originally posted Sunday, October 29, 2006
well well well. this weekend was interesting. on friday night i had been planning to go to a halloween party at the foreigner bar, elvis. so i made myself cute (i wanted to be an agima--korean old woman-- but i couldn't find a visor obnoxiously large enough to suit my needs) and my costume was "jamie with more makeup on than usual." i think i pulled if off though...
anyhoo, i got myself dressed and purtied up and then just sat in my room reading, debating whether or not i was in the mood to go to a halloween party at a foreigner bar in suncheon, south korea. sometimes these things require much deliberation, i've recently discovered. but then mike (another missouri dude. we foreigners tend to be real clique-y) said he would go too, so i felt better about having a comrade in the whole endeavor. we left for elvis at midnight. a reality that definitely takes some getting used to. it's just bizarre that a person can begin their night so late, also bizarre that i didn't go to sleep until 6 am saturday morning. not since the days of "the party", falling off the heidelburg and skinnydipping at stephen's lake have i stayed up/out as late. only in south korea. good gad. anyhoo, before even getting to the bar, i made sure to drink a lot of the alcohol i had already purchased (that's what it's for, right?), so when i showed up, i was "feeling no pain", as the young kids say. i continued to drink, which meant that i began to dance, and that's just bad news. but that wasn't even the most embarassing part of the night. one of my korean co-workers from the library showed up (he also knows british daniel who used to work at the places i now work and who was djing for part of the night), so i was really excited to see an actual korean that i know. except that i don't really know him or speak to him. i just sit next to him. but most of my suncheon friends have been really busy since i've been here, so i don't get to see them as often as i would like to. anyhoo, i'm drunk, he's drunk. besides "dancing" inappropriately on him and his buddy, i licked his face. he asked for a kiss on the cheek, so instead i licked him. now, if only i could be this forward with people i wanted to bone. yes, i said "bone."
anyhoo, i guess a face licking warranted coffee for me from him. maybe he was just being nice, maybe it was a subtle suggestion to sober up and not lick people. i dunno. but by the time we got back to the bar from our coffee run, a fight was breaking out between coworker's friend and some irish dude dressed up like an indian (american indian, i guess i should distinguish here, i am in the orient). so here we are with an arguably serious situation unfolding outside the bar, but it's sort of difficult to take things seriously when an irish injun and a shirt-ripping korean are threatening each other in the street. it was certainly fun to watch, especially as other costume-clad people hovered, watching events unfold. but i didn't stick around to see who would actually hit whom, or if other items of clothing would come off in the melee. so i went home and slept. i think i actually turned off my light around 6 am. jesus christ.
at 1-ish the next day, i get a call from a friend who informs me that that day would be the day i begin to ride a motorbike. well, hell. so i go out to learn this and i'm not feeling so great. i felt like i was going to yak and had a headache--something i'm not used to with other hangovers. typical hite/cass hangover. nice to know i've been drunk on enough occassions to classify these after effects... the point being, i was not at peak performance level. despite this, i did manage to sit on a motorcycle and ride it on a stretch of road all by myself. but then i slowed down and the bike fell over and for some reason i got the brakes and the clutch confused and then gas spilled out of the motorcycle. again, not a clear-headed day for me. and all of this looked a lot worse than it actually was. but my brain was already damaged from the night before, so this all freaked me out a bit. plus, i was having a hard time expressing myself and formulating sentences--a direct result of drinking, but also a habit of switching from truncated, botched konglish to full-fledged english. a diffcult transition, given the circumstances. oh, and i did not do any actual gear-shifting. i only got on the bike twice. but hell, i did it. and i think the next time, if i am clear-headed at all, things should go infinitely better. and knowing how to drive a manual transmission car is sposed to help somewhat. we shall see.
and again, the best part of my day was getting a ride home, because then i wasn't responsible for my own well-being and put it in the much more capable hands of someone who knows what he's doing on a motorbike. i don't yet know if i want to be the driver of one of these things, but for the time being, i very much enjoy being the passenger. especially when the driver goes maybe more quickly than he's sposed to. but i didn't die, so no problem.
later that night i met up with scott, yong geun, and yong geun's friend. we went to a bar in the university area that reminded me a lot of all the places i would go in chuncheon with jules and rory. and that made me sad. but i was also so excited to be hanging out with my korean friends. yup. here's a belated warning of me delving into sappy sentimentality...
besides the general atmosphere of this bar--most notably a lack of foreigners besides scott and i--we drank makali. a liquor made of, you guessed it, rice! i hadn't been able to remember the name of this drink for the longest time, as i had only had it once before. the very last thing me, jules and rory did in chuncheon was eat dakgalbi and drink makali with our canadian friend and his wife. immediately after that lunch we spent a tear-filled two hours in a van on the way to incheon, a whole year sooner than we were sposed to have to think of any of the logistics of going home. flew back stateside the next day. so i hadn't even tasted this alcohol yet, but i saw the spoon and the bowl and the milky liquid and it triggered something overwhelming. i was simultaneously elated and depressed. i guess "bittersweet" would be the closest word, if i'm content to deal in understatements. it's odd the physical things i will always associate with other larger, abstract things, feelings and/or images that sometimes can--but for the most part can't--really be verbalized or pinpointed. all this from a spoon? but the associations are all mine. and i guess therein lies the beauty.
since i left south korea initially i have made numerous efforts to speak to said friends in chuncheon, but to no avail. for that last week we were there, they were the only people who were actually of any help to the three of us. they put their own business in jeopardy by simply associating with us. and that was the last time i ever talked to them.
moving on. sunday i decided it was time for me to do some adventuring, so i decided to navigate the city bus system alone. ultimately, i ended up at my destination, but not without a little bit of confusion. i wanted to go to the buddhist temple of seonamsa, but i had no idea how far away it was. so i took 59 until it ended. then i sat awkwardly on the bus with the bus driver until he acknowledged that i was the only person still on the bus and had no choice but to help me. so i got off and transfered and rode the one bus for what seemed like a really long time, especially when you have no idea how long it's sposed to be. there's really nothing better than riding a bus for a long time through a ruralish part of south korea. or at least that's how i felt on the way out to the temple yesterday. ah, the beauty that is a ripe persimmon on a tree. seriously, these things are everywhere! but just because you can grow it doesn't mean you should eat it. that's the moral of this whole story and it will be my last mentioning of persimmons.
okay, so i end up at the temple, and it was pretty cool. that's it. that's all i've got--"pretty cool." even if i don't have the adjectives, at least i have an explanation. things that were pretty cool: being the only foreigner there for at least 4 hours, not having to speak to anyone for 4 hours (besides monks who were eager to practice their handful of english phrases), climbing a mountain, monks bowing and putting their hands togther for me (and my awkward reciprocation), beautiful scenery, old ornate buildings, a hint of inner peace. things that weren't cool: monks with headphones and nikes driving vans and cars and honking at you. tons of people taking pictures and buying "monk wares" from the gift shop. the norae bong and love motels near the base of the mountain. i dunno. for some reason this all took away from what i naively thought was supposed to be the vibe of this place--a place with real, live monks!--serenity and all that crap. part of the allure of being a monk, or at least what i hope the allure of being a monk is, is giving up worldly things to focus on becoming closer to nirvana. seems like you get an ipod, a car, some nikes and a tourist attraction and that's kind of like cheating. where's the self-sacrifice that warrants me actually bowing to you out of respect and admiration for what you've given up and what you're pursuing? why aren't these monks acting like the monks I want them to be? it was a little disappointing. more like going to a zoo than a holy-ish place (unless you think the zoo's holy). except these animals get to walk around amongst you and dress alike.
the most uncool thing about the temple was getting on the bus to come back into town. i didn't know where the bus stop was, but it just so happened that i was at the front of the line to get on. i thought everyone was just sitting there because it was the only place to sit. so i followed suit. so when the bus rolls up right in front of me, all these old men and women are pushing to the front and yelling at me to go to the end of the line. and i wanted to just say "fuck you! i wasn't butting on purpose." but instead i just stood there looking confused as to why complete strangers were being assholes to another complete stranger. it's not like there were 20 of me pushing people out of the way and stealing all the seats on the bus. as it was, i didn't take the seats that were still available (some nice old ladies let me cut in front of them), but i stood patiently the whole 45 minutes back and now my lumbar region is wondering why it hurts so much. but i bought a yoga ball and did some stretching whilst watching "the rock" star in "the scorpion king." good flick. solid acting.
one last uncool thing. korean fashion. it's not that the actual clothing is bad, but there seems to be no happy medium between fashion and function. nowhere was this more apparent than at a temple on a mountain. there were either people dressed in head to toe northface hiking gear--replete with walking sticks, or girls in stiletto boots and miniskirts. what the hell?
and that's the end.
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