"Oh my god! What am I doing here!?"
Trip Start
Sep 24, 2005
1
2
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Trip End
Oct 25, 2005
Seoul,
Korea Rep.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
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
bedroom
.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
entry
.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
shakey video work FTW!
. 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..
table
. 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
The bathroom/shower
. 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
The kitchen
.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.
View from my apartment
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:
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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.
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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
