So after going to the school with Ms. Huh (pronounced like “her” kind of), meeting my co-workers, and seeing my classroom, I decided to go get dinner at a traditional Korean restaurant. Of course when I went in no one understood the barbaric noises issuing forth from my gullet so I just grabbed a menu and headed into the dining room. It was the kind of place where the tables are only six inches off the ground, which I’ve never tried but hey, no time like the present. Since I’m a big clumsy American it was hard to get comfortable and everyone in the dining room stared and made fun of me, which doesn’t bother me so much because I try to imagine myself from their perspective, which is probably something like watching an Orca whale try to ride a bicycle. Well, I pointed at something on the menu that looked like beef but the waitress told me I didn’t want that and brought me soup instead. I guess I’ll just trust her judgment. The soup came with eight other bowls with weird pastes, rice and celery sticks. I started picking at each one individually and then just said, “screw it” and dumped all them into the soup. It was delicious. I saw two guys across from me putting back bottle after bottle of Soju and since I never tried it I decided to order one. I thought it would be a lot like sake because they’re both distilled from rice, but it wasn’t. Soju is %20 alcohol and tastes much harsher than sake, but it sure does make the room spin the way you want it to. I could only finish half the bottle because I drink like a little girl.
The next day was my first day of classes. I’ll be teaching 20 classes a week, 4 each day. They went all right I suppose but I felt under prepared. I’m going to spend a lot of time this Sunday getting materials ready for next week. Also met the entire English teaching staff, a group of ladies who seem to socially segregate themselves from the rest of the staff, whether by accident or a function of their profession I don’t know. Maybe I’m just making assumptions. At the moment, these ladies are the only people in this country I know who speak my language. Ms. Huh I already knew. She’s the eldest of the group and goes out of her way to make sure I have everything I need. In two days I already feel like she is very motherly towards me and she seems to maintain a matriarchal position over the other English staff. Miss Sung is a very polite lady, she’s been handling my paperwork and we have good conversations. I learned that she is a Christian, which is cool because as a person with a Christian background I’m anxious to learn how the philosophy has evolved in this culture. As you drive around the city you can see these red neon crucifixes towering over other buildings and Miss Sung tells me that she goes to service every morning at 5 a.m. That’s some freakin’ devotion! Mrs. Yoon (sp?) is nice but she’s very quiet. I don’t think her English is as good as the other professors but she makes up for it in the respect she garners from the students. Though she appears timid on the outside she can silence even the rowdiest room with the subtlest of glares. I think it’s because the students are afraid she’ll beat the crap out of them. Miss Kwon not only has awesome style and is fun to hang out with, but she is a badass disciplinarian. She carries around this wooden stick that she threatens students with or smacks their desk to get them to quiet down. I have to say that one of the things I really want to find in this country is someone who speaks English that I can just knock some beers back with and of all the people I know so far with whom I can communicate, she seem the likeliest candidate.
After the first day of classes the four English ladies took me to this giant mall near Suwon Station to have dinner. I gave up trying to remember my way around after the first twelve escalators. We ate at a place called VIP’s, a chain not unlike Bennigan’s with steaks and a salad bar. Some of the memorable foods I was introduced to include Apple and Octopus salad, shrimp soaked in Mountain Dew (really, I’m not kidding), and these cool little fruit/nuts called Rich (pronounced reech) that are like these soft, translucent, lavender peach things inside a crispy shell. If you told me a year ago that I would be dipping shrimp in Mountain Dew in a Sizzler knockoff with four Korean women whom are my only linguistic tie to the world I would have abruptly cut you off with a smug,” Good day to you sir.”
Okay, so let’s get to the title piece of this post. Today, for the first time I experienced what I would call true terror. I mean an absolute feeling of helplessness. Something you cannot fully appreciate unless you find yourself in the same situation. It was my first day to ride public transportation to school. The English teachers showed me the stop the night before and said to get on bus 13. Okay fine. But then I started seeing buses numbered 13-1, 13-5, 13-7. “Well they’re probably all the same right?” Wrong! It should have only taken about three minutes to get to the school so after twenty minutes had passed I was starting to worry. I tried to tell myself that maybe he circles around to other stops before going to the school. No. After an hour had gone by I was really worrying, especially because Chilbo Middle School lies in developed land on the outskirts of the city and we were now in the center of the metropolis. All the cars looked alike. High-rises blended together in colorful patterns of illegible advertisements and unrecognizable nonsense. There were a score of puzzling city blocks in every direction and everything looked the same. I usually have a good sense of direction but after all the weird turns the bus had taken there was no way I was going to find a landmark or compile my bearings. You take for granted, when navigating an urban area, the ability to read, and without this necessity I realized for the first time in a long time that I was truly lost.
I was hoping the bus would just circle back on the original route and I could get off where I started. It didn’t. It drove all the way to a depot of other buses where they could fuel up and being the only passenger left, the driver motioned for me to get off. I attempted to plead with him in my useless blabber but he only seemed annoyed with me and forced me out the door. So there I stood, miles from anything familiar, surrounded by thousands of people who could not understand me enough to help me, horns blaring, trucks driving. I knew not where to turn. I had no phone and even if I did I had no one to call. I considered the buses but as I watched them it appeared they were not letting passengers on at the depot. When I walked into the yard I only got angry glares. Nor as I walked the streets did I see bus stops in any direction. I crossed a large busy avenue, four lanes wide and packed with turbulent traffic. On the other side was the entrance to the subway. As I looked down the long, dark mouth like staircase I considered this method as an answer to my problems. “No,” I thought, “The map would surely be in Korean and there’s no way the metro runs all the way out to middle school. It would probably just make things worse” As I began walking up the avenue, past countless shops whose wares I could only make guesses about relative to their cryptic signs, I spotted a cab. “Yes that does seem like my best bet” I considered. I did have nearly 300,000 Won in cash, a notable advantage in my otherwise despondent circumstances. The problem was that in order to ride a cab one must give the driver directions and I would bet my wad that the man’s English wasn’t what you might call…plenteous. Well I knew two words in Korean so I hailed the cab. When I got in I said “Chilbo” and then tried to pantomime “close to” before saying “Saw Suwon (West Suwon).” The driver gave a quizzical stare before making a phone call. Whatever it was he talked about on the phone I’ll never know but as soon as he hung up he looked at me confidently in the rearview mirror and with the most dramatic, John Wayne voice, he let a single word roll off of his tongue…“Chilbo.” Instead of scooting away in a Hyundai taxi towards the Chilbo developmental sector of Suwon, we were riding thoroughbred stallions off into the sunset, intent on finding the Lost City of Chilbo. It was magical.
Anyway I got to school and it only cost 9,000 Won, but I gave him 20,000 Won because he made my day. I was worried about being late because it was only my second day on the job but luckily my first class was canceled. The teachers had gone to my apartment looking for me and not finding me there assumed that I was lost. It was a big joke to them but that’s cool. I was adequately prepared for class today but all the room’s computers crashed so I had to wing it again. Let me just say this. If you ever want to feel like a rock star without learning to play an instrument or singing, go teach ESL. My day consists of hundreds of kids running up to me screaming, “Hi Teacher! How are you?” The boys want my autograph. The girls keep following me around and calling me handsome. For some reason they all want to know how tall I am. I tell them 6’4”, which doesn’t help because they’re on the metric system. Whatever, I love my job so far and this country rocks. If the weather is nice tomorrow I want to take the train to Seoul. This public transportation system owes me a rematch. Well here’s a bonus video of my apartment for anyone who had the attention span to actually read through this whole thing.
Oh, one more thing. Went grocery shopping last night and afterwords decided that, since I've been eating healthy Korean food all week, I was going to drink beer and get a Pizza Hut pizza. But let me tell you, this was the best Pizza Hut ever. I got something with ham, green peppers onion, mayonnaise (I think), hot sauce, pickles and waffle fries. Fresh ingredients, unique flavor combinations, and spectacular service. The man held the door open for me and wrapped my pizza in this little bow. American pizza places have to step it up. This stuff was great.
Hey Poppo,
ReplyDeleteYour blogs keep getting better and it is interesting to read about the culture and your experiences. You have such a wonderful opportunity. Carpe diem and Godspeed!