I guess, like most people who teach abroad, I figured by the end of the year some big change would come over me, and like some estranged movie character I would walk out at the end of some metaphorical tunnel, changed for the better. I can't say that I lived such a life-changing experience, no matter how bad I wanted to. Regardless of what all the travel brochures and TEFL certification websites tell you, just eating food with sticks and taking egocentric photographs of temples isn't going to truly change anything. I, for one, know this because I was sure that it would.
The plan I had mapped out seemed to start dwindling and falling apart the minute I reached Korea. I was sure that one year would be like a paid vacation, that new knowledge would find me, and that the journey would lead me into true enlightenment. None of these things ever really happened, but the trade-off was actually an all right deal.
I figured by thirty-two this whole “life” thing would have led me somewhere more fulfilling, like the suburbs. A place filled with school buses, snow cone stands, and jobs that paid on time. It did not. However, it did manage to lead to a far more intriguing alternative. A land filled with baby carriages, stiletto heels, impeccably styled hair, and people who compete in alcohol consumption with as much fortitude and vigor as a Wall Street stock broker buying and selling stock. Korea was like nothing I had ever seen, but at the same time, like everything I was accustomed to. The entire country seemed to operate like some controversial television program that never made it past the pilot episode, mixing elements of "Father Knows Best" and "Twin Peaks."
When I set my sights on Korea one year ago, a huge part of me was under the assumption that I would be able to conquer the vast cloud of fear and stress that had been looming over me. I would shed my skin and walk naked onto the battle ground, dealing with hardship like some homeless guy stuck in a rain storm. The idea that a person can conquer fear is as naive as they come. Fear can’t be conquered; it can only be dealt with.
When I sat in my tiny apartment the first night, I could only stare at my tiny computer screen. This fantastical world of Skype, Facebook, and Youtube had suddenly become my biggest ally. All the advertisements and write-ups were in Korean, although I could still get through to my email account. My Inbox was as empty as a Stryper concert, and I couldn’t get Hulu to play anything. I sat for a moment on the edge of my bed and peered into random corners of the room, lingering several seconds on any interesting looking stains or discoloration. “Jesus, this was a mistake,” I thought as I lay back onto the oversized mattress. I pulled the thin comforter over my body, and I stared into the darkened ceiling. This was my world for the next year. I didn’t sleep at all that night.
The weeks that followed all sort of blur into one. I was given a stack of books the first day, was allowed to observe several classes, and was then thrown into work the second day like a slave on a plantation. I had no idea what I was doing (and still don’t) and managed to bumble through classes like a socially and physically awkward child playing little league soccer. My co-teacher, an Irishman, decided to take me out for coffee on the third day. As we slowly drank our coffee, he told me an intriguing tale, one about our school—how it was on the verge of collapse and that payments each month kept getting later and later. At this point I was hoping for some sort of nervous breakdown that would allow me to return to a nice mental hospital back home with comfy beds and orderlies who would bring me lots of drugs and shitty food; however, this never happened. But I did struggle through a dreary two weeks of extreme weekend isolation and only left my apartment to purchase coffee, cereal, and hand lotion. There were no windows in my apartment, so every time I walked outside, Korea would hit me full force, both barrels blazing, and I would realize that I had lost myself beyond rational thought to Youtube episodes of “The Forensic Files,” completely forgetting where I was.
Riding the subway never felt right to me, and although many foreigners claim to love it and lose themselves to a set of headphones or an overly analytic selection of books, I couldn’t help but notice all the blank, yet helpless, faces around me, making me feel all the weight they seemed to carry would soon swarm upon me like some post-apocalyptic zombie film. Everyone seemed so shut off, as if they were all sitting in a shrink’s waiting room, trying desperately to escape through what little pop culture they could pull off their telephones and iPods.
After a while, you get better at ignoring the depression that seems to drift all over Seoul, like some giant smoke stack, and it’s then that you begin to concentrate on the more uplifting things that the country has to offer. Not to promote any sort of bland type of optimism or turn a blind eye, but you have to pick yourself up when a situation or person keeps offering up boot heels to the face. Just to be clear, this is not an essay on finding your smile again or seeing some sort of metaphorical light. It’s just a look at shitty situations and realizing that rolling in shit is not just an American pastime—it’s a global thing. To me though, that’s where the Korean experience really gets good. It’s at that point when you realize you can finally stop searching for that perfect place. For that city or town that’s eager to open up its doors and give you warmth and shelter in a freshly laundered blanket of understanding and kindness. At this point you can only do one thing—stop and breathe that single breath of frustration while slowly starting to look around. It’s in this simple yet fleeting moment that things begin to appear to you like a mirage in a desert, when you accept your cage and then decide to make good use of it.
In the months that followed, everything seemed to pass like a hangover to an alcoholic and I jumped into work and play like some driven crack addict. Work was the same sort of heavy-weighted ball and chain that I was accustomed to; however, very little was said by the school’s management about my performance, and they seemed to have no problem in letting me screw up the job on a more than regular basis; in fact, the only real feedback I ever received was that I didn’t assign enough homework. My boss was a man who said very little, and when I say “very little,” I actually mean “nothing.” When he did call me into his office, it was to ask me to record a speech for students to study dialect and pronunciation or to talk about books and American politics. Although most who worked at the school had an outlook of distaste for him and considered him to be somewhat rude or anti-social, I liked him a great deal. In my experience, supervisors were always people who took way too active an interest in your work, therefore, slowly burning out your spirit and killing any enjoyment the work might have once given you. He never did this though and, in all actuality, went out of his way to avoid any sort of real discourse. Needless to say, someone who hated authority as much as I did had no real problems with his managerial ways.
I probably should have kept my guard up after only two months in the country, but it’s amazing how I ended up throwing myself into a situation I had spent years in the States trying to avoid, simply because an 18-hour plane ride left me thinking that I was fearless. I guess a relationship was inevitable sooner or later, but that it happened in Korea and that she was from Canada seemed to be the perfect scenario to attach itself onto the “outside of the box philosophy” I had become accustomed to. Not to insinuate that relationships are misery or that what I found wasn’t great, it was. It was just one of those situations that required a little bit more work than a natural-born slacker like myself was accustomed to.
As most courtships go, there are the first two months of great times, long walks, and intimate moments, leading up to the three-to-five month wall where you actually get to know the person you’ve been dating and decide whether you like each other enough to deal with all the fucked up idiosyncrasies you both possess; in my case, she probably put up with a little or maybe a lot more. Like some bipolar version of a mythical archetype, I managed to weave my way through five months of dating, only to fall victim to the emptiness of an airport goodbye, a depressing two-hour subway ride home listening to nothing but overly written 80’s power ballads, and a dreaded long-distance relationship—which, like everyone who has walked the planet, I swore I would never do.
For all those people who swear by their life that long distance relationships are worse than an IRS audit, I can only reply by saying that they know their shit. Nothing can really test stamina and mental stability more than a relationship dictated by time zone availability and Skype connectivity. If I have ever had more of a love/hate relationship with anything in my life as I had with Skype, I cannot remember. It feeds on you like a fix to a junky, leaving you dependent, worn down, and disproportionately drained. Although I think Skype, like Korea, also works to rehabilitate. It hits like a shit storm, taking pressure to an ultimate high, and making every small disagreement seem like a Faye Dunaway “Mommie Dearest” moment. Though once in that tunnel, there is a certain catharsis that happens, and all the hope and excitement of reconnecting seem to morph into something bigger than you; inevitably, you have weathered out a great storm, and, in the end, you managed to do it together.
Before I left for Korea, I felt I needed a new hobby, and climbing had always sparked my interest. I wanted to take the almost non-existent knowledge that I had accrued from home and build on it. Truth be known, I had little hope that I would manage to do little if any climbing in Korea, but when you’re in a lonely situation and desperate for hope, you have a tendency to lie to yourself a little more convincingly. Stumbling through a bar one afternoon, I ran across a brochure for a climbing school out of Seoul and realized that this could possibly be my white light—it was. In the months that followed, I found myself intensely involved with a climbing organization out of Seoul called Sanirang. Little did I know that this organization would dominate most of my time and pull me from the maddening grips of foreign solitude. What few expectations I had from the program managed to be completely blown to smithereens, and before the middle of November, I had already made three summit climbs. As the winter months brought in a cold beyond anything I had ever felt, anticipation for spring climbing began to build. In mid-March I was able to begin the Sanirang intermediate climbing school. In just five weeks I had taken what minute knowledge I had gained during the fall and multiplied it by five. Almost every weekend after that was a summit climb, and by mid-July I had more than 15 under my belt, as well as my first trad lead. Climbing in Korea built on me like a heroin addiction, and anytime I could get out and do it, I did. Like most who end up getting involved in this wonderful subculture, a vast percentage of my income usually went towards new gear and more involved training. Most people who get into climbing will probably tell you that it changed their lives for the positive; I am no different. Climbing in Korea was undoubtedly a blessing in almost every way I can think of—from the adrenaline rush of the climb to the drunken nights after a summit down to the amazing people who ended up accompanying me on all of these mountain adventures. In Korea there always seems to be some sort of newly discovered hobby or activity that most foreigners cling to, whether it is running, yoga, or climbing. As if in some sort of less insane version of prison, many foreigners need something to fill the time and kill the devastation that comes from too much isolation. I figure this may be why people do many of the things they do in life, so that too much of the real world can’t sneak inside their bedroom at night, like the Boogie Man, and devour them whole.
In the end, I guess that is always how I’ll see Korea, a cold and empty place that I had to find the good in, just so I could stay sane and keep going—although, I sometimes tend to exaggerate for the sake of the story. I guess Korea, life, or whatever you want to call it is perhaps sometimes as simple as just wanting to have a good time.
