Living abroad during the holiday season is a time when most foreigners get together to commiserate the distance separating them from their families and the giant, home-cooked goodness that generally accompanies all the festivities. Thanksgiving has always been my personal favorite; there’s no need to worry about presents or church or sitting on a fat man’s lap, we get to do the one things Americans do best – eat. All day. The only problem is that since I left home for college in France, I’ve spent more Thanksgivings away from my mother’s kitchen than in it. Just ask her; she’ll tell you all about it.
As I’ve had my fair share of impromptu turkey dinners cobbled together at the last minute, I figured this year would be no different, and fully expected to sit down to a Thanksgiving meal that had side dishes of kimchi and a fish head or two thrown in for good measure. So when I received an email from a more veteran teacher at one of my school’s other branches in Busan asking if anyone wanted to get together at her place to expand our waistlines in honor of our forefathers, I accepted. A day later, she emailed everyone back, letting us know that of the sixty or so teachers that my company employs in the city, forty were planning on attending. In her apartment. Forty people. Plus turkeys. Now, my place is one of the bigger apartments that I’ve seen in Korea, but you would have to crowd surf your way to the bathroom if I tried to stuff forty people in it.
Seemingly undaunted by the imminent stampede on her apartment, subsequent emails went out regarding the plan: for ten dollars a head, we would be supplied with a turkey dinner catered by a restaurant that used to feed the large contingent of American soldiers who were based in Busan until just over a year ago, when the U.S. base closed. Along with beer and wine, we were encouraged to bring any side dishes that we wanted to cook – but were admonished not to worry too much about food, they were certain there was going to be plenty. For forty people. In one apartment.
What sounded like a good idea at first was now starting to make me think maybe I should just skip the holiday altogether; I couldn’t see how there would possibly be enough food for the small army of hungry foreigners it was promised to, and if I couldn’t eat myself into a turkey coma, three bites of stuffing would only make me more homesick. Prodded along by the Texans, we decided that if we couldn’t fit in the door or there wasn’t enough food, we would politely excuse ourselves and relocate to the closest bar. Sounded like a plan to me.
Following the detailed directions that were emailed around, we rode the subway for an hour to Haeundae Beach – Busan’s flagship shoreline that’s depicted on most postcards of the city – and then took a five minute cab ride which deposited us at the base of a gigantic apartment complex. As most of the country is covered in mountains and so space is limited, following their economic boom in the 1970s Koreans developed an affinity for monolithic apartment high-rises; self-sufficient entities that house thousands and are equipped with amenities ranging from grocery stores to gas stations and rows of restaurants. While they could not be prouder of these, all I see is a giant firetrap. But that’s just me.
Hunting around the complex’s multi-level garage, we spent just under a half-hour walking in circles and trying to find the building number I had scrawled on a piece of paper: building 112, apartment 5105.
After locating the building, we were greeted by a video intercom, which we struggled with unsuccessfully for five minutes until we were able to squeeze through the automatic sliding door after a departing tenant. This is about the time we started to notice the lobby seemed very upscale. Marble hallways, plants, a bubbling fountain. Perhaps this was going to work out after all.
Taking one of the biggest elevators I’ve been in since arriving in Korea, we got off on the fifth floor and were met with apartments 501-510. Puzzled, we called the elevator back, climbed in and realized that the building had fifty-one floors. Apartment 5105 was on the top floor. My ears popped twice on the way up, and when the elevator doors opened, I could feel any sense of thanks that I had been slowly tapping on the way over (list three things you’re thankful for…) immediately overpowered by intense jealousy.
One of two apartments on the penthouse floor, their door was open and we walked into one of the nicest places I’ve ever been in – Korea or not. Their foyer was the size of my apartment, with giant, wood cabinets on either side that could have easily fit my dinky twin bed and all my belongings with room to spare. Placing our shoes alongside the thirty or so other pairs that were neatly arranged along the wall, we walked down a gaping hallway that opened up into the kitchen and a living room with floor to ceiling windows showcasing views of the entire city. Making a concerted effort to close my mouth, I was introduced to the host and a handful of my fellow teachers and then quickly excused myself to explore the rest of the palace. Three bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Two living rooms. One jacuzzi bathtub that required all my self-control not to lock the door behind me and jump in. The place just kept going – and I had to remind myself multiple times that I wasn’t in the ambassador’s apartment, these people were teachers, paying less for the entire place than I paid for my share of a small, Spanish Harlem apartment in New York. This is why people move over here for a summer and end up staying for twelve. After getting over my surroundings and asking if they needed any roommates, house sitters or squatters, I finally settled in and was able to appreciate what was going on around me.
Comfortably spread out among the five rooms that were open to us, over forty foreigners from across the world sat down to inhale six turkeys, at least twenty pounds of mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, salad, rolls, pasta, green beans, pierogi (I have no idea, either), squash – the table went on and on. You could tell this restaurant used to feed the army; like I had wished for, the food just kept coming and at one point I looked up to find half of us sprawled out, lying prostrate on the floor and rubbing our stomachs.
Australians, Canadians, Brits, Kiwis, Irish, and even a couple of Koreans – while one would struggle to find anyone in the crowd who could locate Plymouth on a map, this was, in a way, what the whole holiday was about. The natives – the more senior teachers among us who were able to locate these amazing apartment deals and arrange the unbelievable catering – helping the newly arrived make it through our first winter in a strange and faraway land.
While I still would have given my left arm to be surrounded by my family, if I had to be away during the holidays, I couldn’t have asked for nicer surroundings and more accommodating hosts. Hours later, waddling out to find a cab for the journey back to our neighborhood, the Texans and I were amazed at our luck in being placed among such great people – and then began plotting how we could steal their apartment. You know, just like the pilgrims did three centuries ago.
To say I’m impulsive is akin to saying Kim Jung-il has control issues; once I get something in my head, it usually ends up happening. That afternoon. Which is why I was only mildly surprised to find myself flying down a Korean highway on my newly purchased moped last week, attempting to read the road signs and find my way back to Busan. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
While I would generally consider myself a compassionate person, whenever I would hear about someone getting into a motorcycle accident, I couldn’t help but think, “well, who said it was a good idea to hurtle yourself in front of cars going 75 mph wearing less protection than a high school football player would wear in the locker room?” Moreover, I just couldn’t understand the appeal of motorcycles – maybe it’s because I don’t have any hair for the wind to whip through, but to me bikers had always just looked like lazy people with a strange affinity for leather and an aversion to peddling.
After four years of living in Paris and seeing half the city darting around on fun looking mopeds, this opinion was slowly chipped away at until I found myself dreaming of pulling up to school in a red Vespa, fresh from a ride along the Seine and infinitely happier because I didn’t have to take the Metro with the rest of the commoners. I’m pretty sure the only thing that stopped that daydream from becoming a reality was my student-sized bank account. A problem I don’t have in South Korea.
The seed was planted by the Texan, whose friend had recently bought a motorcycle for next to nothing, and was now free to roam the streets of Busan and explore the surrounding mountains on a whim. The more we talked about it, the more I realized that I wanted a moped. More than that: I needed a moped. It made perfect sense; if I could find a cheap enough bike, it would cut down on my transportation expenses (because, you know, I live across the street from where I work…), provide endless hours of fun and would help me with my Korean. The last point is my default rationale for doing pretty much anything in Korea – I imagine almost every activity will somehow further my understanding of both the language and the culture. Most of the time this just results in me making a fool of myself, but I do have to note that my Korean is (slowly) moving along. Regardless, the ball was now officially rolling. And by “ball” I mean boulder, and by “rolling,” I mean down Kilimanjaro.
After spending nearly every available waking hour over the next two days monitoring the online bulletin boards on which foreigners buy and sell things in Busan, I found what I deemed the “perfect” bikes: an Australian man was selling two bikes, one motorcycle and one moped, for the amount of Won I would normally spend on a night out. The only thing (because of course there’s a catch) was that he lived in a city that’s about 45 minutes from Busan by car. And he didn’t have a digital camera or pictures to send us. And if we didn’t come Friday, there were already two other people lined up to buy what had now become in my head My Bike. I wouldn’t normally believe this last detail, except I had seen firsthand how quickly scooters and motorcycles were sold online, and considering what a good deal these bikes seemed, I was surprised he hadn’t sold them already. Clearly, this was destiny.
And so on Friday, after a noon meeting at school and before our classes started later that afternoon, I informed the Texan that we needed to get the bikes now, hailed a cab and headed off to a town we had never heard of, to meet a man we didn’t know to buy a pair of bikes we’d never seen. The entire ride there, we were glued to the windows of the cab, attempting to remember directions for the trip back. Ok, we’ll need to go left after the flagpole, but stay on the right side of the river. But before that we have to pass that farmer’s market and the construction site with the barking dog. How much farther do you think it is? Should we be writing this down? Did you bring a pen?
It only occurred to me as we were paying the taxi and climbing out that we didn’t exactly have a contingency plan in place if the bikes turned out to be less than perfect, or if only one of them ran, or if the nice sounding Australian guy on the phone turned out to be a serial killer who lures unsuspecting foreigners from Busan who were too stupid to believe someone could not have access to a digital camera in the year 2007. But after meeting him and seeing his ponytail dreadlock, curled chin hair, and four kids running around an apartment that looked no bigger than my studio, I understood the technical difficulties and was frankly surprised he managed to post anything online.
The Texan’s bike was located in his apartment complex’s garage, and the two quickly left for a spin around the block, leaving me alone in the garage and contemplating why I place such utter faith in complete strangers. This is probably how he does it. Takes one away, slices him up and then comes back for seconds. I also quickly realized that in all the commotion before they left, he had failed to point out My Bike. Standing among three or four good looking scooters, I was relieved to find that it didn’t matter which one was for sale – they all looked to be in fantastic condition and I began molding my daydream to fit the models that I was now faced with.
It wasn’t until after they came back five minutes later and the Texan had confirmed that he would buy his bike that I was informed My Bike was at the shop for a “tune-up,” and the Australian had just planned to take me down there in his car and have the Texan follow us on the bike. Of course you planned this. Here it is. I just hope it’s quick. A gunshot, or maybe a clean stab. Hopefully there’s no tying up involved. Trying to mentally signal the Texan to go get help, I climbed into his car and we set off towards the town, with the Texan following behind.
Grateful to arrive at the bike shop five minutes later, he led me to a side alley that was littered with mopeds in various stages of decay surrounded by old tires and cigarette butts. Rounding the corner, he pointed to a funky looking red bike ahead of us, and I finally met My Bike. While she was nothing like the mopeds in my daydreams, she was red, had definite spunk and I instantly fell in love. Which was a good thing, considering she was the only bike in the place that seemed to have a working motor and I was miles away from Busan with no other way to get home. All in all? The perfect position one wants to be in when purchasing a vehicle.
After settling the transaction, the Australian left us on the side of the road with vague directions on how to get back to the highway that would lead us home. Realizing we were beginning to run short on time (it was now 3:15 and we were expected to be in work clothes and teaching English by 4:30), we quickly hopped on the bikes and were off. Which is about the time I noticed that while I had convinced myself that I would be returning to Busan the proud owner of a moped, I hadn’t dressed accordingly for an hour ride home in November. No gloves. No jacket. Oh, and no directions. But who’s counting?
Definitely taking multiple wrong turns, we somehow ended up finding our way back to Busan, but we had managed to enter the city clear on the other side of town from our school. At 4:15, which gave us fifteen minutes to get home, change and make it into our classrooms on time. Randomly zipping through traffic and down side streets, we soon found ourselves blocks from the building where we take Korean lessons, which we knew was directly on the other side of a pretty significant mountain from our school. Happy to have regained our bearings, we darted towards the mountain and began the ascent.
Now, when I say I bought a moped, this is kind of a stretch. She’s basically a bike with a (tiny) motor, and so when faced with a steep mountain climb, she struggled valiantly for three and a half minutes and then began rolling backwards. Now knowing there was no way we were going to make it to school on time, I had no choice but to stash my bike in the woods, attempt to remember what the surrounding trees looked like so I could come back for her, and jump on the back of the Texan’s more able motorcycle that got us up and over the mountain and back to school only fifteen minutes late. While our director was not thrilled with our tardiness, he said simply, “I glad you alive.” Me too.
As I only have one class on Fridays, three hours later I was hailing a cab to take me back over the mountain so I could grab my bike and attempt to find a route home that didn’t involve any inclines steeper than a speed bump. Trying to explain in my broken Korean to the cab driver that I only wanted to go halfway down the mountain involved an enormous amount of pantomiming and pointing at my bike helmet, and ultimately resulted in me just barking “stop!” and tumbling out of the cab in the middle of the woods. As the cab pulled away, leaving me on the side of a mountain in the pitch-black darkness, my mind again mulled over exactly how I got myself in this situation.
Clutching my bike helmet, I began my trek down the mountainside, squinting into the darkness trying to locate my bike that I was convinced by now had been stolen, towed by the police, or carried away by whatever animal was about to kill me in the night. Surprising myself, I eventually found the bike twenty cold minutes later, intact and next to a little stream that I hadn’t noticed when I hurriedly ditched it earlier that afternoon.
Riding away, I attempted to follow signs for parts of town that I knew were in my general direction, and was introduced to driving a scooter in Busan. From what I learned on my two-hour journey back to my apartment in the freezing cold, traffic rules do not apply to vehicles with less than four wheels. I was honked at for not running red lights, encouraged to ride on the sidewalk when the road got too crowded, and generally observed an “any means necessary” style of driving.
Only partially terrified, I also began to truly enjoy biking and began to see why people argue in favor of this means of transportation. There’s something to be said for traveling outdoors, and while I quickly bought a good pair of gloves and a warm hat, even a bald guy can enjoy the wind at his face and honking Korean buses at his back. And while I have become slightly obsessed with my bike and now leave my building through the garage just to check on it, I’m still having some trouble seeing how this affection for a bike translates into a full leather outfit complete with tassels. But hey, it’s only been a week.
One of the things that attracted me to the private English academy that I ended up working for was their class structure – for a brand new teacher, it was extremely comforting to know that basically every minute of a three hour class has already been planned out. During our week long training in Seoul, we took extensive tests on the order of each class: five minutes for attendance, ten for homework check, fifteen for the review test and so on. As my company has schools across the country and is generally regarded as one of the most prestigious academies for parents to send their unsuspecting kids to, the main offices in Seoul have worked hard to ensure that every classroom that bears our company logo, no matter its location, adheres to the same rigorous curriculum and standards. Thanks to this centralized system, my class in Busan is no different from a class in Daejeon or Changwon or Seoul. In theory.
The only problem with this class structure is that while it works for the first couple of weeks, as the kids’ English improve and they become accustomed to the routine, they slowly creep ahead faster and faster, and soon what used to take thirty minutes now takes five and you have the better part of a half hour to kill. Some nights, I’ll spend longer on certain sections (and who can give me another example?) but on some nights, I knowingly veer from my script to tell a (hopefully related) story, or get the kids thoughts on the reading, etc. Most nights this results in a great classroom discussion where I’ve managed to get the kids engaged and all clamoring to speak English over their peers. And other nights I lose control.
I’m not even sure how tonight’s discussion started. The book we’re reading in this particular class deals with the history of rock and roll music, and so for the past couple of weeks I’ve been playing the corresponding songs off my iPod and talking about their effects on popular culture. Fats Domino. Chuck Berry. Elvis. The Beatles. Needless to say, I’ve been having a blast, and still can’t get over the kids who have never heard The Beatles. I didn’t know that was even possible.
This class is usually my quietest group of kids: five junior high school girls and one lone thirteen year-old guy. They’re all very smart, but it’s taken me almost ten weeks to get them to let their guards down – something I accomplished by making an ass of myself pretty much every night. But slowly, as the weeks dragged on they began to talk more, ask questions and generally come to life.
And so tonight, in the middle of a sprited discussion on whether or not Beyonce’s music qualified as rock and roll (but Teacher, the book says black people and R&B started rock and roll. So she’s black and sings R&B. That’s rock and roll, right?) somehow the conversation meandered into the profanities that have come to populate many rock songs.
One Student: Many bad words in music now, right Teacher?
Me: Um, well. Yes, I guess there are.
Another Student: Bad words? What is bad words?
One Student: Yes. Son of bitches?
Me: (mouth open)
Another Student: Oh! Yes! What about shit? Is shit bad word, too?
Another Student: Ass?
Another Student: Hell? (slowly, trying to remember) What...the hell...are you talking about?
Yet Another Student: (happily chiming in) Shut the f*ck up?
We might be reading the same books and doing the same tests as kids across the country, but I bet they weren’t doing that tonight in Seoul.
When I woke up this past Saturday with a slight sore throat, I immediately blamed my director, who had taken us out for dinner and endless bottles of Soju on Friday night. When the sore throat blossomed to include a fever and the inability to swallow much beyond water, I was perplexed. This was the third time in as many months that I had these symptoms – and I have already been through two different doctors who had both given me the Korean shot in the ass (of what, I have no idea), an IV (again: no idea) and a bagful of colorful pills to choke down for the next week. The problem was with each doctor’s visit, I could never really articulate my symptoms much beyond pointing at my throat and grimacing. Conversely, I never had any idea the names of the fistful of pills they were directing me to take three times a day. While I’m enjoying that the health care is virtually free, my Korean class has not delved into enough medical vocab to keep up with my frequent flier status at the local clinics and so I have little to no idea what I’m subjecting my body to.
So, on Monday I found myself once again walking around my neighborhood looking for a doctor. I didn’t want to go back to the first guy, who my students later informed me was a gastrointestinal specialist – which would explain the framed illustrations of colonoscopies that adorned his walls. The second doctor I visited at 3 a.m. in the “emergency room” of the closest hospital – not because it was truly an emergency, but simply because I couldn’t sleep and figured someone there would speak English. Right? Wrong. Turns out, it was a good thing it wasn’t a life-or-death situation; after entering a space that truly lived up to the “room” part of its title, I had to wake up the doctor who was snoring loudly on three chairs pushed together, who basically prescribed the shot in my ass while still asleep.
I’d like to say that after a solid month of Korean class twice a week, I was finally able to converse with my new doctor. However the first month has focused on the alphabet, the two (two!) numbering systems, and memorizing mostly nouns for vocabulary. When were we starting verbs? Monday. Where was I during Monday’s class? Stumbling around my neighborhood, trying to read the neon building signs and figuring out which floors looked like doctor’s offices. A general rule: any building with a pharmacy on the ground floor usually also houses a doctor’s office, medical clinic or a dentist's office. Which I walked into before abruptly turning around after seeing the familiar earpieces.
Settling on a fourth floor “internal medicine clinic” in a building not far from my house, I shared the elevator ride up with a newborn, her parents and a friendly old man attached to an IV who, judging by the Dunkin’ Donuts cup in his hand, had just run out for his morning cup of coffee. Why let a little thing like an IV get in the way of that?
The clinic was nicer than where my previous attempts at health had taken me – dark, hardwood floors led to a waiting room lined with plants and fountains. I wondered if this was some kind of private clinic and if I would be forced to return to the Colonoscopy Wizard after they rejected my health insurance. But, after flashing my card and performing my usual throat-point-and-grimace routine, I was told to take a seat and the doctor would be right out.
Five minutes later, after watching the old man wheel his IV from room to room, chatting with everyone in the place and sipping his coffee, the doctor came out and excitedly introduced himself, proudly showing off his near fluent English. Ushering me into his office, he immediately demanded to know where I was from.
Doctor: Canada? England?
Me: The U.S.
Doctor: Oh good! I love America. I’m going to America. Maybe I’ll see you in America!
For the next ten minutes, he told me about how he studies English every day so eventually he can move his family to America, preferably the West coast, and continue to study medicine, preferably at Stanford, and his wife, who is very beautiful and is a nurse, not at this clinic but at the hospital down the street – have you been to the hospital? – is going to also study when they get to America and after they both have jobs then they are going to have kids, preferably two, and did I know anyone in California? Is it very warm all the time? Do you even need a coat?
I’m constantly amazed that after almost eight years of Bush dragging our name through the mud on a near daily basis there is any goodwill for us left in the world. But this man could not have been more excited that I held an American passport, and nearly passed out when I told him that my school employed four more teachers from the Land of the Free. He immediately grabbed his business card, scribbled down his cell phone number and insisted that I call him so we can all go out for drinks one night (“I buy, don’t worry”) and talk more about everything American.
Only after I agreed that we would indeed hang out did he get around to asking me what was wrong. Finally relieved that I could do more than point and grimace, I told him how my throat has basically been hurting for the last three weeks, and how I’d been to two previous doctors who had given me shots and IVs and pills but I don’t think they understood when I told them it wasn’t a common cold and I needed antibiotics. Nodding knowingly, he had me open my mouth wide and say, “I love Americaaaaaaaaa.” Just kidding. But he might as well have.
Confirming that I had been walking around with tonsillitis for god knows how long, he promptly ordered a shot in the ass (I seriously think they’re addicted to it) and another round of pills. I tried to get him to tell me what the pills were, but his English only got us as far as “they will help you feel better.” Well, I hope so.
Sharing the elevator down with the old man, who now had his coat on and looked like he was going to take his IV for a spin around the block, I stopped at the pharmacy where they quickly filled my prescription and threw in a bag of deer antler juice for good measure. (The total cost for both doctor and meds? Six dollars.) I still have no idea what I’m taking, but at least now I know the doctor is invested in me getting better, if only so he can have an American drinking buddy.
