Freedom

I’m 13, on a long extended vacation with my family: mom, dad, and two brothers.  I’m the middle child which means I can usually call a good seat in the family minivan, which is important when you’re on a road trip for 30 days.  We drive everywhere because flying 5 people up and down the east coast is expensive.  We get lost in every major city.  We read hundreds of books and listen to thousands of songs.  We compromise because nobody wants to fight in the car, but there are some long days.  We don’t stop at every historic site but we hit all the historic battlegrounds and rest areas.  We eat one-pot meals made in our hotel rooms, in front of 300 cable tv channels.   Sandwiches out of the car.  Sometimes, we meet some of our relatives for the first time we- the kids- can remember, and turn their homes into our base of operations to see several places over the course of a few days.  For the whole month of October, we make our way from Montana to Vermont to Virginia and back home again.

Midway through this adventure, we hit Boston, a treasure trove of Independence era sites, home of the Freedom trail. We see the liberty bell, Independence Hall, Paul Revere’s house, Betsy Ross’s house, a church who’s history I can’t remember, and an old ship named “Ol’ Ironsides” left over from the War of 1812, and many regular city streets.  It was in one of the modern, non-famous areas where my revelation took place.

Mom said everyone could tell we were tourists by the way we kept looking up at everything.  She noticed that locals kept their eyes front, never looking up, just getting where they’re going.  Montana children are not used to skyscrapers of course, especially a whole bunch of them in one place, and we couldn’t help but stare up to try and see the tops.  Mom said it in a way to get us to move along and pay attention to where we were walking, but not as a means to scold our curiosity.

But then I had to go and say, “I’m going to live in a big city some day.”  My words, exactly.  If I went back to Boston today, I could even find the exact building I was staring up at, if it’s still there.  I loved it.  The energy of people speed-walking to work, the way nobody paid attention to anyone else, and the quickness of transactions.  The infinite height of buildings and amount of people seemed like equally limitess opportunities.   I took the city in with excitement while my mom took it in and converted the energy to anxiety, tension, and stress.  Her response was “Yeah, right.  You’d hate it.”

To be fair, we also took in our first case of road rage witnessed in person that day.  From our vantage point in another lane, we saw a man yelling out his car window (fingers, er finger waving), but by the time we drove away, one man was making motions to get out of his car.  I thought that was all very exciting and new too, so that shows my perspective was perhaps a little skewed.  Over the years, I forgot the road rage and the exchange with my mother.  

10 years later, on an airplane across the pacific with two new friends, almost delirious from lack of sleep caused by 30 hours of traveling, that memory replayed in my mind like a reel of slides.  I laughed out loud.  Our airplane touched down in Seoul and I thought I was about to prove my mother wrong.  But would I prove myself wrong instead?  Would I like it?  

After 4 1/2 years of metropolis life, I will finally have visitors.  You see, my family knows they would hate to live here, but my brother and none other than my supportive mother, are coming.  Perhaps I can look back on that trip long ago- and many others to go camping, visit relatives, and travel to and from college- and lay the blame for my travel bug.  Perhaps it comes from my mom, who is braver than she knows.

I wonder, does she remember that moment in Boston?  On the Freedom Trail?  Maybe she won’t find her freedom while she’s here, but it’s okay.  I’ve found mine.

The Cemetery Guard

“I have 5 hours between the end of my lesson and the start of that office party that I don’t really want to go to, but should.  If I go home, I know I’ll never go to the party.  I guess I’ll go to that new National Hangul Museum!”

I have pretty good ideas when I’m reasoning with myself.  Except I never made it to the Hangul Museum.

“Today is a beautiful day.  Suppose I just get off one subway stop early, and spend a few minutes by the Han River?  What stop is this anyway, National Cemetery?”

By then I was following the signs leading away from the river, towards a brick wall that I couldn’t see anything behind, hoping that it was in fact the cemetery and I wasn’t already lost.  I was encouraged by a traffic sign, posted to tell motorists to be silent, since they were driving by a somber place.  I was grateful for the sign to help me find my way, but struck by the noise of quickly approaching rush-hour traffic.  A taxi satirically laid on his horn right in front of the sign, as if exaggerating his willful disobedience.

I took a picture of the pagoda-covered information at the front, and began using this  cemetery map photo by viewing it on my tiny phone screen.  iPhone 5.  I see why the 6’s got bigger.

I walked slowly, those 5 hours to kill looming over my head.  As there were no cars, I walked in the middle of the road.  I cleared the initial entry drive and got my first good view of anything cemetery-like… and realized my feet had stopped moving… and I had stopped breathing… and I had stopped hearing… Thank goodness for that wall blocking out the taxi horns.

The orderly rows of stones and their shadows, alternated with pink and white flowers, went on for literally as far as I could see.

I suddenly remembered being a very small child, seeing one of the Great Lakes for the first time, and not being able to see the end.  That feeling of awe mixed with a little bit of terror.  In the famous words of David After Dentist- Is this going to be forever?

My feet started moving again.  Maybe it was the car coming and me realizing I was still in the middle of the street that got me going.

I slowly continued down the road.  I began to feel self-concious.  I was dressed pretty professionally, because of my lesson and the upcoming office party.  Black pants, red and black frilly shirt.  I guess no one would think I was dressed disrespectfully.  OH NO.  What if they think I’m here for a funeral!  I began to seek out paths where I was alone.

Eventually, after climbing the mountain of stairs in the center and getting a view of the river, I made it within sight of the far end of the cemetery.  Bathroom!  Yay.  It had been an hour since I left the subway station.

I came out of the bathroom, determined to walk to the very end, instead of just seeing it.  There were a few people walking around, enjoying the silence.  I think a few of them were just there to exercise in a peaceful place that wasn’t crowded.

But a voice broke into the silence.  It was a cemetery guard, saying 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo, hello) to the person in front of me.  We both continued walking, and soon it was time to say 안녕하세요 to me.  Since people are sometimes shy with me, I like to encourage people who I already know to be friendly.  So I said it first.  “안녕하세요,” with a slight head nod that I don’t even think about doing anymore.  He greeted me also, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see him turning around as I passed.  Teacher!  He called me.  Wait a minute!  선생님!  잠시만요!

I knew he was talking to me (foreigner and teacher are my other names) so I paused a second for him to catch up, and he began to ask the usual where are you from how old are you are you a teacher questions.  I fielded all these in Korean, and so he decided to try some harder material.  Follow me, follow me, he said, trying out his first English.  He led me over to a box, and pulled out a brochure.  It was a cemetery guide, with a large map, and information about the famous people buried there.  Namely 3 past presidents and their wives.  Then, he half pulled/ half pushed me to the start of the path up the hill to see my first presidential grave.

At the top, I opened the flier, and made sure to read about this president and first lady, hidden under a giant stone box that had grass growing on top.  I didn’t take a picture because there was another guard there, and I was still a bit self-concious about being respectful.  Park Chung-Hee and Yuk Young-Soo, parents of current president Park Geun-Hye.

I spent what I thought was a respectful amount of time looking at the grass, and as I turned around, I saw my little guard friend hurrying up the path.  I should wait, I thought.  Sure enough, he wanted to tell me all about Korea’s short-term dictator err i mean, 5th to 9th President, as the brochure stated. (He was president from 1963-1979, I guess they counted it as 4 terms.) Politics aside, I think the guard was just proud of his job and the importance of the person he guarded.  He walked me back down the hill, chatting the whole time, putting sentences together with both English and Korean words.  “Are you married?”  He wanted to know.  When he found out that I was dating a Korean, he wanted to know where my boyfriend was!  Come back with your boyfriend in the fall, he said.  The trees are beautiful.

He paused his constant jabber, and I initiated my first sentence since he started my interview.  I said, “Here is the middle of the city, but so quiet.  I like it.”  Low level Korean.  🙂 He looked at me, and said, in English, “I saw you first time, good feeling.  I have gooooood feeling.”  He repeated himself in Korean, to make sure I had understood.  He used the words 눈치 (noon chi) and 분위기(boon ee gi).  눈치 is difficult to translate exactly, but in this situation I think we could call it a 6th sense.  분위기 is feeling from the atmosphere, so he had a good 6th sense from the atmosphere that I was a good person.  All I could do was smile, give a half-bow, and say thank you.  What is the protocol for when the atmosphere is giving out compliments?

At the bottom of the hill, my guide pointed me in the direction of the next president, so I would be sure not to miss it.  I saw him eyeing a group of walkers, and when they paused, gazing up in the direction of the grave, he beelined over to make his sale to the next customers.   How great to be so proud of something, so good at your job!

It was at this point in my adventure that my office party got cancelled, but I wasn’t done yet.  I saw the other two presidents, Rhee Syng-Man, (leader of the independence campaign against Japan and 1st President), his wife, Austrian Franziska Donner, and Kim Dae-Jung (15th President, long time National Assembly seat holder, and Nobel Peace Prize winner).  Their guards were also friendly and made sure I knew where I was going, but not quite as jovial as my first friend.

I was really glad for his care.  I wouldn’t have gotten a map, or information about the presidents buried there.  I knew there were presidential graves, but with my tiny map I was having trouble finding them.  His smile and his insistence to talk with me made me feel less like a face in the crowd. Someone who didn’t give up when my words weren’t in perfect order.  Someone who was generous with his time, his knowledge, and his kind soul.

고맙습니다, 국립서울현충원 경비 아저씨.

To return to the subway station, I had to walk past all the individual graves once more.  As I later researched, the cemetery reached capacity in the early 1970’s.  The cemetery was reserved for veterans, including those who fought the Japanese before the Korean War.  The Korean War, of course, though there is also the United Nations Cemetery in Busan- the only UN maintained cemetery in the world- where there are 2,300 graves, specifically from the Korean War, since Busan was the only city not captured by the North.  In Seoul’s National Cemetery, there are also some graves from conflicts elsewhere, including the Vietnam War.  Monuments also abound, remembering anyone from unidentified and missing soliders to artillerymen and military officers.

As I was walking, I saw some fresh flowers of different colors.  Not the standard white and pink.  These new colors disrupted the pattern, but I was glad to see them.  Chuseok, the major Korean holiday set to give thanks to your ancestors, was a few short months ago.  On this day, traditions include visiting graves, cleaning them, leaving flowers.  I thought about the soldiers who don’t have anybody.  Maybe their families ended up in the North, or maybe their families didn’t make it.

War is always a terrible thing.  If you’re like me and haven’t lived through a major war, visit the past by going to the cemetery and stretching your memory beyond your birth.

I don’t think they see a lot of foreigners at the cemetery, but it’s a great place to hear the quiet in the middle of Seoul.  I think I’ll be returning soon with my boyfriend to check out the fall colors!  And if you go, look up my friend, who is one of two guards next to Park Chung-Hee’s grave, and ask him for some information.  He’s good at it.

Take subway line 9 to DongJak (동작), exit #2 or #4.  It’s free, and open from 6:00-6:00.  Look for special events on Memorial Day, June 6th, or volunteer to do cleanup work in the summer.

Find out more: National Tourism Organization

How to get English for free

I’m walking to the bus stop because it’s finally a decent day after all the cold and freezing and wet that is winter.  Finally, I can walk with just a light jacket.  I have my headphones in, not loud enough to thoroughly enjoy but quiet enough to hear a motorbike come up behind me on the sidewalk.  Safety first.

Except it’s not a motorbike that comes up behind me.  It’s a regular bike.  And the guy pushing it is yelling “excuse me” at me like I’m thoroughly enjoying my music.  Which I’m not so he’s really loud.

Usually I humor strangers on the street, and I’m still hopeful it will turn out to be a good thing someday.   I’m optimistic.

I keep walking but I take my headphones out to be polite, and he starts in, pushing his bike and walking just far enough behind me that I have to turn my head uncomfortably to make eye contact.   “I saw you walking.  I see you are foreigner.”

I reply, but not in English.  Something about being pointed out as foreign is not impressive enough to give him what he wants.  So I say, in Korean, “Are you Korean?”

Sometimes it’s not safe to reply in a language different from what a stranger speaks to you.  Part of me was hoping that he was not Korean and he might recognize that I was putting him in a box, just like he had done to me a second ago.

Alas.  He is Korean, understands me perfectly, and has no idea that his greeting has rubbed me the wrong way.  He is also nervous and probably has planned what he is going to say next because he is already saying it.

“We can be friends!  You can teach me English and I can be your friend.”

I have a sliver of benefit of the doubt to grant him.  Maybe he just sucks at English and is meaning to make a polite request, but can’t.

I decide to switch to English to prove to him that I am an English master.  “What do you do?”  If he wants to be my friend, maybe a friendly conversation can bring out the best of him.

“I am a student.  I go to school and I play music at night.  I play guitar!  But I have no money.  Stop stop stop stop, I live up there.  (pointing to a side street we just passed)  Are you married?  If we are married, we can’t meet.”

I stop walking but keep my distance.  He closes it.  I decide full disclosure is best.  “I’m not married, but I have a boyfriend.  I think we should not meet anyway.”

I expect awkward silence but there is none because he’s talking again.

“Good, if you are married we can’t meet.  Boyfriend is okay.  We can meet in a coffee shop and you can teach me.  I will be your friend.”

“No.”  There’s the awkward silence.  “I work for a church.  You live up there?  The church is close by.  At the church, I teach a beginning English class.  If you want to learn English, you can come to the class.  Everyone is welcome.”

“Okay, but I want to meet you so yo…

“No.  I’m very busy.”

“Kakao talk ID give me.”  The equivalent of getting my phone number, except that he doesn’t get my actual phone number and I can block him much easier if I need to.

I put my ID in his phone.  I figure I will remind him about the church English class later.

He finally lets me go on my way after some more denied friend requests, and I pretty much end up just walking away.

This happens to me often, and I usually offer that I work for a church that has a service in both English and Korean, and they can speak to me there.  But what I would really like to tell them is that:

1. A foreigner is not for sale by friendship.  We have our own friends already.  If you want me to do something free for you, do my grocery shopping.
2. A foreigner might teach English… FOR MONEY.  Why do you think we will give a stranger free lessons?
3. Please don’t ask the invasive questions that are okay in Korean culture but taboo in many others.  Ergo, are you married, how old are you, do you have kids, how much do you weigh?  All of which have been enquired of me by a stranger.

But here’s what you can do.

1. Say hello (English language check), and strike up a conversation if you’d like to practice.  Good questions are: Where are you from, how long have you been in Korea, what do you like about it, etc.  Want to be friends?  Be interested in us instead of what we can give you.  At the end say it was nice to meet you and ask for contact information.  For example, “It was nice to talk to you.  Do you want to get coffee sometime?  I know this awesome cafe that I take all my friends to.”  See what I did there?  Magic, you’re friends now.  By making a friend, we will be teaching you de facto through conversation.

May I point out that if you already have a foreign friend, at NO POINT in the friendship is it okay to request us to teach you English.  No matter how good of friends we are.  It always turns the friendship into a used-user relationship.

Be more specific in your request: ask nicely for us to explain a certain phrasal verb, or ask for clarification of past perfect tense for your upcoming test.   And if you have a report or something you want me to help with, you do all the work and I happy to help you by checking it.

More recently, while on vacation in the U.S. I received a text message from an acquaintance.  “Katie, when your English class?”

I explained I don’t teach a class at the moment- it’s summer- and besides that I was gone for 2 weeks.

“Okay but I want to learn English.”

I left it at no response until I notified him of my return to Korea.  Suddenly, he shows up at my work place- with a notebook, ready to study.

I asked if he had a textbook.  No.  Did he study on his own?  Yes.  How?  Nothing.  Why did he want to learn English?  English is important for getting jobs these days, so he needed a good test score.  He confessed he forgot what he learned in school.

I led the conversation into what he had done during the summer, and what he was going to do this month.  He had some travel plans that were interesting to talk about, so it lasted for a while.  But then I broke the news.

I was currently working, and that did not involve tutoring him on work time.  Nor would it ever, but if the church held a class again, I would be sure to let him know.  He could attend an academy that would provide structure, a book, and people to study with.  Or he could pay me to tutor him at the going rate- 40,000 an hour.  I also had a professional tutor friend who would gladly take him on for 60,000.

He looked sheepish when I said I was working.  He looked hopeful when I said I would let him know if there was a new beginning English class.  But then he looked distant when I suggested an academy, and he looked angry when I stated my rate.

I’m not sorry.  I am sorry that expectations on foreigners seem to be out of whack.

Koreans, is it common to use friends like this?  Should I know that this is normal?

Fellow Waygooks, how do you handle these awkward conversations?

The bank that gives

I didn’t have to go to the bank, but everyone was doing it- my friends, I mean.  I could choose to wait outside in the hot and humid Seoul summer, or go inside.  Banks have such good air conditioning that I almost need a jacket inside.  But I ran out of deodorant a few weeks ago, and it’s not really a big item to stock in stores around here.  Meaning I should travel halfway across town and spend $8 for that- and I haven’t been able to bring myself to, since I’m pretty sure I only stink a little.  So I went inside.  

One of the only places I ever see guns in Korea is at the bank.  There is always a security guard in the lobby, but he really acts like a welcomer and assistant to the little old ladies and gents who forget they need to take a number before they sit down.  At my bank, it’s always the same guy, smiling.  His handgun has a decorative handle with what looks like gold and ivory.  I guess it’s probably one of the oldest guns I’ve seen, but then the real gun part is obstructed by his holster so I can’t really tell.  This adds to the charm of the rarity of seeing a gun.  In my mind, I liken guns to business suits- solid black, squarish, sometimes looks good on the wearer but you’re wondering if they only have it to get attention?  But this gun breaks my business suit imagination wide open, and I feel like it matches its owner.  Salt and pepper hair, professional attire (but not business suit), no paunch as if he still rides the range.  I can never seem to get away from his welcome.  Even if I’m in the foyer just stopping by the atm.  I don’t know if he’s ever had to use his security guard skills, but his welcomer skills are on point.  

This particular day, I just wanted to sit down in the cool and wait for my friends to finish their business, but it was prime time after lunch and the only seats were the bar stools by the window counter.  So I took one next to my friend, and we immediately noticed something un-bank-like.  Lining the window sill were old bottles of all shapes- even a tall Budweiser can was there.  I recognized my favorite juice bottle whose glass is shaped like an actual apple, and several other containers still wore their labels proudly.  But the original contents had been swallowed, and in their place, plants were growing everywhere.  Even out of the tiny little pop tab opening that was the Budweiser can.  Some only had water, and some had dirt, but the plants were all varieties of beauty.  

Our jaws dropped at the same time and we started “whoa, look at this one!”  “This one has little flowers!”  “I’ve never seen a plant like this before.”  “This one’s leaves are bright purple!  The whole plant looks like a flower!”  And so on.  

The security guard noticed our exclamations and came over to explain.  In his eyes was the love of a father as he showed us the various merits of each little grower.  I had a favorite that looked like a mouth with teeth- but when you touched it, the “teeth” fell off.   On closer examination, I discovered the teeth were actually baby plants!  The guard went away to welcome a few more people, and returned a few minutes later with some of our favorite plants in little paper cups.  My toothy one, and a few of the bright purple leaves.  He said we could continue to grow them hydroponically, or just plant them directly.  

As we were still waiting on banking, we continued the conversation but the thanking and seriousness was long gone.  He joked about the little birds nests that he hid in two of the bigger pots, and tried to convince us that the giant sewn sunflowers were real.  Of course they were too far away to tell for sure, and when you walked closer to check them out, he just watched with an amused smile.  He suddenly reminded me of my grandpa, who used to hide candy in his pockets to give away when parents weren’t looking, and answered every serious question with a joke.  But the real resemblance was in his eyes.  The twinkling that gave away his joy.  I knew we had gotten past the professional welcoming smile, if only just for a moment.  

I haven’t been back to the bank yet, but I am armed with a picture of my little plant, starting its own big life in a new red pot.