"No Child Left Behind"

Foreign Tastes II

Some of my fondest memories are of sitting in front of the wood cabinet TV watching RCA SelectaVision VideoDiscs and eating a bowl of my grandfather's chit'lings covered in Louisiana hotsauce. Even though I am a vegetarian now, one whiff of them can send me back in time. So you can imagine my amazement to find this in Korea.

Subject: broke excursion

Date: Thur, 09 Aug 2006 17:48:29 -0500

Today I took a job outside the city—a wonderful opportunity to see farmland in the lush green of summer just as monsoon season closes, leaving the sky clear and blue. But in my haste to get to the subway, I forgot my wallet. I stood in the subway, staring at the opening of my bag where my wallet should have been and tried to figure out what to do.

My first instinct was to panic, the way I always do when something goes wrong. “How stupid of me,” I thought, “not to check my pockets for my wallet before I left.” I thought if I walk home, I’ll be late for the gig. If I catch a cab, I won’t have money to pay him. And trying to explain to the taxi driver that I would just be a minute as I went upstairs to retrieve my wallet just might get me beat. Koreans are always grabbing and swatting when they get upset.

Then I stopped myself. LOA teachers say the worst thing to do is go down a panic spiral. So I began to relax. “The solution is around here somewhere,” I told myself, “I’ll figure it out.” Then I thought of sneaking in. There’s usually an unlocked gate to the trains for people with strollers. So I nonchalantly headed for it. Damn! There’s a look-out man working there today. He’s usually never there. So I turn around.

Just then a Western face turns the corner. Immediately, I knew what to do. “Are you in a hurry?” I ask. “A bit. Can I help you?” Just the words I wanted to hear. She was happy to give me the dollar. She was happy to see someone that spoke English. Before I left she shoved two more dollars in my face.

I guess sometimes things have to go wrong just so you can learn how right they are.

[6 hours later]

One thing I’ve noticed is that keeping a relaxed optimistic attitude is more difficult on an empty stomach. So the ease with which I got to work with no money was not so easily replicated when it was time to go home.

I looked around aimlessly for the bus stop. I had been picked up from the train station, but neglected to find out how to get back there. And it was so hot and humid that I knew I would die if I attempted to walk there on an empty stomach. The two dollars I had left was just enough to get home.

Finally, I saw a bus and dashed across the street to catch it. “Yuck ka-say-yo?” Go to the station, I ask and he points across the street. There I find a woman standing near the bus stop sign, eating an ear of corn. Yes, Koreans, especially middle-aged women frequently smack on ears of corn in public. I asked her if I could get to the subway from there. She was eager to help me, as most Korean strangers tend to be when I’m needing assistance. She started studying the sign, locating the stop and counting the number of stops along the way.

Feeling more than adequately informed, I nod my head and say “thank you.” But she must have sensed I was hungry because before I knew it, she was waving half of her ear of corn in the air, offering me to take it.

Normally, I don’t eat out of strange people’s hands. Hell, I wouldn’t accept a piece of fruit from my mother if I couldn’t wash it first. But there seemed something awful cruel about refusing this kind gesture, especially as I had felt the pangs of guilt after refusing an ear of corn from my roommate’s mother, who looked at me with such rejection when I had done it. Plus, I was hungry. So I ate the corn and proudly carried the naked ear with me on the bus when it arrived.

Only, I should have listened to her mother-like warning when she instructed me to ask the bus driver to notify me when my stop approached, because I sure enough watched the subway sign go by, my face pressed against the window glass like a forgotten puppy.

I blame the hunger. I also blame the hunger for making me buy a kim-bap (rice and vegetables rolled in seaweed) on the 15 minute walk back to the station when I only had one dollar left. So there I was, sitting on the bench, staring at the locked gate again.

I thought about begging. But my story was different now. Now I forgot my wallet at home but found $3 dollars so I could go to work, but spent one on kim-bap and now didn’t have enough for the train ride home. Even if I could find a Korean who would sit and listen to me struggle through that story, I couldn’t even make myself believe I was telling the truth.

So nothing else to do, I pull out my pad and write. I write about my silly no-money adventure. And after about fifteen minutes, I notice an elderly woman reach behind the locked gate and unhook the latch. Then she opens the gate, creaking it so loudly the sound echoes through the station, and walks right in. It didn’t take but two seconds for me to grab my things and walk in right after her.

When I arrived at my stop, I was chanting “Please let the look-out be gone. Please let the look-out be gone.” All I had was the ticket I bought that morning and I knew the alarm would go off when I put it in the slot.

Damn! The look out is there. I hold my breath and put the ticket in. AAANNNK! The look-out takes my ticket and gets the supervisor. The supervisor examines the ticket. “This ticket has expired,” he says. Here is when I pretend that I don’t speak Korean. “Where are you going?” he asks. I keep looking at him with a blank, tired look on my face, which I am sure was convincing considering how hungry I was. The supervisor scratches his head. Finally, he motions for me to follow him. Wherever I’m going, I just hope there’s food there. He unlocks the gate and when we’re both on the other side he waves goodbye. I smile and go home. My broke excursion is over.

Afro Seoul

Yonshinnae

That’s it. I have officially found paradise…for now. I was already in love with where I live. I wake up every day thankful for getting the opportunity to live in this neighborhood. (Most foreigners live in Itaewon, a district with many international goods and services that’s also something like the Warsaw Ghetto.)

But making an already great place better, last week I was wandering around and found an all-night Italian café. I may have mentioned at some earlier point how difficult it is to find decent non-Korean food. (Once I walked for 4 hours, almost walked the entire way home from school, looking for a place that sold French fries. Eventually, I gave up.) Well I have been to numerous fastfood-Sizzler-style restaurants that sold pasta (the extent of Western food) when I couldn’t bare to eat another Korean a la surprise dish. The surprise is that I never know what four-legged creature is hiding in their ostensibly vegetarian dishes. Anyway, this café has the best pasta I have ever had in Korea! They season with real Italian seasonings, cook the spaghetti al dente, and put in real mushrooms, not the canned crap they use at all the other places. Plus it is beautiful. So during one of my many insomnia periods where I must put pen to paper, I walk to the café, sit, relax, and write until my hearts content.

Incidentally, my neighborhood is one of the few places in Korea where people are nice, to me at least. Sure, they stare like they do everywhere, but not scornfully so And here they actually greet me with a smile in the street, are nice to me in the stores, often helping me look for items and sneaking extra food in my bags for free, and apologize if they bump into me. There is also an eclectic mix of people in my neighborhood. It’s not just a sea of college-aged students. During, the day I see children from the local elementary, middle and high schools. Sometimes they get up the nerve to say that one English word they were practicing and when I respond in kind, they walk away jumping in the air, exclaiming to their friends, “I did it!”

Coming home from work, I noticed how lively and happy the people were on the train. I have commuted using 3 different lines and these are clearly the most joyous. They don’t all look like they want to commit suicide.

Getting off the train at night and walking the 15-20 minutes home is always a joyous experience. As I walk, I realize that there is everything I need in the neighborhood, a grocery store, McDonalds (for French fry cravings), stationary/bookstore, sushi bar, photo shop, plant store...you name it, it was there. And my neighborhood is like an amusement park. There are vender’s selling fruit, jewelry, drinks, even carnival games. There is also a lot of clothing outlet stores and one section of the neighborhood is called Yonshinnae Rodeo.

As I walk further up the hill towards my home, the bright lights and venders disappear. The air becomes cool, fresh and still. And the neighborhood turns into a mix of large brick homes and towering apartment buildings. My apartment is at the very top of the hill, among trees and bushes. It's bright and peaceful. And what’s best of all is the hiking trail behind my apartment complex. If I get up early enough, I can hike up the trail and see an aerial view of the city below.

Seoulful People

Homestay