The Zoo

Posted on August 19th, 2012

Only a dollar thirty, that’s it. That should tell you a lot before you even get inside. Buy your ticket, drop it into a plastic see-through container, give a bow to the attendant as she waves you inside, then all you can see are the trees and the gray-brick road. The map is clear with pictures of lions, tigers, and bears divvied out around the park. My friends, close behind, are wanting to see the zebras. Cause you know how every person has their animal. And their animal will be the one they can’t afford. The whole zoo is a giant round-about. The bird cages are the largest. The cat and dog cages are the smallest. Imagine a hamster and imagine that hamster growing three times its size, and there you can see the leopard, tiger, and wolf cages. No grass, not even a tree to keep them busy. You can see a lot of them are driven mad. Circling, pacing, sleeping, some trying to figure out an escape route through the walls. Some of them have given up and just play with their cellmates. The wolf and leopard race each other through the glass, pouncing on the walls as they reach full speed, then running back to the other side, using their paws to throw them the opposite way again. You’d think it’s sad, but it’s not that sad. Giggling and wowing Koreans gasp at every movement. The zoo isn’t poor. They just don’t know how to take care of animals. You tell yourself that it’s just the constant ignorance. The birdcages are vast, leading up to the sky, globe-like. They have ponds and patches of grass and even trees to fly to. You wonder why they need all this space. You think it doesn’t make sense. But when have I ever heard, “Huh, that makes sense,” while being here? Not a once. Some little monkeys accosted us with odd silent words. Muh, muh, muh, muh, mee, mee, mee, mee, Bare teeth. Muh, muh, muh, muh, mee, mee, mee, mee. Bare teeth. Yawn. Koreans throw these rice patty cake-like snacks to the hippopotamus. They wait for him to snatch it like an alligator, but he doesn’t. He just goes under, hides for as long as he can, then comes up again to see the patty. The elephant bounces his head back and forth. Left to right. His head is wide and rounded like an upside-down pear. He acts disoriented. You wonder if the zookeepers notice the sheep that need a shave, their rears soaked in mud or feces, you can’t really be sure. But it’s not sad. The animals don’t think like we do. Don’t need space like we do. Can’t be driven mad, like I am. All they comprehend is the life in their cages, their real life, comfortable or not. Crazy or sane, these animals are damn good at making the best of it.

The Heat Index

Posted on August 7th, 2012

The heat has become unbearable. The classrooms in the building, the Engineering building, have air conditioning. So they say. As you step into the classroom, you can smell it, the stench of 20 or 30 future engineers, waving their fans in their faces as if that will strike the heat away. Their faces are moist. Drops of sweat are buried in their brows for moments, then swimming towards the base of their necks. I have already imagined their bodies transforming into pure salt and water, changing the classroom into the sea, me talking to bodies of water, giving directions to waves. Some of them have large canisters of just water, which are refilled every fifty minutes during the breaks, then drunk quickly while class continues. They don’t respond well. Though the air conditioning is booming, a red led light pops on, basically telling us that it is of no use for the next ten minutes. This happens often.

Often, I stand up to regain their attention. I throw my arms left and right, being completely clown-like to get them to focus. “Foh-cuss. The pronunciation is foh-cuss.”

“Fuck-us,” they say.

“No, no, no. Foh-cuss. Long o!”

“Fuck-us,” they look confusedly at each other.

Different tactic, “No, no, no. Please stop,” I start to smile, almost laugh, face turning red. I control myself again, take a deep breath, “Foh-cuss. Like….like…foh my god! Can you say foh my god!” I use this because I often hear university students roaming around campus saying, ‘Oh my god!’ in conversation, very loudly.

“Foh my god,” they repeat happily, “Foh my god”

“Alright, that’s perfect. Now try, Foh-cuss”

“Foh-cuss,” they smile. Focused.

To the Redeeming

Posted on May 21st, 2011

What is it about the changing of the seasons that is frightening? Is it the dryness of conversation? The new events that lie ahead? Perhaps a new wardrobe that you’re too insecure to give a go? No, no, no, that’s not it at all.

They say the world will end tomorrow. The skies will be unlatched. The ground will unfold. The whole earth will tear itself in two just to show mankind that they are not living up to our deity’s pipe dream. So what is it that alarms you? The mis-closing of a lover, a friend, a mother. The lover doesn’t realize, doesn’t care to know, doesn’t care to change. The friend is enduring a modeled future. The mother, well, the mother is dead and warning from the apex of clouds or the base of the flames screaming, “REDEEM! REDEEM! YOU HAVEN’T MUCH TIME, YET ALL THE TIME!” And who is it that cares to unravel the webs from their ears, I know that I am not one of them. This, perhaps, is a time to judge what it is that is important to that sack that you wear on your shoulders when ticking time begs for mobility. I will carry an empty backpack, not a pair of slacks, not a simple shirt to soak up newer sweat, not even a rusty toothbrush mentally scarred with plaque. This is because I know that with every place I visit–with intentions to stay for a trial–will put its own requirements into my backpack. There will be alternative friends. There will be new obligations that wean previous necessities into, what is it, you ask? Garn.

The Less-Lighter Things

Posted on October 27th, 2010

The world begins and ends with love. In a womb, the child begs to be loved, to be adored, and our ignorance of the importance of love comes in time. We are raised to be distant, we are pushed to do so because those that love us do not want us to be disappointed. They do not want to hear the weeping. Some grow cold, some lukewarm, and the others are perilously burning up inside. I do not know my category, but I do know that my distance can not be blamed entirely on others. I will grow old and either more loving or less. I do hope to be relentless, but who is there to be relentless to? I feel myself unable to open to others, I fear that I will be dishonest, because I have always felt that dishonesty is the safest playing field. On that dying day, I’ll look around and pray I see the one who understands me best. Where they are now, I am unsure, but I think they are looking for my deathbed too. How horribly morbid, but really it is all about containing the concept of love. I do believe in it, after a fashion. As our searching continues, the skies change their colors and the sun or the moon sheds a glow on newer faces, newer names, those variety of personalities, most of which I can not completely despise. The room is kept warm for me.

In two months time, I can save myself from seceding.

Half a Calendar

Posted on February 6th, 2010

Time is there, those six months, there on my calendar, crossed out days, large Xs in bold and the pages dripping from the walls from the dry weather. And though time is moving swiftly, I know how long I must spend here. I know there will be happy times, less happier times, and then those dreadful days where I miss the place I called home. Then again, that home is definitely indefinite and non-existent. It is merely a symbol and I remember once asking a friend, “Have you ever told yourself, ‘I want to go home’ only to realize that you actually were home, in that physical sense anyways. I’ve always had this idea where the concept of home is not that of a structure, but more of an emotional state. A home feels comfortable, a home has the people you love and the people you hate can never enter there, and even if they did, it wouldn’t matter because the amount of happiness that home makes you feel outweighs those things that haunt you. I’m not homeless, but I sure do feel that way sometimes.

I miss some of the antics. I miss the looking at your neighbor and wondering if they’re thinking what you’re thinking. However, the mysteriousness of this new place, the mysteriousness of me, is appealing. I only wish I had more time. I only wish I could move and speak a bit more freely. Check out that muffler.

There’s a girl who says the most obnoxious and inappropriate comments. Her inability to converse leaves me annoyed and frustrated. She told me the other day as I was entering the toilet and she was leaving that she was only checking to see if her “flow” had come. Why why why why. Idiot girl. Images implanted and things I must make peace with. I don’t think I’m a very hateful person, but her oddities make suicide a viable answer.

On a lighter note, America during Christmas is in the future. I look forward to seeing my beautiful friends and my wonderful family. Even more, I want to see my dog and make him sit on my lap and lie still.

Repetitive, Redundant, Automatic

Posted on September 21st, 2009

Now that I’m here telling the young to pronounce correctly and write in a particular fashion, I tell myself that I’m only slightly closer to that finish line. I need mountains in the west with a history that only I admire because that’s just the kind of person I am – a subjective-priority-focused-sort-of-girl. Eventually, I will get that feeling once more — that sense of direction and misdirection, the comprehensive skills to say a fucking hello, and a Sanctuary. Even the filling of an empty museum is on my list of things to do. Here things feel temporary, but comfortable like a goddamn bed of nails. I remember being at that upturned house with you and my parents (we’ll both say that you were never a goddamn secret) and we lay on that bed of sharp pins for the first time, not at all frightened, just trying to get my dad’s money’s worth, and it’s because the nails are so close together that they don’t hurt our backs. I remember cringing whenever he spoke of money around you, anyone really, but especially you. I don’t think that boyfriend ever helped that lacking ego. It’s not your fault you’re an only child, though with your attitude, I doubt that kid would’ve taken a breath past his or her first year and if he or her did survive, he or she would’ve had serious competitive issues with his older or younger sister. I prefer you, as is, because I think you have the absolute desire –no, need– to be obsessed over. You may deny it in a heartbeat, but you want nothing more than a bunch of people fussing over your well-being. Of course, I’m the same way. If gone unnoticed for five minutes at the wrong moment, I feel helplessly neglected, and later, maybe even bitter (sort of like the girl in the tree who hates that we write from left to right and I always want to tell her that if it’s such a fucking problem, she can learn Farsi, move to Iran, perhaps get a hijab or yashmak or some type of headscarf before making the big move, then, problem solved. Though I’m sure for her complaining ass, only a million more problems would arise) but nevertheless, there will come the moments when I desire the silence around me, so I try to block out the environmental voices to focus on a blank sheet of paper and they may look at me with worried expressions, but then again, do I really plan on knowing them for the remainder of my life or the next two or three years? Things are so transient and yet I remember a time when I wanted to staple the clouds and superglue the sun in place so that I could permanently live in a state of bliss. I wonder if that particular sort of euphoria is only temporary. I mean, I’ve had other sources of happiness, mainly drugs, some mere moments of laughter (rather than the first happiness I spoke about) but their brevity is snappier than the longest moment, or rather incident, or even better, time period of happiness that I experienced at eighteen and nineteen, just four years ago. I have come to the idea that the reason I long for that particular rapture is because of its rarity. I’ve only been able to experience the plight of non-self-interest for a very short period, even could be considered a moment with the various other variables in my history. I am wondering if the other, more temporary times of happiness are taken for granted because I have them more often and their presence is scattered, but nevertheless existent, and at the same time mysterious and secretive like all the women who “pay the slightest bit of attention to me.” Not quite pathetic, but imaginatively perverted, I’d say.

Tears are…(silly) Lilly?

Posted on August 24th, 2009

I say to the group, “Tears, tears, teeeeeeeeaaaars. What are tears? Someone tell me?” Eight kids stare plainly back at me. I know this look. They don’t have a clue. I start to pretend to cry and I say, “Crying, crrrrying. Understand?” I wipe my eyes and the kids start laughing and nodding, finally understanding their new word.

I think of Lilly. The girl in 3H who sits to my right. In their Cinderella workbook, the kids mark away at their sheets, answering pointless questions about what they would like to dress up as. The group is much younger, full of seven year olds, so their attention span is wavering. I constantly eye each child, making sure they’re focusing on their work instead of their neighbor. I see Lilly, her thick rimmed glasses are set on her page. I know I don’t have to keep a watchful stare on Lilly, so I move to the next kid, Nate. He’s finished with the day’s work and moving on to the next set of pages to get ahead of the group. Lilly is stuck on the question where you have to write down what your friends will dress up as. Most of the kids have finished, so I lean towards her and suggest things for her to try. “How about Nate? Nate dresses up as Superman? or maybe…Nate dresses up as a kangaroo! C’mon Lilly. think of someone. Easy. Easy.”

Lilly puts her head on the table, which is forbidden. I tell her that she has four seconds to lift up her head. “Four…three…two…one.” Finally she lifts up her head, but all I see is red and tears start wrecking her face and I panic. “Honey,” I tell her, “Honey, it’s okaaay. You don’t have to finish it today.” I walk around the table to her chair and kneel beside her so that I’m at the same level, “What’s the matter, Lilly? Are you okay? Do you want to see a Korean teacher?” She shakes her head no. “Are you sure?” She shakes her head yes. I panic some more as the other kids turn to Lilly and began to ask me why she’s crying. “I don’t know.”

I move back to my teacher chair, deciding that I’d respect Lilly’s wishes to not visit a Korean teacher and just let her cry it out. Kids are kids, I tell myself. And it’s not like they’re gonna fire me.

Tell Me, what about our Seoul?

Posted on August 16th, 2009

The bus drove through, he pointed to the sky, which was crimson through my prescription sunglasses, and he said, “The pollution is so thick today, usually you can see more skyscrapers than that.” There was nothing to disappoint me. I know it’s the second largest city in the world. I know it has Starbucks and Outback Steakhouse, even a 7/11 and Subway. Tell me though, what else?

We drink. We borough ourselves into old tales, except I  haven’t heard them before, and sometimes they’ll stop to think, Oh she’s new here, she hasn’t got a clue. Then they’ll stop and ask how long I’ve been here, how long I plan on being here, where I’ve come from, and I realize that if it wasn’t for the guy I’ve known for five years sitting opposite of me, I could very well make up my whole life by shaking up an invisible magic 8 ball. I don’t lie, I’m too honest, though I know that we could form a better argument out of that rather than talk about sports and sex.

It seemed that those were the two most popular topics of the night and it was always the same instigating man with the thick beard under his chin that started with, “Where’s the strangest place you’ve done it?” “Rim jobs?!? What the fuck man!” “I’ve got my yellow, red, white, and brown belt. I never in my life thought I’d get to have threesomes after I got married, but hey, better shit couldn’t have happened” It was piggish, but I can’t really be the judge when I’ve known him for just a few hours. I was told on the train back to Jeonju that this thick-bearded man ripped a dead baby fetus out of a dying birthing horse before. Now that’s a man with some kind of character. He even had to slice the dead head off with a thin wire before pulling out the torso.

We sang karaoke in a small room, just for the five of us. It is pronounced “Norebong”, bong means room and “nore” means singing. We snuck in champagne, Soju, and Powerade, and I carried the five paper cups. I sung “Don’t Stop Believin’” and a few other songs. It is an awkward act, posing at the front of the room, your back turned towards your friends while they sing along, watching you sway or watching the guy next to you jump from couch to couch when the song begins to feel intense. After several songs, we left and went to another bar, played pool, walked to another restaurant-like bar, drank another alcoholic beverage with crushed ice, which I think you’d like if you were the same person. I was beginning to feel woozy, I’m not exactly the drinking type, but I did stare at the only other girl with us. A blonde girl, blue eyes, with a hippie stare and smile. She’s sleeping with the married man who saved a dying horse. She knows or definitely at leastnow knows that he’s had sex in an elevator and on rooftops and at baseball stadiums, and I wonder how it is that people always love the strangest and most obvious contradictions of themselves sometimes. Tell me, you young American, I know that you wanted to prosecute and defend at one point in your life, but when was it that your dream turned into a hazy picture of just a beard?

I slept on the floor, excuse me, on a thin mattress on the floor and it was not uncomfortable. The next day, just him and I went walking through the soul of Korea. We went to the largest Buddhist temple, where there were a collection of people bowing, then standing up, then bowing again, and he told me that they do that 108 times, but it isn’t just Buddha that they bow to, but they also bow to themselves because we are all Buddhas, and that is what we strive to become.

We saw the start of a river, thin and barely anything, then we saw it expand so wide that the children and their mothers could go swimming in the cool water. The day was so hot that I vicariously thrived through their wafting body movements. We went to a bookstore where there was a large English section. I saw Jane Austen and he argued a little on her unimportance in literature, yet he hasn’t read a single book. At the electronics market, I found my item, he found his Korean films, and we took the train back to Jeonju. The conductor told us to be quiet on the train and he told me that it was more than likely because we were speaking English, not speaking loudly. Our English is not white noise here, he told me, just like the Spanish back home.

Welcome to the Academy, Teacher

Posted on August 11th, 2009

The crosswalk takes two minutes to turn green, but I’m still afraid of getting pummeled by the taxi drivers, who ignore the road signs like sicknesses. It took three flights of stairs to arrive, but everything is in a circle and the walls are painted with the story of the tree and the boy, where the boy spent every season climbing the tree, picking the leaves from the tree, when finally the tree’s time had come, but they made sure not to paint that on the walls. At first I walked around, rooms are labeled by letter and go from A to H. I’ll be in the G class, my domain, my table with eight chairs, a chalkboard, a CD player for listening to English tapes, and a fan. My room has air conditioning, the others don’t seem to. I didn’t, however, start teaching that day, I merely watched the “professionals” or rather, those that have been there for years. Some teachers seem to understand their students completely and expect things from them, but other teachers appear to give up once their questions go unanswered for fifteen seconds. I suppose as one gets older, one gets shyer, and the older kids were much quieter than the children. Maybe they were skittish in my presence, as soon as I entered the room, the teacher will go, “New Teacher, G class” and the kids would go “ooohhhh” as if the mystery revealed was the biggest revelation of the day. They must not call the teachers by their first names, it is merely, “Teacher, how do you say….”, “Teacher, finish!” “Teacher, can I get water?”

Some of the children were particularly interested in me, posing questions such as how old I was and if I was in school. I am the youngest foreign teacher in Jeonju, so I’ve heard. We must not wear jeans unless it is Friday. It is okay if my tattoos show as long as they are not inappropriate. Men must not wear sandals and women must not wear tube tops. There is something about a woman’s shoulders that is too possessing to witness and something about a man’s feet too raunchy to smell. There is free instant coffee, though it is particularly watery. There is a bathroom that is particularly dark, small, and frighteningly unhygienic. The kids use it though, we must expect these things from them.

After work, my boss took me shopping for supplies such as cutlery for my apartment. This is all included. I got a strainer, a pot, a spoon, a fork, and a set of kitchen scissors. He also showed me where all the food was, the imported food, and the best yogurt, but I didn’t have much money on me, so I didn’t get much. Today, I will incorporate myself into the classroom. I will be helping to teach MY students, so a scarier day has never come.

The City

Posted on August 9th, 2009

As I listen to Alanis Morissette singing about those events that aren’t really ironic, I am reminded of the 90′s and the Spice Girls, and how Natalie Imbruglia had such enviable hair in Torn. I’ve stuffed my home into three large suitcases, which is comprised of films, books, clothes, and a digital camera which casts an odd red aura over a majority of its pictures. As my boss, Eddie Kim, dragged my bags into my new apartment, he took off his slippers at my door and crammed my suitcase in the corner, telling me that a dresser would be delivered tomorrow, that he was sorry for the delay. He was so particularly sincere about the “inconvenience” though I couldn’t imagine being any less hassled. After he handed me the keys and reminded me to lock the door behind him, I was asked by another boss of mine to have drinks with a few other teachers who were either leaving or just arriving. I met Chris at my door and two Marys downstairs, we went to a bar and I had a Budweiser, even when Corona and Heinekens were available. I spoke to another girl that night, dark, steady eyebrows, freckles in a line and a short skirt which lifted once a drunken stupor was in session. I tried not to notice, though I suppose politeness was irrelevant.