. Monks are everywhere with their robes, bowls, beads and reeboks, but maybe the best example, should you be lucky enough, is to run into someone like Gordon.
Gordon attained mastery a long time ago. His eyes were the deep pools of knowingness, like Maud'dib in the pre-sandworm years, or at least the light-averse constant focus of a man who'd smoked really good shit for like a decade.
I don't mean to mock him. The guy was so fucking cool. We were out drinking once, wasted and wandering, near the brothels on hooker hill. Some vendor was hawking miniatures of royal jelly, at five the seven-eleven price upgrade. Gordon looks at him, looks at me, looks at the sweet thang poised in a window, wearing a close approximation of full regalia, suffering beneath a harsh red lamp, turns back to the vitality broker, grabs a jar, and says:
"This thing is natural. It came from the earth. And you want me to pay how much for it?"
I'm thinking Jonathan Edwards has come back to town, and never mind God's anger folks, 'cause we sinners are in the hands of somebody even more kick ass. It's party time at the Itaewon corral. And thus did I learn the evils of commerce.
Luckily I hustled the man away, promising to show a store that sold Buddha Bongs. If he'd had had a cane or something, he would've smashed all the glass on the premises. He was that cool, and that wired.
No one was spared from the harshest tongue ever to come out of Northern BC. We're hanging at the Daewon table, Gordon's chugging away on Soju, and the rest of us are quietly sipping the beer, listenly politely to a reasonably attractive chick who bore the honor of being only the second nosering to hit Seoul since the Thai hill people's exposition came through town.
Wench is humming on about how cool she was for going to Syracuse or Suny or some shit. Gordon's tensing up and I can tell he's culturally perturbed. Finally the chick moves on to rapsod about how tragic it is that she's gotten heavily into debt for elevating her status so far above the masses, Gordon snaps, whips out the acid cannon, and says:
"Yeah that's too bad. One often pays a heavy price for the priviledge of class. On the other hand I went to a shit public college. And I don't owe a dime!!!!"
Not sure what was funnier, New Yorker being laughed at by Germans and Israelis, Gordon still seething and ready to bite, or the wee lass, who never again spoke to a Western man in the Land of Morning Calm, her tongue tied forever as the price of humility.
It was always so much fun hanging out with Canucker. The man was toast culturally, his nation got stuck with all the effectiveness of the British industrial system, while at the same time causing the citizenry to be even more hung about sex than we are. Back home when I couldn't find a gun or a hole I'd just go out back and shoot of my twenty-two for a few hours till I felt a little better or else ran out of ammunition. Gordon, being from a nation with partial gun control, could only drink.
It got tedious. But then again Nanzen wore a pair of boots on his head, so as star pupil, I'd lead him home, and, remembering the days of my youth when the good lord reverend Jimmy Swaggert came along to try and save my Soul, did not mock my spiritual navigator when he drank. Thus did I learn care for another.
Don't get me wrong, I caught quite a few lashes myself. Nothing that embodied the depth of the man's verbal power, just little incidents like when we were shirt shopping and I'd tell a man with good polo deals that we would come back soon, only to feel the scathing glance of a bullwhip as I realized that the Hocsing had once again erred. So it went. Of course twenty minutes later Gordon bargained him down by a third. Got me a little horsey on my chest for eight bucks instead a twelve. Later Gordon told me we could have gone lower except for...
And thus did I learn the importance of silence in transactions. But further, I learned the game is always played, out of respect to onesself, and to one's opponent. Bargaining is an art, one I'll use in Nueva Laredo.
With women though, he seemed juvenile. Childlike. Not the worst of charms, but I came to wonder... One night as I provided the escort service to his new Yogwan, he'd lost his status in the old one for vomiting in the old lady's Kimche jar once too often, he looked at me, ready to give a close confidence.
I'd had these confidences before, they could really bore the shit out of shit out of ya, but never mind. Anyway, the trust is iniinitiated, there was Gordon, there was me, we were confiding. He told me he had three women he could call. Smile, wide-eyed, but not knowing-eyed. Giddy. I'm thinking this is Korea son, if it's only three then you just ain't a man. But no sir. There it was. He could have three. And he had to tell me this then.
Of course the drinking had long since made him excused him from extra-curricular activities that weekend night. But I got to thinking about this. About how he was Gordon. And how he had never to my knowledge had a date. I'd assumed he was beyond it. Thus I learned that no man is above the flesh. And more, no man is infallible.
Gordon set me straight on this later. We had a one-sider about the Catholic Church. Priests that got busted for busting ass on Altar boys. It was very important for me, he thought, that I knew this sort of thing would be carried on to the next generation. He was so intense on this matter that I acted much like a man such sentiments before.
Thus I learned the way one's conversation can reveals one's self.
It had been a bad time for Gordon when he discussed this with me. We all go up and down, in Seoul especially. Later the old style came back. I was sitting at table, working hard to over-redneck speechwise this feller who'd fished on up Alaska way for a few seasons, and was kind enough not to stress state-size more than once or twice a sentence.
We's going at it, I had him restless talking 'bout a pretty girl I saw on the subway had a skirt on looked just like a belt. He came back with a fight line threatening to whip out his dick, piss in a man's face, and bore a hole in his head the size of a Canadian dollar.
Arising to the threat of National honor. Gordon came over, engaged the man in a long term conversation on the dangers of exploitation. The boy came after him with a "yeah, but we farm our salmon."
"Right." Gordon goes. "But nature must be respected when you take from her. Thank the plant when you pluck the fruit. Your man-made fish is weak, prone to disease and soon to die. That's why so many suffer in cities."
And thus did I learn Chaos theory has it's roots in early philosophy.
Strange thing though. I heard Gordon conversing with another, discussing scheduling fares from the Phillipines to Vancouver. Flat-out he stated it. She had to get there to have an abortion. This was one he'd never talked about with me. It was only later, from some others, that I found it out.
The abortion didn't happen. That my man considered it shows you the extent of his distress. Seems Gordon was spending six months in the lumber mills of his homeland, good work, and hands like a vise to match his gaze of steel. But the other six he spent with a wife in the Phillipines.
He came home from working, ready to spend time with his son and run the village movie cinema again, like he'd done so many times before. Sad to say his woman was six weeks pregnant. That's why he drank. That's why he spent his time looking for a virgin, acting like one himself.
Thus did I learn there were some compromises that couldn't be made.
Gordon went back to the Phillipines. Fear of martial law made him get his wife out. Then we lost touch. I visited temples for a while, trying to be like him. Even got a nice paper lamp, put it up myself on Buddha's birthday, have it still. I'm interested in the peace that life gives you.
But I can't live that way. I'm too busy in the world.
Nigel, ?
These Koreans are coming a long way when it comes to partying. They had got it down drinking wise, but they used to be lacking for party events. No more, they're even celebrating the cherry blossoms now, maybe the only Japanese import that stands untouched during student extra-curricular activities.
Did rather enjoy the celebrations for Buddha's birthday. Stole a couple of those great lanterns. Nobody seemed to mind. Love being a foreigner here, everything that goes wrong gets blamed on the Americans. In the event of a coup I can just hide in the embassy, drink tea till the gas clears.
There's a lot of fun to be had with students. I remember tree day. Everyone goes out into the countryside to plant a tree. Didn't have a single student who took part in the planning, but that's all right, no doubt their fathers took the occasion to get drunk. That seems rather like par for the course.
We've all gotten roses for teachers day. I was lucky enough to get a sizable quantity of liquor. Most teachers ended up with underwear. None of my students knew my size, so I felt like I made out rather well. Though one fellow did receive a fairly nice watch, it was some few minutes before getting fired for being late so often...
Well, let's just say it. Most of the holidays here are dreadfully silly, either borrowed from other cultures, or else insidiously stupid in their tendencies toward Nationalism. Still, working here does give one a chance to really party.
I was able to finance myself through eight full moons in Thailand after my last stint here. Would have been ten, but I ended up running with the group on the South Islands, terribly disreputable bunch, was lucky to get away with my own passport and favorite pipe. Found myself so impoverished that I was forced to take advantage of a couple of misbeguided Germans, who somehow felt that a decent foreign face was sufficient guard to leave their bungalow open.
Asinine theft, the gift that keeps on giving.
Still, I've had enough of that life. Particularly since a few yanks have succeeded in smuggling guns in down there. Or else buying them of Burmese. Vietnamese. . Someone.
I've giving up caring about so many earthly things. Now I'm planning to seek out totality. They say the last eclipse of the millennium will center not far at all from London. Bit of a fest, that.
Still, there's some time between then and now, another eclipse to be held in less-pricy Asia. India. Dessert. I'll get to that one with plenty of travellers checks to spare. In the meanwhile I fear I'll have to stick it out here, and endure the TV sports when I can't get the paper because of National News Holiday.
There's worse things though, and some days are more horrible than others. Imagine finding a bathouse closed because of National dirtiness day. I'm still not sure if they were making that up or not.
But Sundays were not the most clean of days... Oh well, think about it in the next town. And on and on.
Sid G, Auckland
When selecting a steady source of information to supply a long-term stay, my American friends cite a standard that they call the Mendoza line for journalistic ethics; anytime the rate of insipid untruth exceeds 80% of the domestic news, shelve either of the six-a-week dailies for entertainment, politics, and other sports in the comforting arms of your electronic parent on the US military's AFKN. Suffer through at least seventy-two hours of information on how to dress without offending, before returning to the only locally available print pieces, if only in the hopes that management might realize that the previous issue was deceptive with being clever, quite the faux pas in nations outside the former Soviet Republics.
It's a judgement call, of course. One young friend holds that you cannot count anything mentioned in the glossy inserts, as the topical journalism there is dependent solely on the willingness of the individual, corporation, or sovereign nation featured to blow a huge wad on advertising. Anything less and, how to put this, the reportage might suffer. The Americans are routinely thrashed, not for any great spirit of nationalism, but rather because they're such tightwads.
Depending on country of origin and level of patriotism, this algorithim may or may not be used. To be honest, my relatively inexperienced acquaintance probably observes this rule because his weekly salary goes immediately to rent, bars, and Korean girls in no particular order, and he doesn't seem receptive to admonishments on attire, conduct, and thrift when feeling certain inevitable after-effects.
It's a bit of a pain, given that most major newsmagazines are only available from the larger hotels. Unlike China, English comprehension levels here are relatively high, so there's something of a dampening effect in place even in the outsider's press. Dreadful shame, really, as soon as you get to know a correspondent well, boom, it's off swiftly, denied a return visa. Keeps the mixers at the Foreign Press Club exciting, however, never know who's coming in next, or how long some folks will be given to clear out. No respect at all given to Kyopo's, of course; they're lucky to receive even six months.
I suspect this tale sounds like a bitter polemic. No wonder, when I worked for the Times I was surprised to discover that all foreign articles, no matter what topic, ended up on the editorial page. Led perhaps to some journalistic permutations that might merit study, given that all non-fiction writing is editorially oriented these days. The world market is saturated with sheltered information networks and a gross corruption of language that would startle even Orwell, or perhaps I've been drinking too much again.
I had to seek out my new position when I couldn't make myself do it any more. It wasn't that I minded lying to people, after all, three quarters of the readership only purchased the rags for the purpose of looking fashionable while turning quickly to the English-Korean study section. The rest of our audience held that it was most important to read only the sports and classifieds, while glancing briefly at the front page, which of course worked hard to deliver "Yesterday's News Tomorrow." (Slogan mine.) It was just that our Old Man in Charge was seldom persuaded to be even slightly subtle in his deceptions.
After all, if you have a page which features two reports on the failures of industry in Kwangju, "An Economically Depressed Region," at the top, below which is given some mention of activism on the part of Kim Dae Jung, political leader from Kwangju, "An Economically Depressed Region," would it make sense to feature at bottom, some months before an historically important protest date, a report on a crack-down that arrested 31,286 drunk drivers, most of them in Kwangju, "An Economically depressed region?"
Good God, there aren't thirty-thousand bloody cars in the entire South-West! What, were they taking turns? These people don't queue when sober. Admittedly the story came some days after a drunken physician plowed his Sonata into an innocent crowd of eighty or so pedestrians with ten dying, but of course we weren't allowed to print THAT; the man was in Seoul, foreigners might get nervous, choose to abandon sidewalks in favor of the underground malls and there perhaps see beggars whose numbers continue to grow, thus causing a national loss of face that could barely be blamed on refugees from the North who refused to assimilate..
I hope I'm not becoming a bore. There are many good things about this country, first and foremost my wife, without whom I would have long since faded down the road to dissipation. And lord knows I've no reputation left in Hong Kong, not that that's so bad, Hong Kong having since lost every publisher I worked for to Singapore and later Bangkok.
And of course I could have gone to Bangkok to try my luck elsewhere... Thailand's a lovely country that I've visited many times, though I can't seem to remember even a moment of my multiple excursions. So I remained, took what feeble scraps were left of my dignity and professionalism, then sold them off to the trade publications at a fraction of what I might have demanded in my youth.
Though there is still a great deal of detective work to be done. Not that it involves much reporting, do a piece on such and such a semi-conductor and how it handles so and so many parts and before you know it, you've written five hundred words that can be sold three times over to non-competing international magazines that aren't in fact read by anyone! It's just that Korean markets are closed. One would understand this given that developing nations protective trade practices are designed to exclude outside sellers, the suspense emerges from the vast numbers of salespeople and company reps who are not familiar with outside buyers.
I dare say, there are times when actually obtaining a wholesale price list for a box of chips makes one feel like Woodward and Bernstein combined. You honestly have to wine and dine these people just to get in a little closer, and then, at the proper moment, quick strike! "Tell me, dear Mr. Kim, as a friend, how much, hmm? We're long-term associates here. Indeed, the very best of comrades. We both love the OB Bears, against our better judgement, so now, on your own, how much? Think of my poor wife at home and her dreams of moving to Apkujong-dong."
I've thought of enlisting gangsters for help. I once ran into a group of Vietnamese who were studying capitalism, and for a moment I considered hiring them on if they'd only help me out with some extra-curricular torture activities.
The Dutch landed here in the Fifteen hundreds! Isn't it time to open the bloody markets? You folk are so hung up on the bloody trade numbers that you constantly feel inferior to Japan. To catch up you will have to bite the bullet, give in, and tell us the price! We all have to make sacrifices to compete, at the turn of this century my nation was a world power. Now we're a world power in exports of construction laborers. Some things are as they are.
It's when I'm digging, prying, begging and buying, quite literally schmoozing for such non-stories that I feel them hitting me; the might-have beens. If I hadn't been such a drunk, if I hadn't left university, if I'd only listened more to me mum... the words could have come from inside me.
Or at least I'd have been a witness, an authority, a respected purveyor of localized truth. Man of the people. Happy. But then in the bar, it's always in a bar, I realize that with me stories never flowed as easily as the drink. Never once was I marked for greatness. And when the chances did come my way I passed them by through dedicated fear, and self-misunderstanding.
Times like these when I find myself understanding me dad. Know well how he ended up. So I wave goodnight to the boys and ship home, finding my wife waiting and glad if I'm not already to drunk, angry but still somehow understanding if I am. Tolerant lass.
I've got a boy, my one source of hope. With him it will be different I swear. Feeling original, of course. He can't survive the regular education system here. I've seen to it that he won't have to.
American school. Raise him on that corporation. With true guidance, he'll learn to see through it, but hold back from going wrong and compromising as I did. He'll see opportunity, and seize it.
Right. His only field of study seems to be Michael Jordan. But hope springs in even the cruelest of months, that's why I'm glad to report there've been a few positive signs, we read in English about the outcry towards a soldier who stole an automatic weapon to rob a bank in a funding mission for his gambling debts. Significant discussions have occured in regards to various construction foibles. One almost begins to feel that the place is going in the right direction.
Then you read mock-editorials on the inevitable failure of US farming capability, wander around puzzled for a few days, until a glossy two-page color insert explains it all for you, by telling just how a rapidly industrializing nation, slightly smaller than the UK, with no enviornmental protections to speak of, is, through superior technology and slightly more harmonious behavior attributed solely to racial characteristics, about to become a net grain and beef exporter.
And you let yourself think about the great many principles violated, all brought on by the jealousy that stems from whopper envy...
Stan A, Reston, VA
If there was any kind of justice, people who cut up over here would get put away and subject to the same treatment as soldiers. Life. But it's never the ones who deserve it who get deported. They might get fired, sure, and that's bad enough. But they never get deported. Let alone imprisoned
I knew this Swedish guy. He was really a bad person. Spoke with a British accent. Said he was born in Poland. He didn't know what he was. But he knew he was the wrong sort. I believe it.
He would lose jobs. All the time. Good jobs too. Once lost a job that I got for him. Never mind how that reflected on me. Sure, I'm a firm believer in Networking, but him? He just didn't care.
He was so proud of himself. Arthur, that was his name. But I know the real Arthur, and the real Arthur was chivalrous. He was more like the son of dirty Prince John. Not deceitful, just had something really wrong in the blood.
He used women. I saw him doing it. It was gross. Kept getting on me about how successful he was. About how women were doing whatever he asked. How I wasn't a man. I've seen his women. They were all fat. Outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds.
One time, we were sitting at the table, and he got his new women in. She was British. And big. Really big. Sickening. He kept going on and on about how well she treated him and how good she was in bed. He shouted out really loud when she left to get them more to drink, how he loved her. They were drinking at noon on Sunday, like they had nothing better to do.
Then with her gone, he looked at all of us, and with a little smile, said "And she Gave me this BLOWJOB man, like you would not BELIEVE!!!" He said it just like that. Only really loud, but that was how he said it.
He went upstairs to finish his bottle. His whore came back to visit him. I heard noise. Gross. For a while I thought nobody else understood just how gross she was. I mean, I think the word is putrid. I was about ready to leave my friends, go home to my apartment, and be sick.
Then one guy mentioned something, after they were talking about the size of her. I didn't hear what he said, but this girl I like said, "Yeah, you're right, it Could be an ovarian cyst on her." They all laughed. It's good to know other people think about things the same way that you do.
But people here were doing drugs. All kinds of drugs. Lots of drugs. They don't know how bad drugs are. I've never done drugs. Don't even drink much. That isn't my thing. I'm just fine with a couple of beers.
And I don't have to have women like that. All I want is one girl. The right girl. Sometimes you meet a girl like that. Someone who's lived a life of adventure. But they're always taken. I don't want anyone who's taken.
I thought if I stayed over here I could spend a lot of time with people who were all as special as the girls I want. Plus it's exciting. Adventurous. I really like adventure.
I remember in the navy, we all rode the buses to and from base down in Pusan. Fun in Korea. I'm learning Korean by the way, did I tell you? No, I guess I didn't. Oh yeah, fun. Well we'd ride these buses, and because we were special, you know, almost officers, we'd get to go separate from the other soldiers. There were only a few of us, so we'd take these trays, and slide them down, riding'em, like surfing. It was great, we'd slide back and front. Not too fast, only when the buses were going pretty slow. That's what I call fun.
Other people can only have fun when they hurt people or break the law. Like Arthur again. Arthur had this girl. She was Swedish, like him. You'd hear them jabbering at each other. I didn't understand. That's how it goes. But they were together for a little while.
It was too bad. I mean I told you how I don't like to go after girls who are taken. But in this case, I really tried. I was her friend. But it was too late. He'd already... changed her. Made her bad. Made her dirty.
She started to sleep around. Like him. With everyone. She was young, stupid. I heard she'd been studying engineering in Stockholm, but that was over with. Everyone would know about her now. Every man in Seoul had heard about her, her or a friend. That's how it went.
So I was mad at Arthur. How could he be like that. His new girlfriend, one he went with while the girl from Sweden was around came in and told us about him. About how she could find him passed out on the floor with a thing of whisky. Or Soju. Or beer. Some hard liquor.
Nobody liked Arthur. When he came into the bars of Itaewon, (so I heard. I mean, I work. I work hard. And working hard here means working hard with a suit and tie, don't let anyone tell you different.) Anyway, first thing in bars, he'd grab the drink off of somebody's table, and chug down their beer. He was Stealing, right in front of everybody! Once he got beat up by a soldier for doing that.
I think that's fair. I mean, GI's know how to behave themselves, they know what the rules are. I've always followed them myself. Except for this one time, when I left town on my teaching Visa, just to take a trip. Hong Kong, they have these gret video games there. You should go to Hong Kong.
Anyway, that was really a headache. My visa said I wasn't allowed to leave. I ended up quitting my job, working somewhere else. That's how it goes. But I never break the rules. And I don't think you should either.
Or else you might end up like Arthur. Worse yet, like Arthur's girl. She and Arthur's other girl went to China together. They might be close. I don't like people who are close like that. I'm really very conservative. I think you are too. You seem like a really good person. Maybe I can help you, find you a job.
I've got all kinds of connections here, you know? There's probably no school in this town that doesn't know me. Stan, that's my name, some teachers wave to me on the streets. Others take me out for lunch. They know I'm a good guy. I follow the rules.
Cynthia S, Brisbane
You'd be amazed how stupid you can sound after spending time here. I used to have a sharp tongue. Wouldn't have lost that for any man, grew up with six brothers. All older. We were cop's kids. Good at fighting. Had to play a judicial role.
Still suffered. But life is suffering. Can't tell you the pain I feel when I hear the verb at the end of the sentence. Mother tongue for a land without an I. String along those nouns as much as you want love, soldier boy still won't marry you, assuming of course he's an officer. The enlisted chaps you can have.
Even their curses are soft. Chu guk ship pa. You are the person I am to kill. Tashi. Repeat.
Chu guk ship pa chu guk ship pa chu guk ship pa.
Sounds like a locomotive coming in to terminal. On whisper. No bullet trains in this town yet.
Then Bichi no ma. Crazy. She crazy. I crazy. Crazy girl she likes purple. Am I crazy? Song sang nim bichi no ma. Yo no song sang nim bichi no ma. She is a crazy teacher. I don't like purple. Had enough of it in my children's classes, teaching them songs from that bloody dinosaur.
Even Yie no ma. Hey shithead. You are a shithead. Everyone here is a shithead. Yie no ma Ajimah. Auntie is a shithead. Shithead auntie. Ajimah Yie no mah. Auntie Shithead.
You have got no idea what it takes to keep your head in place. All the time I have spent listening to dreadfully boring men. British men. Or lack thereof.
The lads from back home are fun. We speak the same tongue. That's quite the bond, keeps us expat's together in subgroups, from Israel to Italy to Inverness. But after you've recited every verse of Waltzing Matilda together, their eyes turn quickly towards your agassi, waitress, to see if she might like to be number 243.
Or perhaps that's forty-two. Much depends on such numbers. I will not have you believe I went slumming when I say I spend my time with Americans. After all, they pay a reasonable price for cigarettes. And any culture that produces Ethan Hawke can't be as bad as that.
Cigarettes are wretched. But not if you have a cowboy hat with them. I liked my cowboy hat. Wore it to Itaewon. Asked for cigarettes. Tambay Insimnika? Cigarettes have? Tambay Insimnida. Ne. Cigarettes have. Yes.
Always had cigarettes, these Korean men. Felt like I was striking a deal round Kings Cross. I will take you home if you speak like Anthony Hopkins. Though you must be less reserved in bed. And not drink.
Soju Insimnika? Soju Groche. Soju Grachi. Soju gets you more pissed than the floor of a men's loo. Tashi Umbon Hocsing. Repeat one time students. Soju Anyo Chuseyo. Soju no if you please.
Let's you learn quickly how women cope with their husbands here. Korean women no drink. No smoke. Tambay Anyo. Soju Anyo.
Yoge. Stop there. Korean women drink. Korean women like drink. Korean women they all the time smoke. Cut me hair short as the spray I used on the permanent kept me off-balance due to risk of fire.
I like fire. Fire good. Fire burn down old apartment. Want to. Old apartment there. Me still apartment live. Me leave apartment. Korean woman never leave apartment. Man come by take dry cleaning. Only leave apartment building store go. Store go leave apartment building have same name.
Lonely Song sang nim. Lonely song sang nim leave. Itaewon go bars. Itaewon bars go. Forget grammar after soju. Chaka Manyo. Small minute. Mool Chuseyo. Water if you please.
I search now through my phrasebook. Wasted womb woman wounded. No I know what that is. Not at all the wound I was looking for. Hateful hazard horrid hurt. No listing.
He. Agoshi. Agoshi didn't hurt my wound. Grochi. Or Grachi. About the only thing he did right.
There is no listing for a woman who is hurt.
Han. Sorrow. Song Sang Nim Han Asseyo. Teacher sorrow knows. Han Asseyo? Do you know sorrow? Ne, Han Asseyo Grochi. Or Grachi. Yes, I know sorrow very well.
Han is river run through Seoul. Korean peoples called Hanguk. People of sorrow. American Peoples called Miguk. Beatiful country people. French people called Franguk. Nation of bastards who can't fight a war or dominate the planet so they pick on shy innocent unassuming Australian Girls who've never yet been outside the home and have still to learn how horrible dreadful insipid untoothed foulsmelling tepid lovers in comparison to Italians they truely are.
Bitter. Bitter asseyo? Do you know bitterness? Bitter not be. It's better with bitter. Bitter Chok kum. I am a little bigger. He's a little bugger. But I suspect I've grown a little boring.
Molaiyo. I don't know. Song sang nim molaiyo. Song sang nim soju asseyo. Teacher knows soju. Olmaiyo? How much? How much cost song sang nim? Song sang nim teach children. Song sang nim not have much money. Song sang nim not lose money to him. Like his Korean wife.
Olmaiyo Han? What price sorrow? Sorrow how much? Sa beck o ship won. Three hundred fifty won, 60 cents. Soju olmaiyo? Soju how much? Sa beck o ship won. Three hundred fifty won. 60 cents.
Pale pasty puffy puking. Face find focus FUCKER! No word for puffy face. Beksu. Do nothing. Son. Be nothing. Life. Is nothing.
Ubseyo. Not here. Yoboseyo? Hello? Yoboseyo, song sang nim ubseyo. Ship-ee. Twelve. Song sang nim ship-ee. Song sang nim twelve. Song sang nim ee-ship sa, song sang nim ship-ee. Song sang nim twenty-three, but song sang nim twelve.
Start step strong stumble. Song sang nim strong. Faith fight find finish. Song sang nim finish 12-step. Song sang nim boring now. Song sang nim stay in Korea. Song sang nim like morning calm.
And that's it I suppose. Travel with a bit of a temper. Short fuse. No word for angry woman that bears repeating. All wanders back to the wound I dare say.
Language was a tool. Is a tool. A power all my own, one that I work to nourish, even at the expense of sense and sensibility.
I don't look so bad, men stop for me on the street, western men as well. Neat need needle negation. Song sang nim negates western men.
Trust comes late in life to some of us. Only learn what you want as time passes by, and then it's too late.
Aimless airhead arrogant asexual. Went that route for a while. Too long. Woundache. Reach read redoubt red hair. It was time to visit pubs again.
Cruba Soda Insimnika? Back and forth. Taste of HITE. OB. Budweiser. Carlsburg. No hard liquor. Song sang nim no drink alone.
Song Sang nim no drink ee. Two. Song sang nim nurse.
Scab scar scared surfacing. Song sang nim coming up for air.
There was this guitarist I met in a club he owned but his brother ran. Gifted granted greatness grounded. Held to earth by a bottle we could share.
Lifelong living love lust?
Teacher tensing total trust.
Council counsel console congruent?
Daring diving drinking dust.
I held his eyes when we began. Held them on me away from the bottle. Listened for hours on the path to sobriety. Listened for days and months and heartlong years. It began with the words, you see. The words that control:
"Go want not be me," I said. "Want go drunk without. Eyes pretty hands magic bottle hard. Life live to is life begin."
And so we did.
Susan R, New York
If you want to go see the city, a great way to do it is on the green #2 line. It's above ground, nice little circle, cost you three hundred and fifty won, give or take an hour of your life.
One job to another, wandering nomadic existence of a foreign tutor. I think I came here for security. Feels like home though. Rising up early in the morning to greet the first panhandler of the day, then you get in the car and the cramped-kimche reek takes hold and seizes.
You wonder how long you're gonna be somewhere. There ain't nothing to it but to suffer. Y'oundonpo'gu office on the red line for the am, luncheon secretaries halfway to Inchon beginning at noon, transfer over to the blue line for a Kwachon class at four, government workers polite enough to get off early, then a dash on the orange line for an evening in Kangnam or Apukujong dong with kids too rich to be smacked properly. You call it a good day if you didn't have to go on the buses.
At the end of the month you're left holding the virtues of a classic day's worth, two-three grand tops. You wonder if you can save enough to travel anywhere real. You find yourself not caring overmuch.
That's the best way, if I were taller I could stare over people, slamn the walkman, forget the whole thing. But I'm short. Shorter than Korean women. They like me for that. Stomping me at a moment's notice.
Those Ajimah's have really stiff arms, like to think of them as extras in a Clint Eastwood movie, knocking out the villains so old Clint doesn't have to run so far.
Trust me, that Eastwood. Everyday a drinker. He's not running to much of anywhere any more. Met him at this party given by Uma Thurman, she was a friend of the family, her parents and mine both taught college together. I'm in the know.
But boy was he crocked, only one other actor I knew that I ever saw get that wasted. Paul Newman. Just Miller Lite, Butch Cassady's trim at seventy, but I think I know who was responsible for somebody's sons suicide.
I'm good at helping people. Worked in a couple of clinics. For a while with really rich kids. I mean really, really rich kids, really rich and famous. They're not so special. Bret Ellis was right, there's nothing to them, afraid to love.
I'm not afraid of love, its just that I don't know what I want. And I wouldn't want to have to extricate myself from the wrong thing. I saw how that worked with my parents.
For a long time as kids, seemed like the only way we had of communicating with each other was to beat the shit out of one another. That's how we connected. That was life in New York. Okay, Jersey.
But I did live in Manhattan, in an apartment below one owned by the nephew of Barry Levinson. Wild parties. That was when I worked in another clinic. Helping poor people. It was hard. So hard. But rewarding.
I knew I was the only person who'd ever give to them, offer them more than drugs and questionable therapy. I'm an expert on therapy, see lot's of people who've had it good, and otherwise, you can tell if you know.
With my own money, 'round Christmastime, I set up something really nice for everyone who worked on my floor. You know, so they'd know, so they'd have it the way other people had it. It's most important to have nice things. My food budget was cut, went to the people who rented silver, had to account for every utensil, even though it was just plate.
When it was over though, they thanked me, gave me a picture. Almost as rewarding as the birth of my son. I knew I'd recovered.
It began with a trip along time ago, Middle East. Don't go alone to the Middle East. So I went with a friend. The daughter of one of the top Cinematographers in Los Angeles. Does documentaries in Appalachia and elsewhere. You probably don't know him.
We hooked up first at this party given by the producers of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That was back when they were good, before the big sell-out, when people like Trent Reznor would say hi, and wonder how things were going. You know the Manhattan club scene, one minute you're there, and then it's just time, move on, get out, go!
Took the money I'd saved and split with her. Karen. The divorce was final by then. Flight to Jerusalem and then on through. Up to Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Afghanistan, boy, I don't think anyone's done that before, no the way we did. Border crossings over land without the great Visa's that journalists get.
It was hard. Hard because of Karen. I guess I should say it, Karen was a Junkie. Hard core. She wasn't caring about the career of Tamerlaine. Guess I wasn't either. And that sort of thing was plentiful. So cheap. I felt like Kurt Colbain must have, you know Courteney Love started on that stuff first.
I followed suit. One thing. Another. Lost passports, you know. 3 months wait. When I came home I had to be hospitalized. It happens, to more people than you'd think, not just famous ones.
I don't move from man to man as often. They can hurt you, even the nice ones. Guess I hurt them.
Here I've run into someone. Sweetest boy. So nice. He's a Malay. Apprenticing. Factory system. But I've never met anyone so sweet. So removed from it all.
Young. Of course young. I like young. Young likes me. What's great is he isn't tense when I touch him, nor shy when I ask him to touch me.
Never too assertive. Very strong. Take me a few months to blow this one.
Guess life is good now. Mine is the existence others admire. Even famous people want to be free and do things like this. Or so they've told me. You never want to tell anyone that you wish you could be famous.
They keep saying it's not all that. They're right of course, you need only look at their lives. But sometimes, when the crowds push into me after a hard days work. Or when a guy english bandit says "You want go to bar.....? and I'm recovering from a male student who asks me, the night before, whether or not it was okay for him to touch his daughter's breasts when he said goodnight. Because he knew suddenly that she had big ones.
You think to yourself that the train goes round and round, lost always in the great circle. You wonder if it's all the same. And you suspect you'll never be anywhere.
Kali H, Boston
You'll never meet a group of people as obsessed with currency as you will here. Not the Koreans, even the sleazy men are so civilized that they won't discuss the price of hookers between slices of dog.
No, it's the foreigners who bore you with it. I mean, my God, next guy I hear tell me he's making seven million Won a month, I'm gonna scream. And kick. And bite. And beat over the head with a couple of strings of overpriced ramen. W4000 in this crummy dive.
OK. All right. I'm guilty too. But shit, I signed the contract to get out of San Francisco. It was the next thing. That's all. Included apartment. 1.2 million seemed pretty good.
Not at 800 to the dollar, no, but the guidebooks said... And it included apartment. I still don't understand key money. There's the 10 million you spend for the right to rent the place that you can get back, sure, OK, sick, but OK.
But then the 2 or 3 million you have to pay to actually move in... am I missing something? Must be. Oh well.
That's my salary. 1.2 million. Every month. They promise me a bonus if I stay a year. I hope for a plane ticket home.
I'm not saving. All right. I admit it. I like to go out. Two three drinks and a cab home. There's this great blues club. In an alley up the stairs. Reminds me of the sardine packed hole in the walls with kicking acoustics I spent my life in back home.
Great town, San Fran, got all eleven genders faithfully represented. Including three species of vampire; male, female and accountant. Got to love it.
I spent too much time with the third kind. Actually in title he was a securities broker. Spent all his days looking at the money. Money rose. Money dropped. Money rose again. Money went sideways. Be money. Love money. Money friend. Money only friend. money make you lose girlfriend.
If only he'd been into coke or something he might have had a personality. Spending the best years of your life accumulating a small percentage of somebody else's assets. Fun fun fun.
You figure travel broadens you. Wanted to meet that guy who'd been all round the world and was thinking of settling down with someone he could keep dropping stories on, out of the blue.
Sucker. I met him. Bought him drinks for two hours as he continualy elaborated on his new perfect plan to keep from never ever not getting paid again.
And what the right amount is to pay for food and how you should always bargain for clothes and what a cab ride home should never cost you more than...
Met one kid who was slightly different, or at least not from New York. But he was too young so I dropped him. Felt guilty about it later so I told him of this job where he could make 50,000 won an hour.
He didn't bite so I figured the price of his friendship was too high. Then I stopped caring and went out with soldiers.
They've got most everything paid for. And not quite so agressive. Hung with these poolboys. Sweet young things, they introduced me to the head lifeguard. He took me on base for bargain fast food, then talked about how he was making almost 20,000 a year.
I don't see the reason for obsessing. Inflations popped the price of a bus ride up twice since I've been here. Now it's like fifty cents to go twenty miles, buck thirty if you want to ride a nice bus that doesn't stop much.
Why care? It really infects you. I went out with a student, she was a lot of fun, but it seemed as though she was putting as much of her family's cash into me as she could. I just wanted a friend. English for Korean, no strings.
Then I found out how poor she was. Guilt. Pressure. Those watermarked notes can just ruin friendships. Same as the green stuff, it's all envy. Desire. Vanity. Shameless need. Inspirerer of grasping behaviors and blatant moralizing on the part of those who don't have it.
Least I don't know where the cool places to live are. Or I do. But I don't know them. Their geographical superiorities aren't driven deeply into me as I take public transit to my place of work. Foreign lands give you that little edge.
When I sat counting up my change to run to the vending machine for my next pack of cigarrettes, I grew quite ashamed of myself. Decided to toss away all numbers of would-be weathly Korean boyfriends, the ones who promised chaperoned onsen, secluded temples, and just one decent breakfast buffet.
I would shave my head. Forget now and for all time how important it was never to tip a cabbie, because I could never again afford a cab. Abandon the (semi) stylish clothes, and wear those gray robes with the requisite smoldering incense accesory. Abandon my soft western bed and familiar toilet seat for the hard floors and squatting flush pits of austerity.
Yes, I would be true. Anti-materialistic. Non-materialistic. Right and at one with the earth.
Then I remembered dropping out of grad school becaused I'd vowed to stop eating wrapped food as anything other than a depression-lifting treat and kid pacifier by my 30th, looked across the room at a lonesome animator who could tell me about the yet-unseen Simpsons in the comforts of his contract-mandated jacuzzi.
Sure, women don't make as much as men here -- no different from anywhere else. But guys are suckers, they'll pay for anything. And besides, even though the salarity disparities among the genders work out to women typically making a third of what men do, many's the Korean woman who smiles knowingly as she exits the job market, knowing full well that her husband'll drop off the the pay envelope without a word, and she can spend it -- right after her midday nap.
Edward T, Edmonton
The embassy's more of a friend than you think it is. Never mind how I know. It's something you have to remember, your taxes pay for it. Besides, you got to take use of everything that's put down in front of you.
And man, touching down in a foreign land always makes you feel a little bit like them shipwrecked sailors of old. Books help. But more important's attitude. Gotta learn to go with the flow.
It's like with me. I know things are rough. Especially solo. So I don't solo. Got this friend, he and I been, through it. Lifetime. We're not gay, but you have no idea just how many women want both of us in bed -- together.
Figure I score more with him, sharing counting for half, than I ever could on my own. Besides, he's a great guy, you always want someone from back East. Or is it West?
Let me tell you, I'm a great talker. Used to work as a bouncer. Had all these bikers coming in from out on the rigs. Real tough guys, Edmonton's worsest. They were all just ready to rock, eight days of pent-up. And just waiting for the first guy get in their face, aye?
But I could always ease'em down. Good for things of that sort, like controling without hands. Invisible limbs with biceps of steel. Get more from you than any overt action ever could.
When came in here, and man, this town just seemed to rock. I mean, the books I'd read prepared me for just how the culture was. I knew we'd find the jobs, that was a given. What I couldn't say as easily was what next.
But then, I'd stopped caring about what next. That was tomorrow's problem. Met this kid here, he seemed focused. But too attuned. Like the anger was getting to him. I already knew it would never get to me like that.
Anyway, we meet up with him and his chick. But it turns out she wasn't his chick. That came later. All we saw was a Canucker with a stash. And what else is there, really?
She and the kid were set to drop. Tabs overseas, who says their third-world? Ain't so many getting around by bike, far as I could see. So she smokes us up, they drop, the kid doesn't seem to like us there.
She has other opinions. Julia, that's her name, I mean we can tell she's on for it. Or we can't tell, but we hope. And we've only been in town three days. Haven't even taken a shower apart yet. You know, shelter at first.
Man, wild chick like that, I knew we'd meet them in Thailand, but we didn't yet have money for Thailand. That came later, once we had the funds together to bring care packages to the people in the jails there like the books said we should.
Anyway we go out, and it's great to know there's some serious dance clubs in this city. Started to think to myself how we could even host a rave. The kid tried dancing with us. For a minute. Hiking boots and disco suits have never mixed, let me tell you.
So he ends up just sitting down, leaving us to dance with his woman for most of the night. I mean, it's not a problem, but if it was me....
We knew the kid was leaving. And we knew, like, it was supposed to be his first time dropping. But he looked like he'd settled with it before. Then my friend asks if they were going together, flat out. Turns out it's no, but the kid says he thinks maybe they are, just for one night.
I'm not calling him the kid for nothing.
Some point that night, he splits, she doesn't. That's that.
Next day I see him. Feel bad for him. Want him to let it out. Hate. She says she thinks he loved her. She says she thinks I love her a week later.
We didn't make it with her that night. One of those woman, all rared up in the evening, holding closer to you than you can breathe with when morning comes.
But she got us jobs, part time, decent cash. Who cared? She was splitting off for somewhere soon. Me and my friend, we're making a go of it. She comes by for succor and support like every hour on the hour. It hadn't quite gotten old, least not when we considered how her travel plans were brewing.
I'm not real satisfied with it, though. Want to hang out, meet some ko-babes. They drive you nuts just watching on the subway. And it's getting old, her work scene, I mean, neither of us came here to teach kids, we wanted their moms. Classroom and otherwise.
Plus their dads for the money. We started to hear about the money. How good it got. So I start picking up the paper, book tells that's the way to land a job. And then I end up going out alone on this interview.
Decent place, you know, not too far from the center of the city. On the phone, guy spoke great English. I've got the suit, and I'm ready for some real action. I heard it was 30,000 an hour for business classes. Starting.
And I got blonde hair which I read works great elsewhere. So I meet his guy, and he asks me, you know, questions. I read it works great to be honest. I tell him the truth, I'm working elsewhere, I don't care for the job, I'm looking for more professional, more renumerative, usual stuff.
We pass it along, back and forth, me talking to him, him not saying so much, like they are according to the books. Midway through the interview two other guys show up. I figure they're with the school.
I practice my bowing for when the time comes to receive the business cards. One of them puts his hand on my shoulder but, you know, they're into contact here. I look around and see the uniforms outside.
This wasn't in any of my books. I mean, advertising in an English newspaper, done by immigration? Who could tell, the thing was as misspelled bad-grammered as anything else they dished out. I knew the penalty for teaching illegally was up to a year.
I wasn't gonna eat that much kimche. We just sat there, me and the officers Kim. Kim's a really common name I read. So are Park, Choi and Lee. I didn't panic, you understand. Just look to make my deal.
I mean, they had me. There was no way of not being had. There I was only in the country for 6 weeks. Doing something illegal. Working.
They just waited, having heard my story. Knowing I was employed elsewhere. Some new guy comes in. He's younger, friendlier. I mean, I know he's a good talker. Smooth.
We acknowledge our mutual situation of difficulty. He knows about the visas for Japan. He wonders if perhaps I thought things were like that here?
I smile and indicate perhaps I was confused. I inquire if perhaps there is some way we can manage to escape this unfortunate circumstance. He blinks. For a moment I feel he's going to ask the guards to leave the room and I can whip out the credit card that I know works elsewhere but can take a week for them to discover it's not active.
But it isn't money. These folks are overtly honest. In fact he's quite offended by the bribe I offer. This wasn't in the book. Something was wrong with me. I'd listened to too much ACDC. My wiring was constrained.
I was very hurt by this. And annoyed. I asked my new friend whether he knew that there were others who had been teaching illegally in this country for many months. Years even.
He looked astonished. "Who?" He asked. "Where?"
Even after I started naming names he didn't let up. So to make a better case for myself I told him about the drugs, the acid party I'd heard of over in whatever that park was. They had to be looking. We all knew about it.
They bought me and my friend tickets home. In a friendly way we were told never to return. I more than understood that. And besides, we were given decent hotel accomadation for the few days before our departure.
Not many people were hit. Some Americans, one Israeli. I mean, they only Canadian they grabbed was Julia. And I heard the embassy intervened, sending her home eventually. There aren't really women's prisons. But she was caught holding three grams in a country where that's 25 to death, not necessarily in that order.
Later a friend told me I could have just said I was looking for sponsorship. I mean, I had six months on my visa. Starting out, I was so new, given a chance I could quickly get legal...
But he didn't understand. Guy hadn't read the books. He didn't know people. You support yourself and your friends. That's all.
Pat TH, Barstow
When the marines come down from the DMZ, you'd be best advised to let them be. First rule of getting along: Don't mess with the talent. Those boys are doing their darnedest to keep this country safe for you and me.
Ain't too easy 'bout it, no sir. Every day, at the post, staring down the enemy, couple of hundred feet from folks who want them dead. Why hell, you could see how a fella might want to get to relaxing.
And it ain't just the front lines, neither. Used to be I was stationed far to the south, won't tell you where, but it was south and hilly. Me, my rifle, grenades and knife, standing guard with another man.
We were protecting a missile silo. Nuclear.
Yep, Seoul has'em. The big ones. Think Pyongyang don't know what'll happen if they try to get cute? Yes sirree. Anybody wanna buy a radioactive statue of Kim Il-Sung? Figure they'll be selling right cheap, be 14,000 years before you can turn it into pop art safely.
Don't got no kind of sense on how to station themselves on the southern side. Kid you not, this land's got a huge army, but they got it spread in just a couple of thin lines. Few rounds of chemical weapons and the North'll be sitting pretty right smack down on Chongno Sam Ga, ready to hear real music for the first time in their lives.
Korean kids be too busy protesting the U.S. Embassy in their Air Jordans and Yankee caps to give much of a damn 'bout what's gonna happen to their homeland without the good ole' U S of A. Feeling like it's an insult to the community to have American bases in the city centers... well shoot.
That's just how it is. Don't reckon nobody thinks that the cities here were what sprung up around the base first, does they? No uh, this here was surely a rich country always. Right. Yeah.
Wasn't for U.S. donations of men and machinery, not to mention all kinds of generous trade practices, and of course the way we fed'em for years after the war, but no, self-sustaining. Right. Juche. That's the North's lie.
Look, I ain't saying things are perfect here. Makes me a little sick to see our young boys running wild through the brothels of Itaewon, though I can remember myself back in the day. Had me a pretty little Ajimah who was gonna set me right up with an easy-living club once we got married.
Too bad I caught her whoring on the side, though she said she'd be true to me. Can't trust any woman when they've been like that. This country's got it right.
Woman takes money for sex once, just once, that's it. She's a whore for life. Though what the difference is between that and marriage is hard for me to see. Forgive me for stating my opinion. I only earned the right to speak it fighting for you.
Some of our boys do cut it up too far with'em. And the country's got a right to get pissed. I would too. Some years ago, big bad Marine came down off the line, don't know what it was happened with the man while he was up there. Something fierce.
And he got in with an Ajimah. Maybe she was mean, maybe he'd had it too rough to function. Don't nobody know. Surely wasn't a good time there though, surely wasn't.
He raped her with a broomstick. Uh-huh, killed her. Not a nice way. Folks were kind of mad. Took to stating their peace about the whole situation. With bricks and flaming cocktails. That kind of mad.
So it goes. I mean, I ain't saying what he did was right, though twenty years in a Korean jail would have sufficed, nobody thought he'd get a fair trial so the boy was just shipped out.
But every day there are articles in the Korean press talking about just how awful those Itaewon girls are. Can you believe? Girl who works there can't never go home again to see her daddy. Not never.
That's just the way things are. So all the sudden she's a saint, they wouldn't a given her even a moment's consideration were it not for the fact that it was just one more thing they could do to knock America. Like they needed the incentive.
Huh. I could talk your ear off all day bout what they said or done against us. Yes sir. All day. They don't seem to clue in that America don't want to be here. There's little strategic interest in this place.
Got plent of bases in the North Pacific, all the troops we need are stationed in Japan. So, is it any question of us wanting this kind of grief? Nah uh. Maybe they could see their way clear to doing us the favor of a little polite attention. You know, 53rd state holiday of the year, be polite to America.
Not a bit. Holidays are always good times to picket the embassy, and the base. Get so you got to check the radio and TV, not just for the taste of home, but so you can know where the riot's gonna be that week.
Yup. Ain't seeing them mind it when North Korean troops hack American Servicemen to death with hatchets on this side of the line. Nope, that don't cause so much alarm among the general populace.
Hear all them stories about how North Korean subs cross the Japan Sea, grab a little girl or two, take her back to train their agents how to pass for real Japanese. Ain't like we'd be surprised that the North wasn't doing the same thing here.
But you know, little girl vanishes in this part of town, you just get to figuring that it's probably some guy who wants a wife and can't afford it, job and classwise, so he's taking those steps, because he feels he has too.
But yeah, it's all the fault of the American military. I mean, if you just knew how close things could get on base. How much we work to help each other. You're part of a family. All of the services, they're rivals, sure, but everybody's doing their dang best to help the cause as much as they can.
They hate us here. Yeah sir. I'll admit it, they do. But they sure do seem to get a little worried sometimes. Want us to dump our troop committments a little. Want us to check out of Yongsan and move into smaller quarters somewhere else.
Yeah, want us to do this, want us to do that. But they know, and we know, and every little kid in this country before he gets big enough to wear the improvised gas masks you need to hold off the effects of the tear gas knows, that they need our military.
And dang it, just once, somewhere, I'd like to hear somebody talk about the good we do.
U.S. was in Subic Bay, Phillipines. Subic Bay was a red-light district and that's about all. U.S. gets kicked out. Subic Bay overnight becomes a relatvely modern shipping port. Uh-huh. Relatively.
Business booms. Right sure. Good. Happy for'em. Subic Bay's improved. How come nobody talks about the way the whole dang Phillipine economy went down the tubes after Pinitumbo and us pulling out of Clark?
The economy down there is catching up, right sure. Pretty soon it could reach 50 percent. Of what it was back in 1950. Yeah, the U.S. is responsible. It's always us. We're at fault.
We never go where we're not wanted. And we only try to help.
Arthur B, Stockholm
When you go to the video room, there are certain things you're required to have. None negotiable, thank you.
A blonde. Not one of these stick-figure things that were as if to break pon the first thrust.
Two or three bottles of the soju stuff, in addition to the requisite capcities of beer. Any beer will do.
Food, we must have things to munch between rounds.
And hashish, were you able to easily aquire it. And if so, tell me where and how much.
What to watch is of course secondary. No, I'm not one of those sots who wreaks the indiscriminate title of "movie" upon that art form we few know as "film." But having respect for that and myself, I'll still be looking through the latest in Korean cinema while conducting myself accordingly with my date.
Too bad there's no hair there in this country. More of a spectacle happens in mine own cubicle. Oh so some Koreans think. My favorite wench, we go to a choice videobong where the walls don't quite come all the way up.
Gap you see, right between the ceiling and the barrier. Even with a chair it takes these little people some tip toe action for a really good look, but I don't mind the sound of furniture scraping, it serves as the perfect precursor for a live performance.
Movies are a perfect date. You just the girls in from Japan, they're all totally ignored there, they come in and they're so horny they can't wait to fly on top of you, just hoping you'll dump them beneath er long.
A lonely girl is gifted at creation, she'll hardly wait to make the beast with two backs, right oh great pickup line to tell them you're going to get medival on their ass.
Me and this brunette, American girl from New York who needed to learn how good it could be here, we were off and running when her video camera came through the mail.
No. No. Not like that. Though I won't say as I haven't made films of that sort. All men are created equal, but some fellows are made to squirm when you pull your pants down. Jealousy is commonplace amongst brothers, and I've lost a friend or two here, simply by running into them in the bathouse.
No, her video camera gave me the thing I needed for Sundays: something to do. It's a rare enough thing here. She stayed with me, we acted out scripts that I of course was the author of. Had a hard time finding bit players, but oh well.
Just a few practice ones were made, then I found the documentarian genius inside mine own self. Oh ho, the scenes.
Imagine, if you will, the blurred lines of Asia neon, glimsped through the rear window of an ultra-fast taxi. Think for a moment of the sheer drama of lemming-like Japanese tourists, abandoned by their tour guide who'd been whisked away to a bar.
Ponder for a while the grave symbolic implications of scenes taken in a business nightlife district. When the vomit started flowing, mine own touch -- a masterpiece -- directors cut.
Me standing next to the ill-indulged, camera shift to the recent re-introduction of victual, shift back to me, near tete a tete with the afflicted one, to ask the question we are all made to ponder by ourn innermost curiousities.
Looking at his product I would smile, then -- inquisitively -- ask the man what we all wanted to know: "Rice cake? Or noodle?" Should it have been noodles, I would then ask if they had been served hot -- or cold?
With a dramatic flourish, mine own practiced reporter's sign off, and off to the next reel -- and next adventure.
The great questions are pondered. What we all ask. Tonight will I be spent first? Or shall the bottle give out before me? And if it's the latter, will I get into a fight on the way to pick up a refill?
Do wish the birds would stick around to see me brawling. Some of the work I've done in that category could quickly be sold off to Jacki Chan, or some other, greater, yet still sadly unknown master, who only needs a demonstration of skill and ideas to make it in the world, that last little bit of panache, the final flourish, and expositional tag line.
Right to Hollywood's where I should be. Fit in there. Got a stearn martial background. Haven't a thing to fear from the blacks.
One blonde, and she was my favorite, though I'd never tell her. Been with a few, I'll say, but she was the one. Least in bed. Girl was crazy.
Flirt with anyone, long night in Itaewon she pulled herself into the path of every man there. This was a Friday! All the soldiers were out. She lost herself there. Nearly completely. Course I'd been ignoring her, spent most of my hours there explaining to this creature from Texas how old she was, God Dang!
And then there were some new birds, Friday, you see, find the ones who shelter themselves in the wilderness of a school bought apartment, and only come up for air once every month, looking perhaps to be Tokyo two, though they know it not.
Anyway Lily, lest we forget our star, was out frolicing on the dance floor with these three black Gis. They liked her. She liked them, or so they thought. So, they took her.
Bodily.
They picked her up, and they carried her through the door, back through this alley. Must have known she was fair game, the girl was from Switzerland. Lily was a friend. And mine evening object of desire. So, I wasn't gonna let her go without a fight.
But I didn't know as I was quite ready for three. They were still in shape and perhaps armed. Fortunately, apart from any racial failings, they were American and therefore stupid.
So I merely talked to them softly, and in short sentances using no words larger than one syllable, and gradually the blonde was returned to earth, and off we went, her at that moment recognizing me as a man who could use his head. Long ago I took a sergeant's exam, got a higher score than the boys from the best schools in the country.
So yes, I rather think I am ready for the big time. There's no rush yet, my story is one unlike any other, it'll be a simple matter. You see, I'm sure. Right now I'm only taking the time to enjoy myself properly.
Then the time will come to put it together. Be a shame, that cutting room floor. The very uniqueness of it all is what drives me. There's no incident less than any other. Everyday of my life is art.
Kim Jung-Wop, Seoul
You not first traveller visit me here. Don't worry. Many say like place. Clean. Keep clean. Cleaner than Yogwam. You not soldier. Not criminal. Just do illegal. Don't worry.
Girl I have here. Not my girl. Just girl. She worry. Cry all time. Sad. She helped. Helped late. Embassy help. Not sad. She worry.
She was criminal. You no criminal. Man criminal different. Soldier criminal no stay here. They go GI Jail. Regular jail. Not clean. We no keep GI jail clean.
Bars are never soft when made of iron. No can be comfortable here. But food is not bad. My wife, she say I good cook. I try to be. I like keep foreigner happy. Foreigners make friend. They teach me English.
I want learn English. You no should cry. You should relax. Teach me English. Feel sometimes like thief. I always stay, when people come I take from them.
Then they go. Then new people. I take from them too. All the time taking. I am criminal. But I only in jail ten hours day.
Is good when embassy come to help foreigner. They do it quickly. Except for Americans. Americans take time. I meet Americans, they all the time say Americans bad here, Americans jail here.
Americans very mean. It different for rich Americans. I no like rich Americans. They too young. Children. They no know.
They lucky. If I chose who I keep. I no keep Americans. They no interesting. Too many like GI. But Americans all I keep. Every one else go. One day. One month. Two months maybe. Girl, her I keep two months.
No like Thailand. Thailand I go. They keep you long time. They keep you ten year. I no like Thailand either. Japan go, Japan you work. Make Honda. Make Nissan. Make Toyota. Japan all the time treat prisoner bad.
Korea Japan prisoner long time.
We no bad like Japan. We no corrupt like Thailand. We sometimes like keep people. They treasure. I love to hold them here, their words they become part of me. Let them go soon so they no worry.