Familiarity

Last weekend I went to Suwon, a city about 2 hrs from Bucheon. I don't know a great deal about the area, and I'm sure I only saw a tiny portion of it, but compared to Seoul, it's bleak, dirtier and slightly depressing. I'm glad I went and it was definitely interesting to see, but perhaps I wasn't in the best space this week and didn't find as much good as I might potentially have.

Last weekend was Seolnal or Lunar New Year, a day where throughout Asia, families pile into cars and drive for hours in order to make visits to their relatives. According to my students, they visit their father's parents on the first day of the Lunar New Year and their mothers' on the second. I guess it's usually a big deal, where lots of money is spent, people wear traditional clothes, and believers make offerings to the various Gods. The students, in any case are glad to have Monday off from school.

Near Suwon station, where we got out, there really wasn't much of anything, or if there was, it was all really spread out. There were many fast food and "fusion" restaurants. We stopped in one and got a rather unappealing fried chicken salad, as it was the only potentially edible item on the menu. "Juice?" we asked the waitress. "Soju," the waitress replied. "Tea?" we tried again. "Beer," she replied, confusedly. In the end, to compliment our cold salad on this freezing day as we sat in the (apparently) non-heated section of the restaurant, she brought ice water with tea bags seeping very slowly, as well as some more water, regular.

Afterwards, we walked around looking for objects of interest, but in the end, came to the conclusion that we were probably in the "red-light" district, which would explain the lack of stores or cafes with any sort of appeal to foreign people (most signs were in Korean, and everything seemed pretty utilitarian). Anyway, wandering randomly, we turned a corner where we saw an empty window furnished simply with a chair and a heater in front of it. Almost before the question was out of my mouth, I knew the answer: "What's that for….Oh!" We walked about 4 blocks in extreme discomfort, hoping the next street would bring an end to the seamlessly endless supply of window prostitutes. They were all dressed similarly, in white, pink or blue jogging suits that looked like pyjamas, with bared bellies and loose hair. Because there were so many of them and since it was still pretty early in the evening, for the most part, they just looked kind of bored. The only other people on the streets were rough-looking men. I wanted to disappear. A few of the girls gave me curious or amused looks. I held my breath and kept my eyes to the ground, although it's been pointed out to me on several occasions that I somehow still manage to see a hell of a lot with focused eyes or not.

I've heard a lot about prostitution in this country, of course. I've seen the double barber poles outside bars aptly dubbed "bikini" or "sexy," a subtle code that everyone knows…I've seen the many flyers under the windshield wipers of parked cars, as well as little, wallet-sized photos of pretty girls littering the sidewalks and gutters along with cigarette butts, soaking up the moisture from rain, garbage and alcohol. I've even seen little vans stop to let out girls clearly dressed to "party"—high boots, short skirts, and bright jewelry. They walk, chatting together on the way to wherever it is they go. Terrible things hold such an appeal for me. I don't understand how some people manage to go on, even appearing cheerful, whereas I, upon experiencing even slight discomfort, and generally more than prepared to wallow in defeat, utterly ruined, distressed beyond repair. I am not very melodramatic, just very un-resilient, I think.

I know I've always been a "brooding type," but lately somehow, my thoughts distract to the point where they almost seem removed, no longer my own, barely recognizable. O wonder if this is an effect of the Prozac, which I am still taking, though the pills tend to still give my headaches or stomach cramps from time to time, without making me feel any better, emotionally. The things I suffer for what they all are satisfied sanity is, I suppose. I still have some really strange dreams, many of which seem embarrassing to write out and barely seem possible to have come from my own mind. In bed on Saturday night, sleep was an ordeal and I couldn't get comfortable—constantly feeling my knees press up against my legs hurts sometimes and I occasionally wake up bruised.

I dreamt that we were all at the house in Bolton Centre. It was summer and we were out sitting on the balcony, which for those who've seen it wasn't particularly high though it would still be unpleasant to fall from. It looked the way it always had: orangey-brown stiff outdoor carpet covering splintery wood (with the odd nail sticking out) painted deep brown and forest green. White plastic lawn-chairs circled a table littered with books and magazines. I don't know how old anyone is, but I at least seem to be my present age, or close. We were all at home—Maya, Sacha, Mom and I. We were waiting for Stephanie Masse (formerly "Tootsie"), an old babysitter/friend of my sister's to come and visit for the first time in years. It was kind of like most situations of these kinds in my house: Maya and Sacha were outside, excitedly jumping up every time the dog (was it Ramses? Brutus?) barked. Mom was inside, purposely searching for something else to do, trying to look busy. I was inside, not in the mood to be social, annoyed that I'd have to pretend to have missed not seeing our guest the last eight or nine years. It's similar to the way most of our "reunions" are. I often get accused of pretending to be "cool," when really I don't care to conveniently fabricate better memories than I actually have for the purpose of a pleasant visit. Absence really doesn't make my heart grow fonder.

Anyway, we hear the familiar "crunch" of gravel and muffler bumping against a massive pothole in our rained-out drive-way. Maya and Sacha hurry out to meet her, laughing and acting unnecessarily giddy and ridiculous. I feel tense. Suddenly, it's well into the visit and they've all been on the balcony awhile with our guest when I eventually decide to come out and say "hello." I bring my book with me. I'm reading Faust (I like Marlowe's version better than Goethe's). I sit down cross-legged on the itchy carpet. I'm wearing shorts and it feels very hot outside. My legs are covered in scabs and calamine lotion. I scratch hard to make myself bleed. Looking about, I see Maya's and my latest concoction of Dandelion soup, little slivers of stem curled along the edge of a scissors or butter knife floating in a little tin bowl filled halfway with dirty water the dog's been drinking from. It's on the bench near Danny's window. Little fruit flies land and make the water ripple. I look away. Stephanie is trying to get me into the conversation. I'm the only one who hasn't spoken. I tell her I like to read. I show her Faust. I tell her I have just finished reading Machiavelli's The Prince. Maya sniffs and tells me not to lie. Without saying a word, Stephanie (from herein, I will call her Tootsie) grabs my book and throws it off the balcony. I run over to look but it has disappeared. When I turn back to look at Tootsie, she has a whole stack of old books, all hardcover classics. She tells me to watch what she does next. She throws the top book over the balcony. Instead of disappearing, like Faust had, it lands and expands to an enormous size. Suddenly the balcony is much higher than before. I feel we must be at least 200 ft up. Tootsie throws another book down. I watch it grow as before. The print is large and the page edged look very sharp, precise. She continues throwing down her stack of growing books so that they pile one on top of the next, opened face up, like a sort of spiral staircase. They are all classics and I spot a corner of something by Edgar Allen Poe, page 38. But, no Faust. Maya is leaning over the balcony. She decides it would be fun to try to jump off onto the books, which are actually at quite a distance, horizontally speaking, from the ledge. She jumps, and is if floating, makes it to the first open-book without a problem, smack in the middle. Suddenly, Mom comes outside and decides to try too. Everyone is pressuring her to try. I am quiet. I feel very confused. So, in ballet dancer form, leg extended, she leaps, unsuccessfully, but simply falls straight down in ultra-slow motion. We watch wordlessly. Maya has ample time to climb down the books to the ground and catch Mom before she hits the ground. Everyone cheers. I am silent. Meanwhile, I am still looking for my book, hoping it may have returned to the balcony. Suddenly, I fall over the edge. I am terrified. I cannot hear or see. I kick the bed furiously and suddenly I jolt awake.

I am told I was talking in my sleep for awhile, though it was utterly undecipherable. "I mutter", I joke. In any case, we managed to leave the hotel before the mandatory check-out time, which might just be a first.

We walked around, adjusting to the sunlight, trying to figure out what to do. I wasn't feeling very well. I'd woken up with a pounding headache and still felt very tired. We suddenly saw the bus bound for Korean Folk Village so we squeezed on, right in the front, standing crouched (head space was limited) in front of an elderly couple who kept exclaiming about how pretty I was ("eepoyo"). Another woman in the aisle leaned over and touched my face. I felt very uncomfortable, but I played it up that it was my neck that was in an awkward position and not just me, in my entirety.

The night before, we'd come across a man sitting in the street by a heater trying to sell baby rabbits (I think he called them "tokki-tokki"). They were adorable and tiny and wearing little sweaters. He put one in my hand and I played with it awhile while the man went on (and on) about my round eyes, closing his thumb and forefinger to make a circle shape, and putting it up against my face. Perhaps Suwon doesn't have as many foreigners as Seoul does. It seemed a little strange to me that the people in this region of Korea don't look entirely Korean (as I've come to know them in Seoul). They are generally darker; many look Indian and even Middle Eastern to me. On the way home on the subway, a group of guys who'd been staring at me asked me where I was from. I wasn't really in the mood for conversation, but thankfully mine was the next stop. They told me they were from Sri Lanka. I think many people in Suwon might come from this country and that they made lots of money. I smiled, and nodded and stepped out the door.

Anyway, my point is that in Suwon, I could feel more people than usual staring at me, and I generally felt uncomfortable most of my time there.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, like today, walking around SaveZone before work, I felt extremely paranoid and panicked, like every laugh was aimed at me, like people were well aware that I am unable to really understand Hangeul and so were using it to their advantage. Slightly frantic, I abandoned what I'd come for on a random shelf and nearly ran out into the crisp, bright February afternoon. I breathed in deeply and returned home through alleys rather than by using the main street. Sometimes, when people start to recognise me, like the vendors I pass everyday who sometimes nod at me, I feel strangely. I don't like it very much. Sometimes I think I'd rather remain inconspicuous, able to slink around entirely unnoticed. Familiarity does, in fact breed contempt, I suppose.

Last night I had just finished work and was walking home when this tall white guy who admittedly looked vaguely familiar at a distance, stopped short in front of me. I looked up quickly and strained to place him among all the foreigners I've met since I've been here. He asked me if I knew him and then it clicked—He had been one of my TESOL trainers in Ottawa who'd come back to Canada after five years abroad. Apparently, Canada had been too much of a disappointment, so he felt it necessary to return to teaching. I was caught extremely off-guard. It's a little hard to lose yourself on the other side of the world when people you used to bump into now and then in Ottawa's Byward Market are lurking about. Paranoia has mounted by this point and as I type his, I'm looking out the window suspicious of nothing in particular but everything at once.

I take my pill religiously now. Before I leave for work everyday, the last thing I do is dig into the giant bottle that never quite seems to empty and deposit a gelcap in my mouth and swallow in what seems like one robotic, fluid movement. I don't think it's doing my much good. I'm often tempted to measure the passing days for posterity by counting as I take my pills—like someone trapped in a mental institution without the convenience of a wall calendar…thumbtacks are too much of a risk, you see…Instead, I use my purple marker and mark off each completed workday with a little checkmark. Over and done. It's not that I'm counting the days—don't get the wrong impression; it's just that sometimes it's really hard for me to believe that I'm on the other side of the world. I mean I don't see my family or "friends" any less than before; I still have all the same habits and hobbies. I'm just sort of working a different, better paying job in some alternate universe where I wish I had a Babel fish. That's all…really.

Anyway, so last weekend we went to Korean Folk Village in Suwon, which is a massive sort of "traditional theme-park" for lack of anything better to call it. All the buildings were essentially thatched huts, complete with urine buckets (vendors sold mini reproductions of said urine buckets, of course), traditional tools for farming, potting and kimchi making. Not only the employees, but nearly everyone else there as well, were wearing traditional outfits—those colourful silky hanboks which are basically long, decorative tunics cinched at the waist and worn over loose silky pants. Sometimes they wear tassels or pointed (or straw) shoes, as well as the pointed woven bamboo (?) hat. It's pretty cool to see so many people dressed up. I doubt such enthusiasm can be mustered anywhere in Canada. There were people parading and playing traditional drums like we heard on January 1^st, (though with somewhat less enthusiasm, I should add), as well as an open-area where adults and children alike practiced jumping rope and balancing on see-saws (Skipping is a very bid thing here. My students often show me how well they can do it and both boys and girls are really very impressive).

There was a Buddhist temple with fruit and various kinds of rice (mostly those long, thick, glutinous strands that expand in soup, like tofu) placed upon an altar. I would assume it was an offering. There was a woman chanting something in a sort of distant, tinny, sing-songy voice. Later, we speculated that it may have been a traditional Korean exorcism (or preventive exorcising, as is more likely the case) as suggested by a map we'd grabbed on our way in. Yesterday, one of my students told me that every Lunar New Year, families perform rites for the dead in their family. I think the performance we witnessed must have probably had something to do with this.

We saw a very impressive equestrian show where the riders did some really daredevil tricks with their horse, like handstands in full gallop, keeping pace running alongside, and retrieving a dropped handkerchief before it hit the ground. The crowd "oohed" and "ahhed." The riders ate it up. They were all pretty young and made these incredible feats of strength and skill look seamless.

I had heard about something called "seesaw ladies" on a Discovery Channel program a few months back, so I was excited to get a chance to see some in real life. Essentially, there's a low to the ground, spring-loaded teeter-totter. One girl stands on each end and the initially elevated girl starts the performance by jumping. The girl on the ground, back straight as an arrow, shoots straight up into the air. They do this back and forth for quite some time and I'm sure they must exceed 20 ft. They do flips, tricks with hula hoops, colourful streamers, etc. It's very mesmerizing. None of these girls looks to be more than 20 years old. Earlier, we'd seen them playing hacky sack while the crowd waited for them to begin.

Right after this, we saw a tightrope walker. He was a rather old man, maybe in his late 50s, with what looked like bound feet—They were really short and wide, wrapped in a thick, white sort of sock. He was perfect on the rope, at first waving a fan around for balance he pretended he needed to gain, then literally bouncing across the rope on his knees, crotch, heels and everything else…He spoke to the crowd and was quite the showman…They laughed so he must have been entertaining.

We ate soybean paste soup and rice at a really crowded eating area. It was okay, but the overwhelming disgustingly sour smell of people and meat was making me sicker than I already was. We went across the river on stepping stones after checking out a very mild "haunted" house and walking through a fairground complete with an old-fashioned carousel, a sort of tea-cup-cum—strawberry spinning ride, a little Ferris wheel and a large roller coaster (not in use). The lines were long; the children were squealing, bouncing their novelty helium balloons and wheeling their toy noisemakers (the ones that look like mini vacuums or lawnmowers with balls that "clack" when the wheels turn) around the muddy ground, just like at any other amusement park. I thought it was kind of a weird thing to have in a traditional folk village…

We passed a massive food court where highly unsanitary, open-air food (un-refrigerated meat, etc.) was being served up and gulped down. I was frozen by this point. We walked quickly through a sculpture park, bypassed climbing a massive hill to check out the little dormant volcano field, and briefly stopped to watch a sledding hill full of artificial snow (it hasn't really snowed here this winter) where kids were having fun tobogganing. It looked kind of fun, but I was shivering and entirely unable to breathe through my nose.

Finally, we came upon something called World Folk Museum, a bunch of buildings housing the folk customs (food, dress, art, etc.) of all the major countries. Canada wasn't represented of course, though at least they found some Native American art and clothing to represent America. Thankfully, McDonald's wasn't mentioned as an American folk tradition, though I was a little disappointed. It would have made a funny picture. Overall, I thought the African, South American and Mongolian rooms were the most beautiful, but I didn't pay as much attention as I might have, had I been at all well.

Before leaving, we went for tea (the ordering process was confusing). I decided to go home that night instead of staying an extra day. But first, I had a chance to briefly see what a U.S. Military base looks like. I was mildly freaked out. I'm not used to seeing so many non-Asian, English speaking people anymore. It was weird mostly because even though I didn't particularly stand out here, I felt even more strange and alien among military personnel than I do among average, everyday Korean people. I kind of wanted to leave as soon as possible. I don't really like the concept of "Military" (sorry) and I certainly don't enjoy the snarky sort of pseudo-authority guys feel they have when they're holding a big gun…

On the weekends we see undeniably military people (crew cuts, high and tights, southern drawls, etc.), drunk as hell or with Korean "girlfriends" who can't speak a word of English. Friends have told me what certain military guys get up to in their seemingly ample time, and I generally have difficulty respecting the lifestyle--though I know the majority are probably good, decent people (so I don't mean to generalize).

A while back there was an incident in Hong Dae (the main bar area where foreign teachers usually go on weekends) where a woman in her sixties was repeatedly raped to blindness by some drunk, crazy military guy. I hope he gets sentenced in Korea. Anyway, no military people are allowed in Hong Dae after 8 or 9 PM, which I think sucks for those who don't go on violent rampages, but yeah, "army of one," I suppose…(also, I'm sure lots of young Korean men are more than willing to throw a few fists at some U.S soldiers caught off guard).

Anyway, this week went by quickly at least (I had Monday off), though I've been pretty robotic. I've been relying on sleeping medication to put me out and coffee to keep me going. I feel very tired and a bit nostalgic. I've been contacting old friends online and I guess it is fun to reminisce but too easy to get caught up in it.

I hate that my actions and my thoughts contradict each other; I actively seek out familiarity when the "familiar" is across the ocean, tucked away neatly in the west, but when I contemplate it throughout the day-to-day, I become thoroughly anxious and unwell.