hey old timer, let's gum some noodles!

yesterday i had an arguably strange day. i guess that makes it sound like more than it actually was. no matter. it having been a sunday and my tv not working very well, i decided to leave my apartment and head to insadong--aka "traditional culture street" of seoul, simply for the virtue of it not being ilsan. i need to find a new haunt for my outings, i think. insadong's really not as interesting as i originally thought, salty old man aside (i'll get to that). unless you're actually there to purchase traditional cultural things (which i guess hite beer is) or drink free hot chocolate handed out at random promotional booths whose purpose[s] you'll never discern. at any rate, it's certainly a welcome departure from merely venturing to the local starbucks less than a football field away from my apartment. i miss the cramped, narrow streets of other neighborhoods in korea--the potential for complete disorientation. there are virtually no little side streets to explore, no dirty alleys in which to make startling discoveries to write home about.

so i got off the subway and stumbled upon tapgol park, convinced that i was going the wrong way towards insadong (i usually get off at another stop), an altogether comforting and pleasant sensation, due simply to its frequency.

anyhoo, tapgol park was free and cultural, and thus exactly what i was looking for. the plan had been to go to this park and then to get coffee and write (yes, profound important life-affirming things), but instead i met this old man with bad oral hygiene who happened to speak english remarkably well. in my book, that's a more than adequate substitute for anything i had planned. let's talk about these teeth for a minute. my vision was inexplicably drawn to them. it could have perhaps been the worst case of mouth rot i've ever seen. how ironic then, that the english that spewed forth from this barnacled orifice was spot on. he had maybe 4 intact, visible teeth. i can't imagine that anything required for actual chewing was left. there also appeared to be quite a bit of calcification near the gum line--stalagtites/mites where the liquid accumulation of the ages sort of gunks up at the base. he was genuinely kind though, and he showed me pictures of his son and then told me he wanted to treat me to lunch. for some reason, my guard has been down lately, so situations like this that would normally make me wary seem more interesting than anything i would have possibly done WITHOUT an old man with poor oral hygiene. so i wandered around insadong with this dude for about an hour, while he talked about his son and asked me about mormons (the first thing that popped into his head when i mentioned america. he was impressed that i've actually been somewhere he's heard of). then we found a dirty chinese restaurant and ate jja jjang myun (noodles). he had insisted on paying, but i somehow felt really bad about letting what appeared to be a 90 year-old man pay for my lunch. how does a guy like that actually generate income? i'm not exactly sure how pension and social security work here in the korea, but let's just say he didn't look like he had money to be throwing around, even if it was on a cheap meal at a seedy chinese restaurant. anyway, while we were eating he explained why he was cutting all his food up into little pieces. funny to hear him acknowledge his dental shortcomings--"my teeth don't chew so good." he also said that he'd dabbled in screenwriting in his youth. again, how much of this is credible, i have no idea. but when you meet someone that old, their mere existence in itself, devoid of any miniscule fabrications, is still undeniably venerable and humbling. anyway, he said if i ever wanted to meet him again, i could find him in the park every sunday. so i just might do that. what could have been really a really awkward situation was ultimately one of those strange scenarios that made me think "huh, did i just spend the afternoon of my day off hanging out with a random 90 year-old korean man?" and it's quite pleasing to be able to truthfully answer, "well yes. yes i did."

moving on...rereading some ezra pound and rainer maria rilke lately. i need to remember these "friends" when i start to feel shitty. i sometimes forget just how good "good" poetry can be. it's sort of been a re-epiphany these past couple of days. if that's something that's even possible. i guess i always seem to re-live previous moments of clarity. one would think that said moments would reveal themselves more clearly each time. alas, not the case. i've been living a pretty uninspired life for a long time, it's become increasingly difficult to find the beauty in the mundane, the routine, the quotidian events comprising my life. and when things get that way--or in this case, stay that way--i become so apathetic in my apathy, to the degree that it cements and becomes an immovable thing unto itself. that very apathy becomes a part of the routine that generated it all to begin with. yikes! but then i read

"if your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it, blame yourself. admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches, because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place."

couple that with a snippet from 'archaic torso of apollo'--

"for here there is no place that does not see you. you must change your life."

at the moments i read these things, the air i breathe, the daily space i occupy changes perceptibly. i guess i've realized that there is actually something beautiful about all of this, even my seemingly perpetual discontent. and i find this mode of revelation much more powerful and convincing than any music these days. whatever. i'm starting to sound new agey, encumbered by my usual pastiche of overtly sentimental nugglets, but it's how i feel, so therefore somewhat valid. sigh. damn the english lit major in me. but i guess writing stupid blogs would be the way i reconcile the huge debt i still owe for my uber-practical degree.

moving on...i wonder when korea will decide the christmas season is over. vestiges of jesus, santa and general merriment still adorn the unlikeliest of places. not that there's anything wrong with unchecked traces of merriment, i guess...

oh yeah, i can't forget the drunk gypsies in ilsan park. a woman intepretive dancing and spilling a milky green bottle of makkali all over herself. the man drumming with bone earrings and a tiny ponytail. this old woman--both her eyebrows and robes meticulously applied--confusing judgment and mocking contempt with rapt adulation in her state of innebriation. the indignity of it all. but i guess i was one of those doing the judging. seems to be my role in life...

i guess i should make some mentionings of school, since that's been my life for the past month or so. i have some smart, introspective students. it's really incredible to think of these 6th grade students and their shockingly sophisticated inquiries. quite humbling. i miss that innocence and genunine inquisitiveness. won-ho's astute observations about the goal of reading and the purpose of religion. wise beyond his years and unfettered by a foreign language.

i saw bobby mcferrin last weekend in seoul. it was good, but not as good as i remembered him being in columbia. i'm not sure i was totally sober the first time i saw him, so that probably contributed to the awe of the time.