Noun, Verb, Kimchi: Part 2

Written by Clayton Foster

So two Koreans are having sex on a balcony.  Maybe. It’s unclear.  Everything is unclear at this point.  Including what I’m doing watching two Koreans maybe having sex on a balcony.

It’s been an hour since my ride with the Silver Man. I know two things:

1. We're somewhere in South Korea, and

2. It’s not Seoul.

We park in an industrial area.  The Silver Man leads me through a maze of twisting alleyways tightly packed behind the massive commercial buildings that barricade the streets.  The path is narrow, the doors and the people squatting in them seem randomly arranged.  One plus: the disarray of these alleyways reminds me of the cheerful mess of South East Asia, and brings welcome relief from the concrete grey sterility that borders the highway.

Through the alleyway, I feel like Alice chasing after the white rabbit. If the white rabbit were, in fact, shiny silver and Korean.

As I dodge the stray cats and squatting ajumas (old Korean ladies), I wonder: where are we going?  Is the school at which I will be teaching located in this weird mess of conjoined houses and meat shops, all so obviously organised as to be hidden from the street?  Or is my apartment somewhere in here?

The heat is close, pressing on my skin and breath, and the smell of spices and meat somehow intensify the sticky warmth. Matching my guide’s brisk pace pours fresh new sweat into the dry sweat already encrusted into my shirt and suit, which I decided to wear only because I thought it would make a good impression were I delivered directly to my new school.  The increasing mess of my external appearance mirrors the confusion, jetlag, disorientation and cluttered thinking occurring within.

Seriously though, where the hell are we going?

Eventually the Silver Man turns into a small open square amongst the alleyways – a courtyard? He opens a door, points inside.  He says the only English word I've ever heard him say: sleep.

I squeeze past him and stop. I stop because there’s nowhere else to go. Packed inside the room is a low single bed, a small set of drawers taped shut with black tape and an old TV resting on top. There’s a toilet, a small basin, and a bucket. The God of Obvious Clichés has even placed a cockroach crawling up the wall.

I'm standing in the only square foot of floor, and I’m wondering, Where does my backpack go? Then, Wait, where is my backpack? It is, along with everything I own except this rancid suit, in the Silver Man's car.

I turn around and peer out the door. He’s already disappeared into the labyrinth like a Korean David Bowie.  An ajuma a few doors down waves, smiling. I wave and smile back. Her manner indicates she knows who I am and why I'm there. This comforts me slightly.

I wonder how long I'm supposed to be here. It’s Thursday afternoon, and my contract doesn't start until Monday. I'm struck by the thought that maybe I'm on my own until then.

I strip off, feeling relief from the unwashed suit I’ve been wearing for two days. The toilet doesn't work - I eventually deduce that I need to fill the bucket with water from the sink so as to simulate the absent flush action of the toilet. I return to the bed and lie uncertainly for a moment.  I stare up at the cockroach, he stares back at me.  Having no other options, I put the suit back on.

When I turn on the TV I'm startled by the loud sound of low, guttural moans accompanied by a picture of what seems to be a hand on an unspecified expanse of flesh. A back, maybe? I'm not sure what I'm watching. The screen cuts to a tight close-up of a Korean man's face, clenching his teeth and grunting. Some kind of sports thing? The scene cuts again to an extreme long shot of two hazy figures ambiguously pulsating on what appears to be an apartment landing, and I realise I'm watching Korean porn.

There are a few painful moments of fumbling - with the TV - as I am suddenly conscious of the volume, and of the friendly ajuma sitting a few feet outside my door. I stab at random buttons then hastily press the power button, which doesn't work the first two times. Finally the tube blanks and I search to find the volume controls, switch back on the TV to immediate resumption of what I can now confirm are definitely not sports sounds, try the volume controls only to find they're actually the brightness controls. I find a remote under the bed that allows me control of the volume, and I mute. I can’t help it, I watch for a moment longer, fascinated in my semi-coherent state by this new art form: pornography without nudity, and only a passing acknowledgement that there are even two people in the same place at the same time. I wonder who, exactly, is watching this at 2pm in the afternoon. I switch it off for good when I realise the answer is me.

I venture out at one point, smiling meekly at the ajuma, whose expression I can't read.  I find my way onto the street and look around.  In the chaos of signs and banners that hang off every tall building, I can't see a single English word.  In the mass of people pushing past me, there isn't anyone I can assume I could communicate with.  I feel stupid.  The sensation of being a stranger in a strange land hits hard.  I retreat to my room, and try unsuccessfully to sleep.

I'm in the room for around four or five hours. The Silver Man returns and drives me another 40 minutes to my school. There are nine other expat teachers, and a quick succession of revelations fall into place: the Silver Man is the school Director's father, the room I've been dropped off at belongs to him, where I'm to live for a few days while my actual apartment is cleared out. We’re situated about 45 minutes out of Seoul.The other teachers either don't notice or politely decline to mention that in my suit and sweat and wide-eyed deliriousness I look like the world's worst hitman just off a failed mission.  They're all wearing jeans and hoodies.  I am ridiculous.

When I eventually move, my actual apartment is small but comfortable.   In fact, despite the shortage of space, neighbours who get drunk and shout abuse in the hallway at 3am, and an evil laundry man who arrives early in the morning to sing his nerve-shreddingly guttural laundry song, I think I've seldom lived anywhere where I've been happier.  

There’s no moral to this story.  Once I got a few decent nights’ sleep, I realised how much of the drama had been constructed in my own disorientated brain.  Somewhere between fake-puffing on a cigarette in the Silver Man's car and watching ambiguously-shot Korean porn with a cockroach, I lost my ability to go with the flow.  It’s the beautiful contradiction of travel, in fact it’s almost Zen: you assume greater control over your life in one way, while voluntarily giving up control in many other ways.

I still see the Silver Man every so often.  During those first few days, he appeared at my door every morning at around 7 or 8am offering me hamburgers and Coke for breakfast.  Not so long ago I ran into him again outside a building.  He offered me a smoke.  I smiled sheepishly and declined.  He erupted in manic laughter and, for the second time in our acquaintanceship, gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up.  I accept that whatever joke I am the butt of, I probably deserve it, and I’ll let him have it.  It’s his rabbit hole, after all.