TravelStream™ news feed for member jsc on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jsc en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 15 Nov 2005 20:45:25 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1132105440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1132105440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1132105440/tpod.html Tue, 15 Nov 2005 20:45:25 -0500 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Moss Beach, California, United States

I left Korea on October 25th. I expected to have trouble explaining things to my landlords, but everything went smoothly. I made hand gestures of a plane and said 'America now' in Korean. They got the idea and showed me where to go to catch a cab. I picked one up immediately and headed off.

As I was watched the scenery go by from the backseat of the taxi I asked myself "is this the last time I'll be seeing these things?" I had a brief twinge of sadness. A moment later it was gone and I was happy to be leaving. Even the places that treat me badly have a place in my heart.

A think fog covered the land, and there wasn't much to see. I wasn't unhappy about it. I stared into the fog and thought.

I reached the terminal and checked in my luggage. I went to a quiet restaurant with a view overlooking the runway and ate an expensive pizza. And I thought about things... or brooded maybe. I mostly thought about careers, running them through my mind. A funny thing occurred to me as I sat there. With every career I thought up I told myself a story, setting up scenarios and playing them through in my mind. Despite this, I never considered writer as a profession. I think of every career but writer, but every time I think I tell myself a story. It seemed ironic.

I went through security more smoothly than I ever have before in Korea, though they still stuck a bomb detector into my laptop case. I went to the waiting area and stretched for awhile before boarding the plane. As I gave the stewardess my boarding pass and walked towards the cabin I thought to myself "I'm going home." That felt good.

None the less, the moment the plane took off I was struck with a terrible case of the 'what nows' and the 'will I be backs.' I asked myself the question "will I miss Korea?" I decided that I'll miss the sunsets and food, and that I'll miss the newness. But I won't miss most of it. Won't miss it at all.

As for the 'what nows', they're running through my head weeks later, and I don't know.

I watched the new version of 'Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory', a good movie to come home to. Afterwards I checked the plane's flight path and found that I had a 200 mph tail wind speeding me home. That felt good too.

Mostly I listened to the Dark Tower on CD. I was surprised when a character in the story cried off the quest and went home... or a home of sorts. It happened because though the character wanted to see the Dark Tower very badly, he knew that it would destroy him. After great hardship and many miles, he turned around and went home. And, in the end, his is the happiest ending.

Stephen King wrote shortly thereafter about the Gunslinger: 'It occurred to him that if he never loved them, he would never have felt so alone as this.'

I finished the Dark Tower on the plane ride. I wrote pages and pages on the ending, trying to make sense of it. But I'll say no more. You'll just have to read it for yourself.

An hour before we reached San Francisco one of the stewards asked for a medical professional on the intercom system. An Indian man came from the back of the plane and spoke with him before disappearing into first class. A few minutes later two people cleared a row of seats four rows in front of me and carried in a girl not much older than myself. She was unconscious. The doctor looked at her and a stewardess came over with a few bottles full of pills and a medical instrument that I couldn't place.

I wanted to see what was wrong and to help very badly, but there didn't seem to be anything I could do. I didn't have the training or the knowledge to help in those regards, and there were already a number of stewards and stewardesses keeping cool heads and doing the gopher work. As I choked on my helplessness I wondered if maybe I should become a doctor.

I don't know. I want to do everything, but am able to do very little.

The plane was an hour early. Paramedics got the girl out of the cabin quickly, but didn't seem concerned. As I disembarked from the plane I saw her in a wheel chair and looking very woozy. I think she ended up alright.

I got my baggage and went to wait for my parents to arrive. I was unable to find a pay phone (they exist in San Francisco International Airport, but are tucked away in an alcove) and so I sat for about an hour next to a very old woman who didn't speak any English. Mostly I yawned a lot and tried not to fall asleep, having been awake for around twenty-two hours straight at that point.

When my parents arrived my Mom ran halfway across the terminal on her bum knee to hug me. I was very happy to be home.

Back in Moss Beach, things have been nice and not so nice.

The people that I love are here. I saw my grandparents and aunt shortly after returning, and they all said that they had been worried and were happy to have me back home. Last weekend I went to the zoo with my Mom and Brother. I watched the gorillas and thought about creating a story where gorillas could talk and had their own lands adjacent to those of humans. They look so very human, especially in the eyes and body language. My dog is wearing down, but still seems cheerful enough, even if he's having trouble getting up and down the stairs these days. Everyone is happy to see me, but he seems to be the happiest.

It smells wonderful here. The air and the ocean, the smell when I carved a pumpkin for Halloween, the smell of the rain and of American cooking. I like these things very much.

In many ways, I am contented.

But I find myself disillusioned. My Mother and Father think that I should apply to graduate school, get a MA in history and go from there; pretty much the same plan that I've been on. But while in Korea I found so many holes in this plan, and I don't have any great desire to do it.

Really, I don't have any great desire to do anything except to involve myself in the stories of imaginary worlds and peoples. I've been reading and writing and playing video games. I haven't even returned to training at my studio in Tae Kwon Do.

I'm questioning a lot of things now. I had a dream for years in college of getting a doctorate in history, and yet in going to Korea I found so many things wrong with that dream. I'm questioning what I want to do, and I'm coming up empty. I'm questioning why I want to study, why I want to write, why I want to train, and I'm not getting a lot of answers. I would just forge ahead, but it seems like I've been doing that for years. It didn't serve me well here.

I feel like I just want to stay here for awhile and do nothing at all. The paradox is that there is a part of me that hates that impulse, that says that if I want to make something of myself I'd better get to it. This part can never be happy unless I'm progressing.

And so I ask, towards what? For what purpose? What do I want, and what is possible?

So here I am. What makes I man great, I wonder? How does he get there? What does he find? And why does he make the journey?

I've gotten lost. I don't know what to do right now, and I find myself turning away from the question.

I learned a lot about myself in Korea, I think. Or maybe I learned that I don't know much about myself at all.

Regards,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1130210580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1130210580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1130210580/tpod.html Thu, 27 Oct 2005 04:23:00 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Seoul, Korea Rep.

Already Gone and the Farewell

A friend of mine asked me over e-mail what I thought about maybe going to Japan to teach English or study. This is what I wrote back:

'As for Japan, I don't think so, at least not now. My heart really isn't in to traveling right now for reasons that I can't quite figure out. I think, though, that I've just been lonely for a long time, and recently, just before I left, I stopped feeling lonely. I don't think I can face being lonely again for a long stretch. I'm not up for it yet, or maybe ever. It leads me to dark places that I don't want to face.'

Professor Burke e-mailed me back this week. He gave me a pretty typical academic response, not really answering my questions but giving me the titles of two books I should read about studying world history. He did say, however, that 'most doctoral programs will want you to be fluent in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, though some may only require two.' He went on to say that of these Japanese is probably the preferable. That figures since it's the hardest to learn how to read to write, which is mostly what they expect out of me.

It's discouraging. I've noticed that the Mickey Mouse (which is to say not well known or established) professors say that I don't even need to go abroad to learn a language, or that if I do one year of study is sufficient time. The heavy hitting professors, the authority in their field professors, advise me to study languages abroad for two years.

I don't think I'm up to that. I'd like to have a career before I turn thirty.

On Wednesday I took a trip on my own to the Korean War Memorial museum. I brought my camera but forgot to charge it before hand, and consequently it wasn't good for anything. No photos for this one.

The museum itself was in the middle of the allocated grounds. The rest was taken up by a park, outdoor statues, and dozens upon dozens of decommissioned tanks, planes, missiles, and other weapons of war. Some of the missiles were a good twenty feet tall and were somewhat scary things to look at.

I came in through the front entrance. There, set before a cloudless blue sky, was a tower of green and maple. Sections of it were cut out so that there were three prongs on it, with the maple side facing in and the green side facing out. I read the tower's explanation plaque. It said something about the maple signifying the tree of life and the green symbolizing the color of defense, or something along those lines.

To either side of it there were bronze carvings of people charging forward. At the forefront of these were soldiers with weapons and flags, some carrying the guns of the modern era and others carrying ancient swords and spears. What struck me about the mural was not the people at the front of the line, however, but the people at the back. To one side there was a woman carrying a child flagging behind and looking frantic to catch up to the leading soldiers. To the other there was an old man who had fallen down, with a young, shirtless boy standing over him and looking back, as if to protect him from some pursuing danger. I wondered about those left behind, what they signified. Unfortunately there was no plaque for this one.

I moved on from there into a spacious courtyard filled with large squares of stone. It was surrounded by a number of flag poles, each flying the colors of a different nation. Ahead on the roof of the museum itself was the Korean flag, higher than all the others.

I started towards the building when something caught my eye off to the right. I walked in that direction and through a few stone columns to get to some decommissioned machines. I wondered about a large artillery gun that was pointed in my direction, and the kind of damage it would do to the stone wall next to me.

I wandered for a few moments through the columns and came across a hall with twelve tablets of aligned black stone. Each held the names of many Korean servicemen who died in the Korean War. At the center of the room there was a book. I couldn't understand it, but I suspect it had the names of the dead and some information about them; maybe just name, rank and serial number. There were flowers set at each tablet. The sun shown through the spaces in the columns and gave the slabs an obsidian gleam. I stood there for awhile, listening to the running water from a pond down below that housed an old submarine.

I walked up to the museum and was directed to the ticket office outside. I paid and then once again wandered, catching a glimpse of another hall of the dead. I entered and found this to be the international one. The names of English and Canadian and French and other foreign soldiers who had died in the Korean War were there, but most of the names came from America and were sorted by state. These ones had no flowers and the names were cast in metal instead of stone, but they were good all the same. As I stood there looking through the names for a Clemens or an Etchevary (there weren't any) a large group of Korean schoolchildren, clearly on a field trip, came tearing through, shouting and laughing and running. I had a moment where I was put off, but then it was gone. All in all, the scene made a certain sense.

I entered the museum and went straight ahead into a hall with the busts of about two dozen Korean heroes from the modern era. Their deeds were carved in stone beneath their visage, and they ran the gamut. Some were generals, but some were just infantrymen who gave their lives to save that of their company.

At the end of this hall was the crowning portion of the Korean War Memorial. At the center of a circular, domed room with stone sides was a large bowl, maybe four feet high and seven feet in diameter, filled with overflowing water. The water quietly pooled in a small indent two steps down from the main floor. The water there and in the bowl itself was very dark. It looked bottomless, like you could throw a coin inside and watch it fade into nothingness. However, at the very center of the bowl the water was clear, and you could see that there wasn't that much of it after all. At the top of the dome a beam of light perhaps a foot in diameter shown down to the center of the bowl, alighting the water there and shining off of a circle of crystals. The only sound in the room was the soft trickle of running water.

To the right of the bowl and against the wall there was a book under glass in the floor with a bouquet of white flowers next to it. There was also a plaque that said in English: 'please observe a moment of silence for our fallen soldiers.' Though I was silent already I bowed my head all the same.

From there I moved downstairs to the pre-modern portion of the museum. I walked past a number of stone placards from Korea's Bronze Age. They were taken from the tomb of an ancient king and bore carvings of the 'warriors of the zodiac', meaning dog, dragon, tiger, rat, ox, etc., the animals you hear about at Chinese New Year. A plaque there said that they were thought to give 'divine protection in all directions.' I thought they were pretty neat.

After that I came to a second hall of heroes filled with maybe twice as many busts as before, all of these from the pre-modern era (in this case before the Korean war). I stopped at the one of Admiral Yi Shun-Shin, a great man whom I've read about.

In the 17th century the Japanese invaded Korea with designs of conquering it and then China. Their invasion was very successful on the land, and they very nearly won the war. What stopped them was Yi Shun-Shin and his 'turtle ships.' One of these was actually on display at the museum. It was a treat to see because when I've asked professors about them before they have been unable to describe exactly what they were or why they were so effective (these were Japanese history professors and didn't take it upon them selves to know such things). The turtle ship's inventor has been implied to be Yi Shun-Shin himself, though I'd guess this is inaccurate and the inventor is simply not known. They are small vessels, maybe thirty feet, which are wide and propelled via a sail. The sloping top is covered in spiked metal plates and above the water line the sides are filled with cannon holes just large enough for a small barrel to fit through. At its prow is the carved image of a fanged turtle head. These ships proved to be virtually indestructible at the time, the Korean version of the two 'iron sides' from the American Civil War. Yi Shun-Shin led a group of these that demolished the numerically superior Japanese navy, halted supplies of food and troops, and eventually led to a Korean victory in the war. Unfortunately, as Yi Shun-Shin was harrying the Japanese retreat from Korea a stray bullet made its way through the hull of his ship and killed him.

My martial arts instructor, SoonHo Song, once told me a translated quote from Yi Shun-Shin just before I had to leap over three people bending over and touching their toes, clearing them into a safe forward roll. The quote goes: 'he who is not prepared to die will surely perish; he who is prepared to die will surely live.' The quote worked, and I told myself 'I'm just going to do it, and I'm not going to be afraid.' I cleared all three and rolled through just fine.

I wandered around looking at old weapons and suits of armor. They had a series of arrows there that were called 'sounding arrows.' They had metal pieces with slots in them near the head, and I got the impression that they whistled when they flew. I thought they must've made one hell of a noise with a few hundred of them in the air at once.

The swords were interesting too. They came in two varieties: lithe and subtle, or absolutely huge. There were swords on display that stood higher than me and must've weighed close to a hundred pounds. I can only assume that they were for display purposes only.

I then went up to the top floor, where all the Korean War items are kept. At the entrance to the first series of displays there is a mural in a circular glass case. Two guns prop each other up and are bound by barbed wire. Resting on top of the higher of these there is a helmet torn to shreds with bullet holes and shrapnel. From the barrel of the gun, held up by its sight, is a dog tag.

I went through the Korean War exhibits without finding much of interest. Having already studied the Korean War there weren't any major revelations, and though I did stop to read about many of the displayed items I also passed a few up after glancing at the first sentence. There was a lot of propaganda involved, which is something I've come to expect from South Korean museums. It's also something that I don't care for and try to avoid.

I saw very few people during my visit, but as I went through the Korean War portion I did run across a group of about fifteen Chinese tourists, each holding a large speaker device to their ear that apparently told information about the exhibits. They were looking at the portion entitled 'China enters the war.' This part was especially propaganda heavy, and I wondered what the Chinese thought about it. There was one display that claimed that China 'sought to extend hegemony throughout East Asia' by entering into the Korean War, a very narrow interpretation of China's actual reasons for involvement. I wondered if that translated to the same thing to the Chinese tourists, and what they thought about it.

Somewhere among the displays I came across a large photo of General Macarthur with a short biography below it. I got a frown on my face just looking at it. Though Macarthur was undoubtedly a great general, he was eventually removed from leadership of the Korean War effort due in part to his constant pestering of the U.S. government to allow him to use nuclear bombs. One of the last straws that led Macarthur to 'resign' was that he asked congress to approve a plan that would drop a three mile swatch of Cobalt-138 along the North Korean-Chinese border. This action would have almost undoubtedly ended the war by halting the flow of all Chinese troops and supplies, but was rejected because it was utterly barbarous. You see, Cobalt-138 is so radioactive that it will kill within a matter of minutes. It has a 69 year half-life, and would've made the North Korean-Chinese border impassable and uninhabitable for at least that amount of time.

I watched the movie 'Patton' while I was over here. I was struck when reading about how great a general Macarthur was that it takes a mad man to be great at war.

After about three hours of wandering around I finally left the museum. On the way out I perused some of the statues outside. One I was particularly interested in. At a glance I thought it was a soldier hugging his son as he returned home. The larger man is cradling the boy's head and looking down into the boy's upturned face. It looked very touching. Then I went up and read the plaque beside it. According to that, the small, decidedly childish figure in the statue is actually the large man's younger brother. The larger man is a soldier from South Korea, the smaller boy is a soldier from North Korea, and they are meeting on a battlefield in the Korean War. Supposedly this is a scene from a famous story. Looking at the statue was a little frustrating. Propaganda is blatantly self-interested and has very little respect for the truth. I found the statue to be almost imperialistic in its level of propaganda, and knowing the meaning behind it ruined the image for me.

The day was still relatively young and the weather was nice so I decided to wander the streets for awhile. After a time I came upon an American Military base. I was surprised to find that patrolling outside the base and guarding its entrances are Korean police instead of American military, though why this is I don't know.

I wandered into a district that was adjacent to a women's school and packed sidewalk to sidewalk with females. I saw maybe three men in the more than twenty minutes it took me to pass through.

Beyond that there was a mixed school district. I passed a huge group of school children, easily over a hundred, weaving through their ranks to get beyond them. As I was doing so one small boy of seven or so looked behind and saw me. He pointed and exclaimed 'meguk!', meaning 'American.' A bunch of the kids turned and looked and I gave the pointer a wry smile. The kids within ear shot of his voice gave me a wide birth and I came through.

I also passed by middle schools and high schools. High school guys seem to have no problem walking with their arms around each others shoulders here. It seems a little odd to me and I think that's a shame, since there's no reason why such a friendly gesture should.

Eventually my hips started to hurt (despite all my time off from Tae Kwon Do recently they bother me when I walk for extended periods of time and its clear they have a great deal of scar tissue built up at the joints) and I found a subway (I passed six on the walk, to give you an idea of the distance covered). I headed home and chilled out for the rest of the day.

For much of the time while I was wandering I was struck at how different things felt now that I was a tourist and not a man trying to absorb the language and fit into the culture. My expectations that I put upon myself became very different and much more realistic. I no longer felt bad and frustrated when I couldn't understand something being said in Korean because after deciding to come home it didn't matter. My goal shifted from cultural emersion and assimilation to simply seeing what there was to see and taking in what I could. I like that goal much better, though it may be short sighted of me.

The next day Josh made a comment about me wasting my opportunity to travel and see things in Korea and East Asia. He said it as a joke but I could sense a hint of seriousness behind it, jealousy mixed in with reproach. I said that I understood his point, but that the bottom line was that my heart just wasn't in to the trip. I've said it many times and it bears repeating. Ideally I could've done more here, or seeing how I am already here I could've traveled through Japan or China or all sorts of places. Later in life I may look back and regret not doing so. But only in passing. I'm not getting much out of the places I visit here. A moment of beauty here, an interesting attraction there, but there's always something in my heart that holds me back.

I'm usually good at figuring out the motivations behind my feelings. I'm a pretty logical man, and I pick things apart pretty easily. But I haven't figured this one out yet, at least not completely.

On Wednesday Josh and I talked about my reasons for going home over a few drinks after dinner. I came out of it feeling good about going home, mostly because after explaining myself to him I felt more justified in my decision. Loneliness came up, but it's not what we talked about most. I suppose this is because loneliness is something that can be overcome, even though signs point to it being a difficult thing to get rid of here. In talking to Josh, mostly I brought up things about Korea and Korean language study. I told him that I didn't love Korea, that it was just a place, that there were things that I liked and hated about it and that I wasn't keen on devoting a life of study to the history of a place that I'm not even sure I like, let alone love. I expressed my concerns at the amount of time in language study it would take me to get a doctorate in Korean history. It was one thing to add one year of language study into my plans of getting a doctorate, but it's another to spend two years on Korean, not to mention the fluency that I would be expected to gain in Japanese, Chinese, or both. Overall, I told Josh that it looked like I wouldn't be starting a career until my early thirties, and I wasn't keen on that. By that time I'd hope to be married and into a career, not about to start one.

I haven't made any concrete decisions save one: this is not the right time for me to be in Korea. I haven't even entirely decided to give up on Korean history as a field of study, but I think that it's clear that if I do take that path I'm going to want a few years of college level Korean before coming back to Seoul.

Bah, this is sounding a little muddled, because frankly that's the way I feel on the subject. But after talking about it, I did feel good about coming home.

The next day Josh got sick with a wicked ear infection. I gave him a bottle of Advil that I had brought with me. That kept his fever down during the night and the next day he went to the hospital. He's moaning and groaning a lot about the $56 that he had to pay for the brief check up, but the anti-biotics he was prescribed are doing the trick as of the time I'm writing this.

We went out for dinner on Thursday night and found that the temperature had dropped considerably. I put on a thick coat that I had brought to get me through the winter months. I'm happy I won't be seeing them because I know now that it is clearly not warm enough. The nights here are dropping into the forties, and it made for an uncomfortable walk for grub.

On Saturday Josh came and got me in the morning, saying that he had heard that there was a Buddhist temple in the hills near our apartment complex. Together we set out to explore.

We wandered through residentials for awhile and actually did come to a temple in the hills. It was an operating monetary as well. It was very quiet, and not in the meticulous repair of the more touristy temples. I liked it. Altogether it had a level of authenticity that I enjoyed, and the temples here are neat places to visit. They're very solemn and peaceful, and they tend to have interesting sights to see. I took pictures.

We wandered through the temple area and up into the hills, following a path that we assumed would lead us to other parts of the temple. As it turned out, the path led up to a series of trails that ran throughout the hills. These turned out to be crowded with people looking for some Saturday exercise. We walked the trails through the forest and started making our way towards the top of a nearby mountain.

About two thirds of the way up we came to an exercise area complete with weight machines and gymnastics equipment. I'm beginning to think that the Korean government must maintain and sponsor such places since Josh and I found a very similar set up on the road to Seoul Tower. I went up to a pull-up bar and only managed two repetitions. My upper body strength has really been in on the wane since I haven't been able to do Judo in almost three months. I felt pretty weak.

Josh had an interesting adventure on the bar next to the one where I did my pull-ups, which was slightly higher. He began swinging himself as if getting ready to dismount into a forward flip only to over do it and lose his grip on the backswing. He took a belly flop onto the packed dirt. The only thing hurt was his pride, and the Koreans there looked at him like he was an idiot.

After climbing for awhile we reached the top of the mountain. It turned out to be the site of an old smoke signal station that was used to warn of coming attack during the Chosun period (8th century to late 19th century, if I have my dates correct). The view from there was very nice, and Josh pointed out that we were actually higher than we had been after climbing to Seoul Tower.

It was a pretty good time out, a nice walk. There were times though when I wished I had done it alone and had time to reflect. Josh is something of a babbler.

Ironic that I would complain of loneliness and then turn around and complain about company. I suppose the problem is that my conversations with Josh are generally pointless. His stories usually go to bitter places that I suffer but don't contribute to. I'm not sure mine are any better, but it's tough to tell given that I can't speak for more than a minute without him breaking in with some comment or another, usually a poorly timed and unfunny joke. In the end all it amounts to is chatter, and the conversations that I have with myself are more interesting.

But I try hard not to get down on Josh. It's been nice having him here.

On Saturday night Josh and I headed of to Yeoido Island to check out a fireworks display. The crowds were fantastic. There were probably a good ten thousand people who came out to watch the show just in the area where Josh and I were. We got there just as the fireworks started. We hopped up onto a wall and took in the sights, keeping our hands in our pockets to protect them from the cold.

It was a great display. Besides the normal fireworks that I was used to they had some that were very cool and unique. There was one that exploded golden and then branched out with lines that latticed the air. They made designs that looked like giant snowflakes. It looked like the shape was being drawn in the air, and I don't know how they did it. There were also ones that exploded and sent of dancing balls of light so that it looked like a ball of white shot up into the air and exploded to release fireflies of blue or red or green that scattered and winked out. One set of fireworks looked like blossoming flowers, and I mean more so than a regular firework. The center of these were dense nebulous bursts of color rather than the fragmentation of a normal firework, and they formed wonderfully intense dandelion shapes in the air. Finally we saw some that exploded and released shapes that looked like snakes slithering down to earth, weaving back and forth with burning heads.

It was an impressive show that I liked very much, but we left before it was all done because Josh was getting cold. We wandered the streets for awhile just for kicks, but didn't find anything of particular note except more crowds.

That night I got home and briefly logged on to AOL Instant Messenger, an online chat program, to see if I could catch my parents on. Instead I got a surprise message from Avi, a friend of mine at UCSC that I also trained in Tae Kwon Do with. Avi is currently teaching English in Japan. We talked for a little while. He is keeping busy, but ultimately not having a great time of things. The village where he's teaching only has six people who speak English. Two of them are hostesses, meaning that he'd have to pay to talk with them. He seemed rather forlorn and lonely, especially for him since Avi tends to be an upbeat guy. Still, he's making the best of things.

I should've asked him whether he would go to Japan if he had the decision to make over again with the knowledge he knows now. I remember he said that he was not planning to stay in Japan after the terminus of his one year teaching contract, but I'm not sure he actually regrets the decision.

Well, next time we talk I guess.

On Sunday night Josh took me to Outback Steakhouse in Korea. The food tastes exactly the same, but after eating nothing but Korean food for a month it turned out to be awfully heavy. I couldn't finish even half of my main course. Prices here are a bit above those in America and all the waiters and waitresses are Korean, but otherwise I could've been eating in the states. The menus they brought us were even fully English, though I'm sure that's not the normal. The only big difference I noticed is that Outback in Korea doesn't serve hamburgers. Outside of Burgerking and McDonalds, I haven't heard of any place that does. I wonder what the Korean aversion to burgers is. It just seems strange that I can get a burrito in Seoul but not a non-fast food burger.

On Monday I wandered a lot.

I closed out my account at Woori Bank with minimum fuss and was handed a paper sack filled with a rather large amount of money, more than I've ever carried on my person at one time. I stuck it in the inside pocket of my jacket and zipped it up until I got home many hours later. The weather was sunny and the temperature rose from cold to mild. I was a bit uncomfortable bundled up in my coat. None the less, I felt nervous having so much cash on me and stayed the course.

Afterwards I rode the subway out to the Itaewon tourist shopping district to look for a souvenir for my brother, the only person in my immediate family I haven't bought for yet. I was looking for a carved or sculpted tiger of some kind, since he really loves the species. Unfortunately I didn't find one there. I started wandering hoping that I would find one elsewhere, but after two hours I gave up and returned to my apartment. Hopefully he'll still like what I'm bringing him.

I did a lot of thinking as I walked, though not as much as I would've done three weeks ago. There isn't much left for me to think about, at least not in terms of Korea. I passed by some tourist attractions; a shrine here, a sign that said 'Korea National Museum' with an arrow pointing off into the distance there. I found myself thinking about the things that I missed out on doing here, about the days that I wasted. I starting second guessing myself. I walked by the International Dormitories on my way out and heard two groups of people outside talking in English (one group with a heavy accent, but still English). I wondered if there were more potential friends in the program than I realized, if I had been wrong in my estimates. I passed by the gym where Tae Kwon Do classes take place and wondered if I could've made some friends there. I wondered if I was just quitting because it was the easy thing to do, if I was chickening out in the face of adversity.

But ultimately this place is still wrong. It's wrong for all the professional reasons and because it's lonely here, but beneath all that it's just wrong. While I was second guessing myself I tried a mental exercise. I put all my loneliness aside. I put aside my trepidations that this is the life path that I want to be on. I put aside all the miscellaneous reasons why I don't want to be in Korea. I thought about wanting to stay with all of those things on the back burner, locked away out of mind. And there was still something wrong. A gut feeling that I have that I can't quite explain.

I don't know. Maybe it's no more substantial than my subconscious making excuses to take the easy way out. But it's there all the same.

Near the end of my trek I passed a pet store with two puppies in the window. I got all wide eyed at the sight of them, and I thought of my dog Merlin waiting for me at home. I've had lots of home thoughts here, things I miss. Going for walks and having conversations with my Dad, going to lunch with my Mom, talking movies or video games or philosophy with my Brother. I even miss my in-your-face and annoying Sister (I love you all the same, Lainy). I miss my buddies in Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay and San Francisco. I miss my martial arts studio. I miss a lot of things.

I'm happy to be going home.

On Monday night outside of my apartment building I debated whether to get Josh for a last dinner together. To be honest I sort of wanted to reflect, but I decided that I'd be doing Josh a disservice not to go eat with him this one last time.

We passed a tense conversation. Josh told me that he spent most of his life trying to 'bridge the divide', trying to get from the out-group to the in-group, trying to be understood. I ventured that maybe he had been trying to hard; since I know from being around him that he does in fact try way too hard. I told him that relationships can't be forced like that. He said that maybe I was right, and that these days he just 'didn't give a shit' about being understood.

But the rest of the night he kept trying to get me to understand about trying to understand people. It made for a very obtuse conversation, and ultimately he seemed to get angry when I didn't agree with some of his assertions.

To quote the catalyst one, he told a story about a fight (I'm almost certain this story was bogus, or at least part of it, but he presented it as truth). A girl sees a male friend of hers. She has a black eye, and the guy asks her how she got it. She says that her boyfriend hit her. The guy proceeds to drive 300 miles to a bar where her boyfriend is known to frequent. He finds the boyfriend and beats him up. Josh's big point on this was that the guy never asked for a story, never got the 'why' of the situation. I asked Josh if the boyfriend had actually hit the girl. He said yes, but the black eye was caused by her stumbling after a slap and hitting her eye on the edge of a table. He seemed to think that this point had great relevance to the story, and I didn't see how. I said as much and Josh explained that I was missing the point, that the guy didn't know what the girl had done to get her boyfriend to hit her. I said that I didn't think that made any difference, given that the boyfriend had no business striking a girl no matter what the circumstances. At this point he got angry, started talking about how he had 'seen some fucked up shit' in his life and apparently I hadn't, or I wouldn't think that way. I felt insulted by that, and in the end I'm not sure exactly what he was trying to get across to me.

So, our friendship ends in some minor drama. Ultimately Josh is the grown up version of every terribly awkward, tries too hard, gets picked on a lot in high school, loser. That is a harsh but honest assessment. He's bitterer than a jet black cup of coffee, and he's not much fun to be around. Nor is he interesting, since he cracks very poor jokes in the middle of everything I try to say.

I don't mean to bore you with the specifics of our friendship, but I try to report the facts and major happenings of my time here. Josh has been a big part of that. He has been a great boon and he's gotten me out to do some interesting things. Without his companionship my time here would've been many times more miserable. But I'm happy to be getting away from him.

Cheers to that. I'm going to rename this travelogue: 'Jonathan's Bogus Journey.'

So, in closing, I guess all I have to say is...

San Demas High School Football rules!

Regards,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1129639080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1129639080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1129639080/tpod.html Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:56:16 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Songnisan, Korea Rep.

A Door Out, a Door In

On Wednesday I went next door to Josh's apartment to see if he wanted to get some dinner together. He was drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels alone in his apartment. Josh drinks a lot, and he makes comments about alcoholism that makes me think that he either is or was an alcoholic.

He invited me in and poured me a drink. I accepted. That drink turned into several, and Josh got me drunk. We talked about a lot of things. At one point I started throwing out professions that I might want to go in to. Journalist came up a lot. After I explained to Josh my trickle down theory of changing the world, he said that journalist would probably be a better way to do it than teacher. He did mention, however, that the public school teachers in New York, where he came from, make huge amounts of money, and that maybe I could go into teaching at the high school level instead of college. He said that I would have to deal with a lot of bullshit in getting my teaching credential, and that I would have very little freedom in the lesson plan. However, the money is good and it would give me a chance to teach people while they're more impressionable. Something to think about. For some reason I started talking about possibly going into international law, too. Maybe that's just the barking of the family business in the back of my head.

Eventually we went out for dinner. I had what turned out to be chicken soup, though frankly I didn't have a clue as to what it was when I ordered it. A whole chicken came in a bowl of boiling water. The proprietress showed me that I was supposed to break up the chicken with a spoon while still in the soup and then take out the bones and meat to put on a plate and eat separately. I tried this for a little while and then resorted to eating it like an American, picking through the bones and eating the chicken and broth together.

Perhaps it was because I was drunk and did not have my usual restraint, but I started digging at Josh's past a little. He has very dark moments, but he rarely elaborates. I started to push him a little. He was still very vague, but I got a little bit more out of him than I had previously. I found out that he had given a large sum of money to someone in the United States to take care of for him (he wasn't specific, but it sounds like it was an investment thing). The money then disappeared, and the person that he gave it to disavowed any knowledge of having received it. It sounds like this was Josh's graduate school money because he implied that having it would allow him to 'do what' he 'needed to do.'

He said that he didn't know why he was in Korea, but that it didn't matter because he 'didn't give a shit' about anything.

"I could walk in front of a bus tomorrow," he told me, staring out the window at a passing Korean bus, "and not care, and just be happy that it's over with."

I was disturbed by this. Josh was getting a bit riled up and I changed the subject.

Later that night I was back in my apartment drinking lots of water and watching television when I suddenly wished that my dog was here. I remembered my parents telling me that he had run away twice in the days right after I left. I said to myself: "He's a good dog. He's searching for me." And I felt very lonely.

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The next morning I thought a lot about priorities.

My martial arts? Yes, that's a priority, but it's not one that can sustain me monetarily. Besides, I've always used my martial arts as a facilitator for making myself better in my other endeavors. If I don't pursue outside goals it seems like I'd be missing the point.

School? Not really. I love learning and that is a very high priority, but school itself? Not at all.

Work? I don't know. I don't have any.

Friends and family? A growing amount.

I've been thinking a lot about my life, and the things that changed. I was very lonely for a few years in college. It was a time of great personal and mental growth for me, but not one of happy thoughts. I'm okay with that. My priorities were what they were. But in time they grew thin. For my last six months of college I moved out of my single studio apartment up in the woods down into town in a house with three other people, hoping to forge some connections and maybe to balance out my professional and social lives a bit. That didn't work out for me so well, as I ended up in a house with three very unlikable girls, none of whom spoke much to each other or me.

But then the summer came, and I was out of school. I moved back home and got used to having people around me again. I came to Santa Cruz and did my studio's Summer Special Training, sleeping on an air mattress in the studio at night and grabbing showers at the houses of whoever was willing to offer. I got closer to some of the people I trained with. I'd have breakfast with them after our 6AM workout, or dinner after our night workout. I'd go over to David or Yong or Sid's house to shower and we'd hang out for awhile. It was a good time. About halfway through the summer I got a microphone from my dad and started talking to people whom I had known for months in the video game I played. That was nice thing too. Now I have a good twenty people whom I play around with and talk to online on a regular basis.

Somewhere along the way there, I started to not be lonely anymore. I may have only been seeing my Tae Kwon Do friends a few times a week. I may have been bored and feeling a little antsy at home. I may have felt weird about having friends online instead of face to face. But overall... I was in a very good place. It felt good not to be lonely for the first time in a long time.

I miss that a lot, already. If you give a starving man a loaf of bread, does he become less hungry or more hungry for another? I'd bet on more.

In my notebook under 'priorities', I wrote:

Family - growing amount. Tired of being lonely.


On Friday I became a little frustrated with the skewed priorities I was developing by having a video game be my only social outlet. I've increasingly turned to it more and more as a means of social contact. It is a great solace, and I undoubtedly have a good time playing with friends. In many ways it's just like having a group that you shoot basketball with at recess or play baseball with on the weekends. The only difference is that it's done virtually instead of physically.

Trouble is it that the game becomes a big deal. I find myself agonizing over how to get the in-game gold to pay for a new and improved plate helm. I wonder if I couldn't advance through the battleground player rankings over the next few months to gain the game's top items. It would require me to play about eight hours a day, but I could probably do it...

And then I catch myself, and wonder why in the world I would want to give up so much time for something like that.

The bottom line is because it would make me the envy of my video game friends; give me 'popularity', so to speak.

Very skewed.

I got angry at some trivial thing in the game, and I remember thinking to myself with more than a touch of bitterness that the game was "all that I've got."

I've got to get out of here.

That day I wrote in my notebook:

'I wanted to push forward. I didn't want to give up. I feel that I'm failing myself, not because this is something that I want to do...'

Because I know that it's not anymore. This journey is not worth its destination, at least not now.

'... but because it's something I can do. But this place isn't right. I can't make my plans here.'

At this point I thought about my self-discipline. I'm worried that it's lacking. I wondered about what would've happened if I hadn't gotten injured in Tae Kwon Do, if I hadn't had a little over a month to soften up and sink in to a comfort zone. If my self-discipline had been sharp when I came to Korea, would I be in this situation? I don't know.

Maybe the better question is would I want to have the self-discipline to push through, even though I knew the cost? I don't know the answer to that either.

Then I wrote:

'It's like there's a block in my mind that I can't get passed. I dream every night but can't remember in the morning.'

This is true. There's something in my mind that has a terrible dread of staying here, and I don't know what it is. Not exactly fear, not exactly loneliness, but something like it. Something in my subconscious is screaming for me to get out of Seoul, but I don't know what it is or why it is such a powerful feeling.

On Friday afternoon, I decided that I would come home in a little over a week, just before my second month's rent was due.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Friday night Josh was invited to come out to a Korea-Japanese language exchange party. He invited me to come with him. I had my reservations because I don't know Korean, know only limited Japanese, and am usually not into parties. I went anyway though, figuring that if I didn't like it I could just leave, and that getting me out and among people would be a good idea.

We walked to Sinchon, the district in front of Yonsei's west gate, and made our way to the third floor of a building in the downtown. There we found an unexpected 'party' environment. The 'club', so to speak, was lit only by flashing white Christmas lights strung around the upper edges of the ceiling. The music playing over a boom box to one side of the room was soft piano, and the people there were grouped about in quiet conversation.

We paid roughly $10 each cover charge at the door and entered inside. Josh got a big, plastic grin on his face that I said made him look a little creepy but that he wore throughout our time there none the less.

I walked around a little and cased out the small place. I was aware that many people were looking at me with some curiosity. Eventually I sat down on a couch near the entrance and a young Korean man who looked to be of college age sat down next to me. He started talking to me in heavily accented English, asking me what languages I spoke, where I came from, etc. Finally he asked me why I was in Korea. I had been using simple language and enunciating with him up to that point, making sure he understood what I was saying. Posed with this tough question, I tried my best to answer simply.

I said 'China is here' and I gestured, as if pointing to a map, 'Japan is here, America is here, and Korea is here in the middle. The history of these places comes together in Korea, and Korea has its own history, so it is interesting.'

He frowned at this and repeated part of what I said. I explained it to him again, and then he got a call on his cell phone and stopped talking to me.

I could be that he just didn't understand, but I don't think that was it. I got the impression that he was insulted by my explanation. I thought about it later and saw that on some level it was insulting. I told him that I liked the history of his country because it contained the history of other countries. It's sort of like a foreigner coming to America and telling people that he loved American history because of its ties to Europe. I've always thought about Korean history from an American view-point. I think now that's a rather one-sided perspective, as well as short-sighted one in terms of wanting to study Korean history at the graduate level. It would be better if I loved the history for itself rather than for its relations to the histories of other nations.

Josh introduced me to a very outgoing and spunky Korean girl who spoke to me in a halting mixture of Japanese and English. She asked me the dreaded 'how old do you think I am?', but fortunately before I could answer a man at the center of the room raised his hands and got everyone's attention. He spoke in a mixture of Korean and Japanese, very little of which I understood. When he was done everyone started making a line that headed over to a kitchen area where drinks were being served. I fell in near the back.

After being poured a rum and mostly Pepsi the same man motioned me over to him. At the terminus of the line everyone was being ushered off to tables where they sat down and talked. The man asked me if I spoke Korean, and I said no. He asked me if I spoke Japanese, and I said a little. He then walked me over to a table with eight other people and had me sit down. There were three Japanese people and five Koreans there, and all were speaking Japanese. I was hoping Josh would sit down there too so that he could translate for me in a pinch, but the man sat him down at a table across the room, leaving me to rely on my own language skills.

Under the circumstances, I did better than I thought I would. Fortunately I sat next to a Korean who had studied in both Japan and Australia. I talked to him about Baseball. He knew the major leagues very well, and was a Boston Red Sox fan. I told him in a mix of English, Japanese and hand gestures that I had seen Ichiro's first big league game and had been very impressed with his batting practice performance.

I also went over the basics in Japanese with several other people. This means that I was asked the questions: where are you from, where did you study Japanese, how long did you study Japanese, why are you here, etc. I was able to communicate on this basic level, though I often had to resort to hand gestures. One woman asked me whether I found Japanese or Korean harder. I said Japanese because it was difficult to read, but that Korean was difficult too because it was hard to speak. That was about the height of my language achievement.

It wasn't a bad time, though I quickly reached the limit of what my language skills allowed me to communicate. After about forty-five minutes I got up to get a second drink. Josh got up as well from across the room and came to me as I headed over to the bar. He told me that he was going to leave. He wasn't having a good time, and I would find out later he was pissed off because the Japanese people at his table kept treating him as if he didn't know the language. I think he also felt like an outsider at his table and was getting the cold shoulder from a few girls there. Figuring that I didn't have much to say to anyone at the party, I agreed to go even though I was having a good time.

He apologized on the way back when he found out that I had been enjoying myself. I said not to worry about it and that ultimately I had very limited connection possibility with the other party goers because of the language barrier. I told him that telling the woman that Japanese was difficult was about the height of the kind of empathic link I could create with anyone there under the circumstances, and that it was no great loss to me to leave early.

We hung out at my apartment for awhile afterwards. I told him that things here were a lot better when I had an American microcosm to be around. I could communicate with people within my little American program in the summer of 2004 and still practice my Korean with the natives and learn it in classes. This time there is no such microcosm available (at least not that I've found or heard about) and it's been a lonely time because of that.

I told him that was the deal breaker for my Korean experience. I talked about this for awhile. I said that with a full year of college Japanese I could communicate on a basic level. Though that limits the connection and relationship that I can have with native speakers, at least it's something. I said that to get even that very basic level of communication in Korea would take a minimum of four months, probably five. Josh agreed with me on that point. I said that I wasn't willing to be so generally isolated and lonely for that long, especially considering that to truly communicate in Korean would almost certainly take me more than a year of intensive study. The thought of being stuck in Korea unable to communicate with the natives and with no American microcosm to fall back on for so long was virtually unbearable, and I wasn't prepared to do it.

I did say that I might consider coming back if the time was right. Maybe if I took a couple of years of college level Korean and then came back with some ability to communicate things would be different. Something to think about.


On Saturday Josh and I went on a day trip to Songnisan Park, a wooded area with hiking paths that also houses three large golden Buddhas at a temple a few miles up one of the trails. We headed out to the Seoul train station early and stopped in for some coffee at a local cafe to wake us up. There we met an Australian who was in the country teaching English. He didn't know any more Korean than I did it seemed. He said that being a teacher here is hard because he works a good nine hours a day in pure class time and that mostly what he does isn't teaching but talking and having conversations in English within the pretext of teaching. He didn't seem to be having a great time in Korea, but he said that he was making good money and had a Korean girlfriend, so he would probably stick around for awhile.

We took a train for a little over an hour to Daejeon. From there we spent a half hour making our way from the train station to the local bus depot. We missed our bus there by ten minutes and had to wait an hour for the next one. We went and got dumplings with sweet bean paste in the center at a Family Mart and then sat down outside. We talked about air marshals and national security until it was time to head back and board the bus.

It was overcrowded, and halfway through the hour and a half bus ride Josh had to get up to give an old man his seat (that's the way things are done here). I gave up my own seat as well to another old man, but the girl next to me insisted that I take her seat and that she would stand instead of me. I argued with her a little but eventually sat down. Maybe I should've stood, because though the old man was pleasant enough he smelled like very pungent beef jerky. After about a half hour of stuffy close quarters with him I was getting pretty nauseous. Fortunately he got off and gave me relief before I got within range of the dreaded public bus upchuck.

We got to Songnisan at about 2PM and discovered that it was both very touristy and very beautiful. The leaves had begun to change in the mountain forests surrounding the park and the view was a wonderful mosaic of color. We began walking towards the head of the forest trails, admiring our surroundings and smelling mountain air that was devoid of the sewer stink that surrounds so much of Seoul.

On the way a man sitting upon a purple towel caught Josh's eye and gestured him over. He had a number of cups in a small blue bucket next to him. He took one of these and then dipped it into a black, steaming concoction in a metal pot roasting on a hotplate beside him. He then handed it to Josh, who took it and started drinking. The man then turned to me and offered me the same. I tried to decline, motioning that my stomach was upset (it was), but he said that this brew would be good for it and gave it to me. I took a sip and found it to be thick and tasting of liquorish. The man then brought out a powder blue bowl. He put some water in it along with a think black liquid and some seeds. I found out later that he was telling Josh how the liquid was made and how it had medicinal properties. At the time I kept imagining a fortune teller casting seeds into a bowl to see the patterns that they uncovered. Josh ultimately declined the sales pitch and we moved on. My imagination stayed behind for a little while though, thinking about signs in ink black liquid and seeds.

We eventually reached a park with a grass lawn and some spaced out trees. Josh bought a large beer at a local store, and I declined to share it with him. He drank it while I stared around the park and at the nearby mountains. Suddenly the loud shout of many voices in unison came up from behind tree cover to our right, just beyond the trailhead. It arose again a minute later, and then once more. I found myself thinking of a martial arts group deep in the mountains off on some training retreat. This thought made me feel impatient to start moving because I wanted to see if I might be right. I got a strong desire to train and wondered if I might be able to join the workout. I hustled Josh into finishing his beer and we went to check things out. It turned out to be nothing more than a company dinner, with people toasting and hazzahing a man speaking into a microphone.

We walked for awhile and were very quiet, taking in the sights around us. The path was wide and paved in most places. It was lined with paper lanterns of varying color with an image of Buddha on them. The way was very crowded, with most of the people going the opposite direction of Josh and me.

Eventually we spotted a temple through the trees. We went off the path and crossed a river to reach it, only to find that it was operating and off limits. We took a back trail and came out into Beopjusa temple, the public attraction. Josh and I were admiring intricately painted pagodas and carved images in stone walls along the back entrance when we stepped out into the temple grounds proper. I looked to my left and did a double take.

A hundred feet away in the distance was a huge statue of Buddha, at least eighty feet tall and glowing in the late afternoon sun. It is called Cheongdongmireukbul, and it's the largest Buddha statue in the world. It is cast in bronze and is a beautiful sight.

We walked around Beopjusa for a long time, taking pictures and admiring the place. It had a very solemn and gentle feel, as well as great beauty. I liked it very much.

At the center of Beopjusa there is a huge pagoda that houses three golden Buddhas at least ten feet high apiece. I saw some people going inside, but I felt that it would be wrong for me to do so. Many Koreans seemed hesitant to go in as well. Those that did bowed down before the statues for long periods of time, appearing to pray. Around the outside of the house there were a number of beautiful painted relieves on the life of the Buddha Amida, Buddhism's Jesus figure who promised that he would give anyone who sincerely chanted his sutra (a short one sentence verse) 1000 years in the Pure Land, a paradise akin to the Christian heaven, after death.

We passed the time there mostly in silence and hushed whispers. I left the temple grounds feeling that the trip has been well worth it.

Outside the main entrance I came upon the sight of hundreds of stones stacked in groups on the bank of a shallow stream. It looked almost like a small city. I asked Josh if he knew what they signified. He said that he didn't know for sure about in Korea, but in Japan worshipers of Shintoism set them up to honor that dead or great natural phenomenon. I looked at them for a long time, and kept thinking about them as we went back. I thought briefly of setting one up for P.D., but decided against it since it was neither my place nor my way. I wondered if he might have liked one all the same though.

Mostly though I thought about wonders and doors. I thought about the things I had seen. When I looked down on the rocks, for instance, I thought about a city of stones where people lived and worked. They would ride flying machines or pterodactyls, navigating through the rock edifices as they went about their business. There are places that I love, especially in nature, that spark thoughts like that, thoughts that fill me up with awe. I often feel that there's a place just beyond this world in my imagination. That place is more amazing than anything I have ever seen, and sometimes given the right door I touch it, just briefly. The feeling is wonderful.

As I walked back I jotted down a few story ideas in my notebook.

We exited the mountain as the sun was setting and ate a dinner of meat-on-a-stick. This is pieces of meat slathered in sauce (usually spicy), spitted on a wooden poker and then cooked over an open flame. Only street vendors seem to sell them, but boy is it good even though it's street fare. It has become a new favorite of mine here.

We rode back an hour and a half on a bus that was cozily heated and had orange and green overhead lights that reminded me of cantaloupe and honeydew melons. I got car sick traveling the winding road down the mountain, but recovered after awhile. Josh got sick off of the meat-on-a-stick (it may taste great, but it's still street food) and had to get off the bus and run into a bathroom halfway through the drive. The Koreans on the bus started grumbling after he had been in there about three minutes, but they didn't say anything to him when he came back after five.

Mostly I listened to the Dark Tower on CD on the way back to Seoul. We reached the city and then made our way to the subway. Josh made some comment in the subway about neat things to study in graduate school and then turned very bitter, saying that he couldn't go to graduate school because he didn't have the money to do it. I said that he might be able to get a scholarship, and he said that he didn't have the grades to get one.

After we got off the subway the subject of teaching English in Korea came up. Josh had expressed to me that he didn't like teaching English in Japan, and I asked him why, thinking that it might be relevant to the conversation. He launched into a thirty minute story about how he was used by the students and screwed over by the administration there. Perhaps I should've been more sympathetic, but it seemed to me like a sob story and a non-sequitur, since ultimately he said that his bad experience had nothing to do with the teaching itself and everything to do with specific people that he met while teaching. He kept talking to me outside of my apartment building for fifteen minutes about all the bad things that had happened to him. I said little and tried my best not to let on that I was annoyed.

Josh is a very bitter man, and it gets to me sometimes. From his stories I'd say that he gives a lot and takes a lot in his relationships. Because he gives a lot he often gets taken advantage of, and because he takes a lot he often rubs people the wrong way.

But who am I to judge a thirty-four year old widower who came to Korea with no connections and nothing to lose? By the way, though he has mentioned that he is a widower and I see a gold wedding ring hanging on a chain around his neck, he won't talk about what happened, and I won't ask him about it.

And after all, thank goodness for Josh. We may not have much in common, and we may not click, but without him my loneliness here would be crushing.


Sunday and Monday found me sick, though probably not with the same thing Josh had. My stomach has been sensitive, my head has been achy, and I'm pretty sure I was running a fever for awhile on Sunday night.

I talked to my parents online, and my Dad is rescheduling my flight to about a week from now. Josh tried to talk me into staying and/or traveling around to other countries in Asia, but I said that my heart just wasn't in it. The time is wrong.

Regards,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1129038120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1129038120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1129038120/tpod.html Wed, 12 Oct 2005 09:36:20 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Seoul, Korea Rep.

Stalled

On Sunday Josh and I decided to take a day trip up to Seoul Tower, a place that I read about in my Korean guidebook. It's supposed to be a top tourist spot.

At about noon we headed out to the subway and rode the line to a station near to where we hoped Seoul Tower was. When we came out of the underground into daylight we found ourselves in front of a huge, twelve story department store. Josh said he wanted to go in, and I agreed to go with him though I had no interest in the place. We quickly browsed the floors, not finding much to look at. Josh marveled at the plasma televisions in the electronics department, having never seen one before. One of them was truly impressive, a 90 inch monster that makes a guy want to be rich.

Driers in Korea are twice as expensive as they are in the United States. I'm not sure why, but I suspect that it's a conspiracy against me. I have a washer in my apartment but no drier. I have to hang my clothes up, and they take days to dry. When they do they're stiff and wrinkled. I don't know what I'm going to do if I stay here in winter when the temperature gets down to around 20 degrees.

After the store we wandered around lost for awhile. You would think that a giant tower on top of a mountain would be an easy thing to find, but when you're surrounded by tall buildings it makes it hard to scout around. Josh finally asked a middle aged Korean woman where it was. She made as if to actually take us there, but Josh told her it was fine if she would just point us in the right direction. She did, and soon enough we found ourselves heading through a crowded shopping district.

We spotted a bank and ducked inside for some cash. Out front there was a stage set up, and a large crowd of people were watching a band and clapping along with the music. After we got our Korean monopoly money out of the ATM we joined in and watched the festivities. The band was from Ecuador, and they played what I would assume is traditional Ecuadorian music. It was awesome. I would later tell Josh that if I were a composer for feature films I'd have gotten those guys' number so I could put their stuff on the big screen. It had that sort of sound to it. Check out the video.

In time we made our way out of the commercial district and spotted Seoul Tower on a lush mountain in the distance, maybe a mile off. We walked to it taking a quiet street through a cozy feeling residential area. After some toil we reached the mountain and found a small stone staircase leading up. We climbed it. Bouquets of flowers lined the path, and for awhile we thought we might have stumbled upon the way to a graveyard. Eventually we came out upon a large, gradual path that was crowded with Koreans walking and running. We followed that.

The day was beautiful, and the scenery was nice. The mountain had a lush green forest to admire, and it afforded a number of remarkable views of the city. We even spotted some wildlife in the form of two giant yellow spiders sitting upon prey encrusted webs almost as strong as sewing string. Each was about the size of my palm, though I didn't care to take exact measurements.

The Korean people around us were of some interest as well. Of particular note, Josh and I passed more blind people on the walk than I think I have passed in my life before it. One of them heard us talking, came over, and said 'Jesus Christ?' Josh began to explain in English that he thought Jesus was a great man but that he himself did not go to church, while I tried to step very lightly so that the blind guy might not know I was there. He didn't speak much English and I don't think I got what Josh was trying to say.

I don't know if Korea has a high incidence of blindness or not. The blind people we passed didn't seem to be together, so I don't think it was a group thing. Maybe they just walk the path for the smell. It smells very nice on the road to Seoul Tower (as opposed to downtown Seoul, which smells like an open sewer as often as not).

Eventually the path led us to what I'd like to refer to as the Weight Machine Oasis. We were walking along when all of a sudden to our left the trees gave way to a large workout area, including weight machines under a tented tarp, many badminton courts, pull-up bars, sit-up benches, and all sorts of other fitness aids. There were many middle aged and old people working out there. Most of the people that we passed on the road, too, were middle aged or old. I guess the whole mountain has become a place for relaxed exercise.

From there it was a quick climb to the top. There we found a park filled with Koreans next to Seoul Tower itself, which isn't much in and of itself. I thought to myself that for a tourist spot, Seoul Tower didn't seem to have a lot of foreigners. Josh and I went up an old wall that had served as a watch tower in the distant past and gazed out at the city. The view was spectacular. I could see the entirety of Seoul and the hills beyond stretching out in every direction.

On the way down the mountain I spotted a Korean teenager wearing a shirt that read 'World Without Strangers.' It was a good motto, though I found it somewhat ironic given my current situation.

We came down the mountain at sunset and moseyed our way into a district bordered by the American military base. There were more Korean police in the area than you could shake a sword-sized baton at, which is, incidentally, what they carried with them. We found a subway there and went down into it to find more guards than travelers. It was a large station, originally built to handle the flow of humanity heading to the World Cup Stadium built for the tournament held in 2004. When Josh and I were there it was mostly empty, which made for a lonely place. Our footfalls echoed off the walls, and it seemed to me that the dozen or so security guards there watched us closely, though it could have been my imagination.

We headed home, stopping at Baskin Robbins on the way.

Monday passed quietly. Josh and I headed out to dinner. While we were there a guy and girl speaking English sat down near to us. When the meal was over I went up and introduced myself to them. They turned out to be level three K.L.I. students. Josh came over a second later and threw out there that we were looking for people to hang out with and asked them if they'd like to have a few beers some time. They were immediately put off by this, and I was a little annoyed since his phrasing made us sound like a couple of drunken frat boys (I haven't done any drinking except for in Japan, though I can't speak for Josh; he seems to have a love of beer). Both said that they weren't really drinkers, and neither made any sign of wanting friendship.

Josh and I talked for awhile about it. I said that the more I stayed here, the worse and worse things looked from a social perspective. Josh has still, after two weeks of classes, been unable to get anyone in his class to even come out to eat outside of the school cafeteria with him, no less hang out at night. I didn't find anyone during the time that I was in my own class either. I found out that I have people living in my apartment building who speak English, but when I've say hello to them as we pass on the stairs they always just seem to want to be on their way. I have to say, if there are other lonely English speakers around here they sure don't seem to want company.

I should also say that I haven't seen any large groups of English speakers running around either, which was usual fair last time. Mostly I see pairs, and none of them seem eager to reach out when either Josh or I try to talk to them.

Josh added to my thoughts by saying that most of the people in his class were sent there by businesses that needed someone who knew Korean. They're here to work, big time, and they don't have much interest in fraternization. This seems to be pretty normal fair for the program. It's all business. Josh and I lamented this because not only did it make us lonely, but it makes it more difficult to go out and see things. Last time each of us was here we had the experience of being surrounded by English speakers, all of whom had things they wanted to see. Buddies would drag us off to places they had heard about, and between everyone there was always something to do. Not to mention that it's always easier to travel in a group if you don't speak the language of your travel country.

But at least we can see some things. We made plans to take a series of trains around Korea over the weekend in order to see the countryside and whatever choice sights we come across.

That night Josh said that if I wanted to meet people that the Tae Kwon Do classes at Yonsei would be a good place to go. I said that I agreed, but that I was hesitant to join up at the moment because I didn't know what my plans were going to be. I could be here in a month, or I could be gone tomorrow. I thought it would be disrespectful (as well as wasteful monetarily) to sign up for a Tae Kwon Do program only to leave it a week later.

I got to feeling a little emotional. I explained to him that I have a lot hanging over my head, and I don't want to commit to anything until I've figured things out. To put it in my running metaphor, I've taken what looks like a wrong turn on the path, and I want to pause for a moment to sort out where I should be headed.

He seemed to understand that and headed back to his own apartment. I thought a lot that night about if I wasn't actually in the right place but at the wrong time.

The next day Josh and I got food at what is probably the only Mexican food place for a hundred miles. Choi's Tacos makes a pretty good burrito.

On the way back Josh referred to our friendship jokingly as one of 'convenience'. I think he hit the nail on the head. To be honest we don't really click. Had we a more diverse (or really any) group of people to get to know, I sincerely doubt that we would have become friends.

Overall, I'm still bitterly lonely here. However, since letting go and having my cry a few days ago my sense of dread has faded, though it has not completely disappeared. I'm sinking in here a little more, but honestly I'm doing it by doing the sort of things that I'd do back home. I read, and I write. I play video games, which has been a real life saver for me. I have a lot of friends that I've formed in a massive multiplayer online role playing game called 'World of Warcraft'. I play an orc called 'Skalagrim', which means 'Skull Grim' or 'Bald Grim', depending on interpretation. I took the name from a famous Icelandic berserker. I play him and I talk to people back in the United States. We do forty-man dungeon raids and hang out. It does a lot to keep my loneliness in check. Without it I probably would've bolted by now (though come to think of it, that may have been the best thing to do).

With this routine that I'm building up here I'm beginning to wonder if I just didn't burn myself out and am looking for an excuse to read, write and play video games all day long.

Tonight I spent some time thinking about my desire to go into the field of history. I composed the following e-mail and sent it to a Professor that I had heard of but never actually took a class with at UC Santa Cruz.
-------------------------------------------------------
Dear Professor Burke,

My name is Jonathan Clemens, and I graduated with a history degree from UCSC last Spring. I'm e-mailing you to ask a few questions about studying world history as a career.

Allow me to give you the background information that me to contact you.

I have been planning for the last two years to go into graduate work in the field of Korean history. I was advised by Professor Gail Hershatter to study abroad in Korea to gain language skills before starting my graduate career. This made sense to me, and I went. I write this to you from my apartment in Seoul, South Korea, where I have been staying for the past two weeks.

But currently I find myself questioning my decision. I've had myriad problems in Korea, difficulty in learning the language to general loneliness to name a few. But the one that stands out is that I don't really love the place. I would describe it as 'ok'. To me, the value of a place is in the things I learn from it and the connections I have there. Unfortunately, having studied in Korea once before as a glorified tourist there isn't much new about the place, and my connections here are non-existent. A place in and of itself is just weather, geography, language and culture, and none of these aspects of Korea captivate me enough that I'm sure that I want to make a career of studying its history.

I am, however, still very devoted to history. I love it because I don't think there is a subject that exists that is more educating. Learning history broadens horizons and grants perspective. It gives students wisdom. It provides a window into the future, for as Confucius put it: "to divine the future, one must first know the past." I love the subject, and I could be very happy teaching, researching and writing about it.

The reason why I chose Korea to be my focus was because I thought it had the best history for broadening horizons. It is a historical nexus point, a region that heavily connects to the histories of China, Japan, and the United States while still maintaining its unique history and culture. I love that part of it. But do I love the parts of its history that are purely Korean, such as the Three Kingdoms era? No more than I love any other history. Do I love Korea or Korean culture? I find it interesting, but no more than most cultures.

This leaves me in a position where I still want to study and make a career out of history, but I don't have a desire to specialize in a single region. This being the case, world history came to mind since it deals (in my experience) with broad cross-cultural historical connections.

All that being said, I pose the following questions to you:
1) For a career in world history, would I still be expected to focus on in on a country or region?
2) Would a world historian be expected to go abroad often (I've been told that country-focused historians spend roughly one year worth of time in four abroad, though please refute me on this if I am mistaken)? If so, to what kind of places and doing what king of things?
3) What languages would I be expected to study if I went into world history? Am I expected to focus in on the countries whose languages I study?

Finally, if it's not too much trouble I'd like to hear your own thoughts on why world history is a good subject to study and research. Give me your sale's pitch, so to speak.

Thank you for your time,
Jonathan Clemens
joscleme@ucsc.edu
--------------------------------------------------

You know I wrote this piece after writing this e-mail? I knew something was different about my writing style for this entry. Sounds more essay-ish.

Just goes to show that school dampens the ability to write creatively.

That's all there is to report right now.

Regards,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128825540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128825540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128825540/tpod.html Sat, 08 Oct 2005 22:40:37 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Seoul, Korea Rep.

Breakdown

Nothing much happened on Friday or Saturday during the day. I stayed in, read, played video games, and thought.

On Saturday night at 11PM I was preparing to go to bed when the Sixth Sense came on Korean television. It's a movie that I've been thinking about watching a lot, but I didn't find the time for it in the states. I didn't think I'd watch. I was tired and wanted to get up early. But I was drawn in to the movie. After ten minutes I was watching intently and no longer feeling tired. I was really into it, with gooseflesh constantly running up my back and arms.

When it was done I went into the bathroom and brushed me teeth. I had a conversation with myself:
"Do stories make you a better person?"
"No, not really."
"Do they make you want to be a better person?"
"Yes. They inspire me to want to be great and to do great things."

I want to tell stories.

I spat out the toothpaste foam into the sink and stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I would like to say that I could tell you what I was thinking at the time, because it would make it easier to explain what happened next. I was thinking, but it was subconscious rather than on the surface, like a buzzing in the back of my mind. I was studying myself when a voice came up in my mind and said:
"It's okay." (you can let go)

I started to cry, and thoughts of my uncle P.D., hit and killed by a truck last spring, came flooding in.

I kneeled down on the bathroom floor and gave in. It was the first time that I really cried in... I don't know how long. There are times when I would've said I cried, but I really didn't. Times when I teared up and sniffled. Even those at the time seemed like a big deal, because even they were a great rarity. I suffered my pains quietly, privately, and without tears.

Even when P.D. died, I didn't really cry. I thought that I did, but I was wrong. I always choked the feelings back, pushed them down, composed myself. I would shed a few tears and then squash the grief, stiffen up my mind and go about my business.

But this time I let go, and I cried, really cried, for the first time since I reached junior high school. I cried for a long time. It was good and terrible.

After the wave passed I felt exhausted. I tried to just go to bed, but thoughts still came. Some were of P.D., but my mind had all but burned itself out on the subject during my cry. Most were of me and my situation here, though it shames me to say it.

I thought about not wanting to say goodbyes.

I remembered often thinking about death before leaving Korea, that someone in my family could die while I was away. I thought about not being there at the end... I'll use my dog Merlin as an example, because it's the only oncoming death that I dare to speak of. Merlin is twelve years old, ancient for a Labrador. He doesn't have much time left. Before leaving I thought about not being there to pet him the last time he went to bed, to call him a good dog.

I also thought before coming here that part of my foreboding about the trip was a premonition. I've had them before, as well as other experiences of small time ESP, or whatever you want to call it. Most of them have been in cars. I had strong a feeling of foreboding before both of my car accidents, and avoided a third by finally listening.

Last night I thought about the time our house caught fire. I remember the day before immediately family was driving back from visiting Butch and Dana Jung (sp?), and I was suddenly thinking about our house burning down. I remember asking the family if that would be such a bad thing, given that we could collect insurance money for all the useless junk that we've accrued over the years. Of course they said it would be, and they were right. After asking the question I wondered why I had even said it.

The next day I was upstairs in our house for an early lunch before packing up and heading back down to Santa Cruz for school. I was eating at the dining room table when I looked up and saw smoke drifting in the loft. I quickly called for my dad, who was working at a chair in front of the large windows at the back of our house. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran up stairs to find flames leaping up from a box placed in front of a heater and up the wall. He put them out in a few sustained sprays.

I would think later about how lucky it was that I was home and upstairs at that exact moment. My father was further away and wouldn't have seen or smelled the smoke for awhile, and a few moments could have been disastrous. The fire caught among dozens of cardboard boxes and next to a library of old books and magazines. Two more minutes and we would have been in big trouble. I would also remember that the thought of our house burning down came randomly and unbidden into my mind the day before. We never really explained the fire. The heater had been behind boxes for a long time, and though it seemed to have turned on we have no idea how it happened. It was a freak accident, but no real harm came of it.

I wondered a lot last night about what would happen if I wasn't there the next time? What if I wasn't there to stop bad things from happening?

What if my aversions to this place and the parts of my desire to go home that I can't explain are a bad thing coming on the horizon?

I guess I understand my change in psychology now, my desire not to lose any more people in my life to death or circumstances. To not want to say any more goodbyes.

Maybe I just picked a bad time to travel.

Regards,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128654360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128654360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128654360/tpod.html Fri, 07 Oct 2005 04:11:15 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Fukuoka, Japan

Questions

I woke up on Monday morning thinking about other things I could do with my life. I thought maybe world history would work better for me. I always found world history to be an audacious and clumsy subject that dealt in too many generalities, but it's a similar field to Korean history and might not require so much travel.

I'd ponder this for the next few days, but I wouldn't have a chance to look anything up until Thursday.

Josh came by at 7AM. I was a little late in my preparations, but by 7:15 my backpack was filled with the various items I thought I might need and we set off for Japan.

We walked through Ewha Women's University and down a street torn apart by construction. The sidewalks had been pulled up and moved away. Some coarse cloth was set down upon the ground like a carpet rolled out for a beggar king. It had rained the night before and the ground was muddy beneath it.

We reached the Ewha subway and made our way to the Seoul train station with only a few line changes. Outside there were more homeless people than I had ever seen in Korea. On of them with a booger hanging just outside of his right nostril said something to me. I thought for a moment he might have been speaking in English so I stopped and leaned in closer. He repeated his phrase though, and it turned out to be (according to Josh) just begging in Korean. I shook my head and walked away. I stopped in a bank to get some cash for the journey and walked out to find an old Korean man, homeless from the look of his clothes, bellowing at the top of his lungs. Everyone crowded outside of the train station ignored him and piled inside.

We planned to take a train to Busan and from there a ferry to Fukuoka, Japan. Trains ran from Seoul to Busan every twenty minutes, and we bought tickets for a fast one. Upon boarding an overhead video screen boasted that the train reached speeds of over 300km per hour, and sometimes during the trip the same screen would post a speedometer while showing baseball highlights or cartoons or other such things to entertain passengers. Knight Rider with David Hasselholf even made an appearance, though I wasn't watching.

Mostly I looked out at the scenery and listened to the Dark Tower by Stephen King on CD. The Korean countryside between Seoul and Busan is hilly, heavily forested and dotted with small white shrines, probably to dead ancestors, though I can't say for sure. It's pretty and seems wild but not forbidding.

We reached Busan after about three hours and walked on foot to the ferry building about twenty minutes away. On the way we stopped at a hole in the wall restaurant and ate a good lunch. Josh bought me a beer even though I said I didn't want one. I ate a pepper that ended up being much hotter than I thought it would be. I called it a 'destroyer pepper' after my mouth was still burning about five minutes later. Josh ate one of his own on a dare and then looked like he was going to pass out. I paid the tab.

At the Busan ferry we were lucky enough to be just in time to catch the jet ferry to Fukuoka. We spent some time getting through customs and then boarded a relatively small ship, two stories housing about eighty passengers or so.

At this point I should probably explain what a jet ferry is. A jet ferry doesn't just motor through the water, it hydroplanes on what looks like three fins. It moves very quickly and is a very smooth ride as well. It got us through the Sea of Japan in a little under three hours.

On the way a main character died in the Dark Tower story.

We passed through Japanese security without much of a problem. I examined the Japanese guards in customs, and I found myself frowning in incredulity at how non-threatening they were. None of them carried a single weapon. One was middle-aged, short, fat and nervous looking, fidgeting the whole time I saw him. Another was a young, skinny, timid woman who looked like she would bolt if so much as a mouse crossed her path. I would later describe them to Josh as 'looking like sheep.' I'm not sure if that speaks well or poorly of my American thought processes.

We found the Sun Palace Hotel in Fukuoka on foot and got a double room for about $120 per night. After that we went searching for a bank. Unfortunately our trip had left us with little time to spare in terms of catching our means of transportation, and we hadn't had time to exchange currency. Josh had about $20 in Japanese yen from a previous visit, but that was all we had to go on and Japan is a very cash oriented society (as in not many places take credit cards).

We searched for over an hour and hit four different banks, trying out various ATM cards at each. We didn't have any luck.

Growing hungry, we decided to search for a place that would take credit cards. We eventually found this in the form of what I was told was a typical Japanese bar.

Inside Josh ordered me beer (again) and we ate some sashimi as well as a number of meat-on-a-stick type of dishes. I didn't care for the sashimi, but the other stuff was good. We got lucky in that respect because neither Josh nor I could read much of the menu and most of our orders were shots in the dark.

The bar had some inexpensive whiskey around, and I mixed it with a coke to make drinks. Japanese whiskey is only about ten percent alcohol and is weak stuff, but it goes down smoothly.

Josh struck up a conversation with our waitress and then extended it to a second waitress. Both of them hung around us during the times when they didn't have to serve other customers. I could say very little in Japanese, but I understood a great deal. That was basically my story when in came to using Japanese in Japan; I could catch enough words to get the gist of most conversations, but I could rarely come up with them on my own to convey a point. None the less, Josh acted as a translator and the girls talked to us about we were from, what bands we liked, how old we were, etc. It was a very good time with lots of laughing.

It did have one lull that made an impression on me though. Josh took a bathroom break for just a few minutes, and I couldn't keep the conversation going with only an elementary level of Japanese. The girls wandered off to do their jobs and stood around off to the side for awhile. Josh came back and he and I talked for awhile. The girls wandered back over and the party began anew, but the lull made me intensely aware of my limitations.

This seems like a good time for an aside that I need to add. Josh has had three years of college level Japanese language instruction in the states as well as a year in a half of studying and working in Japan. He can speak with relative fluency after over four years of study, more than a third of it abroad, but he can barely read Japanese at all for the difficulty of Japan's use of hundreds of Chinese characters in its written language.

I point this out because seeing him has made me very weary of how long it might take me to gain fluency in a language. It also disheartened me regarding Japanese and graduate school. The foreign language test(s) for a master's or a PhD in history involves translating a document in the language into English with no aid except for a dictionary. This means that despite being able to converse freely and make complex jokes in Japanese (this later seems to be a specialty of Josh's), Josh could not pass the graduate school language test even after so much study.

Back to the story at hand, after a few hours we said our goodbyes to the girls and left the bar feeling very good and very tipsy. We searched for vitamins to prevent hangovers, but couldn't find any. We settled on ice cream instead, figuring it was the next best thing.

We got about a third of the way back to the hotel when all of a sudden Josh said that he really needed to go to the bathroom. I told him that we weren't that far away from the hotel and he said that he couldn't wait. He began a tense, quick walk back towards the bar. I remember heckling him on the way there. I think it was some long story about the benefits of adult diapers, but two days later and minus some brain cells I can't recall too many details.

Josh made it to the bar; thereby shaming himself by running past the two girls we had spent the evening flirting with and into the bathroom. I stayed outside and finished my ice cream. After that we went home and got some sleep.

The next morning I wrote this in a notebook upon waking:

"The value of a place is in the things you learn from it and the connections you have there. A place in and of itself is just weather, architecture and language."

In the shower I thought about a scene from City Slickers with Jack Palance and Billy Crystal:

Jack Palance: "Do you know what the secret of life is? One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don't mean shit."
Billy Crystal: "Yeah, but what's that one thing?"
Jack Palance: "That's what you've got to figure out."

I wondered what my one thing was. What was I devoted to, if I wasn't devoted to my pursuit of a history doctorate? The things that came to mind were not professions, and therefore not sustaining.

After I got ready Josh and I hailed a taxi and headed over to the Korean consulate, where Josh was going to his get his visa problem taken care of. On the ride he asked me what I thought of Japan. I said that I felt more comfortable there than in Korea. I knew more of the language and could get by more easily, but it was more than that. Japan has a clean, professional quality that reminds me of the United States and puts me at ease. I also have an easier time gauging the reactions and thoughts of Japanese people than Koreans for some reason. Their body language and demeanor is more or less the same as that of Americans, whereas in Korea people have a style that makes them difficult to read.

We reached the Korean consulate and Josh signed in at the front gate. While he was getting his passport taking care of I walked around the area and took photos. It was nice. A song by Audioslave called 'Doesn't Remind Me' kept running through my head as I wandered. It starts with: "I walk the streets of Japan 'till I get lost 'cause it doesn't remind me of anything."

I went through a park, over a couple of bridges and eventually came back to the consulate. Josh was still inside and I busied myself by studying a Korean phrasebook I had brought from home. I became aware that I was learning more by reading the first chapter of it, entitled 'most commonly used words and phrases', than I had in six weeks of previous Korean language study and would likely learn in ten weeks at K.L.I.

At one point a guard came up to me and asked me what I was doing there in Japanese. I was able to answer that my friend was inside. He said okay and went about his business. It was a small victory, but I was happy to be able to communicate, if even just a little and at a very basic level.

A few minutes later Josh came out, saying that his passport was being processed and would be ready for pickup the next day. That left us the rest of the day to go sightseeing. We ducked into a Family Mart, which is an Asian chain of convenience stores, and asked about places to see in the area. The store manager gave us good ideas, directions, and the locations of a few Family Marts in the area where we were headed. As he was explaining things to us (though mostly to Josh since he understood far, far more than I did) a woman came up to me and asked me in perfect English where I was from and was I in Japan for sightseeing. I answered her and she thanked me and went on her way.

As we left the Family Mart and headed towards a subway station, where we planned to take a train about an hour into the countryside to view a temple, we caught up to her and her two young daughters. Josh pointed out in Japanese that the elder of the two had her shoelace untied. The woman thanked him and asked us where we were going. It turned out that she was headed in the same direction and we all talked for some time, alternating between Japanese and English. I was impressed with her language skills; especially because she said that she had never studied abroad and done all of her English study at a local junior college.

She mistook me for Josh's son, something that happened a few times on this trip. Though I think the mistake is more insulting to Josh than to myself I seemed to be far more bothered by it than he was.

She also informed us that there was a park and some castle ruins that I had wanted to see near where we were going. We decided to stop in there and then said our goodbyes.

On the way to the park we passed a neat looking Buddhist temple. On the other side of the street from it we found a giant orange and black bee on the ground feasting on a green stalk of something. I put my Leatherman Swiss army key chain next to it and found them to be about equal size. That would make the bee about two inches long, a true goliath of its kind. It took my examination stoically and was still munching away when we left it behind.

The park we came to was very nice. It was composed of a wooded area surrounding a lake with a series of bridged islands running through its center. The lake was filled with large coy fish and it was a nice walk. There were a lot of Japanese joggers around the lake, as well as some bikers and a few people doing Tai Chi. People seemed to be having a good time.

I always like going to parks in other countries. They're beautiful and they always seem to evoke good feelings.

After a time we came to a garden with an admissions fee. It looked like a neat place to go, so we paid the small amount of money and wandered around inside for awhile. It was very nice, though it quickly became clear that the setting was catered towards romantic dates rather than tourists. As we circled a small pond a crane alighted from the bushes and glided to the pond's center, where it stayed a rock for awhile. I took a lot of pictures. Finally it flew further into the gardens, and from there away and out into the lake.

I liked the place a lot, though Josh said that it was a little artificial for his tastes due to the paved paths and occasional gazeboed bench areas for couples. We asked directions from the garden's ticket lady to the castle ruins and she told us the way. As we left I said 'kirai desu.' Unfortunately, this means 'I hate it' in Japanese. I was trying to say 'kirei desu', which means 'it is very pretty.' Josh made me feel a bit better about the slip by telling the story of how he had once made the same mistake when being introduced to a woman's first born baby. I got a good laugh at the thought of the big foreigner coming up and saying 'I hate your baby!' to some poor Japanese woman.

We walked for a ways and made it to the ruins of an old castle. It turned out to be little more than stones, but some of it was still intact. When we first reached it I tried to climb one of its walls after saying that it didn't look very defensible with all of its hand and foot holds. I got a little bit more than halfway up when my hand dislodged a large stone that came crashing down to the pavement below. I jumped off quickly, thinking the security would come yelling at us at any moment. I needn't have worried since there wasn't any.

Josh made it to the top though. On the way down I got under him so as to brace his fall if he slipped, and as I stood there something red caught my eye between the stones of the wall. It looked like a boxing glove to me, and I reached in and pulled it out after rearranging a few small stones.

It turned out to be a wallet, probably a girl's from the look of it. If it had any money inside it had been taken, but there was a phone card and a large picture of Avril Lavenge, along with some odds and ends. It looked as if it had been stuffed into the wall after being stolen and looted.

I held on to it as we continued on, hoping to find a security guard to turn it in to.

As we went up deeper into the ruins it became clear that this was not exactly the historical site that I had hoped it to be. This had less to do with the lack of intact buildings than with the shanty town of homeless people that had sprung up within it. A series of makeshift blue tarp tents were set up at various locations, and we passed a number of Japanese who seemed down on their luck.

Overall the castle was a lonely and forlorn place. After not seeing a single raven up to that point we spotted a few dozen in the castle grounds, and they sent up foreboding caws in the otherwise silent courtyard. We only passed three people, all of them alone, silent and brooding. One of them was a student sitting at the castle's highest point. He didn't even react when Josh and I came up to have a look around. I guess that the ruins are a good place for thinking, or maybe the spirits of the place call out for the company of other forlorn souls. The place had a bad feel to it.

We left without lingering much. Not having seen any security up at the ruins and with a wallet in our possession that didn't belong to us, we found ourselves walking about twenty minutes to the nearest police station. We turned in the wallet and filled out some paper work. Josh had done this once before and had been hesitant to do it again because last time he had gotten the third degree, a lot of suspicion, and a ton of paper work to fill out for his effort. This time it was much easier. The two cops got us in and out and never looked an accusing eye in our direction. When we were done Josh asked them where we could find a good ramen shop. They broke out a large government book filled with city maps and showed us the location of what could be described as the 'ramen district'. It was about thirty minutes back the way we had come on foot, and we went on our way.

I never liked ramen in the states, but the stuff they served me at the ramen house in Fukuoka was pretty good, if in need of a little kick.

After all this we decided it was getting a bit late to head out into the countryside to see a temple. We grabbed a taxi and headed back to hang out in the room for awhile. There our conversation took an odd turn, and I saw a really dark side of Josh. I had been talking about my concerns with K.L.I. and coming to Korea, as I have to given how much it's been on my mind. Somewhere along the way Josh got lost in his own head. He said he was thirty-four, that most of his friends were married, and that time had passed him by. I asked him why he had come to Korea and he said he didn't know; that honestly all that he felt like doing at the time was nothing. Despite this he said that he had waited two extra months to come to Korea because someone had asked him to, and then at the end of those two months the person had refused to explain their reasons. He also mentioned out of the blue that he had left money with someone in the United States sometime recently and that the money had disappeared with the person denying ever having it.

I honestly don't know the circumstances of what happened to him just before he came out here. He wouldn't elaborate when I asked. But he became really furious while thinking about it. I gave him his space and he composed himself in time. Josh is a very outgoing guy who has the tendency to throw jokes into the middle of serious conversations, and it took me a little bit off guard to see him descend so suddenly into his dark place. He would tell me himself later that he was 'wounded' by something that happened just before he came over, but he still wouldn't explain.

That night we went out to hit another bar. It was raining lightly. We wandered for a long time. Josh kept asking me where I wanted to go, to which I would reply 'I don't know; I don't know Japan; I don't know what to look for.' None the less, he kept prodding me to make a decision to the point where I got pretty damn annoyed with him.

As all this was going on we covered a lot of ground. We passed through the red light district to a park with an old, dark Victorian house at the center of it (I joked that it was haunted that kept saying that I saw a face in the window) and then passed a one story building that had a waterfall build in from its top to a small moat that surrounded it.

Finally, tired and a bit wet, we settled in at a bar that we had already passed twice. It had good food and we had a good time. We couldn't read much on the menu and in the end just pointed to random food. This turned out to be a good deal, and I got to try quail eggs wrapped in bacon and fried. They were quite tasty, like rich and soft hardboiled eggs. The natives laughed at us for ordering a very light alcoholic drink mixed with coca-cola that was a 'girly drink', so to reaffirm my manhood I took the sake we ordered as shots instead of sipping it as Josh said we were supposed to.

Our conversation wandered. Josh asked me if I found a girlfriend, would I want to stay in Korea. I said yes, that would be one of the things that would keep me in the country. Later I would think about this a lot. I would wonder whether loneliness was the only thing keeping me from sticking it out in the program and everything else was something of an excuse. I would also wonder if that wasn't more than enough of a reason by itself.

Finally we headed back to the hotel. We crashed out there for awhile and watched Japanese television. The foreigners on it are very stylized. Young Caucasian males, for instance, are all ultra-expressive in body language. They remind me of Jim Carey. It makes me wonder if that's how the Japanese view Europeans and Americans.

We also came across a program that taught English language (there are a lot of these in both Japan and Korea). It was filmed in New York in an international classroom. The students came from a number of different countries, though Japan was a small majority. Their professor asked them to write a sentence in English answering 'what do you think of New York?' I found their answers interesting. One described New York as 'dangerous', another 'exciting', but the word that they latched onto and was repeated by a number of different people was 'big'. One Korean man there said: "Everything in America is big. The buildings are big, the people are big, the malls are big. Everything is big." His sentiments were echoed by the class as a whole.

After awhile we got to sleep.

The next morning was the deadline for a 70% refund for withdrawal from K.L.I., and I made my decision to leave the program. That is not to say that I have made my decision to leave the country, at least not yet. But I'm close enough to it that I felt getting the refund was wise, especially because I believe I can learn just as much Korean with a phrasebook and interaction with the locals as I can in class.

None the less, I felt weak about withdrawing, that I had failed myself in some way. My thoughts and emotions on the subject are complex, as you can tell I'm sure.

Josh and I tried to get an international pay phone working in the lobby so that I could call K.L.I. I spent much of the time staring off into space and thinking rather than doing much in the way of helping. In the end we didn't have any luck with it and I said that I'd call from the ferry terminal instead.

We took a taxi over to the Korean consulate to pick up Josh's visa. He said that now at least I could travel a lot, and that if I did so cheaply enough I could probably see Japan and China as well as Korea on the refunded money. I said yeah, but in my mind and heart I wasn't so sure. It sounded good, and I'd hate to waste the opportunity. Still, my heart just isn't in it, hasn't been in this trip from the start, and I can't seem to will it to be.

We picked up the visa, grabbed a few sandwiches at Family Mart (they put wasabi in the mayonnaise, which gives it a nice kick), and then took a taxi back to the ferry building. There we had the option of waiting around for a little over two hours for a jet ferry or to take a regular one. Josh said he wanted to walk around a bit on the boat, and since the regular ferry was much bigger and looked walker friendly we went with that. We bought tickets and I made my phone call to K.L.I. They said that I had to cancel in person, but that they'd remember I called and still give me the refund if I canceled the next day.

We had a small, economy cabin that was just a carpeted floor with blankets provided. We would've been sharing the space with six other people had we actually stayed in the cabin. As it was when the boat got under way were up on the topmost public deck, watching the scenery. We talked about our concerns. Josh said that he felt rootless, something that I described as being a 'plant floating in the wind', an analogy I borrowed from the Floating World of Buddhist philosophy. They use it to mean that a person has no control and nothing goes as a person wants it to, that he is a slave to the winds of happenstance and fate. There are other interpretations though, such as the Floating World means 'going along with an unsinkable disposition no matter what happens.' I shared this thought with him too, and it might have given him some small comfort. In the end though, we both ended up melancholy. He headed inside and I stayed up on deck.

I stared out at the sea for a long time, thinking about all the possible paths before me and which one I should take now that the road that I was on no longer seemed like the right one.

I wrote a few things in my notebook:

"I recognize a lot of 'woe is me' and not a lot of action."

I was thinking about being lonely here, and it occurred to me that I had hardly even tried to alleviate that. I could've hung around outside of the International House (the dormitories for foreigners) or spent more time in the K.L.I. cafeteria. I could've gone to people who were speaking English behind me in line at the corner store, or at another table in the restaurant I frequent.

The people here are very different this time around and I can't say that they'd be very social even if I did go up to them (they haven't seemed social thus far), but I haven't tried as hard as I should have.

I also wrote:

"Loneliness is not the point, though it's been what I've been focusing on."

I thought that couldn't be the main reason for my wanting to go home. After all, I hadn't done much to try to change it, and I had gone through lonely stretches before and continued on my course. I thought about what was different about this time. Maybe I didn't much like Korea this time through. I know I didn't like the K.L.I. program. I didn't like not knowing the language and the helplessness that it caused with no Korean-American friends to help me out. I didn't like the prospect of how much work and time it would take to learn the language.

But I also thought that loneliness was what occupied me most, that even my friendship with Josh didn't do much to sooth me. I wondered if maybe I had too much baggage in that regard, if my loneliness was amplified by past scars to the point where it was nearly unbearable.

As I was thinking these thoughts (among many others) I moved away from the bench that I had been sitting on and over to the railing. There the wind screamed. The sky was stormy and the sea was dark. Occasional drops of rain pelted my cheeks. A man whom I would meet and talk to later moved up to the railing as well, stayed there for a few moments, and they retreated laughing in dismay and exclaimating to an old man whom he had sat down next to. It was hard to stand still against the wind, and if you turned your face towards the gale it blew so hard that you couldn't breathe.

I stayed there for over an hour.

I looked out over the sea and thought as the wind and the rain beat upon me, and I began to focus. Calm came over me, and a sense of determination. My thoughts were complex and difficult to repeat here, but I will relate that at the end I was saying to myself: 'I can do this. I can stay. My will is strong enough. My heart can get behind it, and I can make it do so."

Then a group of Korean girls came from below deck and moved over to the railing near me. One stuck her head out into the path of the window, gave a squeak and then ran back to her friends giggling. After a moment of conference another came up and did the same, staying a little a longer. Then the third came and stayed a little longer still before running back. They all giggled uproariously at this, and then they went up into the line of the wind and started taking pictures one by one, laughing and playing around as I did so. At first I tried to stay focused and look out over the water, but in the end the spectacle was too funny. Many times little antics forced a smile out of me that I couldn't help, and a few times they made me laugh.

It started to rain more heavily and they fled below decks. I tried to regain my focus, but couldn't. After awhile the rain became too much for me and I too headed below decks.

It's always the easiest thing in the world to focus when it's just you and the path. It's not just because there aren't any distractions, it's because the path is your only companion. It's your comfort and your friend. It's what you do. When it's just you and the road there's nothing to do but walk.

But when people walk the road with you, things change. Things get more interesting, more fun, and the path ahead of you seems less important. The destination becomes secondary to the journey.

I sat down in a chair in front of a window in doors and thought for a long time. Mostly my mind went in circles, and eventually I called it quits. I met Josh on his way up to our room, where he was going to go to sleep for awhile. He directed me towards a movie room and an arcade before heading upstairs.

I spent the next few hours playing Soul Caliber 2 in the arcade. It's a one on one fighting game with swords and various weapons that I have on Playstation 2 at home. I piled up 187 wins and 11 loses, placing seventh on the high score list. The game also conferred upon me the title of 'Platinum Knight of the Furies', but what that amounts to I couldn't say.

As we neared Busan I went above decks to watch the scenery pass. I took a lot of pictures, most of which came out very beautifully. The man whom I had first seen brave the wind next to me earlier came up to me and asked in very broken English if I would like him to take a picture of me. I said thank you very much, and he did. I put my camera away and he tried to talk to me in English with the aid of a pocket Korean to English translator. I in turn tried to answer in the few words that I knew in Korean. At one point he started to say something in Korean and accidentally switched into Japanese. As he was shaking his head at the slip I switched to Japanese too, and we were able to trade some small amount of information. He was a Korean from Seoul who had gone to Fukuoka for a four day bike tour. Eventually Josh came up on deck and took over most of the conversation, being able to speak in both Japanese and Korean, but I was happy with my small amount of applied aptitude.

The bike guy stayed with us through customs, and I think the customs officers stopped him and asked him a few questions because he was with us. As for Josh and I, we got the eighth degree from customs. The Korean officer unpacked everything in my backpack. This lead to an embarrassing moment as he pulled out a box of condoms that I travel with (better safe than sorry) and spent a good twenty seconds examining it before he realized what it was. I guess he couldn't read English.

Outside the bike guy took a picture with us and got my e-mail address before going on his way. It is always nice to meet such gregarious and outgoing people, though I don't think I could match their style and do what they do.

On the train ride back to Seoul another main character died in the Dark Tower.

We got back to our apartment complex late and said our goodnights. The whole time we were heading back I got a rising sense of uneasiness and dread in the pit of my stomach. I don't know what exactly causes that to happen when I'm here.

On Thursday morning I got up and began asking myself what I wanted out of life. I decided that I wanted to gain wisdom, to impart what wisdom I have, and to change the world through trickle down. I'll explain the last one, since it's something that I truly believe in. I use the example of Rosa Parks, because she's the same example that I came up with when this thought occurred to me. There were hundreds of thousands of people over countless generations that lead to Rosa Parks. Her ancestors learned and benefited from knowing others who had a positive impact on their lives. They took that influence and made it part of their being. They passed the traits they learned down to their children, who in turn passed them down to their children. In time all that led to Rosa Parks, who initially did nothing more than say 'no, I won't move.' This small act sent profound ripples through American society, and in the end was a spark that changed the world. When she said no, it made the lives of her ancestors and everyone who positively influenced them worthwhile. She gave them meaning, because there is a part of them, even if just a small one, in her.

I believe in that. I believe that if you help to create ten good men, then they too will help create ten good men, and so on and so forth. One life lived right can make a profound difference, because if you can help inspire someone else to be great, and that makes you great as well.

I have to ask myself whether the path of a history professor is the best (and most realistic) way to do this. If it is, then I should stick it through despite the difficulty. I've got to think about it a bit more. I need to know whether the juice is worth the squeeze, or whether I should be looking for different fruit.

I looked into world history and other graduate programs. I was dismayed to find that knowing at least one foreign language was a requirement across the bar, even for those people in American history. In fact, the requirement extends even to American studies majors. I even looked up a folklore masters program in Berkeley, and that one required it. It seems that for a humanities degree there's no way to escape the foreign language requirement.

The one exception was the journalism masters program at Berkeley, but they said that the majority of their students had at least two years of working experience before joining the program.

All in all I didn't find anything that sparked my interest.

I went to K.L.I. and withdrew from the program, getting a little bit over $1,000 in refund. That turns my one week at K.L.I. into a $600 course on reading and pronouncing Korean, which is steep but not as bad as it could be under the circumstances.

Afterwards I grabbed lunch in the K.L.I. cafeteria. There a Korean-American graduate student sat down near me and we talked for a long time about various subjects. She kept repeating 'god, I can't imagine' when I explained my situation to her. She gave me her business card and told me to call her if I needed anything. So I guess people are out there if I take the time to find them.

That night I knocked on Josh's door when I was going to head out for dinner, but he wasn't around. I ate alone and thought about both going home and about buying a Korean cell phone, two contradictory thoughts.

On Friday I woke up to the rain and wrote this rather than asking myself questions. Except that I suppose that my writing is full of questions that I ask myself too.

Regards,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128262020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128262020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128262020/tpod.html Sun, 02 Oct 2005 10:08:05 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Seoul, Korea Rep.

Wandering

On Saturday Josh and I wandered around Seoul a bit. We headed through Ewha women's university on the way to ride the subway, and there we witnessed some sort of ritual. About twenty women were standing around in costumes. They wore white... pajamas, for lack of a better term; that's what we'd call them in the United States. Over that they wore sashes of yellow, red and blue, and some wore big, white, Russian style hats. They were banging an off-kilter, deep rhythm on various percussion instruments. Young people were lined up to pass through a gauntlet of the drummers to one girl wearing a white dress. When they reached her she would pour them something to drink. They would consume the liquid, drop to their knees and touch their foreheads to the ground.

... So, maybe not so weird. It was the school drumming band doing some beginning of term spirit or hazing ritual. I include it because at first I thought it was a Korean wedding or some sacred-ish rite. Eyes of a foreigner. I've often ascribed deeper and more exotic meanings to things in Korea than they have any right to.

We ended up taking the subway to the area around Seoul National University. We wandered around the streets there, which were nothing exciting. There was a book festival with booths in white and banners in red, but it was closed down for the night when we got there. We ended up stopping at an English pub for dinner and bought a $7 Guinness each.

We got home and Josh went to bed. I was typing away at the computer when I saw something scurry across the floor of our apartment. I got up to investigate and found a spiny bug about three inches long. I took pictures of it, but none of them came out (damn camera is being a real pain in the ass). I then picked up a shoe from the entry way (we're not allowed to wear shoes in the apartment) and smashed the critter. Afterwards I took a better look at its corpse. It reminded me of a large but thin potato bug with about two dozen long, pointy feelers all over its body. It was more creepy dead than alive because its body and the limbs that came off when I crushed it all twitched in death throws and made faint, weird scratchy sounds. I placed the shoe back in the entry way and sat back down at the table with my skin crawling. It didn't help that I was watching 'Freddy vs. Jason' with Korean subtitles on television at the time. I thought for sure that I'd have nightmares, but none came.

On Sunday Josh moved out. He's just in the next building over right now, but I was still pretty bummed out. My loneliness has been bad enough even with a roommate. I can't imagine it'll get any better without one.

The apartment he moved into is small but cozy and in many ways nicer than the one I'm renting, since it's not filled with various junk of the landlords (Josh had a full dozen suitcases on top of the dresser in his room that our landlords had not bothered to move out). It does smell strongly of cigarette smoke though.

During the day on Sunday we decided to take the subway over to the Anguk station, where a guidebook I brought recommended a neat walking tour. As we rode the line I was struck by how outgoing Josh is when it comes to trying to use his language skills. He's remembering a lot of Korean from a time he studied here ten years ago, and he can communicate at a very basic level. On the subway he saw a young kid reading a book and started trying to speak with him in Korean, asking what he was reading and how did he like it, etc. I watched with some fascination. In one sense I was awed by his ability to jump in, apply and practice his language skills, but on the other hand I thought it was strange and honestly rude to butt into a complete stranger's life like that.

By the way, I thought I'd mention that I underestimated on Josh's age. He's thirty-four, which makes for some weird conversations in terms of generational references. I'd say he acts much younger than his age, however, and we get along fine. He has an odd sense of humor that I enjoy. He often times launches into stories that are complete bullshit but have just enough plausibility to give you a second's pause. It's pretty amusing stuff. The other trouble I have around him is that sometimes I have to tip toe around topics when it comes to my concerns here. Josh is still working on a graduate degree due to his constant changing of professions and study topics, which rarely last for more than six months at a time. He is, in many ways, in a position that I absolutely do not want to find myself in eleven years from now, and I'm trying to be careful to make sure he doesn't know it. I'd hate to be thirty-four and not have a real goal for my life or any major connections to speak of.

The walk was nice. The rained cleared up on Saturday night and Sunday was comfortable and sunny. We passed a lot of neat buildings, but unfortunately I forgot my camera (I kicked myself a lot for that, troublesome and unreliable though it is). My favorite of them was a huge Korean style building painted and cleaned to a meticulous white. We tried to enter the grounds but were politely warned away by a security guard. The house was in a large compound that must be something very important. The property is surrounded by about three dozen visible guards on both sides of the street. It has a white metal fence that surrounds it, and we walked most of its length on the opposite side of the street (we weren't allowed on the other side). We passed by a number of amazing looking buildings within the compound, all a beautiful white. The largest was down a gated street. It was a huge white palace with a navy blue tiled rooftop in the Korean style. There was another one near it that was built in more of a classical western style, with while pillars. In the background of all this there is a forested hill. In spots the trees give way to rock facing that is marbled with grey lines of hardened sediment. It's a very beautiful place.

I've been unable to confirm it, but I suspect that we passed the residence for the President of South Korea. The South Korean White House, so to speak.

We saw some other neat things too. There were a few houses with intricate paintings in greens and reds underneath the overhangs of their tile roofs. We also passed by a similarly painted drum roped off beneath a pagoda. We walked down streets lined with trees and with Korean flags everywhere (another reason why I think it was probably the President's house) and through a park where a few kids were dribbling a soccer ball. Josh tried to get them to kick it to him to no avail, whereas I just kept walking.

We talked about various things. One seemed very telling to me. As we wandered around and spotted cool looking buildings Josh and I started talking about houses and places that would be nice to live in. He described a place that he had visited that was a valley with houses along all of its sides running down towards the center. He said that he'd like to live in a place like that, and that he had always liked the idea of living in a valley. I said that I'd rather live on a hill because I like the view. It struck me at the time that was a fair way to describe our personalities. Josh likes the idea of living in a valley because he is extroverted. A valley filled with houses is a very communal setting. The houses all look in upon one another. I like the idea of living on a hill because I am introverted. I like the view that I get from being on a hill. A hill with houses on it has its residences facing outwards, away from each other and focused on the scenery.

Ironic, isn't it? These days I'm looking for a valley, even though a valley itself wouldn't fit my character or mindset.

I find that thought depressing.

We eventually found a subway and returned home. I like the subways in Seoul. A lot of them have neat things to see. The one we traveled back from had a carved granite relief of an imperial procession, and down near the tracks there was another granite statue of a man riding a lion.

On our way through the station we passed a young Korean, probably of middle school age. He was wearing a brown T-shirt that said 'Fuck Bush Supreme' and had a picture of a hotdog in a bun with mustard and ketchup. Political statement or disguised vulgarity, you be the judge.

Nothing else of note happened. I did a lot of thinking during the day and into the night, even as I was doing other things. I didn't come up with any answers. I'm afraid of coming home, even though I don't see any reason to stay. I think in the short term I would be best off in the States, where I could take a break and try to sort things out. But I don't think I could be happy more than a few months doing at home with nothing on the horizon. I get antsy when my life isn't moving forward. So stay or go, I feel like I'm wasting my time either way.

Maybe I just need time to sort things out.

Tomorrow Josh heads off to Japan to get a problem with his visa taken care of at the American consulate in Kyushu (it's a pretty simple thing but can't be done in-country). I'm going to go with him to see the sights a bit. If my camera cooperates, this time I'll have pictures.

Regards,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128181200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128181200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1128181200/tpod.html Sat, 01 Oct 2005 11:52:57 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Seoul, Korea Rep.

Mistakes

Not much has physically happened since my last update, but a lot has been going on mentally.

I did a lot of wandering and shopping on Tuesday. I managed to find a big supermarket (after much meandering) where I bought towels, carrots, and a 220v to 110v power converter. The place had a strange composition by Western standards. The bottom floor is nothing but produce, and above that you find the normal supermarket fair, such as cereals, junk food, frozens, etc. Above that there were kitchen supplies and household utensils. Above that, towels, blankets, bathmats. Then there was a floor for shoes, a floor for electronics (which also housed a pet store with lots of fish), and a floor for jewelry. Each floor had its own cash registers, and you couldn't take any item from a floor without paying for it first. This got me into trouble as I tried to take unpaid for towels up to the electronics floor and was chattered at by a number of Korean store clerks. Fortunately none of them seemed to be angry. I get a lot of leeway by being a foreigner.

They also have hawkers in the store. Employees will shout out the names of certain goods and shove them into your face as you pass. They must also include a sales pitch with their cry, because twice when a Korean woman (almost all the hawkers are women) tried to bludgeon me with their item they shouted 'meguk' as part of their sentence. 'Meguk' means 'America'. "Can't get this in America", "just like in America", or "hey America, give me your money"... I can't really say how they were using it.

All in all I started to settle in. I had a place to stay, a television, books, and internet. From about this point on the overwhelming desire to flee slowly diminished. All the same, it has not been replaced by a desire to stay.

Wednesday found me at orientation for the Korean Language Institute. I was surprised to find so many Japanese and Chinese students in the program. I would say offhand that over the 400 or so students in the program, at least 30% are Japanese and around 40% are Chinese. English speaking students are a minority.

Classes began on Thursday, and I knew I was in trouble from moment one. The first thing that our teacher had us do was go around the room and introduce ourselves. Of thirteen students in the class, I was one of only three who introduced ourselves in English. Everyone else used Korean. I'm in the absolute lowest level of Korean offered here, and I'm surrounded by ringers.

By Friday, two of these had left for higher levels, and I've been about on par with the class so far. However, I have to say that's because all we've been studying is the Korean alphabet. Korean has ten consonants and thirteen vowels, all very formulaic and logical. I'm happy to say it is the one thing from my study a year ago that came back to me quickly. My basic pronunciation is very good, and I picked up the characters very quickly.

Unfortunately, only a few Korean words are coming back to me, and of those all but a few are generally useless in daily life. Knowing the words for 'shoe' and 'wild goose' don't get me very far in a conversation.

I haven't met many people through my class, and for good reason. In a class of eleven, I am one of two people whose native language is English. Five of the eleven cannot hold even a simple conversation in English.

That brings me to a series of things I've been thinking about.

To cover every avenue that my mind has taken over the past few days would take far, far too long, but I'll say that I've mostly been preoccupied with two main questions: 1) Should I stay or should I go back home? 2) Either way, what will I do with my life?

That, and how I came to this point.

I made three primary mistakes before coming here by not really thinking things through.

1) I didn't consider that it would be difficult to make friends in Korea.
This is maybe the most minor mistake, but it's an important one to cover because it adds motivation to my desire to go home. I never thought about having a difficulty making friends here. In the summer of 2004, Yonsei was all about friends. Half the people where there to party and everyone was living together in the dorms. There were always people who wanted companions to see the sights. The common room in the dorm was filled with people playing poker or foosball or watching DVDs.
But this time I'm not in the dorms, and the dorms and composition of people in the program are very different.
I said above that there are a lot of Japanese and Chinese students in K.L.I., and that they are the majority here. I would say that there are around 120 students in the English speaking side of K.L.I., meaning that they take classes that are Korean language instruction for English speakers. But that is not to say that these 120 students know English. I would say of the 120 students, only about 60 have passing English skills, and only about thirty of those are from America.
Today I had lunch with several German students. Mostly they talked in German, but they also spoke in English quite a bit (though whether to practice or for my benefit, I don't know). They said how surprised they were at how many German students there were in the dorms, though there were far more people who were Dutch. I remarked that there were people from all over in the program, and that I had noticed, by virtue of two of them being in my class, a fairly large contingent of Mongolians here. I've also noticed people from Russia, Norway, Pakistan, and India, just to name a few.
My point is that the number of people I have the potential to socialize with is drastically lower than it was during my last visit, when I was in a program of 500 American students (not counting our friends from K.L.I across campus). Now I'm down to around 30 Americans, and 60 people that I can hold a real conversation with.
Not only that, but this is a very different group in terms of what they're here for.
To put things in perspective, last time I was here I was asked by a girl why I had come to Korea. I told her that I wanted to learn the language and take some classes here to help me get into graduate school. She laughed at me and said 'you mean you actually came here to work?'
Under EAP a year ago, everyone seemed to be on vacation. Now, under K.L.I., everyone is here to work. This makes for a nice study environment, but it doesn't make it easy to go out, meet knew people and make friends.
When you combine this increased dedication to study with a vastly decreased English speaking student population, you get a damn lonely Jonathan.
My sister asked me today over AIM if I would be okay here if I spoke the language. I answered that, while it wouldn't fix my homesickness, it would certainly help the situation.
But I don't speak the language, and it's difficult for me to make friends under the circumstances. It's even hard for me to make acquaintances who know both English and Korean. Such people were immensely helpful last time I was here, and without them I find myself helpless and alone.

2) I didn't consider that I was in a different place in my life by comparison to last time I was in Korea.
Last time when I came to Korea, the stars were aligned to get me away from home. I was going through some tough girl problems. I had torn a ligament in my foot that kept me out of my martial arts studio for almost two months. A lot of the friends I had graduated college and moved away from Santa Cruz.
Under those circumstances, going away was a good thing for me. My trip to Korea was a cure for what ailed me. I made new friends, got rid of my loneliness, was given time to ponder my girl situation.
Korea was also nice because it was a great adventure for me. At that time I had gone through three years of college without feeling like I did a lot of living. I wanted something to spice up my college experience. Korea was new, full of insights, revelations and curiosities. It fitted my needs perfectly.
Last time when I came to Korea the situation was almost ideal. This time that's not the case.
I wasn't feeling lonely in the states. I have good friends there, and over the last six months or so I've become much closer with my family (not that we were ever distant, but living at home again for a short while along with the hardships we've recently faced has brought us together). I was very content.
And Korea is no longer new to me, even though I'm still very much an outsider.

3) I didn't think my plans through.
I sorry to say that I just didn't fully understand what I was getting myself into.
I thought that I would become nearly fluent in nine months of study, but in looking through the textbook that we're using I can say that is far from the case. To gain even basic functionality in Korean I'd have to wait until nearly the end of the program. With intense personal study and street interaction on my part in addition to my formal studies, I might be able to gain basic functionality in four or five months. Know also that when I say 'basic functionality' I don't mean that I'd be able to hold a real conversation, just that I'd be able to handle all the basic situations that would be likely to come up. The extra volume of work associated therein gives me some pause, as becoming fluent is going to take a lot more worth than anticipated. I wouldn't say it scares me off. However, that combined with the knowledge that I would be unable to do any meaningful interacting with the natives here for a long stretch of time is very disheartening.
More disheartening is that I never gave much thought to the people and things that I'd have to leave behind. I never thought I'd be very affected by it. I was wrong.
I did think about what I would do if I had a wife and/or children and had to often go abroad to do research when I was last in Korea, but somehow I lost sight of those concerns over the past school year. They didn't come up when I was thinking about my future.
I thought that I would be willing to make whatever sacrifices were necessary to get the job that I wanted. Now I'm not so sure. When the previous thought was in my head, I was only considering half of the future I wanted. I focused on the professional and ignored the personal.

All these mistakes bring me back to question 1) should I stay or should I go? I had a long conversation about this with my family over AIM on Friday. My mother essentially asked me whether had strong feeling about Korea one way or the other. I said that I didn't, that it was just a place. She said that I ought to love the country that I studied. Both my mother and sister both said that I probably should go home, maybe after a tour of Japan.
But that brings me back to question 2) what will I do with my life? How would I maintain progress? Returning to the states and moving back into the house I grew up in is certainly not a long term solution.
And through all of this I get a little bit more settled and comfortable in Korea. I start to think that I've endured some lonely stretches before and adverse situations, and I can do so again.
And then I wonder if I shouldn't stick around and tough things out.
It's a lot to think about.
I'm trying to speed up the process, because on Monday Josh is going to head to Japan to get his visa taken care of. I thought it would be a good opportunity to see Kyushu, the southern part of Japan... and from there Osaka, Tokyo, and maybe Kyoto, if I decided that I was done with my language study and could miss the time at K.L.I.
A lot to think about indeed.

Regards,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1127847060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1127847060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1127847060/tpod.html Wed, 28 Sep 2005 08:57:40 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Seoul, Korea Rep.

"Oh my god! What am I doing here? I want to go home!"

On the morning of Saturday the 24th of September I got up after a night of light sleep and lots of dreams. I only remember that the last one finished with someone saying 'do your best.'

My Dad made me braughtwurst (sp?) and eggs for breakfast, but I wasn't hungry yet and had to turn down the food. I walked my dog Merlin. It was short because I was under time constraints. When we got back and took him down stairs and said goodbye. I teared up and came very close to crying. It's always harder to say goodbye to my dog than anyone else. I know when I leave my family and friends that their life goes on, but my dog is more dependent on me. When I leave I always feel like I'm abandoning him.

My Mom, Dad, brother and sister all came with me to the airport. I checked my bags and we all stopped at the food court for lunch. I had a burger, knowing that was something that I couldn't get in Korea (unless I was willing to sink to the level of McDonald's or Burger King). After a very short time, it was time for me to go through security. I hugged everyone goodbye and started through.

Security at SFO is tough, and I don't mean because they make you take off your shoes and remove your laptop from its case. The security area is set apart from the rest of the airport by guards, but it's still visible from the main area. As you wait in line you can see the people whom you've just said goodbye to, and they can see you. I had to look away a lot to keep myself under control. I've rarely been so sad.

I got through security, studying a large concrete pylon through most of it so that I wouldn't have to see my family. On the other side of the metal detector I stopped to put my shoes on and waved goodbye to them through a glass screen. Afterwards as I walked towards the gate I turned back to look for them again, but they had already left.

I looked down for a moment as I walked and collected myself. When I looked up an intense calm came over me. Things felt much easier when I was alone, and it occurred to me that being alone felt like my natural state; the place where I was most comfortable. The thought soothed me at the time, but it haunted me a few hours later on the plane ride.

I boarded the plane. Of the two guys who sat next to me, one was sick and sleeping and the other was sick and only spoke Korean. No conversation took place between us, except for 'excuse me' when leaving or returning to the seat.

I read a lot of 'Wizardborn' by David Farland, which is alright. And I thought an awful lot, literally hours of looking down at the cabin floor and thinking about leaving the States. I sometimes thought about what I was going to do for housing when I got to Korea, but my time at KLI didn't come up as much as I would've expected. I wasn't focused on the future.

Mostly though, I watched movies. I saw 'The Longest Yard', which was okay, but nothing special, and 'Ocean's Twelve' which was the same. I then watched 'Unleashed', a movie starring Jet Li. It was a good martial arts flick but was better as a character study. I liked it. Finally I watched 'Kingdom of Heaven', a movie that I was excited about when I saw the previews but somehow missed in the theaters. Now I'm glad that I did. The movie was pointless, unsatisfying, and filled with huge amounts of gray morality. It was pretty bad.

Between four movies, reading and thinking, the flight was over. I highly recommend Singapore Airlines. The food they gave me was mostly the terrible airplane fair, but they also give out individual Hagen-Daas ice cream containers and chilled apples that were nice. Everything on planes should be of the frozen variety. If you have to cook it, freeze it, and then nuke it before it's served, it's always going to taste terrible. Consequently, I got sick off of a Korean chicken dish that they gave me and have not recovered.

I still recommend the airline though.

We arrived in Korea at 6:30PM local time, 2:30AM Pacific. I didn't sleep at all on the plane.

On a series of signs on the way towards customs there was a white cartoon... bear, I think. It had a single star antenna and was winking with oversized eyes in every picture. It urged me to 'enjoy the warm hospitality of Asia', among other things. At 2:30AM and fresh off of a twelve hour plane ride, it seemed very surreal.

Customs and baggage claim went easy. I was about to leave the terminal when a cab driver came up to me, which begins our latest episode of 'Hey! Let's rip off the foreigner!'

He says to me in picture perfect English, "Hello, sir, do you need a taxi?" I said I did, thank you very much, and he took my bags and started leading me towards a parking garage.

I would quickly learn that his English was more or less limited to that one phrase. He was able to ask a few more conversational questions, but his accent was so bad that I couldn't understand a word he said.

We reached his cab. He put my things in the trunk and ushered me inside. It was then that I got my first sign of danger. I had been expecting a cab with a meter. However, I would later realize that this was a 'luxury cab' by Korean standards, and luxury cabs do not have meters. I immediately became weary.

We took off, and he started trying to speak to me in English. I couldn't understand a word of it until he said "One-hundred thirty-thousand, ok?" 130,000 Korean won comes out to about $140 U.S. I hesitated a moment, fully realizing that this was a rip off even for an hour long cab ride, and then realized I wasn't really in a position to argue. And besides, I thought, it's not really that bad. By now it was past 3AM and I agreed without trying to argue.

When we reached the hotel I was about to get out of the cab to get my bags and whatnot before paying the driver, but he stopped me in better English than I had heard since his first phrase and said 'no, you need to pay!' I said 'yeah', and smiled. He laughed a little, and I counted out 130,000 won. I gave it to him, and then he counted it too, and said '20,000 more.' I started to say that he had said 130,000 won earlier, and he said '20,000 for tolls.' We had crossed two toll booths on the way into Seoul, totaling up to about 8,000 won. He wanted me to pay more than double that, bringing the total for a one hour cab ride to 150,000 won, or about $165. I would've loved to argue, but by this time it was 4AM Pacific time. I was jet lagged, exhausted, and seriously lacking in language skills. The ride was over, and he had me cornered. I paid him, fully realizing I had been ripped off, and went up to the hotel.

Fortunately, the ride wasn't all bad. It was the first time I had driven to Seoul from Incheon (where most planes have to fly in because Seoul is a no-fly zone.) In fact, it was the first time I had driven anywhere in Korea at night when I wasn't on a public bus and in the middle of town.

Korea at night is very blue. Some bridges and buildings are lined with blue lights, and for some reason most of the lights inside the high rise apartment buildings are also blue. I thought it was very beautiful. In the U.S. at night things are always a ruddy yellow. There are the same kind of streetlamps in Korea, but they seem to be overshadowed by the soft blue glow beyond. In Seoul itself, too, everything is lit up in neon and there isn't much yellow to the night world. It's all pastels. I like it.

I checked in to the hotel. The bellboy asked where I was from as he carried my bags up to the room. I said San Francisco, and he said in heavily accented English 'Oh! Barry Bonds!' I said yes, Barry Bonds was very good.

My room was small, but it looked good after being up for so many hours straight. I hit the hay pretty early, too tired to do much thinking.

I woke up six hours later at 3:30 AM Korean time and was unable to get back to sleep. This is pretty typical for America to Korea jet lag.

While this left me tired and dazed during the day, it wasn't all bad. I turned on the television and flipped it to the Armed Forces Network (AFN), which was televising football. I got a chance to watch Green Bay choke and lose to Tampa Bay (the Battle of the Bays?), and watched the 49ers play a good game but ultimately lose against the Cowboys.

AFN is a weird channel too. Because it's for the military, it doesn't have any traditional commercials. Everything is public service announcements, ranging from 'don't sexually assault people in your host country' to 'be sure to put the country code on your outgoing mail to the United States'. Every commercial break played out sort of like an old school reel. "In Case of Volcano, Drop and Cover', that sort of thing.

During halftime of the Niner game I went down to the lobby to eat at a restaurant there. As I left my room I was assaulted by the sounds of a jungle. Birds singing, bugs chirping, monkeys chattering. Jet lagged and tired, I blinked twice and looked up. There was a loudspeaker built into the hallway, pumping out the noise. I stared at it for a moment in a very surreal moment and went to eat breakfast. The speakers were built into the restaurant too, and they played the entire time I was there. It was very weird.

I packed up and checked out of the hotel. I got a regular, cheap taxi ride to Yonsei and managed to make my way to the K.L.I. offices, where I implored them to help me find a place to life. The woman behind the desk spoke pretty good English, but when I said that I needed a fast internet connection she couldn't understand me. None the less, she sat me down and said that a woman would come shortly to show me a place. Almost at the same time a Caucasian girl with the same situation came in and was also told to wait. Her name was Ingrid, and she was from Norway. We talked a little, but not about anything important.

After about twenty minutes an old Korean lady showed up and ushered us out to look at apartments. She talked almost non-stop in Korean, but neither Ingrid nor I understood much.

We traveled off of campus and down a crowded street for a ways before coming to the building. We went up to the second floor in an elevator that smelled strongly of urine and came to the apartment. Inside there were two Korean girls, one cooking, another sitting and seemingly doing nothing. Ingrid was shown a relatively big room, and then I was shown one that was incredibly small. There was room for a bed and a nightstand, but nothing else. None the less, I would've taken it if I had figured out how to get the internet working there.

I couldn't, but passing the time as I figured that out by playing with wireless connections in the area and trying to explain my situation to the land lady was pretty interesting. She served us seeded grapes that tasted like plums and tried to talk to us. Two girls came in who lived in other rooms on the floor and the old woman exchanged some words with them in Japanese. After this I switched to Japanese when talking to her and that worked a little better. A girl from Kansas who lived in another room was called over to try to do additional translation, and then another girl from Japan who spoke English and Korean was called over to do the same. It was all very interesting, trying to hold conversations in English, Japanese, and Korean all at the same time.

It would've been a fun house, but I knew I couldn't get by without internet. I had already intuited that I was going to have a lonely, tough time in Korea, and being cut off from friends and family back home would've been too much. I apologized and said my goodbyes. Both Ingrid and the girl from Kansas (the old Korean woman pronounced her name 'Alan', so I'm going to assume it was 'Ellen') said it was too bad that I had to leave, but leave I did.

In hindsight, maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I wouldn't be feeling so lonely if I had stuck around there. But I don't think so. I might have become even lonelier, fighting to communicate day in and day out in the household.

As I lugged my... well, luggage... back to the K.L.I. office, I got my first hint of the 'Oh my god! What am I doing here!'s. Something about walking back alone and feeling so helpless while trying to get a simple point across got to me.

And things only got worse from there.

I went back to K.L.I. and tried to explain that the room that I was shown was fine, but that I'd need a fast internet connection. This took up a frustrating ten minutes or so, and then I was told to head out the East Gate and meet another old woman there. I packed up my things again and went on my way.

I was met by an old, almost bald woman with a stooped back. She showed me into a room that was as close to campus as was possible without actually being on campus. Inside a man and a woman in their 50s were cleaning very thoroughly, scrubbing the floors and dusting the cabinets. I came inside and looked around. The place was alright and the location was good, so I brought out a calculator and tried to get across that I wanted to know the price. They waved me off and had me sit down in front of the television. I watched some Korean game show for awhile until the man started rattling off a bunch of sentences in Korean to the woman, who got up and changed it to the Discovery Channel, which was in English. They were talking about Russians with radiation poisoning. It was pretty gruesome.

Just after the end of the program the two women and the man left, motioning for me to stay and watch television. One of them came back and brought me a 'Pey-a', a cut up fruit that tasted sort of like a cross between a pear and a melon. I once again tried to get a price from her, but she motioned for me to sit down and watch television.

And so there I sat, completely alone, for the next hour and a half. By then I was really getting a strong case of the 'oh my god! What am I doing here's, along with a growing 'I want to go home!'

And then I was dumb enough to turn the channel to 'the Wizard of Oz'. Not smart. I did it without thinking as I flipped through the channels and found something in English. It was near to the end. I saw the witch die, and the famous 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' scene. Then came the old 'there's no place like home, there's no place like home'. That hit me like a hard punch to the face. It was followed by the end 'I'm never gong to leave Kansas again' scene, which felt more like a kick to the jublies.

By this time I was feeling like a caged animal. My heart had sunk somewhere into my guts, and though I was watching the beginning of 'Hollowman' with Korean subtitles on the Action Channel, mostly I was thinking. Thinking questions like 'why am I here?' 'Do I really want this?' 'Is there worth it?' I tried to envision myself staying here for nine months and couldn't in my worst nightmares. I was isolated, helpless, and looking at a long, long time of similar experience.

I got flashes of this my last time in Korea. A lot of them, in fact. But it was easier that time for two reasons. 1) I came in as part of a pre-existing community. I lived with English speakers. Even then Korea was a lonely place to be for much of the time, but it's hard to be too lonely when you're surrounded by people you know and socialize with. And 2) it only lasted six weeks. When things were bad and I was feeling especially homesick, I could always tell myself 'six weeks, just six weeks'. You'd be amazed at how sustaining that was. 'Ten weeks until Christmas break' and 'thirty weeks before I'm done for the year' don't have the same magic.

This time things did not look easy, and I began to wonder why I was subjecting myself to it. I also began to wonder how I could get out of it.

But I wasn't serious at this point. Though I said things to myself 'I could just go home', I never believed what I was saying.

Finally the man came up and opened the door to the apartment, asking me to come downstairs. There he handed me a phone. The woman from K.L.I. on the line. She asked me if I was going to take the apartment, and I said that I didn't know because I hadn't been given the price. The woman at K.L.I. relayed this message to the man, who found it to be quite the revelation despite my constant efforts to get it out of him before. He gave me the price, 500,000 won per month, and I told the K.L.I. woman that would be fine. She also said that they would call someone to install high-speed internet in the apartment that very day. I said that sounded good, and asked how I could pay, not having a Korean bank account. The woman from K.L.I. didn't get this at first, and it took awhile to get my point across. Finally she understood and asked me to give the phone back to the man. I did, and somewhere in the process he accidentally hung up on her. When he tried to call back, he couldn't get through.

For the next twenty minutes I tried to figure out a way to ask him how I could pay, and would he take a check from the U.S. I was completely unsuccessful and growing increasingly cagey.

Finally the girl from K.L.I. called back and had a long talk with the man. She then relayed to me that I should open up a bank account that day. She also said that because I could get enough money through an international ATM to pay for half of my rent I could pay half of the money today, and half tomorrow or the next day. I said fine, and headed off towards the bank.

Woori Bank is a Korean company that has an office on the Yonsei campus. Being the closest bank, I went inside. There I found many long lines. After casing out the joint for a little while I figured out what was going on and took a number from an automated machine. I then waited thirty minutes to be called.

All this time and on the walk over I was thinking about going back home. What would I do? What would everyone think if I left only to return a few days later? What would I think? I wanted to decide quickly, because I knew the withdrawal date for K.L.I. was on Wednesday, which meant that if I left the program on or before that day I could get 90% of my money back. I figured that if I went home I'd want to try to repay the lost money, and having $1500 taken off of the debt would be very nice.

About halfway through the wait, I did a little mental exercise. I was trying to convince myself to stay. I thought about what I would do if I went home, how boring it would be, how I wouldn't make any progress. I ran through what my typical day would be like in the U.S. I'd get up in the morning and eat some breakfast, shower and walk the dog, probably with my Dad and brother. I'd play video games or read or write for awhile, and then maybe hang out and watch the Giants game. On the weekends I'd go places with my family, especially my Mom since she usually is game for going somewhere as long as she has ample time to plan. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I'd commute down to Santa Cruz to work out at Song's Martial Arts institute as soon as my partially torn hamstring healed.

I said all these things to myself to try to make the point that I'd stagnate, not grow, not get anywhere. But when I said them to myself, all I could think of is how great that would be. See my family, see my friends. Have fun. Relax.

And I'll be damned if that didn't break down my resolve.

For hours I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, heaviness in my shoulders, and a feeling that I was trapped. And then I said to myself 'well, I'll just go home'. And I meant it.

Suddenly, all the weight and the fear left me, and I was doing fine. The rest of the day I would feel like a man who knew that he was going to be escaping from prison before the next sunrise. I went through the motions, acted naturally, but all the time I was thinking about getting out.

Back to the task at hand, I managed to open up a Bank account after a great deal of rigermarole. The teller spoke some English, but not enough to get her points across. The big, fifteen minute problem was with my pin. They wouldn't allow the pin to be my birthday or, on my second attempt, 2001 for some reason. The teller had to call someone on the phone who spoke better English than she did. The woman she called tried to explain the situation to me, which took a long time given that the person on the phone had a heavy accent and couldn't understand me very well. Finally I got the point, picked a random number, and finished up feeling a like I wanted to pick a fight.

I then took a long walk to the Sinchon subway station to get money out of the international ATM for my rent, doing a lot more thinking on the way.

When I returned I gave the old woman the money and then proceeded to sign a housing contract in Korean. This took some time as the man tried to walk me through the process. Other than putting my signature in the place where he actually wanted a cell phone number, it went slow but fine. I still had a 'smile, don't tip off the guard' mentality going.

Things finally brightened up a bit for me after that. When I went up to the room I found that cable internet had been installed and my roommate, who I did not know existed beforehand, was home.

His name is Josh and he's from New York originally, though he was studying in Seattle before coming to Korea. He's in his late twenties or early thirties and has a lot of interesting things to say. He studied and taught English in Japan and had also been to Korea before. We hung out for quite awhile.

He brought up some points about language that had been running through my head, such as that there are plenty of people who were raised learning both Korean and English and speak both fluently. As a non-native speaker trying to learn the language later in life, neither of us could ever hope to come anywhere near to those people.

We also talked about wanting to go home.

We talked mostly about our experiences abroad though, and it was a good time. Unfortunately Josh is moving out soon. In five days he plans to move to the apartment above our current one, which is supposedly bigger. That is if he doesn't have to leave. There's a problem with his passport because he didn't get a Visa in the U.S. He says that if he can't find a way to take care of it he'll be taking a boat to Japan in a few days.

At about seven o'clock Josh hit the wall and completely conked out. He had arrived the same day that I had and was terribly jet lagged, but was also running a fever for most of the day. I gave him some ibuprofen and he headed off to bed.

I stayed up for a short while longer. I wanted to write a bit on the computer and used a Korean to American outlet converter that I had received at the hotel. I plugged in the converter and then proceeded to test it out by plugging in a power strip I had brought from the states.

Now, when the hotel told me that they were giving me a 'Korean to American' power converter, I figured it was 220v to 110v. I was wrong.

The power strip all but blew up. There was a loud pop and a flash. I quickly pulled the cord out of the outlet and was left with a smoking power stripe and a burn on my right index finger. I would find out the next day from Josh that laptop computers have a built in power converter, and that the converter that I had been given was just for an American style plug. Live and learn.

I hit the hay early at 7:30 PM and didn't wake up until 5:30 AM, sporting a stiff neck because, while I was provided with a mattress and sheet, I had pillow. I slept on my wadded up clothes, which was a bit uncomfortable.

By 5:50 AM I was out on our enclosed deck next to Josh's drying laundry (we have a washer, but not a dryer). I wrote the following long hand in a notebook, which I present to you verbatim:

-----------------------------------
I want to go home. I want it very badly. I want it more than I can ever remember wanting anything. I can't envision myself staying here for nine months.
I hate it. I can't communicate and I don't have any support. I'm not part of a community, I'm mostly isolated and I'm very lonely.
I can't imagine being here for nine months.
I want to go home, there's no question about it. A lot of it might be nothing more than unfamiliarity, but a lot of it is also the helplessness I feel here, the inability to alter my surrounding. I don't even know how or where to get a pillow.
So that sucks.
And I can't communicate. I probably won't be able to say much for at least three months and more likely five. That's isolation for you.
So that sucks.
And speaking of isolation, oh man is it going to be lonely. Loneliness as bad as I've ever felt. Day to day loneliness that is going to wither my heart.
So that sucks.
And I know I'll get some friends here, ect. But not being about to communicate with your average person is hard when it comes to that sort of thing, and my friends will all live far enough away (probably) that we won't see each other that much, lacking transportation and all. Plus I can't get into the dormitories unless friends escort me due to security.
My roommate after James moves out will probably be Korean, and we won't be able to talk to each other. I'll be living with a stranger.
And I miss my family terribly. I miss my friends too, especially those at Song's, but I know there will be more friends, and other studios, even if they're not as good.
But you only ever have one family. Yesterday I was thinking about what I would do if I went home. I would walk my dog, spend time with my Dad on the weekdays, my Mom on the weekends. See my brother and sister. Play video games and commute down to do martial arts.
It's good. It's undoubtedly what my heart wants, and I certainly don't listen to my heart enough.
It's also a little monotonous. Just last week I was thinking a lot about stagnation, and there's not many worse things that that.
If I go back, I'm going to have to promise myself some things. I'm going to have to write, everyday, for hours and hours. I'm going to have to read more. I'm going to have to go places and see sights on the weekend.
If I go home.
I'm filled with dread when I think that's not what I'm going to do, that my mind is going to be stubborn, steel up and keep me here. Then I'd get harder, tougher, and wiser. But I'm hard enough, and tough enough, and I've sacrificed a lot for those two things and my wisdom. Sacrificed too much, I think. Sacrificed a lot of living. Spent an awful lot of time walking alone, until that's what felt natural. I don't want to be so tough that I can't go home, that I can so easily ignore my heart.
So that's why I want to go. Why do I want to stay?
... Pretty much I don't. The reasons I had seem to lead nowhere. I wanted to be here because I wanted to get a doctorate in history, but I don't know. I don't know if I want to come to Korea to stay for one year in four, as most professors do. I know I don't want to have to leave behind friends, family, girlfriends (or a wife; would a wife want to accompany me on so many long trips where she'd have to leave her friends, family, etc. behind too?). I still want to teach and research and broaden people's horizons, but I have to ask if it's worth it.
Back to that thought in a minute.
If I can't tough it out here, then I shouldn't go into graduate school for Korean history. If I'm not going into graduate school in Korean history, then I don't have a reason to be here.
I can only think of two reasons that I want to stay.
The first is because there's a large part of me that doesn't want to give in, the stubborn part that my heart is so afraid of. I want to prove to myself that I can do this, and that even if it's terrible here I can make it through.
This part of me also thinks that I can make the situation good through force of will, change a negative into a positive.
I respect and treasure this part of me a lot, which is why I haven't gone home already. But I also realize that this part of me is cold, hard, and only listens to my heart when it's convenient. It harnesses the spirit to the extent that it can, but mostly it's mental. When the heart is afraid or nervous or unwilling, I get through and get through well on my mental mettle. It's one of the things that has made me so successful.
As well as possibly my greatest failing, as it usually overwhelms and smothers my feelings.
But it's telling me to stay, and usually it wins out, as bittersweet as that may be.
The second reason I want to stay is less noble. Simply put, in the long run I don't know what I'd do if I went back. If I abandoned my plans to get a history doctorate, where would that leave me in five years? What profession would I go into? What would I do? These questions are as scary as the ones my heart is asking, and I don't have answers.
Mind vs. Heart inside me right now. Over the past seven or eight years, mind has won out almost every time. It might be time to end that streak. Even my mind knows that I listen to it too much, and my heart not enough.
--------------------------------------------------

At this point Josh woke up, and I put down the pad and paper.

(Sigh) I can go almost the entire year without much in the way of angst, but it's certainly with me now.

Josh and I talked for awhile in the morning and then went out to search for breakfast. We walked all over the place, through Ewha Womens University (which has an excellent student body, if you catch my drift) and into the district beyond it. Eventually we stopped at a place and bought some cheap kim'pap, which is like the Korean version of sushi. I also got a loaf of sweet, nutted, spicy bread from the bakery next door. We walked back, sat around and ate the bread while talking some more, and then he went off to try to get his passport taken care of and I wrote this.

I've got one foot out the door right now. Orientation is tomorrow, and I'll be damned if my mind isn't all but made up to quit, come home and rethink things.

We'll see.

Love,
Jonathan
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1127547240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1127547240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jsc/kli_fall_2005/1127547240/tpod.html Sat, 24 Sep 2005 03:36:41 -0400 Jonathan's Bogus Journey

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Moss Beach, California, United States

Departure

Where to begin?

With the basics, I suppose. On September 24th, I'll be flying out to Seoul, South Korea, where I'll be studying at the Korean Language Institute for the next school year. I'm doing this as the preparation step for entering graduate school next year. I suppose that in some ways I've been thinking about this trip for a long time. When I first declared as an Asian history major at the University of California at Santa Cruz I told my academic advisor, Professor Gail Hershatter, that I'd like to make a career out of my degree rather than use it has a stepping stone for some other field. She frankly told me that to have a career in Asian history would require some intense study in foreign languages and a great deal of time abroad. I responded by taking a year of college level Japanese and studying in Korea for six weeks during the summer of 2004. When I came and talked to her in the fall of that same year, she told me that wasn't nearly enough time and that I'd better spend next year (or better yet, the next two) getting fluent in Korean. This advice was echoed by Bruce Cummings, the top Korean history scholar in the English speaking world, when I sent an e-mail to him regarding graduate studies. Though other professors I e-mailed said that I could probably learn the language while doing graduate work, I'm inclined to believe my advisor and Professor Cummings. I checked out the requirements for a history doctorate at the University of Hawaii, my top choice for graduate school, and found that I have to be 'fluent' in one Asian language for my masters, two for my doctorate. 'Fluent' means that I have to sit down in front of a document written in the language in question and translate it. I'm allowed the aid of a dictionary, but the task still seems a little daunting to me, given my absolute ineptness when it comes to foreign languages.

Which brings me to where I am now, a year abroad to develop my language skills before taking the plunge into full-on graduate work.

I'm feeling a lot of things as I write this on the night before my departure. Most people seem excited for me and say that I'll 'have a lot of fun.' They're probably right, and I feel a little excited myself, as well as a little nervious. But if I'm going to be honest, mostly I feel sad and afraid.

Last weekend my immediate family (my father Scott, my mother Mary, my brother Colin, my sister Elaine and I) accompanied my Aunt Annette up to Mendocino, where she scattered the ashes of her husband and my uncle, Paul David, or P.D. for short. P.D. was hit and killed by a truck while biking a few months ago. He and I had been growing closer in the years leading up to his death, as my education and knowledge got to a level where we could hold some great conversations together. He was wonderful to talk to, and he loved to ask me questions about Korea. I miss him a lot.

We talked about P.D. for most of the weekend, and I kept thinking to myself 'we say too many damned goodbyes in this life.' That's why I feel so sad. I have to say so many goodbyes for this trip, and I don't want to say anymore. Even the temporary kind.
And I'm afraid of going into the unknown, of what the next year might bring. I'm afraid of all the ifs and whys and buts that run through my mind because I have so few answers for them. I don't even have a place to live when I get to Korea, nor am I certain that I'll have an interpreter that can allow me to find a place to live. I don't know where to go or whom I should talk to. I don't know what my class schedule is going to be, or where the program orientation is going to take place. I've got to open a back account, buy a cell phone, get a bus pass, and get a subway pass in the week after I arrive, and I have no idea how to do any of these!

On the eve of leaving, all this trip does is make me sad and afraid. There's no small part of me that wants to cancel everything and sink back into my comfort zone, where things are safe and familiar.

But, of course, that's not what I'm going to do.

Master Song, the martial arts instructor who helped make me into the man I've become, one told me: "The butterfly has to leave its cocoon. Sometimes it does not want to. It says, 'no, it's scary out there. I want to stay here where it's nice and warm and safe.' But you know what, if you never leave the cocoon, then you're dead. You have to leave the cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly.'

I remember that advice very well. I know that to become what I want to be, I'm going to have to leave my comfort zone and put myself on the line.

But, that doesn't make it an easy thing to do.

... When we were up in Mendocino I went for a walk by myself. Everyone had been talking about P.D. and I started to tear up. I excused myself, never having been comfortable showing strong emotions in front of others. I walked down to a beach and along a rocky cliff face. There I found a half of a muscle shell and picked it up. I examined the rainbow mosaic inside of it and remembered the shell collection P.D. had given me when I was a kid. He has found a least a hundred different beautiful and intact shells from different parts of the world, and I think he gave them to me in the hope that it would inspire me to add on to the collection, to explore and find shells of my own. But I was very young at the time, and after about a year I all but forgot about it. Frowning, I stood up and continued to walk, rubbing the smooth inside of the shell with my thumb.

I followed a river into the woods and briefly intersected a path before pressing on into the woods and off the trail. All the time I was thinking 'to many damn goodbyes' over and over again and fighting back tears, pushing forward because that seemed like the only thing to do. I came upon a place where there were several old beer cans, and I imagined friends or lovers hiking into the woods to throw back a few brewskis and share each other's company. Fifteen feet away in a dark clearing filled with spider-webs my eye caught a hint of something dark blue in the underbrush. I bent down and discovered a single blue jay feather the color of a clear sky in early dawn. I looked at it for a long time, placed it inside the shell and moved on.

Not long after I came out of the woods onto a hill filled with thigh high dry grass. I climbed it quickly, and at the top I came to a tangle of thorn bushes that stretched thirty yards in all directions. I stopped there for a moment, breathing hard from the climb, and then sat down and crossed my arms over my knees. I didn't see a way to get around them. I figured I'd have to go back the way I had come, but as I stood up a thought rushed into my head. It said 'you can't go back.' This thought was very sad, and also very true. Instead of going down the hill I began to skirt the thorn bushes, trying to get past them to the woods beyond. I finally found a path that could take me to the other side, though there were thorn bushes close in on all sides of it. I got stung on my forearms and legs as I went through, but I made it to the other side and into the woods again.

The trees were tangled, and there were mushrooms growing everywhere. I went passed them and found a well maintained path, the one I had intersected earlier but further along its way. I went to follow it when I saw a flower beside the path. I bent over and placed it between my fingers. It had yellow petals with a bright orange center. Around the center were a dozen additional droplets of orange like small egg yokes. It struck me as very beautiful, though it was only one of many such flowers. I plucked it gently, and went along my way.

I passed a hiking couple on my way down the path. They eyed me wearily as I croaked out a hello. I felt weak, but not from fatigue. It was more like there was a weight on my heart that dragged my muscles down with it. My steps slowed a bit, and I meandered up towards where my father had parked the car and my family was waiting for me. Eventually I reached a staircase carved into the side of a hill. It was built out of wooden boards and stretched up around a bend. Its end was hidden by trees. I stood looking up at it for a long time.

I looked down into my hand, where I held the shell, the feather and the flower. I had picked them up meaning to show them to my family, but I felt that they had another purpose. I started walking up the stairs. At the fifth step, I set down the shell in the middle of the stair, and I thought to myself 'there's nothing to do but more forward.' On the tenth, I put down the feather and moved on as the wind brushed it along the step. I glanced back at it, but only for a moment. On the fifteenth, I put down the flower, and thought 'I have to move forward.' On the twentieth I rounded the bend, and by the twenty-fifth I had climbed the stair case.

I left the things I had found behind, and I kept moving until I found my family sitting on a picnic bench, talking over various magazines.

You may be asking yourself why I chose to tell this story as a part of my departure message. I told it because sometimes, all you can do is move on. You never forget the connections you made, the time you spent or the experiences you have, but if you never move on, you never pass the thorn bushes, and you never get beyond the bend. You never find the way to where you want to go.

It's time for me to move on. My path is in front of me, and that's where I intend to go.

And so I leave the things I know and love behind to brave the unknown, because that's the only thing to do. I miss you all terribly without even having left. I can only hope that what's down the road makes the trip worthwhile.

Regards,
Jonathan
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