Summer Vacation Part One: Korea, The Land of Broken Dreams (Or the Hard Fight Against the Internal Shithead)

In a half-assed effort to keep this blog topical, let me begin by saying that working as an ESL teacher abroad has tested, strained and broken many relationships. From what I can tell, 90% of the time it breaks them within a year. I used to wonder what the hell people were thinking trying to sustain long-term relationships while living in different countries. I never thought I would be in one myself. Stupidly, naively I thought, no, this will be different. WE can make it work. You've probably guessed by now, I was wrong.

I met Kyungmin last summer in Vancouver. She was in town studying English and I was teaching English. Initially, I was her tutor, but a short while after meeting we started dating. Our relationship was incredible, but alas, she was obligated to return to Korea mid-December, and I was fated to the land of palm trees and khabsa. We had a teary goodbye at the airport and decided to give the long-distance thing a try.

Matt, thinking of what I would look like in a ferret costume.

We kept in touch via Skype and Kakao Talk, but after six months, it seemed that Kyungmin's enthusiasm to communicate seemed to wain. When I asked her is everything was all right she said, "Just busy with the new job and looking forward to seeing you." I was placated by her sweetness, but was worried that her feelings had changed. It turned out that they did, she had met someone new, and she thought she would wait until I arrived in Seoul to tell me. She said she waited until meeting me in Seoul to tell me, because she wanted to be sure about her feelings. Unfortunately, instead of spending some time with me before she made her decision, she made it right away.  Here I was ready to tell her I wanted to commit to the long--like marriage and kids and all that. Life sure is "funny" sometimes.

Things to do in Changwon: take a walk...that is all.

Now might be good time to introduce an entity I like to call "The Inner Shithead." The Inner Shithead is a parasite that lives inside all of us that feeds off of our anger. The shithead lives to complain, criticize, and insult people, things, and the world around him (or her--the shithead has the same sex of it's host). For the Shithead, nothing is ever good enough, and he is not afraid to say so. In short, the Shithead loves talking shit. Because that's how he makes us angry, and when he is angry, he gets to eat. Now, I didn't always know this, but I have discovered that the more you feed The Shithead, the bigger he gets...and the bigger he gets, the larger his appetite becomes. So, if you're not careful, The Shithead's growth will become exponential.

Ants devour the earthworm alive, like a Korean women feasting on a man's heart. 

Sometimes, when we are happy, we don't see The Shithead for a while, but when something bad happens, there he suddenly is, casting his long shadow over everything--coloring the whole world brown. You cannot kill a Shithead, presumably because murderous intent requires anger...but you can make him smaller. You do this by refusing to feed him. Some people say that you can even starve your Shithead to death...

In Korea, people eat something called yachae, or "vegetables."

From Seoul, we took the KTX to Changwon. Kyungmin told me she could only get tickets for non-adjacent seats--one in front of the other. Even though there was plenty of room on the train for us to sit together, she made no offer to do so. Was she just doing the Korean thing of following the rules to the "T", or was she determined to put some distance between us? Whatever it was, I couldn't bring myself to suggest to her that we sit together. So we just sat there, in our respective seats, not talking together. Neither of us had slept in two days, so maybe she was just intent on trying to get some shut-eye. I couldn't sleep. So I just sat there battling The Shithead, with every ounce of my being.

Eerily, I think I took this exact same photo of Scott two years ago.

For a moment, my crown chakra opened like a lotus flower in full bloom, and I reached satori. Either that, or I dozed off for a moment. Afterwards, seeking to perpetuate my steady diet of coffee and beer, I spent the remainder of the trip walking up and down the train for a refreshments trolley that wasn't there.

Stately GNU manor. 

Eventually, after the longest two and a half hours of my life, we arrived in Changwon, where Kyungmin lives. I would be staying with my friends Matt and his (Korean) wife Eunjin, who happened to live there as well. At one time, I thought this was serendipity...a clear message from the gods that Kyungmin and I could, and were meant to be together--because they lived had a place for me to stay in Changwon, and because they illustrated how well a North-American/Korean couple can work. Kyungmin took the cab with me to Matt and Eunjin's...I suppose I should be happy for that, and even came in for a few minutes to say "hello." She agreed to meet the next day for dinner, although it was clear by then that she had drawn her line in the sand. She had met someone else and we were finished.

A new development. Finally, Jinju has it's very own Rape Tunnel. 

It was really nice to see Matt again. Eunjin, too. They had gotten married since the last time I saw them and they seemed to be doing well. The apartment they were renting was quite nice, and had plenty of room. They even had a spare room for me to sleep in with a big window, a fan, and a computer from which I could play Borderlands 2, make futile attempts at sleep and send Facebook messages to Kyungmin pleading with her not to break up with me. They were doing tutoring out of their apartment, so every so often a high school student would appear for an English lesson. That first evening, we climbed the hill behind their house and sat in the beautiful park thereupon. I drank beer and do not remember what we talked about.

Heard Ajummas rustling in the bushes; decided to play dead.

I slept about two hours that night, fucked around on Matt's computer for four hours, and then climbed the hill behind his house with him and ran and worked out on the top. Afterward, Eunjin made us coffee, and gave us home-made yogurt with bananas. After they went to work, I spent the rest of the day walking around Changwon, and battling The Shithead. The Shithead was saying a lot of shitty things about Kyungmin, and a few shitty things about me. I went to a dentist for scaling, and sat on a bench for a long while and watched some ants devour a half-living earthworm. I felt like I had been hit by a truck, and fighting The Shithead was taking all the energy I had left. Eventually I made it back to Matt and Eunjin's and took a nap--the first real sleep I'd had in three days. When I woke up, Kyungmin was there with cake. She wans't there to go for dinner...just to tell me in no uncertain terms that her mind was set.

Relax Jared, it's not a bong.

The next day, I ran in the morning with Matt, then took a nap. After waking up at five-thirty, I went to Jinju, where I used to live, to meet my old friend Scott, who was still working at the university there. We met up at the Starbucks where we used to hang out, we went for pizza where we used to eat pizza, and went for a walk along the river, where we used to walk along the river. I even convinced him to come out for a beer (his eighth ever). Indeed, I think I may have been there for his seventh, just more than a year and a half ago. I talked about my situation. Scott is the one person I know that has been able to carry on a long-distance relationship for more than a year, his girlfriend living in Uzbekistan, or some such place. At long last he will be moving back to the states to do a graduate program...and now the survival of his long-distance relationship looks dubious.

The beer selection at GS 25 has doubled since two thousand ten.
At this rate, Korea will be ruling the world by 2020.

That night, I squatted in an empty room in Scott's dormitory, and the next day, we took at brand new foot path to the other university area in Jinju. We drank coffee made in a mysterious apparatus. Later, I met with my old friend Dan and went for a motorcycle ride. Dan had gotten divorced since the last time I saw him. He was much happier than he was before. We rode two of the best vistas in the Jinju area and Dan listened to me talk about Kyungmin. Dan had been a councilor before coming to Korea. He was a good guy to talk to. It was cathartic to be on a bike, too. For a while I didn't have to fight he Shithead. It was a welcome break.

I wanted to take Kyungmin up here, before she tore my still beating heart out of my chest cavity and ground it into a fleshly pulp with her shoe-heel.

That afternoon, while watching a movie alone, while Scott was teaching, I suddenly had the irrational feeling that I should send Kyungmin a message, and that I had to do it as soon as possible. After the movie, I used a nearby cafe's WIFI to send her a message on my phone. I asked if she wanted to meet for dinner the next day. She said yes. The next day she recanted and I decided it was high time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

Okay Dan. Sure you can eat fifteen eggs. 

My sister, who happens to live in Korea agreed to meet in in Busan before I flew out. She selflessly came from Gunsan on short notice. We ate Korean food and drank beer at the beach, watching people for a good while. I got sick from watching all the happy couples. We stayed at study room that was in the process of being turned into a hostel. The owner was a foolish person, and The Shithead began stirring.

Dan wondering what happens to a brick of cheese when you put it in a clothes drier. 

The next morning, I decided to take a plane to Taiwan, on the advice of my friend. Not having purchased a ticket, I decided to just go to the airport and buy one. If they were sold out, I would have just taken a flight to Japan instead. At the subway station, I snapped at Kesley for giving me directions to the airport I thought were confusing. Stirring, stirring...

Looks like this is all the pussy I'm going to see in Korea. 

At the airport, I stood in line for the check in counter for China Air, hoping to buy a ticket there, and a lady directed me to a ticketing desk. The clerks there directed me back to the check in counter, and the lady directed me again to the ticketing desk. I could hear The Shithead's loud footsteps approaching. The clerks at check-in made me wait before entering security, because they wanted to check my luggage. Then at the Dunkin' Donuts, the cashier asked me if I wanted normal or onion cream cheese on my BLUEBERRY bagel! The nerve of that father-fucking idiot. What, do I have no palette at all? Do you put chocolate ice cream on steak? Do you eat your apple pie with gravy!? No you fucking don't! You don't mix savory with sweet YOU FUCKING MORON. In my mind, everything I hated about Korea culture was summed up in that cashier's simple query. In Korea, if your boss tells you to ALWAYS ask what kind of cream cheese the customer wants on his bagel, then that's exactly what you do. You don't use your own intellect to infer that if it's a blueberry bagel, and that he is not going to want to eat it with with ONION cream cheese. You just fucking ask, end of story. Because that's how it's done. You don't make your own decisions. You follow the status quo. You get hired for one job and you stick with it your whole life. You don't decide to quit and run off to Canada after two years in. You don't date fucking waygook, and you sure as hell don't introduce him to your racist parents. No--you find a nice Korean boy, forget you learned English, that you ever went abroad and ever fell in love with a foreigner.

 

The cicada's mind and mine are one: FUCK THIS SHIT. I'M OUT.

I didn't make much of a scene. I asked her why I would want onion cream cheese on my blueberry bagel. She didn't understand, so I dropped it, paid for the bagel and left. Suddenly, The Shithead was gone. I knew it wasn't for good, and that I would see more of him soon. But for now I had respite, and I felt confident that the next time I saw him, he would be a little bit smaller.

It felt good to get on the plane. I listened to some bittersweet songs through my phone, and felt my heart chakra open like a lotus flower. The girl I wanted to marry dumped me like a bag of trash, but I think I've dealt with it very well. Taiwan is great so far, and my friend will meet me in a couple days. Here's hoping my vacation improves from here...

Rama-dama-ding-dong

For a Westerner, even during "normal months", Saudi Arabia can feel like "The Country of 'No'": no theaters; no alcohol; no drugs; no pork; no revealing clothing; no dating; no public affection; no music; no free speech; no equal rights; no religious freedom; no commerce during prayer time; no green space; and no regard for pedestrians. But in Ramadan, there is an extra no: no eating or drinking from dawn to dusk.

Now, I understand the significance of fasting for the religiously inclined, but I feel like the goals of Saudi-style fasting for Ramadan maybe somewhat at odds with their application...

First, because the fast includes water...with a singular exception. The timing of Ramadan, is based on the lunar calendar, which means it isn't anchored to any particular season. Every year, it begins a couple of days earlier. So, sometimes, it happens in the hottest part of the year, as it very nearly is now. So, we're living in the desert, and most days they temperature is in the mid-forties, and yet, we are not allowed to drink water...unless we are traveling.

This would have made much more sense a two hundred years ago, before there were cars or air conditioning, but considering our modern technologies, it strikes me as a little absurd, especially since there is, to my knowledge, no such provision for laborers. So, If you decide to take an afternoon drive in your air-conditioned car to Jeddah, you're allowed to crack a bottle of your favorite variety of good old moya, but if you have the misfortune to be a foreign worker slaving in the heat, you're S.O.L.

Secondly, if you're justifying your fast from a health perspective, cutting out water defeats the purpose. Health benefits from fasting include lowering cholesterol, and clearing out toxins, but refraining from drinking water does in no way facilitate these processes, rather it reduces their effectiveness.

Thirdly, it's extremely common, especially for young people, to circumvent fasting entirely. To avoid fasting, all you have to do is sleep during the day, and stay up all night. Then, you can eat all you want, and never have to deal with being hungry. From my experience teaching young Saudis, I can tell you with confidence, that this is a common habit for Saudi young men, anyway. So, as long as Muslims are awake for the prayers, they can technically fulfill their religious duties, without really having to fast at all.

For a foreigner, who is not Muslim, and has to work during the day, Ramadan doesn't make much sense, and is one more reason why Saudi Arabia is "The Country of 'No'"... although, to be fair we can still get food during the day at  hotels, which is a pretty nice concession.