The Richstud

2012-01-02T23:28:00.000-08:00

About Face

The only frustrating part of quitting Facebook is not having a way to brag to the masses about how you quit Facebook. But to all of you...I quit Facebook. I jumped through the various hoops they strew about to keep you signed up, and when the box came up that said “Are you sure you want to quit Facebook? All of your information will be deleted,” I clicked yes with the same enthusiasm that a middle school boy surfing porn sites clicks the button to confirm that he is 18 years old.

I never wanted to join Facebook in the first place. It debuted during my first year in college, and never then nor in the succeeding years did I even consider jumping onboard. Many of you young'uns may not know, but Facebook originally limited its members to college students, so it was less a tool for staying connected to every human you have ever met, and more a tool for finding out if that young looking freshman girl was of legal age. For the non-stalkers, it was still a revolution in expressing narcissism; what an amazing way to show off that your favorite movie was the totally under appreciated cult classic Pulp Fiction!

So I wasn't onboard for the evolution of Facebook from a smallish reconnaissance method to its current role as the binding force in the universe. An impressive advancement I agree, but I had no desire to participate. For one, I'm a little ornery by nature. If something is popular, I'll usually stay away from it just out of a contrary disposition. Additionally, I'm sure Facebook was delightful for all involved, but it was much more satisfying to be the guy who wasn't on Facebook. After all, there are relatively fewer of those, and fewer every year during its meteoric rise to the top.

- Quick aside. I just wrote “Meteoric rise,” a quite common phrase which just now struck me as horribly inaccurate. Meteors enter the atmosphere and either disintegrate or crash to the ground, neither of which is an action I would use to describe a remarkable ascension in power. That's funny; I've probably read that phase dozens of times, and never noticed the inherent contradiction.

Anyway...Anytime someone would ask if I was on Facebook, or even better say “I tried to find you on Facebook but couldn't,” I got an arrogant thrill of telling him or her, “Yeah, I'm not on Facebook.” Subtext: I live outside the box. Rebel. Admire me for my dangerous ways. I also noticed that most of the people gleefully using Facebook felt compelled, once I revealed my abstention, to justify their adoption of the service. A representative and totally realistic conversation would go:

Stunningly attractive girl: “Do you have a different way of spelling your last name, or do you use a different one? If it wasn't already very obvious from such a specific and awkward question, I tried to look you up on Facebook but couldn't find you.”

Me (With the detached cool of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause): “Yeah, I'm not on Facebook.”

Girl: “Really? No way, everyone's on Facebook!”

Me: “Not me.”

Girl: “Yeah...I'm only on Facebook because it's the best way to keep in touch with people. I mean, I totally hate it and think it's lame, but without it I would have no way tell everyone the things they don't know they need to know about me.”

So I was doing just fine off the grid. I thought I could stay off Facebook forever, and even when I started my business it never occurred to me to get on Facebook and use it as a business tool. But as with all things, my downfall came from a woman, in this case, my sister Josie, with whom I had the following actual real conversation (even more real than the one above!)

Josie: So do you have a Facebook page for your business?

Me: (In the manner of James Dean): No, I don't want to be on Facebook.

Josie: Ken, you have to be on Facebook.

Me (In the manner of Eeyore): Ok.

So that's how it all started. And of course, once I jumped into Facebook, I was on it as badly as any teenager, or that teenager's mother, since mothers were for a while the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.

-Another quick aside. The phrase “fastest growing,” when applied to a group, sounds very attractive, but most of the time it really means “smallest.” If every high schooler in the world with internet access is already on Facebook, that group can't really grow much more, can it?

Ok! Now before, during and after my relationship with Facebook, I didn't look down on anybody for joining. Wait that's not true. I did, but I matured and got over it. The 100% real girl in the conversation above (not my sister the actual, real girl, but the other real, real girl above her) was right; Facebook is a good way to keep in touch with people. Contacting long lost friends, organizing social events with your current group of friends, and knowing what's up with a bunch of people in whom you have vague interest but no desire to converse on the phone or meet in person, are all previously difficult tasks which Facebook renders simple, and I've benefited from the social network as much as anyone.

I also don't think Facebook is lame. By and large, “things” are not lame, or dumb, or smart or virtuous or evil or good. But people are lame, and there are a lot of people on Facebook. A LOT. And Facebook, like anything that provides a degree of separation and anonymity, brings out the worst parts of people. Politics and religion were the worst offenses, of course. I don't even care if someone's viewpoint agrees with mine; I find it is near impossible to express a political or religious opinion without immediately becoming less likable, and doing so in the Facebook newsfeed was somehow especially loathsome.

After social opinions, I was most annoyed by so many peoples' apparent inability to develop their own thoughts. Too many quoted song lyrics and quoted...quotes. First off, when you paste a song lyric on your Facebook wall, we all know it's about your love life, ok? Let's just get that out in the open so we can end the charade. Second, there are few ways that quoting a song can make you look good. If the lyrics are bad, then you look dumb, and if they are poetic and insightful, it just draws attention to the fact that you probably couldn't come up with them on your own. There is a razor's edge or finding something obscure or unappreciated that really does deserve to be brought to the public light, but let's be honest, it's rare. Certainly not the tripe you've posted on YOUR wall. And to address the inevitable, “But I just really like those lyrics!”...Great! Why don't you go listen to them alone?

Many people supplement their song-quoting with quote-quoting, finding the finest insightful, inspirational, or funny quotes on their preferred internet forum, rigorously fact-checking to make sure the attribution is accurate (haha I know, I aim for humor), and then pasting them as status updates. Now, I am certainly not complaining about the various brilliant things that have sprung from the minds of people like Mark Twain who, judging by the internet, has come up with about 80% of the clever things ever said. And if Mark Twain says something well, then we'd be doing the concept a disservice by trying to present it in our own inevitably inferior words. So there's nothing inherently wrong with celebrating a bit of brilliance, but of course, since Facebook is a forum for celebrating our own greatness, not the wit of some dead genius, I think it's fair to say that an overwhelming majority of people who post, “A witty saying proves nothing,” on their walls, are trying to reflect some of Voltaire's genius back onto themselves. Let's not kid ourselves; just because you share the viewpoint of a brilliant and poetic statement does not mean you are anywhere close to creating it yourself.

For example, imagine the ridiculousness of someone doing that with scientific concepts. Everyone accepts and understands gravity, but if you updated your status to say...

“Every point mass attracts every single other point mass by a force pointing along the line intersecting both points.” - Issac Newton

...it would do nothing to upgrade your friends' perception of your scientific acumen. They would just say, “Yep, that's some brilliant stuff you are agreeing with! Good job acknowledging something that is so obviously correct.”

There is also a subset of obnoxious posts for which I don't have a concise term, but I would describe them as, “Faux-inspirational drivel selected mainly to convey that the poster is a hard working, take-no-prisoners modern badass who likes to work hard and play harder and you better get out of her way.” If that depiction doesn't conjure a powerful, repressed memory, just read this quote, which has graced the statuses of far too many people:

“Remember that guy who never gave up? Neither does anyone else.”

Truly, those are the magnificent words of someone who possesses the incredible fortitude in this modern age to not only show up to work every day just a few minutes after 9:00 am, but also attend CrossFit three times a week.

And how could I forget the chain statuses? The most cringeworthy that I saw related to some sort of Chinese astrology and Feng Shui and getting money. They may as well have all read I HAVE NO ABILITY TO THINK CRITICALLY, COME UP WITH ORIGINAL THOUGHTS, OR UNDERSTAND BASIC HUMAN INTERACTION. RE-POST IF YOU HATE THINKING!!!

- Yet another quick aside, since as of January 2nd, we're just through the storm that is the yearly perceived War on Christmas: If you post, in all caps, “I AM NOT AFRAID OR EMBARRASSED TO SAY THAT I AM A CHRISTIAN,” and you live in the United State of America, you are not brave. Just a heads up.

Once I discovered the ability to hide people in my newsfeed, it got better. But as as my number of friends increased, the number of people in my newsfeed grew smaller. And with other people handling the business Facebook page for me, I realized it was time to cut the cord.

But I didn't quit Facebook just to save myself from reading all that dumb crap, but also to save myself from producing it. Daily I struggled not to force my own annoying opinions on the world, and I didn't always succeed. I sincerely regret some things I put on Facebook, mild though they were, because they were shameless attempts to get attention or impress the world with my largely borrowed viewpoints. There is some powerful draw to that empty status field, some sinister pull that says, “Tell everyone how you feel! Your opinion is special and important!”

It is not.

After two months, I can say that I don't miss Facebook at all. For a couple days I would accidentally type “www.fac...” into the browser, but I got over that pretty quickly. Within a week I forgot I was ever a part of the phenomenon. And it's great. I actually feel better about myself as a human being, and more importantly, I feel better about other people.

So exiting Facebook was a great move for me, and would probably be a great move for many people. By now Facebook has gained such mass that it has a powerful gravity, even people who have no desire to join feel that they must because, “Everyone is on it.” And not “Everyone” in the sense of “But Mom, everyone is wearing their jeans around their asses!” but in the sense of, “Everyone has started wearing animal hides to cover their bodies, so I guess I should too.” A kind of begrudging acceptance that a new order has arrived. But that's not the case. Sometimes it's fine to be naked. I took off my animal hides and am running around gloriously free.

I have written at perhaps excessive length; thank for you staying to the end. Essays are a much better expression for me than status updates; 400-ish characters were far too few for me to express all of my brilliant, original, not-annoying-or-hypocritical thoughts. Sporadic though I am, I enjoy writing these pieces, and my ego would like for more people to read them. If only I had a mass medium through which to disseminate them...

2010-12-23T13:52:00.000-08:00

Careful What You Wish For

Jake pinched himself. He'd been crouched behind the couch for what felt like hours, even though when he looked at the clock, it told him he'd only sneaked out of his room 30 minutes ago. But it was 2:00 in the morning, which is pretty late for a six year old, even an especially precocious one like Jake. But he was staying up: any minute now, Santa was coming down that chimney with a big sack of toys, and Jake was going to have them all.

He'd been planning the heist for a year, ever since last Christmas when he'd gotten socks and a comb, despite very clearly telling his parents to tell Santa to bring him a rocket launcher. This year, he'd hedged his bets by asking for a rocket launcher AND a bazooka, but even though he'd been a very good boy all year, getting straight “A”s in second grade even though he was the youngest kid - he was moved up for being so smart - he wasn't going to rely on Santa's professionalism.

To be honest, Jake had some problems with the whole Santa thing. Oh, he loved the concept, he just wasn't sure how some of the details worked. And Jake liked to know how things worked, much to his parents' chagrin, especially when he asked about how babies were made. And, “Sometimes when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they make a baby,” was not going to cut it. That was like saying, “Sometimes, when a mommy and a bag of flour love each other very much, they make an apple pie.”

So when Jake asked how Santa managed to fly around the world, or carry enough toys for every boy and girl, he wanted a good answer. So far the only one that satisfied was when he'd asked his dad how Santa knew who'd been naughty and who'd been nice, and his dad had said, “Facebook.” That explanation seemed reasonable. But Jake was a savvy kid, and he noticed his parents talked about Santa in the same way they talked about his old dog, who'd been away visiting the doggie farm for an awfully long time. Jake wasn't sure he was coming back, just like he wasn't sure how Santa, a reportedly large man, would fit down the chimney. A few weeks ago, Jake had tried to climb up the chimney from the inside, to see how big it actually was, and he could barely get his head through. He might have managed to wiggle a hand or even arm in there if his mom hadn't come over and yanked him out, bringing a cloud of soot and ash with him. Cleaning that up was no fun.

So this year Jake was ready. He'd laid out a trap of Oreo cookies and peanut butter, an amazingly delicious treat his dad had showed him one day when his mom was out of town. Eating just one required a solid thirty seconds of chewing - the Oreo's were double-stuffed, of course - and for Santa to chew through the plateful that Jake had left would take minutes, giving Jake plenty of time to rifle through Santa's bag of toys. Jake didn't want to take the whole thing. Well he did, but realistically he knew that, without magic powers, he wouldn't be able to carry a bag containing all the Christmas toys in the world. Also, Santa would notice if his whole bag disappeared, and Jake had watched enough TV to know that the best robberies are the ones that are never noticed. Like they said at school, he was a bright kid.

Suddenly Jake heard a noise. The slow creaking of a door opening; the clumsy footsteps of a man trying to be a little more stealthy than he is capable. Jake was surprised he hadn't heard any noise from the roof. Nine reindeer, a fat man, and a sled containing bajilions of toys couldn't be that quiet. The footsteps came closer down the hall, and Jake realized that Santa must have just come in the side door next to his parents' room. Heck, they probably let him in. As the sound veered off towards the kitchen, it became all to clear to Jake: Santa had, even with his considerable magic powers, become too fat to get through a chimney, and now had to be let in through the front door. And apparently he stopped in every family's kitchen to raid the fridge.

Waiting for the sounds of eating to cease coming from the kitchen, Jake wasn't too consumed with analysis to flush with excitement at the very fact that Santa had come to his house, especially since after the chimney incident, his parents had told him that maybe Santa would skip their whole block! As much gusto as Santa seemed to display in the kitchen, Jake had no doubt he'd fall completely for the Oreo-and-peanut-butter trap. As quietly as possible, Jake crept over to the Christmas tree and unplugged it. His parents left it on at night even though Jake, reading at a third grade level already, told them that the directions said turn the lights off. The only light in the living room came through one window where the blinds never worked, and Jake had already put the Oreos in the glow over there, hoping Santa would be drawn towards the only light in the room.

Suddenly Jake heard footsteps coming closer, and be bolted back behind the couch, getting there just before the sound of footfalls changed from hitting wood to hitting carpet. From his hiding spot, Jake couldn't see anything, but he listened closely to every sound, and could easily distinguish the soft pats of his Santa's feet crossing the carpet, and the sharp crack of Santa's shin hitting the coffee table.

“Ow, shit!” yelled Santa, which didn't seem very jolly to Jake. Santa made some unintelligible grumbling and then under his breath asked, “Why is the damn tree off?”

Darn it, thought Jake. He's already ruining my plan. Jake couldn't do anything but hold his breath as he heard Santa crossing the room towards the tree, and closer to Jake's hiding place. Then the footsteps stopped. In his panic, Jake had lost track of where Santa was in the room. He could be against the far wall, or one foot away from the couch. Jake was as still as a statue.

“That was really sweet,” Santa said to himself. Jake was confused, until he heard the unmistakeable muted crunch of a peanut-butter soaked Oreo being cleaved by teeth. He exhaled for the first time in what seemed like minutes:

It worked.

Jake only celebrated for a second. He knew he wouldn't have much time. After all, Santa might get through those Oreos pretty fast with his superhuman chewing powers. He crawled out from behind the couch, took less than a second to confirm the shadowy outline of a man near the cookies, and started looking around for Santa's bag. He'd expected it to be huge; even with its magic properties, it had to be at least as big as a person to hold all those toys, but he didn't see anything. Jake got nervous again, and started looking around frantically for something - anything - that could have been Santa's bag. And he was still looking when the Christmas tree lights came back on, and Jake reflexively turned towards the tree and saw Santa crouched near the plug, his fat jolly body in his red suit, except that he actually looked pretty average sized, and he wasn't actually wearing a red suit, but blue flannel pajamas, and with another second of dawning realization, he wasn't actually Santa. He was Dad.

“Jake?”

He was too stunned to say anything.

“Jake, what are you doing up?”

His throat quivered, trying to make sound, but nothing came out.

“Why aren't you in bed?”

Finally Jake found his voice: “You're not Santa.”

Now his dad was the one who couldn't speak. They stood still in front of each other, each trying to say something and failing. Jake turned to run upstairs to his room, and as he reached the door, he saw a large plastic bag, like the one he got from Target when his mom bought him a Lego set the first time he read a chapter book on his own. When Jake got closer to the bag, he saw it was full of stuff: some small stuffed animals, Christmas ornaments, socks etc; and some larger boxes wrapped and tied with ribbon and bows.

He walked back to where his dad was still standing by the Christmas tree, looking confused.

“You brought those presents, didn't you?” asked Jake.

“...Yes. I was going to put them under the tree.”

“And you've always put the presents under the tree, right?”

“Yes. Your mother and I, we always did.”

Nothing happened for a little while. Jake stared at his dad; his dad stared at the ground. Jake was the first to move. He walked over and hugged his father, squeezing tightly. Jake's dad didn't react right away, then hugged Jake back.

“Thank you Dad.”

2010-12-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

Ultimate Conflict Resolution Championship

Each month when the UFC puts on a PPV show, a good sized group from my Krav Maga studio goes out to a pretty nice restaurant/sports bar in Raleigh to watch . As you would expect, the place gets crowded and noisy, and we always reserve the private dining room lest we're forced to mingle with the commoners. Last night was one such event, and the place was packed with not only the typical square headed blocks of meat that usually turn out to watch the fights in their Ed Hardy shirts, but also a large, boisterous group whose Santa hats indicated a Christmas party, and whose behavior indicated some very strongly spiked eggnog.

Again, that's why we get the private room, all the way in the back with an aquarium like glass wall and double doors on the one side open to the restaurant. To my relief, the Santa party seemed to be breaking up as we were just getting started, but they left grudgingly. Especially the man and woman who commandeered our open doorway as a love shack.

The door opened out from the room, and he had her pressed against the inside of it, so they blocked the doorway entirely. She was clearly drunk; he was worse. He looked silly in his Santa hat, repeatedly leaning in for a kiss while she moved her head from side to side like a promising up-and-coming boxer.

We gaped and stared for a while, figuring that such a display must surely come to and end before too long. After all, we weren't at a frat party; these were grown adults at a reasonably nice restaurant. Yet the vulgar dance continued, and finally I realized they weren't getting out of the way on their own. I walked over to the door, grabbed the handle and said - gently I thought - “I'm going to go ahead and close this door.”

All of the sudden the guy got serious. He turned towards me and stood in the doorway, blocking it.

“Who's going to close the door?”

I was immediately confused. Was he getting confrontational over a door? He had a very cold, even tone to his voice that was probably supposed to be threatening. I am as non-confrontational as you can get, so I might have been worried if he weren't obviously a chubby past-due frat guy in a stupid hat.

“I'm going to close the door,” I said, as evenly as possible.

“And who are you?”

“Umm, I'm Ken, I'm going to close the door, and also your girl is getting away.” True. She'd slunk off as soon as I'd approached, using me as a distraction apparently while she escaped. You're welcome lady!

He didn't take his eyes off me, so I could see his aggression shade towards sadness as he said, “They always do.”

Ah, so he's just another lonely, angry, drunk. He thought he was getting something going with this girl, something that couldn't wait even till they had gotten outside, that's how right it was. Something that would wash away the pain of all those barren nights drinking himself to sleep in a bed that could easily fit two, but never held more than one. Any minor worries I had about a fight breaking out instantly dispersed. He saw me as a threat, I just needed to give him a graceful way out.

“Aw don't say that,” I said. “I'll bet you do just fine.”

Now it was his turn to look confused. “You think so? You think I get the girls?”

“Yeah,” I said cheerfully - with a lingering shade of sarcasm - “you look like you've got in in you.”

Slowly he backed out of the door, with the same perplexed expression of the first caveman to see fire. The situation resolved amicably, I returned to my seat, answered a few questions from my students about the particulars of the dialogue, and gave my attention back to the TV, the minor incident already forgotten.

“Oh, he's calling you out Ken!”

I looked out and, yes indeed, this fine gentleman was, from the dining room outside our private area, making strong “You want to take this outside?” motions with his hands. I smiled at him. He then switched to making other gestures.

I could do nothing but laugh. I mean, aside from the comedy of him calling out an ostensibly dangerous Krav Maga instructor, there was a whole room of us. It was like a bad action comedy - “And in this scene, our unwitting protagonist picks a fight with a whole room full of military combat specialists.” Finally, finally they all left, leaving us to watch people fight on TV, which to me is much preferable to in person. As the offending drunk staggered away, someone in our room said what were all thinking:

“That guy did not know what he almost got himself into.”

2010-11-25T11:28:00.000-08:00

Restore Sanity in Hot Chocolate

Denny's is one of those ideas that is much better in principle than experience. When its 9pm and you're on the road to D.C. for Jon Stewart's rally, and it's been three hours already with two more ahead, and you see that painful yellow sign and red lettering, and you think, “Oh man, some Denny's would be great right now.”

Everything looks great until your food actually comes out. My two strips of overcooked bacon were coiled around each other like a meat twizzler, except that a meat twizzler actually sounds really awesome. The hash browns at least glistened as though cooked in butter, though I'm sure it was actually some cheap substitute. But the meal was functional, and as we paid and prepared to leave, I ordered hot chocolate for the road, a little sugar-and-caffine pick me up. When the waitress deposited the drink in a to-go cup I gleefully shifted out of the seat and picked it up, but something was wrong. The weight was all off. When I tilted the cup, the liquid shifted too easily, and even through the paper cup, I could tell the contents were too thin. I turned to my friends:

“I have a grave feeling that this hot chocolate is made with water.”

Their sympathetic “Ooooh” proved that they too, understood Dennys' crucial failure: Hot chocolate should always be made with milk. With water is just...awful, it's got all the neutered charm of a Boca Burger. You need milk, and not just any milk. Something thick; whole milk at the least. However, if you want to really remember the experience throw in some half-and-half. This delicacy was one I discovered back in my youthful days, when I conducted a series of scientific experiments based on the following hypothesis: Anytime you use milk, half-and-half will be more delicious. I'd have to say the experiments supported the hypothesis, although a bowl of Lucky Charms was hard to finish. But hot chocolate with half-and-half is one of life's true, decadent pleasures. And if you're especially ambitious - as my friend Lars and I once were - you can make it with heavy cream. Just make sure you block off about two hours post-consumption to lie on the couch and groan.

With that noble heritage behind it, my current drink at Denny's looked tepid indeed. I took it to the counter to get some whipped cream, that way there would be some kind of dairy product in it, though I shouldn't put it past Denny's to have soy-based whipped cream or something. Whatever they added, it helped mask the fact that I was drinking chocolate flavored water. I mean, seriously! Water?

We left the Poor-Man's IHOP and walked outside. There was a truly enormous woman sitting in a pile on the curb, looking like she'd been dispensed from a soft-serve ice cream machine. And it's especially cruel of me to make fun, because I'll bet she and I had more in common than I'd want to admit: You can be sure she didn't make her hot chocolate with water either.

2010-11-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

Stranger in a Stranger Land

Night Six

SCZKRAAEENCHKKHWHHIIIIRRRRISKKKKXHAGHHAHAHWACHZCHZACK

Jesus Christ what the hell is that?

GRAHCZKRAAEENCZKHKKHWHHIIIIRRRRISKKKKXHAGHHAHAHWACHEZAGH

Oh God where am I?

WHAGCRANKGKRIAGHXTAZKkRSSCHSHCSCHDRAHGGHRADGKZXKZXKZXRADZKRAGH

Please, please make it stop.

GRAZCKBRAGHKCWHRWHRKRICKLASCCHSCHSKRUGHCCKWHRRWHRRWHR

Who is sawing through my head? Leave me alone, Goddammit where am I what is going on what is all this noise Goddammit what happened to my eyes why can’t I open them SCZKRAAE augh go away whatever you are! Who are you goddammit can’t open my eyes to see my ENCHKKHWH torturers all stuck together, egg yolk behind my eyes gotta force them HIIIIRRRRI owowow open dammit getting louder and louder SKKKKXHA and louder some kind of monster out there and can get my eyes a little open now and it’s some shape GHHAHAH holy crap it is some kind of monster, can’t really make it out WACHZCHZACK so loud! Going away now though getting GRAHCZ quieter can pick my head up now take a better look KRAAEE getting a little quieter now what is it oh hey NCZKHKKHW it’s no monster it's a cleaning machine WHHIIIIRRRRIS Goddamn loud machine though, looks like one of those street KKKKXHAGHH sweepers actually. A little quieter but it’s so close and AHAHWACHEZAGH wait is that another one of them? No there can’t be two WHAGCRANKG oh no there are two and every time one of them gets far away the other gets closer KRIAGHXTAZK and they’re running up and down this forty foot stretch of tile kRSSCHSHCSCHDRAHGGH over and over XKZXKZX and over but they’re only ten feet away and that’s no exaggeration literally they’re ten feet away and they’re so Goddamn loud and I was asleep and RADZKRAGHDAMMIT JUST LEAVE ME ALONE! I could kill them, had I strength to stand but I don’t I can barely open my eyes but I can imagine that could I stand I would kill them and I don’t know if that’s hyperbole or if I really could jump onto that machine and just rip that guy’s goddamn head off, right of his shoulders or maybe I would just choke him, cinch my hands tightly WACHZCHZACK around his throat and squeeze oh it would feel so good and I think I do really mean that because I don’t know if I’ve ever been angrier than I am right now and these bastards won’t let me sleep GRAZCKBRA I’LL BET YOU’RE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE AREN’T YOU! YOU BASTARDS! Bet you think this is pretty funny GHKCWHRWHR Goddammit I would break your neck but I can’t even get up lying here paralyzed by fatigue or anger or both and why won’t these jerks just stop and let me sleep and stop this hellish cycle of noise where one KRICKLASCCHS goes away and I think it’s going to get better but it won’t because another one is coming my way and they’re only ten feet away but maybe they’ll stop soon, how long CHSKRUG can they possibly clean this one section of the floor? Not much longer, it looks like they might be leaving now HCCKWHRR actually oh God yes they are thank God, now I can just go back to sleep as they fade away WHRRWHR and I’m still paralyzed with anger but I’m also so tired and my watch says it’s 4:37 which is a horrible time to be awake and I’m lying down already but I feel like I’m about to collapse and I’m going to do that right now. And sleep again.

Day Seven

I’m almost done.

It’s 10:00 am, I’m at my gate and have nothing to do but wait to hear the boarding call. Naturally I’m lying down, because I’m still exhausted. But it’s okay, because I’m almost done. It’s not even a matter of hours till I get on the plane out of here, when I will consider myself safe.

I’m expecting to board in about an hour, which is not too much longer to wait. I’ve been up since six in the morning after all, though I’d hoped to sleep until seven. Of course I’d hoped for a lot of things on this trip and hadn’t gotten many of them. But maybe that was for the best, it’s a good learning experience when things don’t always go your way. And besides, my week was still a lot better than what hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, of people go through every day, earning no money, living in undeveloped countries with no sanitation or medicine, certainly wasn’t as bad as living under the Taliban, at least not from what I’ve heard. Korea isn’t dangerous certainly, no rebel insurrections or riots or serial killers, low homicide rate. I hadn’t traveled to some country that hated Americans, or somewhere I could be killed for my shoes because some places people don’t even have shoes, because there’s no money to buy them. So I couldn’t feel quite justified in complaining about the whole trip, and really I was eighteen years old, so it was high time for a coming-of-age event. And this wasn’t a bad one either, a bit of trial and tribulation but no real danger, kind of like an entry-level coming-of-age.

Unfortunately the clock is still refusing to spin quickly, but I can wait a little longer. I’m looking forward to being back in Japan, going back to my host family and eating my host mom’s food, which is always excellent. Here I didn’t exactly know where the next meal was coming from, though I grant that I always knew there was food, and a lot of people in this world can’t even be comforted by that. There are some places where even McDonald’s doesn’t reach, though this airport isn’t one of them, because I had McDonald’s for breakfast due to lack of other options, but still I have to think that at least there was an option. Amazing how a bad event can actually make you feel better, in a way. As much as I disliked this whole trip, I already know that I wouldn’t take back the experience, and I know that as soon as I start telling the story to someone else it’s going to seem a lot less severe, and I probably won’t remember just how lonely I was on that island (still can’t believe that was only a few days ago) or confused I was in Itaewon walking around with that Korean girl.

I shift positions on the chairs (still haven’t managed to find a bench) trying to find the most comfortable way to wait. The crowds had woken me up at six in the morning, surprising actually how many people there were that early, and after the floor cleaning incident I hadn’t gotten my beauty sleep. I’d tried to cure that with another “bath,” but I was looking a little rough. Still, I’m not too far away from a real shower, and so many people didn’t even have running water. Maybe once I’m not so tired I’ll realize just how valuable an experience this was, and appreciate that, even though I had basically screwed myself over on this trip, I gained so much.

It’s almost 11:00 now, the end is nearer and nearer at hand. I’m hoping the re-entry process will be easy, but when I picked up my boarding pass this morning the guy who gave it to me warned me that the customs officials might be a bit curious that I was coming back to the country so soon. Well, that's something to worry about when I get there, and I have people to call in Japan, not like here. Actually, there were a lot of people I could have called, the Elders for example, and What’s-Her-Face had I not lost the number. Amazing sometimes, the kindness of strangers. I might have been in real trouble without their help. Have to remember to bring up the Elders next time my friends and I start talking about Mormons, remind myself that I’m technically in their debt. So many experiences. So many people, all of whom had been so generous. The Pakistani who bought me the Sprite, what had compelled his charity? Shouldn’t forget about him, shouldn’t forget about any of these people, actually, who’ve impacted my life in some immeasurable way. Maybe in ten years my friends and I will be talking about Michael Jackson, after his latest offense, sharing a bed with a baby moose or something, and I’ll say Yeah well when I was in Korea this Nigerian guy… and then I’ll be so glad I spent the week over here.

I’m already glad, actually, though I can’t wait to get back to Japan. Still one more hurdle, though, when I go through customs. The officials might be onto my game, and though I don’t know if they can prevent me from re-entering the country, I’m hoping all the difficulties for the trip are behind me. Though it wasn’t the worst week anyone in the world has ever suffered, it wasn’t my personal favorite, and I’m ready to take the life lessons and personal growth back to a more comfortable environment.

Well, now I hear the boarding announcement over the intercom, it’s time to get on the plane. My row hasn’t been called yet, I’m not all the way in the back for once, but I might as well stand up (whoa blood rush to the head) and get in line. My legs are a little wobbly, but I’ll be sitting down again soon on the comfortable plane, with the TVs in every headrest and a plethora of movies. I’ve been looking forward for a long time to this plane that will take me back to Japan. One day, perhaps, I’ll return to Korea, this time after studying the language for a while and developing some competency, and then I’ll really have a good time. Then I’ll plan a little bit more, and be able to talk to people besides other foreigners, and I’ll know where to go and…well, maybe it’s a bit early to plan the next trip over here, I still haven’t escaped.

Now they are calling my row. A last look around Seoul Incheon International Airport, the last part of the country I’ll see for a while at least, and who knows? I might never come back. Still, I’m not the sentimental type, and I don’t linger long before walking through the gate and towards the plane. My adventure is over, it seems. Time to go home.

2010-11-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

Stranger in a Stranger Land

Day Six

-Can I change this ticket, I asked, and handed the man behind the counter my discount ticket. He looked at it, clicked his fingers on the keyboard, looked up

-I’m sorry, he said, English awry, this is a discount ticket. You cannot change it.

(dramatic pause)

Oh no.

I was crestfallen. I could not change the ticket. I’d abandoned Seoul in the morning for the airport, hoping to abandon Korea as well today and now I hear that there is no escape for me but only waiting. But what to do? I check my watch, it’s only 11:30 in the morning, Saturday. My flight leaves at 11:30 in the morning, Sunday. Twenty four hours, a whole day in this airport, with ten dollars in my wallet. I walk over to some convenient chairs and sit down. How long will I sit here? An hour, two, twenty? Did I have anything else to do? Read my book? No, I couldn’t, I’d left it in my hotel room this morning, after waking up and being brutally surprised by the shower. I’d been looking forward to the shower, been maybe a bit too long since I’d cleansed myself last, thought it might be nice to wash up. Of course it was a communal shower, no not communal but shared, not private to my room. Still, it was cleansing, and I stepped under the falling water with bliss, enjoying the near-forgotten feel of hot water on my skin, relaxing my muscles, whishing away the dirt for ten or twenty seconds before there was no hot water any more but only cold, cold, ice water it felt like, almost painful, and there was no way I could stand under the faucet and freeze. Well, not freeze really, not technically the water wasn’t freezing, it wasn’t ice falling on my shoulders, but those poor souls in the Titanic died anyway, and that was nothing more than cold water. No, I jumped out of the shower, putting my dirty clothes over my stilldirty body after all I could stand it a little longer, amazing how quickly you get used to stuff, dirty hair, all tangled usually I can’t stand it when my hair gets tangled but I hadn’t brushed it in what? days now or had I, did I even have a hairbrush with me? maybe next to the harmonica, wrapped up in the jumprope Jesus Christ what a stupid collection of stuff, it’s not doing me too much good right now is it? Here in this airport that may be brand new and the pride of Korea but Goddamn it it better entertain me for the next day, yes a whole day what a long time to do nothing, what usually happens in a day? Go to school, talk to friends, study read relax a lot of time in the day if you don’t do all that, time is inversely proportional to the amount of stuff you have to do, let’s see what’s the equation for that is it T=1/S where S is…what? what’s the unit of measure for stuff?

Lot of people around here, Saturday is a big day for travel, lots of people from everywhere, lots of unfamiliar faces, though the Asians do tend to resemble each other a bit, no matter how politically correct we’re supposed to be. All have the same hair, naturally, well they’re supposed to have the same hair, but everyone dyes it, brown usually, looks so odd. Well, it used to look odd, gotten used to it by now, living in Japan seems like every other person between fourteen and twenty-four has brown hair, looks natural now, see so much of it. Like I’ll see so much of this airport, spend so long in here, god damnit. What am I going to do? A whole day in this airport, couldn’t possibly be enough to do, no matter how big it is. How big is it? Maybe I’ll go find out. Maybe it’s huge, maybe I’ll find some really awesome store or something. Well, No point in sitting around, I’ll be doing enough of that as it is, let’s just take a walk around see what there is to see.

I get up off the chair where I sat, not a very comfortable chair, really would it be so hard to have padded chairs or something or maybe a sofa? well that’s a bit much to ask for, and head off in a random direction, towards gate A or E, polished faux granite floor shining back at me, be seeing a lot of that shine today, but it could be worse, at least everything is clean over here in Asia, at least the parts I’ve been to. I walk around, not much to see really, some restaurants and things of that nature, what you would expect to see in an airport, nothing really jumps out at me, let’s go a little off the beaten path, why don’t we, go upstairs, see what there is to see up there, nice escalators by the way, nice of the escalators to carry you up, though I’m compelled to walk up them regardless, why is that? I always have to walk up escalators and run up stairs, like I have to mount them as quickly as possible, why is that? I’m not an impatient person, right? Hard to judge oneself, actually, love to judge other people but get a little less accurate about ourselves, don’t want to know what we know about ourselves. But I think I’m patient, at least I will be by tomorrow, after I spend a day here, jeez this is going to be a long day, but I do have a hard time waiting behind someone on an escalator, when I want to go up and they no he or she let’s be grammatically correct here is just standing there, right in the middle oblivious to everything else and usually they or he or she is just a little too big, well not over here not in Asia, where everyone is so petite make us Westerners look like ogres, really don’t see too many big people over here hey there’s the business class lounge, pretty nice looking, wonder if I can get in there with my discount ticket that I can’t even change. Have to go back to someone else and see if they, he or she, is a little more helpful, know that they can do damn near anything they want to my ticket, just clickety clickety clickety clack on the keyboard and boom I’m on a new ticket leaving in two hours and back in Japan where all of this just becomes a funny story.

Nice restaurant over there, not too many patrons, I wouldn’t mind something to eat, not there though, probably costs more than I have, don’t have much, don’t have anything left to change either and half of what I had this morning went into the bus ride over here, I don’t actually have enough to get back and forth, like that song back back and forth and forth, can’t do that, barely can eat. Look, another escalator, down this time, yeah it’s a lot better when you’re the only person on the escalator, sometimes you’re behind somebody and they’re, he’s just standing there taking up space and you just want to shout at them move your ass! or something more drastic, just push the guy, say excuse me to be polite, and watch him tumble tumble tumble down the steps which would actually be moving in the same direction so would that affect anything? Have to find out one day, but then you’re have to do it twice, once pushing a guy down the down and once down the up, so he rolls down because that is the only way he’s going to roll, arms and legs flapping body bouncing off the steps that would be funny huh? maybe a little mean but after all he deserves it because he’s just standing there taking up space, not considering who else might be around like so many people but let’s be honest maybe I do it too and just don’t know it, because really, how could I notice if I don’t notice people? Yeah I could say No I’m not like that but how would I really know? Like saying I don’t have any subconscious problems well obviously if they’re subconscious I don’t know about them, that’s what it means, means I’m not conscious of them but so many people don’t seem to recognize that.

Have I gone all the way around the airport already? That’s it? can’t be there must be more it’s a whole airport, I guess I’m not going to any of the concourses, concoursi? Wonder about that plural, all those words that end in ess, just fun to play around with them, especially since I don’t have many other sources of amusment here. It’s only 1:00? Doubleyou tea eff, this is going to be a long day, there has to be something to do. Wait, a bookstore? Yeah, a bookstore, there must be one in the airport, maybe they have some English language books, I can read for a while, do it all the time in Japan at the bookstores there, for some reason I got to Japan and really want to read books in English, don’t really care what they are, but of course they’re too expensive in Japan to buy so I just have to stand there and read, sometimes I sit there actually I do that a lot, couple hours at a time but it’s kind of rude, I guess, still I don’t really care I just want to read so maybe I can find a bookstore here and sit down and read a good book for a little bit, where is one, I thought I passed one just a little bit ago it was back that way wasn’t it?

I head back the way I came, retracing my steps and of course there it is, right where I left it and I walk in and look above the shelves at the various languages represented, Korean Chinese English and how to learn Korean, lots of those books, in case I want to learn on the plane, or maybe I (I being an arbitrary traveler) fell so in love with the country that I just had to try to learn a bit so I buy a Learn Korean Through Pictures book and take it back to my country of origin, where I study every day but really who does that? Takes too much effort and though I do want to learn Korean it’s not from any love affair I developed with this country on this trip, the people though that’s a lot different, those Korean girls are very pretty, if pretty is a word you can apply to people who come up to your sternum but still they’re cute at least, but I hear they all have plastic surgery, or a lot of them at least, want high noses and big eyes, gotta love that westernization. But I can’t read Korean or Chinese or really Japanese so I’ll just head over here to the English corner, not too big a selection but then again my standards probably aren’t too high right now at the moment are they? Hey, they have the whole Lord of The Rings set, with the movie pictures on the cover, wish they didn’t do that but of course they do, probably triples the sales and I liked the first movie, the second movie just came out a week ago but not in Japan so I have to wait a few more months to see it, too bad I really want to I bet my whole family already went, maybe more than once, but I never did finish re-reading Return of the King, got to the part where they throw the ring in but didn’t finish it up, the part after that I don’t recall though I did read it, lot of denouement as recall. Well I have some hours ahead of me, certainly more than enough to finish the last half of this book.

I pull the book of the shelf and start reading, standing there, legs tired, body tired, am I going to stand here for hour after hour? Can’t do that, body tired, tired of standing and don’t want to have my head craned down for too long get a kink in the neck and that’s no fun, can't read then, maybe I could sit down. That would be nice, I’ve got all this stuff let me just spread it down here and relax is the store staff going to care? It’s not a big room, I’ll take up space but only in the English books section and nobody is going to come over here anyway and if someone does I’ll stand up no problem very polite and you know what I don’t really care because my body and my heart are tired, and I’m hungry and weary and just bitter enough right now to sit down so that I can read and have a moment of unworried relaxation. Just take this book off the self and sit down, this stuff is actually pretty comfortable, glad it came in useful for once, get one good thing out of it, time to get absorbed in the book, where was I the last time I read it? Somewhere in the middle, not that page, not that page, not that page, I’ll just arbitrarily start here, read read read read read

Hey there’s a white woman coming, she might want to look at the books I’m sitting in front of, better stand up, say hi I guess we’re going to have some sort of conversation

-Where did you find that book? she asks

-Right there I say pointing to the middle of the shelf where there is row after row of Lord of the Ring Books bearing the handsome visage of Aragon or Legolas or the somewhat regrettable image of Liv Tyler, wonder how many people buy those books? Doubt too many buy them, really.

-Oh great, she says. She looks at me again, Are you a believer? she asks.

-Uhhhh. What does that mean, a believer? Do I believe in Lord of the Rings? Do I believe in hobbits and elves and whatnot? Does she mean do I believe in J.R.R. Tolkien, like did he really exist or something like that? Never thought about it that way.

-Are you a Christian? she asks.

-Oh, uh, no not really. So that’s what she meant by are you a believer? Not so good with this religious stuff, though the next time someone asks like that I’ll be ready.

-You know, she says slightly, as if privy to some secret information, Tolkien was a Christian.

-Oh yes, I kind of knew that I say. No really he was Christian that’s amazing that a British person living in the first half of the 20^th century was a Christian that’s really fascinating and suprising information.

-And his Christianity influenced his writing, did you know that?

-Yes, actually my Dad and sister are very into literature and I think that this came up around the dinner table. Who are you? Leave me alone you have nothing interesting to say, probably one of those born agains, give religion a bad name.

-I watched the second movie, she says and now I’m interested because I’m dying to see this movie and I don’t know when I’ll be able to and I want to hear anything I can about it nevermind if this woman is crazy.

-Was it good? I ask.

-Yes, very good.

Oh course it was good, can’t wait to see it, can’t wait for this woman to leave, let me get back to reading, no she still wants to talk to me, now she wants me to figure out what these books are? It’s a stack of Korean books and she wants me to tell her what’s first second third fourth and I don’t know and the main thing I’ve learned this trip is that I can’t figure out anything especially when it’s written in Korean goddam it I want this woman to leave, no, she won’t I can’t wait her out she’s driving me away maybe I’ll just leave and come back later, can’t stand to stand here any more.

I walk out of the bookstore, maybe I’ll eat, it’s 2:32 or so, sometime around there and I’m pretty hungry, haven’t eaten much today, what did I have, something this morning right? after I’d exchanged money, what a process that was. Never occurred to me that it might be hard to find a place to exchange money on a Saturday morning, thought for a little bit that I wouldn’t at all, as I went to place from place to place, each one closed, not open on Saturday or not open at nine in the morning but I needed money goddamnit, and finally I did find one, of course it was the last place I looked, but the woman was just opening up and so I stood there at the window watching her get out everything and deliberately make me wait, at least that’s what it seemed like because surely she didn’t need everything to exchange my pittance of Japanese currency, all I had and all I could rely on and jeez I really didn’t have much money, did I? Where did it all go Korea’s not expensive and I hadn’t bought anything, not much certainly hadn’t spent too much money on food, though I was about to now, just had to find a cheap place, like the

Dairy Queen? Didn’t expect to see that over here, considering that the only one I’ve seen is in the airport. Don’t really want ice cream, though, I want food, hey, they sell food there, how odd, never seen a Dairy Queen selling Kimchee soup. Kimchee, how did I not eat that everyday over here? It’s like the national religion of Korea, it’s the foundation of the culture, it is to Korea like what is to America? Can’t think of a good analogy at the moment, have to remember to though, might make a pretty good joke someday, though anybody who hasn't met a genuine Korean and there are many of these people might not appreciate the joke. But it’s rotten cabbage or spinach or something like that, tastes good but maybe I wouldn’t eat it twice a day every day like they do. I’ll eat it right now though I’m so hungry hope I can order in English over here, yeah I’ll just ask for a set meal, get some rice and Kimchee soup with kimchee holy mother that’s going to be a spicy meal.

Smells good though, as I port it over to a table out of the way, to sit down and eat it. Nice and spicy, no water though, kind of rough because the soup is spicy and the kimchee is spicy and I don’t seem to have anything to drink how did that happen?

-Excuse me says a Korean gentleman sitting across from me at a different table with a woman, mother sister girlfriend I don’t know.

-Yes, I offer, why do people always insist on talking to me? Am I really that good looking? Hahaha just a little humor there not serious and really my self esteem is not at an all time high right now so a little boost now and then won’t hurt. What does he want?

-Excuse me but my mother was just wondering if you are a boy or a girl.

Ok so down with the self esteem again, that didn’t feel good and I haven’t been asked that for what years now probably not since I graduated that hell called middle school, lot of teasing then probably would have been really bad if I hadn’t been too ignorant to completely miss what was going on, but now this guy is bringing it all back and really does he have to ask so directly? Is that really the best way to start a conversation? Excuse me sorry to bother you but your gender is ambiguous.

-I’m a guy, I replied with an edge in my voice, indicating that he had stepped over a line that one does not step over and despite my long hair and slight build I’m a force to be reckoned with, especially after I’ve had one of the worst weeks of my life not that I’m being self pitying and I’m hungry and tired and dirty and he comes up with this question are you a boy or a girl?

-My mother says you have very nice hair, so she did not know if you were boy or girl, he says, trying to make amends but it’s too late, I do not fold under flattery, not after such a grievous insult, though I do appreciate the appreciation, but I’m still not going to be happy with these two.

-Thanks.

I think that effectively ended the conversation, they won’t talk back to me now, I can just eat my kimchee soup and my kimchee and my rice in peace, cause it is pretty good, though I don’t know how long it’ll last I’ve still got a while to go here, it’s still only midafternoon and this is only lunch albeit a late lunch and I didn’t really have breakfast, just a candy bar of some sort and another one of those vegetable drinks without which I would have long ago faded into nothingness. Well, I have to be honest a lot of people have to live on less than that every day, so I can’t really complain about that, can I? But I am going to get hungry again, probably soon, I can afford to eat again how many times? Two? That’s not very much, twice in how many hours now, nineteen? Getting closer to takeoff, still a long way, though, nineteen hours is more than a whole waking day for most people, long time to only eat twice. Long time to read, too, wonder how long the bookstore is open? Might as well head back there, nothing else to do.

I get up and head back towards the bookstore, stomach full for now. Too bad I don't have any money, can’t buy a book, sit down and read it, have to sit down in the bookstore. Wonder if that bothers them? I’m pretty bothered here myself, though, so I don’t really care, staying in this airport for hours and hours and hours and maybe I should check with the ticket counter, maybe someone else will let me change my flight. What if they don’t? Maybe I can strong arm the ticket guy into it;

-Excuse me I’d like to change this flight.

-I’m sorry we can’t do that.

I grab his shirt and yank his face over the counter, inches from my sneer of cold command that declares I am not to be trifled with, no I am to be obeyed and say

-Actually I think you can.

-He gulps comically, in a movie this is where the audience would laugh, and says yes sir, he will change my ticket if he can but you know sometimes flight just aren’t available and you never know but then he looks again at my foreign blue eyes and sees that there will always, always be space on the next plane for me.

-Here you go sir, enjoy your flight.

And I take the ticket with a barely perceptible nod of acknowledgement and stride off to the gate, victory at last. Maybe I can make it happen.

-Excuse me I’d like to change this flight.

-May I see your ticket sir.

-Is there any chance I can get on a plane that leaves today instead of tomorrow?

He looks, clickety clicks and looks again.

-There is a flight leaving at 5:00 he says, would you like to get on it?

-Yes thank you. But then the intangible force compels me, the same force that prevented me from accepting the charity of the Pakistani guy at Burger King, and I have to ask:

-Excuse me but are you sure I can change this ticket?

-May I see that ticket again? He looks, No I’m sorry you cannot change this, it is a discount ticket.

I grab his shirt and yank it down…no I don’t. I don’t have the gumption and besides, it would never work I’d just receive the full wrath of the airport police and they’d come over and ask me to please stop but by then I’m too far gone because I really am walking on the edge of a knife here and they would have to carry me away from the airport (though I fancy I wouldn’t make it easy for them) and throw me in jail, where I would stay until at least Monday because that’s when the embassy opens but then again they don’t seem much inclined to help either so who knows what would happen but I’d be stuck in a Korean prison and I don’t know much about them but it just sounds bad, Korean prison Korean prison. Have you even been to a Turkish prison? Stuck here tired and lost and dirty, of course that’s what I am now, especially dirty, haven’t really taken a shower in a while, this morning didn’t count, is there a shower in this airport? Haven’t seen one so far, probably wouldn’t be free if there were and I can’t afford that but I’m so dirty and I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a few days and I’m definitely out of clean socks and underwear, which just does not feel comfortable. Maybe I can go wash up in the bathroom, should be water and soap there, paper towels (had I forgotten to bring a towel? I think I had) clean up a bit.

I get up and walk into the bathroom. A few other people around, don’t really know how comfortable I feel about washing myself here, I’ll just do my hands until everyone leaves, there goes one, two ok I’m alone. Take this filthy shirt off, don’t I have a clean one? How about a cleaner one? I think I’ve only worn this green one once, can put this on in a sec, after I wash up. Ahh the water feels good, even scrubbing myself with my hand, rub the soap in there damn I smell bad, can’t stand myself much longer at this rate. Damn it someone walked in, and here I am shirtless wonder what he thinks, probably hasn’t seen anyone this white and shirtless before, I am pretty white, though, even by white people standards, should get a tan someday. Ok time to get fully dressed again, gotta change these boxers though, not wearing these another second well I guess I am because it’s already been another couple seconds but I didn’t mean it literally of course, I’ll just slip into a stall and take these off. Yeah, it really is quite liberating, actually, feels pretty good. Could still go for a shower, though, guess I won’t get one until I get back to Japan, though, damn that’s still a dayandahalf away, so long.

Well, I’m done in here, I think I’ll just go sit down for a while. These chairs kind of suck, though and I don’t see any benches which is really too bad if this is to be my lodging for the night. Might not sleep too well tonight, actually, not in a chair certainly, best for sitting. Hey, who’s this woman talking to me?

-Excuse me, I work for KBS television, she says, I would like to interview you.

-Oh, no thank you. Not really in the mood to be interviewed, though as she leaves I wonder about what? My experience in Korea? If that is the case she doesn’t want to interview me. Can imagine that one: how do you like Korea? oh I think it sucks. Not that I do, great country if you know the language and were born here, no doubt. Wonder what she was going to ask me? Kind of risky, really, if I did that interview, who knows what they’d use if for, Stupid Americans Abroad feature maybe or something of that nature, never know what might happen though for sure I’d deserve it.

Maybe time to go back to the bookstore, getting a little bored here, got lots of time left. I walk back there, peruse the shelves what to read? Something not too big, need to finish it today, by 9:00 pm when the store closes, how about Dune? Heard good things about that, people seem to like it. I resume my old position on the floor atop duffle bag and jacket, let’s see how this book is read read read read damn my neck is starting to get sore and so is my butt, even with all this padding but still I don’t have anything better to do and this book is really interesting read read read read

What time is it? Almost six o’clock, got about two hundred pages read, three hundred left, might not finish tonight, but then again there’s a lot of time tomorrow and I’m kind of hungry again maybe I should get some more food, even if it is a little early to have my last meal of the day, but what to eat? Something heavy, I guess, something that’ll stick, greasy heavy food I guess it’ll have to be MacDonald’s, though it’s not the most exotic choice. Still, could be comforting, and it’s not too expensive looking at the menu though at this point everything is pretty expensive by my standards Yes I’d like the number five please, up sized please and there goes another five or six dollars and I’ve got what five left? Damn but at least I’ve got some food to eat, better just sit down over here whip out these French fries, do enjoy French fries, of course I like pretty much anything fried, though I do prefer them with ketchup which seems to be a bit lacking over here, only two packets the cheap little bastards. Wonder how much MacDonald’s Inc spends on ketchup every year? How many ketchup packets? How many MacDonald’s orders in a year? Could easily be a billion, ok let's say a billion and maybe they give three packets per order but that’s not necessarily true because half the time they don’t give you any and then you ask for some ketchup and they give you a whole handful, more than you’ll ever use, like Oh I’m sorry for not giving you enough ketchup here’s enough to choke a cow. But for purposes of calculation let’s assume three, and let’s assume that each one costs MacDonald’s Inc a penny, though really it couldn’t be nearly that much because it’s amazing how cheap things really are in the third-world country where they’re made and it’s only once they come over here and are shrinkwrapped and wholesaled and retailed that they get expensive, but for the sake of distracting myself from the fact that I’ve still got seventeen hours to be in this airport let’s say that it’s a billion orders times three ketchup packets times a penny which is a billion times three which is three billion divided by a hundred which is thirty million dollars, that’s a ton of money. So if MacDonald’s Inc wanted to save ten million dollars a year they could just change the standard from three packets to two, which is all I got over here anyway, and then they’re only spending twenty million a year on ketchup and have ten million more to spend on God knows what, maybe some real meat or something. Chicken nuggets aren’t quite like I remember them, last time I ate them years ago, but they take up space in my stomach.

Might be time to go now, can only take so much of the quote atmosphere quote in here, but not really ready for the bookstore again, maybe time for another walking tour of the airport, some more people watching perhaps. And by people watching I mean of course looking for cute girls, because if I can’t afford myself that luxury at this point I really have nothing. Well, shouldn’t say that, I’ve got a lot more than most people, lots of people don’t have a home now, do they? Gotta keep everything in perspective. How about I put on some tunes, had to conserve batteries on my CD player but now I think the end is near so I can break out the music, choose something that will fit the settting, how about some funk? This is a rather funky situation after all, how about some Commodores. That girl is pretty cute, maybe I’ll just go sit over there ‘cause she’s a BRICK! (bow wow woooooow wow) haaauuuse. What a classic song, could listen to it for hours on end. This girl is really cute, typical Korean, too bad things didn’t work out with that girl in my class, cutest girl I’ve ever seen, bar none. Puts buttons to shame. Don’t know why that didn’t work out, thought I was really being as much of a stud as three months of Japanese would let me and I’ve got the whole being American thing too, that’s not helping out as much as I was led to believe it would. Apparently I’m somewhat less than the sum of my parts. Interesting concept there, actually hadn’t thought of it in those terms before might be on to something there. But this girl, maybe something will happen here, with me sitting on this bench doing nothing. No doubt she’s sure to notice me, I can’t possibly look like anything more than a haggard traveler maybe I can play the whole sympathy card, maybe she’ll see the tiredness in my blue eyes, eyes like she probably hasn’t seen before, at least maybe not. Assume she speaks English of course. We’ll get to talking, I’ll relate my whole story of struggle and strife here (she’ll think oh no what a sad tale) but of course I’ll always be upbeat and have at least a subtle grin (oh what a strong man to keep a sense of humor) and with sad eyes and smiling face I’ll win her heart, at least enough for the moment and she has a car of course and no scruples so she’ll take me away from this airport for at least a little bit and I don’t care where we go but it would be nice if she lived close by, but not with her parents of course it was bad enough with that girl last night hinting at it was that only last night? What a trip this is, it’s worth it at least for the experience but not yet maybe in a month. But maybe this girl lives close by, alone or with friends that would be nice too, but I don’t really care because all I would really want is a shower and a good meal, but who knows what she thinks of me and who knows but it might be very convenient that I’m not wearing boxers, which is a ridiculously comfortable method of dress providing you don’t jumprope. But that girl is pretty cute, though I don’t think too much is going to happen if I just sit here and wait did she just smile at me? Could have, could have, there was definitely some eye contact there but let’s be honest I’m kind of staring and she probably doesn’t find that too attractive, especially with this six-day shadow I’ve got going on, though shadow is a little generous of a term, never been exactly shall we say overwhelmed with facial hair and I might have more on this day than any day previous in my life, which makes it the wrong time to try to attract this girl, which I’m never going to do anyway if I just sit here because eventually she’s going to leave and yep there she goes and with a few more steps she’s out of my life and I’m all alone again.

And it is a little more lonely in here, don’t seem to be as many people, getting on evening here and I guess fewer flights in the evening. Better get back to the bookstore because I’m running out of time to read and I want to spend as much time as possible reading, because it’s still going to be a long night after 9:00. Would like to finish Dune before my flight, let’s see I can do two more hours and a little bit tonight and then maybe finish up in the morning we’ll see about that, but here I am back at the bookstore and I’ll bet they’re really starting to get tired of me here but I care less and less every time to the point where I don’t even try to disguise my intentions and just plop down and start read read reading and only stand up when the woman starts to mop the floor, still I read read read longer though I do make sure to leave ten minutes before they close because though I can come in the store and take up space with no pretensions of buying anything I couldn’t stand to be asked to leave because they are closing. A man has to have standards, even if they are double standards.

I walk out of the bookstore and now the airport is empty and darker, the last flight leaves at 10:30 I see by a giant screen but there must not be many people on it because half of the few other people I see are security guards. I hope they don’t try to kick me out, I can sleep in the airport, right? I mean I’ve never done this before, certainly not in Asia, and if I were to do it anywhere in Asia I would prefer Japan because although Korea is very nice and safe and the people really are wonderful, no complaints there, I just don’t know how things work over here but I do know it’s below freezing outside and I really don’t want to be evicted from this massive place where it may be boring but at least it’s safe and warm. I guess I could always try to hide, I mean it’s a big place and they don't seem to have too many guards around and even if they did I could surely hide from them because even though I don’t have any ninja training per se I’m sure I could wing it. Might be pretty exciting, really, a little bit of adventure, of course this whole trip has been an adventure though not the kind I usually read about in books or watched in movies or played in video games but still it’s an adventure and I suppose I should just take it for what it is.

Seems to be another group of westerners around, I saw them earlier but they’re still around, I guess they’re spending the night as well. One of the guys has a guitar, maybe we can have kind of a campfire thing going on, sing some songs, share stories could be fun, lot better than sitting around by myself and I know it but I also know that I’m not going to go talk to them because I have some kind of subconscious societal issues but of course I don’t know about them. Maybe I’ll just go for another walk, Seoul Incheon International Airport at night, how romantic. Maybe I can do some deep thinking or something, as if I haven’t had enough time for that on this trip where I’ve had so much time and done so little. Wonder what the second floor looks like at this time of night? Just take the escalator up there

Stand, don’t walk up the escalator I have to command myself. No rush here, don’t have anywhere else to be for still a little over twelve hours, and it’s been almost twelve already and unbelievably my stay here is still not even half over, though it’s getting there and if I can get a few hours of sleep that will help a lot though I still don’t see a great place to sleep, no benches and my best option is these rows of three chairs next to each other, no armrests to get in the way and even if they are made of wood and unpadded and still way too short for me, three of them next to each other is probably as good as it’s going to get tonight. May as well sit down, set up camp, could listen to some more music, could probably listen to a lot of music actually. Might as well figure out how I’m going to lie down, fortunately I brought this travel pillow, well it’s a neck pillow for a plane, not really meant to be used when horizontal but it’s all I have. These chairs are pretty uncomfortable, need some sort of padding maybe my jacket will work, nice to have a fluffy goose feather jacket, it was pretty nice earlier in the week when it was snowing has all that happened in a week? Less, really, six days, unbelievable that so much and so little can be packed and stretched into just a few days. Almost over, though, even if these last few hours are the slowest of my life. Well, they’re probably not the slowest ever, really. That would have been that one English class, senior year, 11:50 to 1:20 was the class and it didn’t always feel too bad but one day it was, and I had this game I would play, probably a fairly commonly played one where every time I wanted to look at the clock I would say no! and resist, because I knew that the next time I looked the minute hand would be that much further clockwise. So I said no, and no and no again, resisting time after time with Herculean force of will and half expecting the bell to ring without me ever having looked at the clock once and wouldn’t that have been something? But I could only hold out for so long and I did finally steal a glance at the clock the way you would steal a glance at a pretty girl in a coffee shop who you knew just didn’t care one bit for you, but I looked at the clock regardless, hands shaking with anticipation of how late it would be and naught had passed but forty minutes. Yes, that was probably the slowest hour and a half of my life, at least the slowest one I can remember and I think that had time ever passed more slowly I would remember that, so at least I won’t forever remember this night as the longest of my life, though I might yet because it’s much longer than any single class could be and it’s not over yet. Still though, so many people in the world have it worse. At least I ate today, how many didn’t? I will sleep safely tonight, how many won’t? Kind of hard to feel bad for yourself when you think about it like that. Damn it though I’m not going to fall asleep anytime soon, gotta be something else I can do. I’ve got a harmonica, could play that a bit, wonder what the acoustics in an airport are? I’m not playing for anybody, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter. What to play? Do I know a song that contains the essence of this trip? The ups and downs and sometimes ups outnumber the downs but not in Nottingham and not here either and I don't really know any songs anyway, so maybe this whole harmonica thing isn’t going to help me out too much, though a week ago I must have had romantic visions of playing it hours on end in an exotic locale which just goes to show that I must really be just about the dumbest person around, at least at this particular moment and that doesn’t make me feel too good and neither do these hard chairs, even with the winter-jacket padding and the neck pillow under the back of my head but I think I am starting to get just a little tired, and I can be just a little more patient, don’t have anywhere else to be until 11:30 am and it’s 1:00 am right now so only tenandahalf more hours and what’s that? really compared to the last few days. Definitely getting a bit more tired…relax. Stop thinking…relax. I think – stop thinking! – that I’m about to fall asleep, just a little more patience and I’ll drift off…yes I will…so close…yes I will…yes.

2010-11-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

Stranger in a Stranger Land

Day Five

Though the pleasant weather continued through the night, no amount of sunshine could have made up for being accosted by the disgusting man in front of me.

“Beeewy goooood!” he growled ecstatically, holding up one wrinkled thumb capped by a calloused, yellow nail.

I was of course back at the Family Mart, where I had returned for brunch after waking up. My body and mind were refreshed, and my spirits had heightened a bit as well.

“Yes, very good,” I replied smiling, holding up my own thumb.

I had just wanted to sit down, eat a little, write in my journal and find out exactly where the Seogwipo bus station was, because unless there was an international bikini competition on the island today, I was getting the hell out of Dodge. Alas, as I was standing up to leave this crazy, homeless-looking man approached me, his greasy black hair barely coming up to my shoulder.

“Yeees, bewy Goooood!” he said again, raising his creased, leathery thumb again, grinning and displaying the few remaining craggy, yellow teeth in his mouth.

“Yes, very good,” I answered again.

He looked down at the floor, hand on his tattered and filthy blue sweater. Then he looked up suddenly and huffed out another laugh – hehehagh – and hugged me.

“Ok, you know what, just get away from me,” I told him, which of course he didn’t understand. Mercifully he let go quickly and departed, leaving me a little more uncomfortable, and a little dirtier.

I walked outside to find the bus station, which I knew was “somewhere around here.” My map did show the location, but not specifically enough for me to zero in on the correct building. After some careful observation, I realized that all of the busses going through the main circle in front of me were local, checked my map very carefully and realized that the bus stop was actually “just over there.” So over there I went and within a few steps lo and behold, I stumbled past a building with busses parked outside. Aha! This must be it! Triumphantly, I strolled inside, walked up to the counter, and showed the woman behind the desk a sheet of paper with the Korean for ‘Jeju’ written sloppily.

She looked at the name, looked at me, and shook her head.

Well, that was definitely not what I wanted to see. What does she mean no? There are no busses going to Jeju, the main hub of this whole island. What kind of place was this, anyway? I hadn’t heard anything about Korea being littered with fake bus stations, though for all I knew that was mentioned emphatically in the travel guide (“The Korean government has scattered the country with fake bus depots because they enjoy causing you pain”). I looked at her again, pointed to the name once more and said, “No?”

She nodded her head in agreement, “No.”

Well that was just too damn bad.

Slightly discouraged, I exited back to the streets. Where was the freakin’ bus station? It shouldn’t be that hard to find. Perhaps it was a secret bus stop, known only to a select group of elites that met rigorous qualifications, such as speaking Korean. With little recourse and less ability in Korean, I resigned myself to asking for help. But who to ask? Did I ask a young person, hoping that he would speak English? An older person, possibly a more sympathetic woman, or would she be more likely to scorn my lack of Korean? Would they hate me for asking? Would they think me an ignorant American tourist? I was an ignorant American tourist, so I couldn’t fault them for that, but could I stand the embarrassment? Maybe I could ask a police officer, like one of those two over there? They’re public servants, it’s their duty, right? But what if they hate me? What if they take out their sticks and beat me? I could defend myself, I guess, maybe turn the tables on them, yeah, they wouldn’t expect that, an ignorant American tourist who just happens to be a MASTER OF MARTIAL ARTS! Yeah, that guy on the right would swing at me, but I’d deftly slip to the side with cat-like agility, grab the stick from his hand and use it to disarm the other guy. No, they wouldn’t see that coming at all. But would it help me find the bus station? Probably not. But I have to ask someone, right? Maybe I should just ask the policemen, maybe they won’t beat me. I hope they don’t.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for the bus station.” I didn’t have anything written down on my notepad that could be of any help.

“Bus Station?” one of them said.

“Yes, I want to go to Jeju.”

They consulted for a moment. “This way,” he said.

We turned and walked back towards the building I’d gone in initially. “Where are you from?” the policeman asked.

“America,” I said. “But right now I live in Japan?”

“Really? What you do in Japan?” This guy seemed to speak decent English.

“I study Japanese,” I answered. I hadn’t talked to anyone since Wednesday, two days ago, and it felt good to get words out of my throat.

“Oh, very nice.”

So it wasn’t a deep philosophical discussion, but I still enjoyed the few words we exchanged before entering the building behind the fake bus station, which naturally turned out to be the real bus station. With no further ado about anything, I purchased a ticket ($10) and got on the bus, which soon departed for Jeju, the city I had stayed in the first night on the island, three days ago. Three days? It’s been forever, a lifetime on this island.

The highway nearly cleaved the island in two, east and west, but bent around the foothills of Mt. Halla, the dominant presence on this drop of land. Grass and sand turned to snow and then back again, and I was back at the bus stop near the Golden Park. I hopped off the bus and hailed the first taxi I saw.

“Airport.”

It was only a ten minute drive to the airport, so I didn’t have to endure too much uncomfortable silence before being let off outside the sliding doors where I half expected to see the Korean guy from the first night still waiting.

I strode up to the counter with authority. “I’d like to go back to Seoul,” I said. After some deliberation, where I had the heart-stopping notion that somehow there were no planes going to Seoul that day, she handed me a ticket.

“Thank you very much.”

Time passed and I landed back in Gimpo airport, in Seoul. So far so good, but what to do now? How about I go to the American embassy and see if they can help? I pulled out a map of Seoul and after expending great effort found the American Embassy, which turned out to be approximately a day away by subway. Fortunately it was very close to the station, just over a block, but as the building came into view I was not encouraged by the forbidding perimeter of Korean policemen completely surrounding the compound.

About a month before I left from Japan, anti-American sentiment in Korea had spiked drastically, and deservedly so, because the military court had acquitted two U.S. servicemen who ran over a Korean girl with a tank. Nightly protests had commenced immediately outside the embassy. While reading the newspaper in Japan I saw a picture of a Korean restaurant with a sign reading “No Americans.” Though the protests had calmed down a bit, Seoul was not as hospitable as usual towards Americans. And to top it off the embassy was under construction, so I had no idea where the entrance was.

“Excuse me, where do I go in?” I asked one of the policemen, who was probably furious that he had to guard the embassy instead of going out and chasing the five criminals in Seoul. He pointed around his shoulder, a gesture that I interpreted as “over that way.” With that valuable information in hand I walked around the perimeter of the building until viola! I saw a small emergency backup exit. I stepped up to the window, tended by the unfriendliest looking Korean I’ve ever see, and asked for help:

“Hi, I just got here and I don’t know much about Seoul, I just want some information.”

He looked at me. “Embassy close,” he declared in poor English. Now, I’m completely objective about the importance of knowing a country’s native language, but since this was the AMERICAN EMBASSY I would’ve thought the guy could SPEAK AMERICAN! What. The. Hell.

“So you can’t help me?” I asked.

“The embassy close,” he reiterated.

So it didn’t seem like I was going to get much help there. As I turned to leave, a short American woman stepped up to the window and began negotiating for something. I walked back around the corner, but had no idea what to do. My grand hopes for the embassy had fallen through, and now I was in the same situation I thought I had left behind in Chejudo, but had even less information about Seoul. Fortunately, as I stood there lamenting my fortunes the woman came back around the corner and we started talking.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m just here from Japan, and I know nothing about Korea, so I wanted to get some help.” Have I had this conversation before?

“Oh, what are you doing in Japan?” she asked.

“Studying Japanese.” This all sounds so familiar.

“Oh, it must be great.”

“Yeah, it’s fantastic.” Woah, déjà vu. “What about you?”

“Oh, I like it here, I work for Samsung.”

“No kidding?” No kidding?

“Yeah, I just went to the embassy because I just got a divorce and I want to get my name on my passport changed.”

“Oh.” What do I say to that? Was it really necessary to tell me, anyway? Couldn’t she have just said ‘I need to fix some information on my passport’? Maybe she’s really happy about the divorce. I’ll bet her husband was a real bastard, maybe I should say “Oh, you must be glad to not be married to that jerk anymore,” and she’ll be like “how did you know he was a jerk?” and I’ll explain my ingenious reasoning. But what if she caused the divorce? Maybe she cheated on him, and that’s why they had to stop. Maybe I should just keep my mouth closed on the subject.

“So what are you going to do now?” She asked.

“I don’t know. I was really hoping the embassy could help me out, so now I’m at a bit of a loss.”

“Do you want to call them? You can use my cell phone.”

“Oh, that’d be great, thank you.’

(Calls embassy, an American voice answers, explains predicament)

“We’ll, we’re closed now, we close at four on Friday, and we open again Monday morning.”

But it’ll be too late by then.

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting from the embassy, but I didn’t anticipate them closing over the weekend. Didn’t stuff happen on Saturday and Sunday? Wasn’t it possible that some crisis might arise? “No luck,” I said to the girl. “But thank you.”

“Sure,” she replied. We started walking towards the subway again.

I then realized I could try to call What’s-her-Face, the girl I’d come over here with. Actually, she’d expressly told me to call her once I got back to Seoul. Her number was in my little book of phone numbers and place names, which was right inside my jacket pocket…wait a second, where is it? I thought I put it right in here? What about this pocket? No…this one?… no…my backpack?…where the HELL IS MY GODDAMED BOOK? WHY CAN’T ONE DAMN THING GO RIGHT IN THIS COUNTRY?

“Oh, I seem to have lost my book of phone numbers,” I said. “That’s too bad.”

“You don’t have anyone to call?” she asked.

I thought. I still had the Mormons’ phone numbers, but I was going to hold off on that as long as possible.

“No, not really,” I said.

“You know, you should go to Itaewon.”

“Itaweon. Is that the foreigner’s part of town?” I’d heard reference to it earlier.

“Yeah, it’s great. Everyone there speaks English, things are in dollars, it’s a good place to go if you don't speak Korean.”

“Well, that would be me.”

We parted ways in the subway station, and I went to the platform to wait for the purple train. I stood there, bags in hand, wondering what I would find in Itaewon. Lots of Americans? What would it look like, would it look like Korea? I guess stuff will be written in English, that’ll be nice. Maybe it’ll be completely unlike…

“Hey, how are you?”

Huh? Did I just understand what someone was saying? It was a random Korean boy, high school aged by the look of him. “Oh, hello,” I said. My first reaction was leave me alone. I’m not in the mood to be bothered by someone, not even someone who speaks OH MY GOD YOU SPEAK ENGLISH HOLY CRAP THAT IS AWESOME!

“You speak English?”

“Yeah.”

“Great, where did you learn?” The train arrived and we boarded, standing up because of the lack of available seats.

“I studied for two years in New Zealand, two years in California, and now I’m going to school in Canada.” He spoke fantastic English, didn’t really have an accent at all.

“Oh, so you’re on vacation now?”

“Yeah.”

We talked back and forth, I explained my situation in Japan, and my hopeless one in Korea.

“I would say you could come stay with me, but don’t think my parents would go for it,” he offered. And he probably meant it. It’s good that he didn’t offer, though, because I would have reflexively refused and then beat myself up the whole night for not accepting. “Thanks anyway,” I said. He got off a few stops later, and I was left to my own devices to get to Itaewon, which I managed to do without any of the characteristic incompetence that had marred the trip so far. Little did I know there was plenty of that to come.

I finally arrived at Itaewon and ascended the stairs up to the streets, which were packed with a delightful menagerie of internationals. Though Asians were the dominant ethnicity by far (naturally, since they are half of the world’s population) the second largest demographic was probably black, most of whom seemed to come from Africa and spoke English with the coolest accent I’ve ever heard, even cooler than the French accent. There were also plenty of westerners (Itaewon is very close to a U.S. army garrison) and I immediately felt more comfortable as I heard conversational streams of my native language rise from all around me. I also heard many other languages completing the international flavor, which was destroyed by a massive, three story glass Burger King. Fast food restaurants really dominated the skyline over here.

Despite the garishness, Burger King was one thing that had treated me right in this country so I headed in, once again neglecting to order any food. Though it was not yet five o’clock, my budget only allowed for me to eat once more in the day, and I didn't want to throw that opportunity away too quickly. Up two flights of stairs was the dining room, sprawling but sparsely populated, with native Koreans being a definite minority. I plopped down at a central table and laboriously extracted my journal from the bowels of my backpack. Once I wasn't standing any more I realized how tired I was: physically, mentally and emotionally. I’d been sleeping poorly, eating maybe one meal a day, with assorted snacks, porting around two bags of useless luggage, and the conversation with the Korean boy on the train coming over was the most significant human contact I’d had in days.

I began recording the day’s events in my journal, every once in a while looking up to exchange a sympathetic glance with an Indian-looking guy a few tables away. There is a definite solidarity between foreigners when meeting in an unfamiliar country. Everyone’s equal here. I began to wonder about his story. Is he a fellow refugee? A washed up traveler in the same straits as I? A lost soul in a foreign land with only the company of other lost souls for comfort? Eventually he came over to me.

“Hello,” he greeted me in mildly accented English.

“Hi,” I replied

“Where are you from?”

“America, but I’m living in Japan blah blah blah how about you?”

“I’m from Pakistan” Oh really I’ve been to India maybe I can… no I probably shouldn’t tell him that “Oh, cool.”

“Why are you here?”

Etc. The conversation proceeded like every other. No new conversations here, just new people.

“Are you eating anything?” he asked

“No, I’m a little low on money right now,” I answered offer to buy me some food please.

“Do you want anything to eat?” he offered.

“No, no thank you” yes I do I’m so hungry keep offering.

“Oh, ok. You sure? I’ll pay no problem.”

“No, it’s all right” what am I doing I’m so dumb and hungry why am I refusing food?

“Well, ok.” Dammitdammitdammitdammit.

As we were talking, a black man, of African origin, came and joined us. He seemed to be friends with the Pakistani guy.

“Hi, my name is Paul,” he said with that deep, round, soothing African accent that sounds so fantastic.

“Kenny,” we shook hands, and exchanged the standard conversation.

“So you don’t have very much money?” He asked.

“No.”

“And you have never been here before?”

“No.”

“Maybe you can get a Korean girl to buy you dinner.”

I thought for a moment. “That would be pretty good.” That’s what James Bond would do, and he’d get a bed for the night as well.

We both laughed. “Be careful, though, they want your passport.”

“Oh yeah?” These Korean girls, you never can be too careful…

“Yeah, they take you around all night and then you look for your passport and it gone.”

“Well, all I want is dinner.”

We talked some more. The Pakistani guy talked me into accepting a drink, so I got a Sprite and nursed that for a while. I asked what they did in Korea: the Pakistani (I never got his name) was a technician, and Paul sold hip-hop clothing. Apparently in Korea there aren’t a lot of people in that business, so simply having black skin provides enough street credential. Then, as if to prove that he was a genuine player, Paul started talking to two twentyish looking Korean girls at another table.

“You speak Korean?” I asked in mild surprise.

“Yes, I speak it very well,” he said. And he seemed to, chatting back and forth with these two girls. Then he turned to me:

“That girl wants too meet you,” he said.

I paused.

“Oh.”

I’m not really good in situations like this, regardless of how much I idolize James Bond. Actually, I hadn’t been in this situation before, in a Korean Burger King talking to a Pakistani and African guy and getting unwanted advances from a Korean girl. Probably a lot of people hadn’t, actually.

“She thinks you’re very good looking,” Paul informed me.

“Oh.”

Things kept getting stranger. I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to meet this girl, especially if she was the type that tried to pick up guys in Burger King. Paul encouraged me to meet her, to get her to buy me dinner, but I declined (this was all very awkward since she was sitting eight feet away). Somehow the situation just didn’t feel right. Despite my best efforts, however, she eventually came over and sat down beside me, with friend in tow.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” I said. The conversation that followed was definitely not typical.

“So, what do you think of me?” she immediately asked, in slurred tones. Apparently we were skipping the small talk. Did I mention that she had a red flush to her cheeks that could only have come from alcohol?

“What do you mean?” I asked through an incredulous laugh, though I unfortunately knew exactly what she meant.

“Well, I think you are very handsome, and nice, and funny.” How she picked all of that up from her seat baffled me.

“Oh. Thank you.”

“So what do you think of me?”

“Ummmm, you’re very nice.” Now, any sensible girl would have recognized that “compliment” for what it was. But not her.

“Oh really! Wow! You are so nice!”

Apparently my plan had backfired. Paul was still sitting at the table, and I looked to him for help, but none was forthcoming. The girl did not speak very good English, and our conversation was limited and laborious, and her friend remained silent. Eventually Paul somehow managed to insinuate that we should go get dinner.

“Splendid idea!” I almost said, but restrained myself. We got up and the four of us exited the Burger King, walking as a group across the street, a touch of optimism warming my soul at the prospect of dinner Allright, I get to eat finally, a real meal, real Korean food, nice and spicy and filling We walked down the sidewalk, which was teeming with people No more rice balls and vegetable drinks We stopped in front of a restaurant Maybe some kimchee soup or barbeque I looked at the restaurant.

A Baskin Robbins?

Why?

We went inside.

I really don’t think this is the place I want to be. It really wasn’t. Yes, I am an avid ice cream fan, but I wanted food, wanted to eat with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls (incredibly clever James Joyce allusion!). We sat down at a table, what the hell was this girl thinking? I’d been dealing with the situation admirably, I thought, but my mental fortitude started to crack. What was going on? We’d moved from a Burger King to a Baskin Robbins, still in Korea still with an African guy and still with this crazy girl hitting on me.

“Ok,” she said.

OK?! What the hell does that mean, OK? I’m hungry, that’s not O-K. What are we doing here?

“Get something,” said the girl.

“I don’t have any money,” I said.

“You need to buy us food,” said Paul. You’re the man, Paul.

“What?”

“Pay for us.”

“I treat you?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“No, you are guys, you treat us.”

Paul disagreed.

“No, I cannot treat you,” she protested. “I am pennypincher!”

Where in God’s name did she pick that word up?

“But we have no money,” emphasized Paul.

“You are poor? I am poor! I am pennypincher!”

“But you should treat us,” he reiterated. I, for the record, was staying out of this conversation.

“No, I have no money! I am pennypincher!”

She keeps using that word. I do not think she knows what it means.

“Actually, pennypincher means you have money, but you don't want to spend it,” I corrected her. Why the hell am I correcting her? What good is that going to do? Why am I compelled to dictate to everyone the proper use of English? Really, could I have said anything more useless? Was correcting this girl’s grammar doing me any good at all?

After a few minutes we realized the futility of sitting in Baskin Robbins doing nothing, so we all got up and left. When we walked outside Paul went his separate way no don’t leave me here alone and defenseless calling behind him “watch out for your passport!”

“Ok!”

And then it was just me and the two girls. I knew neither of their names, they were both intoxicated, both fairly unattractive (considering how rare that would be in Korea, I was really having rotten luck) and one of them insisted on becoming more and more intimate with me as time passed.

“I think you very handsome,” she would say, the words slurring together under the influence of alcohol. What the hell is going on tonight?

We walked around the area, Itaewon not seeming all that big, and me not knowing how to escape without jettisoning my dignity and running, which James Bond would have never done under any circumstances. But this girl kept walking closer and closer to me, and asked me again “what do you think of me?”

“I think you are drunk,” I answered.

She laughed stop being entertained be me “No, I’m not drunk.”

“Yes you are,” I said coldly. “You are very drunk.”

“Nooooo.”

I couldn’t shake her. She dragged me left and right, then we started walking downhill, away from the main street in Itaewon where I felt some measure of comfort. We walked down and down, this is my metaphorical trip to the underworld. I consoled myself. Every great story needs the trip to the underworld. That must mean this whole trip is an epic story, and I am an epic hero. This is not so bad. Then she hooked her hand into my crossed arms. This really sucks. This really really sucks. I want her to cease to exist. Maybe I can will her out of existence. Maybe if I think hard enough about how she doesn’t exist she’ll disappear. If Korean girl hangs on my arm, and I don’t acknowledge her, does she annoy the hell out of me anyway?

“What is your phone number?” she asked.

Yes.

“I don’t have a phone.” I said. Fortunately I was the one person in Asia without a cell phone.

“But I want to call you,” she pleaded.

“What?”

“I want to call you.”

Who is this girl?

“Well, I don’t have a phone.”

“But we can talk on the phone.”

“But I live in Japan.”

“I know, I will call you.”

No. Was this real? This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me.

“Well, that kind of relationship is very difficult,” I said.

After a little more denial, I managed to get her off the idea of us starting a long distance relationship. Then she brought up dinner, a dream I had long ago given up on.

“Do you want to eat?” she asked.

“Yes, but I have no money,” I answered.

“Ok,” she said, “I have money at my house. We go back there, I get money and we eat.”

“Oh, no. No no no no. I don’t want to leave Itaewon.” You are crazy.

“But my house very close.”

“No. Who is at your house?” What is going on?

She thought, which seemed to be getting increasingly more difficult. “Just my father.”

Oh HELL no. I am not going back to this girl’s house, and I’m not going there to have her father cut my head off.

We arrived in front of a subway station. “Let’s go,” she said.

“No!” I declared emphatically, though with a smile. “I’m not leaving.” There was no way I was getting on that train. Not with her, not with anybody.

“Why not?” she whined.

“I’m staying here,” I declared.

“Ok, then I stay here.”

“No.” Sometimes you just have to put your foot down. “You need to go home.”

“No, I stay.”

“No, you go home, and I’m going back there,” I said, pointing uphill.

“No, I go back,” she protested.

“Ok, then I’m staying here.” I was getting rid of this girl right here, even if I had to be an incredible jerk to do it. And I did have to be an incredible jerk, refusing her offers to stay with me until she finally capitulated, though she insisted on paying for me to take the bus back to central Itaewon. I tried to refuse, but one can only hold out for so long. At last, long after this girl had sat down next to me at the Burger King, the bus doors closed behind me and I sat down safe in the knowledge that I would never see her again. But let no one say that I didn’t come back from Korea with a trail of broken hearts behind me.

The bus took me back uphill, but not to where I wanted to be, and I had to guess in which direction the Burger King might be. Fortunately I guessed correctly and soon found myself back on the main street, waiting to cross and standing next to a white guy, which were still few and far between here. We looked at each other a couple times.

“Are you a refugee also?” I asked. What a great way to strike up a conversation.

It turned out that he lived in Korea, a little south of Seoul, where he taught English. We had a brief but entertaining conversation while walking, he told me about living in Korea, how he could save over a thousand dollars a month from his salary, and about the spas where one could stay overnight for just a few dollars.

“I’ll try to find one of those, for sure,” I said.

“Oh, there aren’t any here.”

Foiled again.

After a few blocks we went our separate ways, and I looked to finding some food for myself, despite the very real danger I might have to pay for it. No appealing restaurants jumped out at me, so I settled on a beef and rice box from the 7-11, another convenience store strongly represented in Asia. I walked outside and hunched over the paper container with chopsticks in hand, wanting to wolf the whole thing down but forcing myself to eat slowly, fearing that it might be my last meal for a while. Finished, I turned around and headed back towards the Burger King, where I wanted to hole up as long as possible. Walking there who did I pass but Paul and the Pakistani? They asked me what had happened to the girl.

“She was a little crazy,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“She wanted to call me in Japan,” I explained.

“Did you get dinner?”

“No, I didn’t think it would be very good to keep hanging out with her. I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea.” What a gentleman.

“Oh, yes, I see,” said Paul

The three of us went to Burger King and I sat in my former seat, because apparently I can’t handle change. The situation had grown very desperate. I opened my wallet and saw I only had the equivalent of ten dollars left (though I had a little bit more Japanese currency to exchange) and although Korea was fairly cheap, I had little hope of getting a hotel room for that amount. Oh well. I could always call the Elders.

And I tried to. I walked over to the pay phone on the wall and dialed their numbers, but no one answered. I had no idea if I was even getting a line outside the Burger King, much less to the Mormon church. So much for that idea. I went back and sat down with Paul.

While we talked on and off, another African guy walked past the table and they exchanged a few words in a language I didn’t understand.

“Do you know what language we are speaking?” Paul asked.

I laughed through my nose. “No, not at all.” Knowing what was going on had not turned out to be my strong point.

He gave me the name. “It is from Nigeria. Maybe you do not know much about our country.”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

The other guy came and sat down with us, introduced himself (“Martin”) and the three of us got to talking (the Pakistani had since left). Martin turned out to be one of the most entertaining people I’d ever met.

“You Americans, you are all crazy!” he declared in a rich, booming bass. “This Michael Jackson, he is very popular, yes?”

“I suppose so, yes he is.”

“And he think he is very beautiful, yes?”

“Yes, he certainly does.”

“So why does he have a song, ‘I’m Bad?’ He think he is very good, right.”

“I don’t know why.”

“And all this (he waved his hands at his face) is all not real, yes? He has had much plastic surgery, to be very beautiful?”

“That is very true.”

“But then he goes on stage and sings ‘I’m bad, I’m bad?’ He think he is very beautiful, right?”

“And all the people, they are saying ‘I love you Michael,’ but he is up there ‘I’m bad, I’m bad.’ Why do people love him?”

I laughed, louder than I needed to, “I have no idea.”

He shook his head. “And you Americans, you all have things in your bodies. Metal everywhere. In the ear, in the nose, here, here, here…why do you do that?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, I don’t have any, don’t ask me.”

He went on that tack for a while, constantly asking why Americans this and why Americans that and on and on until in a surge of patriotism I had to tell him about the time Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a dove.

“He did?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And he ate it, raw?”

“I believe so, yes.”

Martin thought for a moment. “Well, maybe he didn’t have a fire, I can understand.”

That one cracked me up.

As we talked, we noticed a man sitting several tables away, alone, having an animated conversation with the chair across from him. Martin said to me:

“You know, in America you say he is crazy, but we, we say he is talking to the Gods.”

“Ah, yes.” He made it sound so good, but for all I knew in Nigeria people who ‘talk to the Gods’ are viciously ostracized.

I talked with them for a while, and Martin kept me entertained until nearly eleven o’clock. But I realized that I would somehow need to find a hotel soon, one that only cost ten dollars. I asked Paul and Martin.

“Yes, we can take you to a place.”

We stood up and left, turning and walking away from the Burger King that had sheltered me for many hours. I was severely hungry, but knew I wouldn’t be able to eat until the next day. We walked on, turning sporadically and not actually going very far, but I had never been here either, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find my way back. After a few minutes, we came to a dingy looking building and stepped inside. Paul negotiated with the manager, and for the low, low price of ten dollars I had myself a room.

Of course, that was about all I had, there being no TV or anything else to speak of. But I didn’t care, I just pulled out my book and read. I also decided that tomorrow, I was leaving. Though it was Friday night and my flight left on Sunday, I was determined to go to the airport first thing in the morning and get on an earlier flight, if I could. Of course, so many things could go wrong. Maybe they wouldn’t let me change my ticket, maybe there would be a fee, which I couldn’t afford. Maybe no plane for Japan left until Sunday, maybe a lot of things. No point thinking about them now, just time to go to sleep.

2010-10-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

Stranger in a Stranger Land

Day Four

Born a Rambling Man

The effects of a good night’s sleep are amazing. I slept solidly through the night to after eight in the morning, no small feat considering my position on the floor. The rest did wonders for me: it brightened my mood, eased my loneliness, and strengthened my resolve.

Specifically my resolve to get off this goddamed island.

In less than forty-eight hours I’d had it with Chejudo. Since I’d gotten here I’d talked to one person, eaten one meal, seen one noteworthy attraction, and had one bit of fun. I was leaving. I was getting on a bus, riding east to Seogwipo, returning north to Jeju, going to the airport, getting on a plane (by force if necessary) and flying back to Seoul. I had no idea what I would do in Seoul once I got there, either, but I didn’t care. I could run to the embassy and bang on the doors, begging them to provide shelter to a wretched, lost American. I could offer to clean floors in exchange for food and lodging. Really, there wasn’t a lot that I wouldn’t do and consider it an improvement over the situation I had gotten myself into.

With little ceremony I gathered my effects and walked back out into the wilderness. The weather hadn’t improved over yesterday. Wind still howled and whipped miniscule pellets of snow across the streets, the sky was still grey and foreboding, and the streets were still empty. The shops showed a few encouraging signs of life, though, and I walked into a general foodstuffs store to look for breakfast. It was sixteen hours since I’d eaten anything but oranges.

I wandered the narrow aisles of the store, waiting for something to jump out at me, the writing on some package, though illegible to me, clearly declaring itself as “the perfect, all-in-one breakfast food for the hungry traveler.” I searched and searched, peering closely at every wrapped item and sealed container, never discovering this ambrosia that I envisioned. At last I settled on some sweet rolls, and thus provisioned went out to wait for the bus, which screeched to a halt in front of me several minutes later. I boarded, confirmed that the bus was indeed heading to the random collection of symbols I had scribbled on my notepad, and settled back into a seat.

Once again, sitting on the bus was heartening. I was moving, going somewhere, being proactive, taking control of my adventure rather than weakly submitting to its will. Though I was giving up on Chejudo, I still had three full days left until boarding my return flight to Japan, and could milk that time like it was a prize cow, squeezing enough excitement out of Seoul to make up for the wretched time I’d had on this island.

The bus kept going. I gazed through the window watching the road unfold beneath the wheels, looking to the side to see bushes and trees with their few remaining leaves illuminated in the sunlight and wait a second did I say I saw sunlight? I did, I did see sunlight, I did see the leaves blowing gently in the breeze, and I did have to avert my eyes from the glare off the blackened surface of the road. How was this phenomenon possible? I wasn’t going to fall for the hackneyed possibility of dreaming. Had I passed over some geographic anomaly in the island? Was the section of road we currently drove over somehow immune to the normal weather patterns of the season and location? How could science explain this phenomenon where the sun’s rays penetrated broadly enough to provide comforting sunshine to this small area?

As I reveled in the change of weather we kept driving, up hills and down country highways, every once in a while passing a house or building or was that a car? It was! A car just passed the bus, putting along in the opposite direction. Could it be possible that I was heading towards a city? With people? Who drove cars? Was it possible that when I did get off this bus, I might not step into an empty street with nothing but the whirling snow for company? Could it be that I might debark at a bustling metropolis, with a native population, stores, restaurants and other mainstays of civilization?

It was possible. The bus pulled into a bustling city square (maybe not bustling in the way that Times Square is bustling, but my standards had changed a bit) where I could see dozens of people bustling about with whatever tasks they had, going to the bank or getting photos developed at the photo shop, mailing a letter at the post office, or getting a snack at the Family Mart. A Family Mart! Fantastic! Sunshine, people, cars, and a convenience store. This day was really going from worse to better.

The bus squealed to a stop, and I climbed down the stairs, relishing the sunshine washing over my face. I was reborn; hope was restored to my journey, someone had seen my plight, had taken mercy on me, sent a blessed wave of warmth to me. Could it be a higher power? Did I credit an omnipotent, all-powerful, all-merciful God for my good fortune, or was it simply the mercurial happenings of the weather, a random coincidence of cloud cover and cold fronts? How did I reward my savior? Was there a church nearby? Maybe, it’s hard to tell in Korea. Maybe I should just go into the Family Mart and calm down, get some food and something to drink, get out my maps and brochures and recalculate my day. I could make a plan…yes!…a plan! Better late than never. How much money do I have left? Not much. How much do I need? Less, I hope. How many days are left in this trip? Three-and-a-half. Really? Yes really. It’s only been three days since I got on that plane? Only three. Only three? It feels like a week. But times of trial always feel long. Not anymore, not on this beautiful day when I have been reborn and hope restored to my journey, when the cold wasteland that I thought this island to be is already fading into memory, and will soon be nothing more than a story to share with friends over dinner, laughing over my follies and insisting “it wasn’t too bad.”

I went into the Family Mart and bought a perfectly nutritionally imbalanced selection of snack food which would constitute my lunch (I had somehow developed a pathological fear of actual restaurants) and sat down at a table. This was the first day of the rest of my life. Where to start? How about with my journal? I had nothing to recount, but that mattered not. This entry would be looking forward, not back, because, really, why would I want to look back at what I had come through? No, this entry would be my plan…what a beautiful word, so simple to spell but so powerful, signifying purpose, knowledge, confidence. And not just a noun, but a verb as well. A word of doing. Not only would I have a plan, a course of action, strategy, idea, design, but I would in fact plan myself. I would then be a planner, a master of events, master of my own life.

I wrote in my journal with gusto, enthusing about the events that lay ahead of me. This section of the island unfortunately did not boast miles of caves or volcanic craters, but did claim to have some scenic waterfalls and views, and more importantly, it had sunshine. I was all set to walk right down to the ocean, seat myself on a convenient rock with a good view of the water, and stay there basking in the sunlight until none remained.

But before committing myself to an afternoon (it was just after twelve) of lounging around, I determined to see a little bit more of the paradise that I had landed in. I chose an arbitrary direction and walked down the large street, past the types of stores and shops that one would find in any small city (I still, even in my rapture, wouldn’t have compared Seogwipo to Miami, not even the one in Ohio). But still I reveled in the activity, and didn’t bother to stop walking until my bags started to bear down on me again. I was really getting tired of them.

I returned to the Family Mart to get my bearings, then started towards Jeongbang waterfall. Fortunately for me, the streets were liberally endowed with signs directing me towards every spot in Seogwipo of any conceivable interest to a tourist, so I had little trouble making my way gradually downhill towards the water. I walked down for almost a kilometer, which means almost a little more than half a mile but really who has any idea? following the signs, turning right and left at their bidding, and then what do you know, there I was. Not at the waterfall, but at the ticket gate to get in. I had to pay less than three dollars to pass through but still, this annoying habit of charging me to see all the tourist attractions was starting to rankle.

Before descending I wanted to deposit my bags somewhere, so that I wouldn’t be encumbered by them if I were down near the waterfall and decided to do something incredibly stupid. Eventually I settled on throwing them into the bushes, having faith that the Koreans were just as honest as the Japanese. Thus freed from my burden, I descended several flights of stone steps to gaze upon the unbridled beauty of nature.

And it was fairly beautiful. The waterfall, though not the largest in the world, was the only seaside waterfall in Asia (a source of great pride to the guidebook), from which the water cascaded in elegant vertical rivers before splashing into the pool below, which led directly to the ocean, maybe only a hundred feet away.

And the big rocks. I love big rocks. For me, big rocks are a way to simultaneously practice being Jackie Chan and almost kill myself. The land surrounding the waterfall was full of them, some loitering delinquently on the ground, others stacked four and five tall against the cliff down which the waterfall fell, so that if someone were ambitious enough he could probably climb up and get a much better view of the waterfall, get much closer, maybe even touch it…

But I never have been that ambitious, and I just wasn’t sure if anyone on this island could read my health insurance card, so I found a slightly drier place to practice my amateur rock climbing skills. Not that it was devoid of excitement, mind you. I have little ability in this type of activity, but still managed to enjoy myself quite a bit, reaching for handholds, contorting my body to get a better angle, put a foot here, grab on to that ledge, climb a little higher, up and up until how the hell do I get down from here? For some reason going up is always easier than going down.

I loitered around on the ground some more, once I’d found it again, and at around 2:30 I decided why see one waterfall when you could see two? and headed over to waterfall number two, Cheonjiyeon.

This one was located about a mile away, maybe two, and there was no lack of signs to point me in the right direction. I walked up and down on Chejudo’s hilly perimeter, the ocean always on my left. Not far from Jeongbang I passed a hotel (all lodging in Korea is easily identified by a symbol, which kept me from inadvertently wandering into who-knows-what, a mafia hideout or something) and I stopped in to check on the rates. Communicating with the woman behind the desk was not easy. She spoke no English, and my inadequacies in Korean have already been exposed, so we conversed entirely in writing and finger gestures:

HER (points to floor) How many nights are you staying?
ME (holds up one finger) One night.
HER (holds up one finger, raises eyebrows) Just one night?
ME (pushes finger forwards emphatically) Just one.
HER (nods head) Ok.
ME (writes symbol for "Won," followed by question mark, on notepad) How much is it to stay here for a night?
HER (grabs notebook, writes "20,000") About 18 dollars.
ME (nods head) Ok.
HER (smiles) Thank you for your patronage.
ME (futilely tries to explain, using emphatic language and broad, sweeping gestures, that I am going somewhere, but I will be back) I am going somewhere, but will be back.
HER (looks confused) You don't make sense.

With another transaction successfully completed, I moved on towards Cheonjiyeon waterfall. It was located inside a long, narrow park built over a river. Nothing too majestic, no priceless photo ops, but nice enough. I’d recovered my stuff, but looked for the earliest opportunity to hide it again, which I soon did in some bushes behind the bathrooms. I carried the important things – passport and money – figuring that if worse came to worse and my bags were stolen, I could live without my jump-rope.

A short, pleasant walk through the park and I was at the waterfall again. To be honest, this one was a little disappointing. Though it had the crucial elements of water and falling, nothing special warranted my attention. I relaxed on a bench, enjoyed the environment, but grew bored quickly. There was nothing to keep my attention here; why sit around and look at a waterfall when I could play around at one? I returned back to waterfall number one.

It was late in the afternoon, but still a couple hours until evening. Already the sky was darkening ever so slightly, and I could feel my good spirits being stolen away. Though in the back of my mind I knew I would eventually have to leave this small spot of paradise, driven to seek shelter in a sterile, unfamiliar hotel room, I was determined to spend every second I could here, clinging to the last shreds of daylight, refusing to submit to the inevitable crush of darkness and the ensuing cold. Maybe it won’t freeze tonight I wished, denying that it was December 26^th. I’ll not leave as long as there is a shred of comfort. I’d better build a fire.

But how to build a fire? I vaguely remembered having a fire on camping trips, taken in elementary school, but I don’t think I had much to do with their construction. I’d made fires at home, in our antiquated wood burning stove, the one that always kept the kitchen so warm, near which I would sit, sometimes alone, sometimes with other family members, reading a book of absolutely no merit whatsoever, a book with a nuclear submarine on the cover, a book where the main character’s name is Stone Cold Slater, one hand holding the pages apart, the other running non-stop shuttle service between my mouth and a one pound bag of M&M’s, sitting there growing bloated, Mom doting on me because I’m the youngest and her only boy, Dad occasionally recruiting me for a manly task: sweeping the roof or chopping the wood or watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. They were probably doing that right now, my family, sitting around the fire, gorging themselves on mom’s apple pie – which is without a doubt the best in the world yes I know everybody says that but I actually mean it – reading literature in the loosest sense of the word, or talking – talking! Having a conversation! In English! – listening to the crackle of burning wood, perhaps occasionally wondering how my few days in Korea are treating me, always the fire burning, Dad finishing the New York Times crossword (with a little help from my sisters) before tossing it into the box where we keep all the firestarters that’s right we use newspaper to start the fire. Well, I don’t happen to be carrying the New York Times. So what to use? I need wood. I need to gather wood. Sticks, branches, small, dry pieces. Hunter-gatherers didn’t need newspaper, I didn’t need newspaper. Pulling out a handy plastic bag – the sole item of any use I carried – I set about collecting any free-floating plant substance that looked fire-worthy to my critical eye.

After gathering a sufficient quantity of twigs, sticks and small branches I began scouting for a place to build my fire. The waterfall presented a bit of a problem, though, spraying water liberally across the rocks, creating a constant mist that would doubtless interfere with my fire-starting efforts. And the wind blowing in from off the water wasn’t helping either. I crawled behind boulders, finding a place relatively secluded from the forces of nature, and got down to business.

But how to start? Did I build a teepee structure? An intricate crisscross of overlain and interwoven sticks? Maybe a wooden lattice, or perhaps I could model my creation after a molecular structure? Carbon, perhaps, seeming the most appropriate. Or should I just throw it all in a pile? No, that would never work. Let’s try the teepee. Big sticks on the outside…damn it’s hard to balance these things…got to get the angle just right…ok put the small one in there…make sure they’ll light up the bigger ones…ok let’s give this a try…good thing I bought this lighter for just such a situation…and light!…damn…this is harder than it looks…and again…yes…yes…yes…good…seeing some burning…the smaller pieces are burning…damn! They went out. I need some paper…what do I have…my Japanese notes!…let’s just rip a few pages out of here…I won’t need these four pages of character practice…ok, time to rebuild this thing. The teepee didn’t work out, maybe I’ll try a lattice thingy. Yeah, I’ve got a good feeling about this…ok, put the paper in there…good, don’t be stingy, plenty more where that came from…and light it…Damn!…I wish the wind would stop blowing this stuff all over the place…put it back together…and light…good…good…keep burning…damn! Foiled again. But when at first you don’t succeed…gotta get this thing going, it’s getting darker…let’s go back to the teepee…use a lot of paper this time, really show this fire (or soon to be fire) who’s boss…damn! Didn’t work. Well, try try again. Very trying. Hey…where did everyone go? Who’s this guy coming down? He looks official…I hope he’s not coming after me…

“Excuse me!”

He’s not talking to me. No, there must be someone else around. Someone else that isn’t Korean, he’s talking to him.

“Excuse me!”

He must be talking to me. I have to go. But I can’t, my fire isn’t built yet…

“It is…five o’clock. We close now.’

Damn, foiled again.

“Yes, allright, I’m leaving.’

And really, it was time to leave. The sky had darkened again, the temperature had dropped noticeably, and I quickly developed a strong desire to get back to the hotel with the receptionist who spoke no English. But as I walked everything seemed different. In the dark of evening buildings no longer resembled their daylight counterparts, hills seemed longer and steeper, and I couldn’t remember if the hotel was before that restaurant or after? Or had I even seen that restaurant before? Was I on the right street? I must be, there aren’t enough streets to get confused. Was the hotel just over this hill? No, maybe a little further…yes, thank God, there it is.

I entered and was shown into a small room, about par for the course, really, with bed, TV and bath. I thanked the woman, she left, and that was it. I was left to entertain myself for the rest of the night. Not a problem, I’d done it every other night. Let’s just turn on the TV here and switch to channel 22 for some mediocre American movies and WHAT THE HELL GODDAMIT WHERE IS CHANNEL 22?!

This TV didn’t get channel 22. In fact, it didn’t get twenty-two channels total, more like five; none of which could provide any entertainment. My world crumbled and fell down around my shoulders. It was not even six o’clock, what was I supposed to do until I fell asleep? I had small hope of falling asleep before twelve, at the absolute earliest, and little to do but read my book until then, or write in my journal, maybe, but I was no Louisa May Alcott (famous for writing fourteen hours at a stretch – by hand) and the day’s events would have to be stretched on a rack to fill up more than two pages.

The night passed slowly. I kept the TV on constantly, but the best I got were sporadic, decades old music videos (“When a Man Loves a Woman,” I was lovin’ it). I was left to read page after page of the Brothers Karamazov, which is an excellent book, by the way. Unfortunately Dostoevsky, as Russians are wont to do, made half the characters in his book utterly miserable; starving, cold, lonely, poor. Not that I was drawing any parallels to my situation, no sir. I was doing just fine here, alone, cold, lost…had I eaten today? I ate at the Family Mart…and I picked up something at the second waterfall, a giant pretzel or ambiguous-meat-dog what do they put in those things anyway or something like that, some snack I would expect to buy at the state fair…was that it? Did that constitute my entire nutritional intake for the day? Damn it, I’m hungry, and it’s only nine o’clock. Should I go try to find a restaurant? How late were they open around here? Could I even find one? Aw, who am I kidding, I’m just going to stay in here, lounging around wretchedly. Maybe I was a Raskolnikov yes I know wrong book, wrong situation, just-bad-in-general-analogy maybe Dr. Zhigavo, he was pretty cold, riding out the whole winter with no food or fire, pretty rough Yes but he had love (some naysayer would naysay), he lived with the woman he loved True but I’ll bet he was still hungry and cold But he had Love with a capital L! But love won’t feed you or keep you warm But they could keep each other warm, cuddle together heated by their mutual passion Not if they don’t eat, humans are warm-blooded we metabolize food for energy no food no energy But passion! what about And passion, that’s out, I have a hard time being passionate if I miss lunch Oh you’re just cynical and bitter because you weren’t swarmed by adoring Korean girls the second your plane touched down Yes that was a bit regrettable, but I’m not holding it against the country So you deny the importance of love? no I deny that it can replace a T-bone steak with a side of mashed potatoes man that would be so good right now I’m so hungry No fair that’s not the same thing Yes that’s exactly my point they aren’t the same thing and who wants to think about that anyway I just want to get to sleep but I’m just not tired and the more I try to sleep the more I wake up, and it’s past midnight and I’m tired of reading this book and tired of being on this island with the constant physical strain and emotional turmoil and tired of talking to myself – outloud even! – because I’m really starting to feel like I’m not a very interesting conversationalist, which might really affect my relationships with people, assuming I ever see people again, with this realization that I’m not quite as interesting as I thought and so when I do see someone and tell them this story will it be entertaining? yes I suppose it will, it will be a good story, and it’s only a few days left, really, not too bad, and I’m definitely going back to the mainland tomorrow, which is only a day away, and maybe the sun will come out, but maybe not and at any rate it’ll never be tomorrow if I don’t get some sleep and end this day that started so well but now I’m more miserable than I have been on any other day since I left Japan and all I want to do is to get some sleep so maybe if I just lie here I will fade away, breath slowly, no rush, inhale exhale repeat ad infinitum and maybe I can just drift away…

2010-10-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

Stranger in a Stranger Land - Day 3

I woke up on Wednesday morning to the sound of howling. My first worry was that the island, which I hadn’t really gotten a good look at the previous night, was overrun with wolves, like in the plot of a B-horror movie. Soon though, I realized that the sound was no animal but the wind, which blew in ferocious gusts down the streets and against the buildings, banging the shutters outside my wall against the windows with a ferocious rattle that jerked me from my slumber.

But so much the better, I wanted to get an early start. After all, I wanted all the waking time I could get on this paradise of an island, which I had yet to see in the daylight. I gathered up my effects, which everyday seemed more and more like a random and utterly useless collection of stuff. I must have sniffed a whole bottle of glue before I packed, because no one with a modicum of sanity would have brought what I did. Though I’m really embarrassed to admit it, I may have been carrying a jump rope. I suppose it would have been useful if I had to, I don’t know, win a jump-roping contest to earn passage off the island, but that’s a fairly unlikely scenario.

I left my room and walked into the lobby, deposited my key on the desk and walked over to the double doors. The scene that greeted me as the doors slid open was not comforting: against a grey world, a cardboard box flew across my vision, skimming along the ground propelled by the gale that blew through the streets, throwing the box helter-skelter and chasing it with a burst of grainy snow. The potted plants beside the hotel were bent practically sideways, and even standing in the doorway my face stung from the hard snow. But it would be incorrect to say it was snowing. Snowing implies soft flakes of snow falling gently from the sky. More accurately here the wind was hurling cold, white sand sideways like a plague of grain-sized locusts across the land. Hawaii this island was not.

Fortunately I rationalize with the best of them, and I just assumed that the weather would be much better at Hallim Park, which was a cave/botanical garden attraction on the western side of the island, all of ten miles away. Chejudo has what is apparently the longest natural lava cave in the world, so I was pretty eager to check it out. Really, the brochure I had for the island was packed with things to do and sights to see, so I was pretty psyched about the whole place. The previous night I had actually sat down and planned out the trip, so I was prepared. And the helpful woman at the airport had provided me with a bus schedule and fare chart, so I knew which bus to take. What I didn't know was where to get on.

The previous night the bus dropped me off just a block away from the hotel, at a stop called Jeju, which was also the bus center on the island. I returned to that general area and went inside the bus station. The walls were generously adorned with bus schedules and station numbers, all written in the alien script that was so popular around Korea. Since I had no other way to cause myself pain, I attempted to figure out which bus went to the caves, which was an exercise doomed to failure. All too quickly I realized I had no choice but to ask the station attendant.

Sounds simple, I know, but see, in a foreign country one can’t just rush into a conversation whenever one wants to. Conducting business requires extensive preparation. Fortunately I had gone to the measures Tuesday night of writing down the names of a few places of interest on Chejudo, so that I could have them at my fingertips. So, empowered and emboldened with what was basically a scrap of paper with poorly written Korean, I strolled up to a female attendant (when in a foreign county, I prefer to conduct my business with women).

“Hi,” I said as non-threateningly as possible. “I’d like to go here,” and pointed to the appropriate symbols on my notepad.

“!”

“Which bus do I get on?”

“!”

“Excuse me?”

“!.”

Then, in English, “Nam-baa ten.”

“Thank you.” I hurried away to bus number 10, which turned out to be behind the station and there is definitely no way I would have found it had I been searching on my own. I boarded the bus - which was of course making the jump to hyperspace as I got one foot on the steps - hoping the woman hadn’t been trying to tell me anything important. As I boarded the bus I also showed the driver where I had written down the name of the caves/gardens, and he nodded his head.

This bus wasn’t in much better condition than the one I’d taken the previous night. It shook, rattled and rolled, bouncing along the road like a box of spare parts being dragged across a cobblestone street. Every time we hit a pothole or other irregularity the bus lurched upwards with the stomach-turning suddenness of a roller coaster and then crashed back down with a sickening crunch the way a cow would if it fell from a plane.

After only a few minutes of the lurching we got to the perimeter road, a long paved circle around the circumference of the island laid only a few dozen feet from the ocean. I forewent reading the Brothers Karamazov for looking at the scenery, which was unfortunately not in its prime. The wind that had blown so harshly outside my hotel earlier in the morning was even fiercer by the ocean, and the small trees were bent nearly horizontal to the ground. In my delusion, I kept expecting the weather to somehow change, as if a ten-mile difference could change the fact that it was the middle of winter and I was on a miniscule island on roughly the same latitude as New York City. I kept on hoping right up to the moment that the bus pulled over at a stand on the side of the road and the driver indicated that this was my stop.

I was a little incredulous at first. I didn’t know exactly what I was expecting, but I know I wasn’t expecting the severe lack of anything that greeted me as I stepped off the bus, which lurched off immediately, leaving a trail of parts behind. To one side was the ocean, to the other a forbidding cluster of low buildings, presumably houses but with no observable residents. The road stretched off in both directions with no indication of which direction I wanted to go, and I wasn’t able to tell either. I’d kind of been hoping for a sign saying “Hallim Park this way,” but none was in sight. I would have been completely at a loss if not for the heaven-sent presence of a Family Mart, which stood anachronistically on the side of the road, its blue and green sign caustic against the generally sand colored buildings, like a lighthouse for poor, woebegone travelers.

The store was only thirty feet from where I stood, but I had to battle the forces of nature every step of the way. Beads of snow swirled around my feet and the wind whipped against me, almost pushing me back several times before I finally reached the doors. I walked inside – I flattered myself that I was the first person of the day – and started browsing for breakfast. The Family Mart is a great little convenience store, with an excellent selection and low prices, but it’s not the place where you get a bacon and egg breakfast with a side of orange juice. I settled on vegetable juice and an onigiri. Onigiri are rice balls, usually filled with fish or vegetables, wrapped in seaweed. So provisioned with a ball of rice and a vegetable drink, never considering that I had absolutely no idea when I might be able to eat again, I set outside again.

I needed shelter to eat the food, so I crossed the road and stood under the awning of what was probably a restaurant, no doubt closed during non-tourist season. Slightly protected from the elements, I opened the onigiri and started chowing down. The snack was satisfying, and stayed my hunger for the moment, so I resolved the find out where these damn caves were, and set off arbitrarily in the same direction that the bus had fled.

I walked doggedly, circling counter-clockwise around the northwestern perimeter of the island. Ensconced in general incompetence, I had no idea if every step I took brought me closer to the caves and presumed excitement or if it only took me further from the Family Mart, my bastion of comfort on the island. The backpack and duffle bag that I had foolishly over-packed with everything but clean clothes grew steadily heavier, and I devised new and clever ways to carry them every minute. After what was really only a few minutes, I saw a roadside sign: “Hallim Park – 0.5 kilometers,” and just a few more minutes later I arrived at the attraction. Excellent. Once again I had triumphed against all odds. Granted the odds were 50-50, but one has to cherish the small victories.

Much to my disappointment, there was an admission fee, but it was less than four dollars, which won’t even buy you an extra value meal in America anymore, so I didn’t mind paying. Carrying my stuff, which I was rapidly starting to hate the way you start to hate a new friend who seems really cool at first but turns out to be really annoying, I began exploring the area. It was a zoo/cave/botanical garden. The caves were what I really wanted to see; the brochure made them seem really awesome. And they were, when I got there, though they weren’t shockingly different from other caves I’d been to. I strolled contentedly through them for a few minutes, admiring the stalactites and stalagmites, along with other random rock formations until I suddenly found myself climbing a set of stairs and going back up to the surface world and WHAT?! THAT WAS IT! TEN MILES OF CAVES AND ALL I CAN SEE IS A MEASLY QUARTER MILE?! I was very disappointed. I had envisioned miles and miles of underground passages, winding down deeper and deeper away from the cold surface of this deserted island and finding warmth under dozens or hundreds of feet of rock and soil; twisting tunnels opening into great circular caverns decorated with outcroppings of strange and exotic rock growths, beckoning me down passages where I could wander enraptured for hours and marvel at nature’s magnificence. Instead I found a quarter mile of interesting but otherwise unremarkable cave littered with a few obligatory graves before being regurgitated up to the surface again.

Fuming I started towards the rest of the park. I was pretty hungry again, so I picked up another something-dog (I still have no idea what they put in those things) from a stand and sat down to eat it. Amazingly, there were a few other tourists in the park, and I eavesdropped on their conversation comfortable in the knowledge that I would never, ever understand it. Korean is not exactly a fun language to listen to, not in the way that French or Italian is. It’s the kind of language that, if it were a movie, would be on “Mystery Science Theater.” It’s a language best listened to with a friend.

After taking a few minutes rest I stood up to continue exploring. The next section of the park was the botanical garden, and it actually turned out to be very, very cool. A narrow path wound through a garden of bonsai trees, carefully cultivated to look nothing like they should. Most people have a general idea of bonsai trees, but perhaps don’t realize the time and devotion that often go into their growth. Bonsai trees are cultivated along a set of guidelines nearly a thousand years old. One studies the art of bonsai cultivation with the same devotion and passion Michelangelo showed to sculpture. With few strict rules but a highly trained sense of aesthetic beauty to guide him, an artist may spend his whole life carefully nurturing a plant, cutting, clipping, and changing every branch to suite an image but never directly opposing the natural growth, only manipulating it.

Despite my relative lack of appreciation for art, I was deeply impressed by the trees on display. Though age is not a requirement of bonsai trees, each one bore a plaque listing the caretaker and the tree’s age. Most were well over a hundred years old, and I stood for long moments before one magnificent tree, tall by the bonsai norm, with its thick, gnarled trunk twisting upwards for less than three feet, the culmination of over three hundred years of growth, sprouting at even vertical intervals three stubby, elegant branches which still bore flat platforms of leaves despite the season. At over three centuries old, this tree had been tended by at least four, maybe five or six people who spent their whole lives preparing the tree for someone else.

Having thoroughly recovered from my disappointment in the caves, and feeling much more chipper about the trip in general, I left the park and contemplated where to go next. I still had many hours of the day left, and there were so many places left to see. As soon as I walked outside the park though, the shearing wind swept away my delusions. I was still on a barren island far north of the equator and it was still winter. I didn’t know where I was headed next, I didn’t know where I would eat, where I would stay for the night, and I still couldn’t speak Korean. I had clearly rushed into this trip with no idea of what it involved.

I looked at my Chejudo map for inspiration. My grandiose plans of the night before had already undergone significant modification, and I was now looking simply for a place to wait until tomorrow. Though it was only mid-afternoon, the sky was already darkening (not that it had started out too sunny to begin with), and it looked like I needed to start seeking shelter. Who knows what horrors roamed the island at night?

The map showed on the southern coast of the island a place called Jungmon, which was labeled as a tourist resort. Excellent, I thought. Surely a self-labeled tourist resort would be well equipped to handle my needs at this desperate hour. The sustenance from the something-dog was wearing off already, and I had eked out all the entertainment from the Caves that I was going to. I walked back out to the road and trudged the cold half-mile against the wind back to the bus stop and sat down to wait for the bus.

Sitting there waiting, I had little to do but pity and blame myself for the travesty that this trip had turned into, and had the bus not come within a few minutes I may have become too despondent to go on. However, once I got on the bus my spirits and optimism returned. True, the first couple of days hadn’t gone too well. True, I wasn’t able to communicate or get around too well here, but I could get the hang of it. True I hadn’t done a good job of planning, or any job, really, but how could I have a real adventure if every step I took was predetermined? And an adventure is what I wanted. Not that I didn’t consider going to Japan in itself an adventure, but over there I had a school and a host family and friends and a usable, if small, ability in the language. Here in Korea I had nothing but a few changes of clothes and a harmonica. But those were the circumstances under which I could find out what kind of man I was. Out of my comfort zone was where my character would see me through or fail me.

Thus inspired I boarded the bus, showing the driver my notepad and pointing to the name of my new destination. He nodded and growled, which was good enough for me, and I fell into a seat as the bus slammed to a start. Once underway I definitely felt much better. Perhaps because the bus was heated. But I also think that moving felt good. While on the bus I knew that I was going somewhere, and though I didn't know what was there, or even necessarily where “there” was, and certainly not what I would do once I arrived, I could imagine that it would be fascinating and unique. On the bus I could envision a thirty degree change in the weather, a miraculous discovery of a bustling population center with friendly, helpful locals waiting to usher to me to a hot bath where I would be cared for by beautiful Korean girls whose sole purpose was to comfort weary, lonely travelers like me.

So don't ever claim that I don’t have a vivid imagination, because what I found was not at all like my vision. The sky grew steadily darker, though it wasn’t quite four o’clock, and I could hear the wind increase in ferocity outside the safe shelter of the bus. After perhaps half an hour, we pulled up to a stop in the middle of a nondescript street with not a single person in sight. Though the road was lined with small stores on both sides not a single one showed any sign of being open, and the doors on most were barred and closed. The sky had grown the color of blue steel, and was every bit as comforting. I didn’t know what Jungmun would look like, but it couldn’t be more dismal than this place.

“!”

I was amazed that anyone could have told me that this place was like Hawaii. What’s more, I couldn’t believe that I had not for one second questioned how an island as far north as New York City could be warm in the winter. It was bad enough to have a miserable time on this trip; slowly admitting to myself that it was largely my fault made it even worse.

“!”

Caught up in my thoughts, I didn’t immediately realize that the bus driver was talking to me.

“!”

This time I looked at the bus driver with that look of “are you talking to me in a language I obviously don’t speak?” He turned around and gestured at me. “YOU,” he said in English. “This you.” We had reached my stop.

Great.

I hustled off the bus, managing to get both feet on the ground before it bolted off. I had been apprehensive earlier in the day when debarking at the caves; now I was positively dejected. If the scene that greeted me there was Antarctica, this was Pluto. Flurries of snow swept across the street, stores and buildings gave no indication of life, and I could see absolutely no one. I think that for many people, to step into such an unfamiliar place, with bad weather and nothing familiar to latch onto for comfort, and not one other person in sight to give the impression of civilization, is fairly rare. I had done so twice in one day.

I needed to find shelter, and quickly. Just a desolate block away from the bus stop I saw a sign: “Coffee.” Exactly what I needed, a coffee shop where I could sit down in warmth and comfort and perhaps find some other people to ask for advice. The sign was above a set of stairs, and after climbing several of them I came to a glass door, through which I could see two middle-aged women sitting by a space heater and chatting amicably. Fantastic. Relieved by my good find, I pulled on the door.

It rattled inside the frame but did not open. It was locked.

“God-damn it!” I cursed through my teeth, utterly frustrated. I looked through the glass again, winsomely envying the two women lounging about inside while I froze to death, lost in a desolate foreign wasteland. What a trip this was turning out to be.

Fortunately for me, the two women noticed my desperate attempts to find shelter in their shop. One came over to open the door, and let me inside courteously, welcoming me in Korean. I thanked her several times as obviously as I could, stepped through the door and got a better look at the coffee shop. It was one large square room, well furnished with couches and soft chairs, all empty save for the two they were using. The woman who let me in gestured for me to sit.

Gosh, I thought in confusion. So many choices.

I arbitrarily plopped down on a couch facing a low glass table. Sighing with contentment and frustration, I removed my many layers of clothes and threw them to the side, glad to be rid of the burden. My possessions had grown steadily heavier, and my shoulders and arms were beginning to ache from carrying them. One of the few useful items I had brought was my journal, and I extricated it from the depths of my backpack. After finding the last entry, I began writing, starting as I always did with the date.

Wednesday, December 25

Jesus Christ, I thought without irony. It’s Christmas today.

My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas as seriously as many do, but like so many we had always used the winter holidays as a chance to reunite and be together (both of my older sisters were in college by the time I went to Japan). When I left for Japan I was prepared not to spend Christmas with my family; I wasn’t prepared to spend it here, alone. This trip had really gone downhill in a hurry, and it didn’t start from all the way up.

I started writing, relating the day’s events, which were lamentably few, making a conscious and barely successful effort not to whine and mope. Forcing myself to keep a stiff upper lip helped, and though I didn’t grow more pleased about the situation I had gotten myself in, I did become more resolved to be a man about it. As I so often do, I turned to thinking about what James Bond would do in a similar situation. Of course, James Bond would never be in the same straits that I was. He would have somehow found the richest, most attractive girl on the island, and seduced his way into her bed at her luxurious seaside mansion before waking up hanging by his hands from the ceiling because she was a plant for a seditious, power-hungry South Korean wedding cake decorator. So I guess even James Bond didn’t have it too easy, though he wouldn’t have spent the night alone, either.

After a few minutes one of the women – we’ll call her Thelma because that couldn’t possibly have been her name – brought me a menu. Now, I don’t want to disparage this action at all. She was doing everything in her power to make me comfortable, and even though we probably couldn’t speak three words to each other, she was utterly concerned with treating me as well as any other customer. Despite my problems in this country, the people were never anything but helpful.

Regardless, bringing me the menu was almost insulting. There was one, small picture of some random dish, and then two pages of Korean script, which is far less legible than Greek to me. She might as well have brought me a menu written in Sanskrit, or hieroglyphics, or written in that African bushmen’s language that’s all exclamation marks. I could only read the prices, which didn’t help too much. I stared at the menu for a few moments, straining to conceive a way to be polite and not end up ordering the “woof-woof special.” My mental gymnastics were cut short by Thelma’s return, and the pressure to order became too much to bear.

“That,” I said, pointing to a completely arbitrary collection of symbols a third of the way down what I hoped was the entrée list.

She nodded and took the menu away. I went back to my journal, but didn’t have too much to write. I hadn’t done too much. Thelma brought me some tea, which I accepted gracefully, then she dragged a space heater over by my side. I thanked her as profusely as I could, horribly embarrassed that I didn’t even know how to say “thank you,” in Korean. Considering that the majority of my friends in Japan were Korean, my lack of knowledge was pathetic.

I finished writing and sat back in the sofa to relax. The soft cushions embraced me gently, and I took a moment to rid myself of some of the tension I’d accumulated. I tried to avoid looking out the windows, but couldn’t help myself. In the blackish-purple light of dusk I could see a lone palm tree buffeted by the wind, bending and waving over the empty streets. At one point I heard the brief sound of some kids, probably three, bandying words, and I was seized by the impulse to rush outside and find them, and force them to keep me company.

My food came, and it was excellent. Of course, in Korea the food tends to be pretty good, and having eaten sparsely for the whole day doubtless helped the taste. I took my time eating; I certainly wasn’t about to rush off anywhere. Once I finished, I decided to get down to business and find a place to stay. When talking to the woman at the airport, less than one long, long day before, she wrote on my notepad the name for the cheapest accommodation available, single rooms usually lent out by a family for a night or two, and costing around ten dollars. But first, I needed to wash my hands. In fact, I was growing generally in need of a wash. I walked over to Thelma .

“Bathroom?” I said to her, rubbing my hands together in a motion that I hoped would make her think of hand-washing.

“?” she said to me.

“Bathroom?” I increased the intensity of my handrubbing.

“.” She replied.

“Uhhh…bathroom?”

“.”

Apparently she wasn’t telepathic. She was still very kind, though, because she brought me a washcloth, so maybe the hand-washing thing had some effect. And when I went to throw the cloth away, I found the bathroom. God works in mysterious ways. Now possessed of clean hands, I showed Thelma my notepad and pointed to the “ultra cheap accommodation” line.

“Ah!” she said, gesturing for me to follow her. Heartened by her enthusiasm, I gathered my effects and trotted out the door after her. We descended the three flights of stairs I had climbed to find the coffee shop, took a quick turn, and I was at some sort of house. A congenial older man came out to greet me.

“Hello,” he said in slightly stilted English.

“Hello,” I replied.

“Welcome to my house.”

“Thank you very much,” I said smiling.

“Why have you come to Korea?” he asked.

I was about out of answers for this question. “I am studying Japanese in Japan,” I said, “and I came here for vacation.” And some vacation it is.

“Oh, very good. I hope you enjoy Korea.’

“Me too.” I smiled.

He led me inside to a medium-sized, square room furnished with a low table, a TV, and plenty of blankets, which he arranged on the floor to form a crude but ultimately very comfortable bed.

“I will turn on heat,” he said.

In Korea the heating commonly runs through the floor, so that it grows warm and then warms the rest of the room. It’s a very effective system, probably saves some electricity, and takes away the problem of having a cold floor under your feet.

“The TV has American movie channel,” he told me. “I think twenty-two.”

“Yes, thank you very much.” I had already become fast friends with channel twenty-two.

“Would you like some Chejudo oranges?’ he asked. I readily agreed. Any food was welcome, and I certainly wasn’t going to refuse his generosity. In a few moments he came back bearing a small boxful, certainly more than I could handle in one evening. I thanked him, he asked if I needed anything else, I said I was fine, and he left.

And that was it.

I didn’t leave that room for the rest of the night, save to use the restroom. I had my journal, which I’d already inscribed with the day’s events, my depressing Dostoevsky book, which was too much effort and too emotionally draining to read, and my harmonica, in case I wanted to play the “A” scale for the next seven hours.

Had it not been for channel 22, I may have gone crazy, and I nearly did anyway because the first movie I saw was Godzilla. The one with Matthew Broderick. Not the best Godzilla movie by any means, probably ranked somewhere between Godzilla vs. Mecha-Gozilla and Godzilla vs. Bambi. Still, it came as great comfort to watch a shamefully bad, overbudgeted, poorly acted Hollywood movie.

The night passed. I ate oranges and watched TV, and when TV was just too bad to watch, I read or did nothing. I’d eaten only one substantial meal that day, and by seven o’clock I was salivating for food. I ate more oranges. They really did taste great, and without them I would have been very unhappy. As it was I was just bored. Save for the brief conversation with the old man who’d lent me the room, I hadn’t talked to anyone all day. And if you don’t realize the severity of that statement, you probably haven’t had the experience. To spend a silent day at home in comfortable surroundings is difficult enough; to spend a day cold and hungry in an unfamiliar country where even if you did see somebody you couldn’t talk to them is exponentially more trying.

Eventually I began to grow tired. After finishing yet another low quality but thankfully American movie, I turned off the lights and attempted to give myself over to sleep. It didn’t come easily, but waiting wasn’t really a big chore; I had nowhere else to be. And in time, my patience paid off. Sometime after midnight I fell asleep, and my day finally ended.

2010-10-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

Day Two

In 2002 I was living in Japan, and took an ill-fated trip to Korea while on break from school. Since I haven't written much lately, I'll be posting the accounts of my travels over the course of October.

A Man Goes on a Journey

On Tuesday, December 24^th, I awoke at around 7:15. I looked around the small but comfortable Korean hotel room where I had spent my first night.

Damn it’s hot in here. I’m going back to sleep.

I awoke again at around 8:30. The oppressive heat had only grown stronger, and I realized that any further attempts to sleep would be futile. Peeling the sheet from my body – the blankets had been thrown well to the side of the bed in a hopeless midnight battle with the demons of humidity – I strode to the small window and opened it, hoping the bitter morning air would help the room.

I was supposed to call my Korean friend today, but I figured this hour was too early, especially as she and her boyfriend had reunited the previous day after three months, and had no doubt “talked” long into the night. I reasoned I should wait until at least ten o’clock, leaving an hour and a half to kill. The first thing that came to mind was taking a shower.

The bathroom in the hotel was splendidly large. There wasn’t a shower stall in the traditional sense, rather there was a body-length bathtub (long enough even for me, though I am significantly taller than most Koreans) and one of those handheld shower nozzles, the idea being to wash yourself clean outside the tub (the floor of the bathroom had a drain) and then relax in the tub. Japan had the same system.

It was quite refreshing, and by the time I emerged the temperature in the room had dropped decently from the morning air. I turned on the TV and wasted some time browsing through the channels. The adult program was still going strong, but I just didn’t have the energy for it at this hour in the morning. I settled for some American movie that didn’t necessarily improve the quality of my life, but it passed the time. I waited until 10:15, then decided to give the Korean girl a call.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure how to do that. I knew her phone number, but the phone in the hotel room had entirely Korean directions. I figured I had to press some button to call outside, but I had no idea which one. Well, it’s usually “0” in America, so let’s try that one, I thought, somehow reasoning that if one thing were to be the same between the two countries, it would be the number you press to get an outside line.

I dialed the appropriate digits, hoping for the best. After one ring, an alien picked up on the other end.

“?” it said, sounding very tired.

“Click,” said the phone.

Ok, that didn’t work out too well. Let’s go to plan B. After a moment, I determined that plan “B” would be to go down to the guy at the front desk and try to get help. There was always a chance that he could speak English or read minds or something. I descended the four flights of stairs slowly, and cautiously approached the employee.

“I want to use the phone,” I said, holding my hand, thumb and pinkie extended, next to my ear for emphasis. “I want to call a friend.”

“Phone?” the man said.

“Yes, I want to call a friend,” I reiterated to be safe. It’s almost unnecessary to say that I was speaking as slowly and precisely as the voice on a “Learn English While You Drive!” tape. “But I don’t know how to use the phone.” I was positive I was using more English than this guy knew, but I certainly wasn’t able to pull my end on the Korean. Not knowing what else to say, I brought out the piece of paper with her (the Korean girl’s) phone number on it, and pointed to the digits. “I want to call this number,” I said.

He looked pensive for a minute, then reached on the counter, picked up a cell phone and handed it to me. I took it and waved it around in the air in what I hoped was the international sign for “it’s alright if I use this?” He didn’t object, so I decided to go for it.

There was one other problem, which was that I wasn’t sure if this number was just for the girl or for her whole family. At best, she would pick up and recognize someone speaking Japanese with an American accent; at worst, it would be her grandmother or something, and I really didn’t know what to do if that happened. I knew the girl’s name in Japanese, but had no doubt it was different in Korean. There didn’t seem to be any other choice, though.

Holding my breath, I dialed the eleven-digit number. After a few rings, someone on the other end of the line picked up. It could have been the girl, it could have been the President of Korea; I sure didn’t know.

“?” it said.

“Uhh, hi. Is What’s-her-Face there?” I asked in Japanese.

“?” said whoever was on the other end.

“Someone-or-Other?” I was trying different intonations of her name, hoping to score with one of them.

“!”

This doesn’t seem to be working, I thought to myself.

“Moshi moshi,” said a familiar voice, in Japanese.

Oh, thank God. “Hello, this is Kenny,” I said, though she had probably already figured that out.

“Where are you now?” she asked.

“In the hotel. I’ve made a plan.”

“Oh good.”

“But right now I’m using the hotel person’s phone.” I tried to explain.

“What?”

I guess I hadn’t communicated that last part too clearly. “Now I hotel person’s phone am using.”

“Ahh, I understand.”

“Will you call me at the hotel?”

“Yes, what is the number?”

I told her the number of the hotel and my room, then hung up, feeling rather exhausted. Thanking the hotel worker in my most articulate English, lamenting that I couldn’t be properly grateful for his lending me his cell phone, I headed back up to my room. She had said she would call right away, but in my experience Koreans have a very flexible view of time and commitments, so I could easily imagine that I might be waiting for a bit. I lay in my bed and she called after about five minutes.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello,” she answered. “You made a plan?”

“Yes, I’m going to Chejudo.” When I said it like that, it didn’t sound like much of a plan.

“Ok,” she said. “I’ll call the airport and make a reservation for you.”

“Really?” I was genuinely surprised. Koreans were really some of the most helpful people on the planet. “That would be great.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up, but she called back shortly.

“I need your name and passport number,” she said. I gave it to her promptly. Then she asked if I had eaten yet.

“No,” I answered. It was getting on 11:00 am, and I was feeling a bit hungry. However, I would need to stay in the hotel until she could call me back with the reservation successfully made.

“I’ll call you back in thirty minutes,” she said.

“Oh good.” And then she hung up again.

I settled down to watch some more TV. I had half a snack pack of Oreos left over from the previous night, and my stomach was growling. Of course, nothing makes a better breakfast than that weird vanilla-fluff-crème sandwiched between two cocoa-dirt wafers, and I gobbled them down with delight.

11:30 came and went. I waited, watched some more TV, and twiddled my thumbs. 12:00 came and went, and still no phone call; I was starting to get a little cynical about Koreans, however helpful they may be. 12:30 came, and still no phone call. I was quite hungry by now, and pretty tired of being in the hotel room. Finally, at around 12:32 the phone rang again.

“I made a reservation for you,” she said.

“Ah, thank you very much. What time is it for?”

“The plane leaves at four-thirty,” she answered. She then said she would come by the hotel and pick me up around two. I said that sounded great, and we hung up. I had to check out of the hotel by one o’clock, though, so I had to figure out where I would spend the next hour and a half. The natural conclusion was Burger King; I could easily sequester myself away in the lavish dining hall for ninety minutes. Maybe I would order something this time as well.

I did in fact order the chicken sandwich set. “Set-to one,” I requested, saying it the way I would in Japanese. Apparently Japanese and Korean are very similar languages, so I thought I might have more luck than with the English method. I also held up my index finger for emphasis.

The cashier nodded her head, then pointed down, asking if I would be eating in, to which I answered “yes” and nodded my head vigorously. Another successful conversation, I was becoming a real pro. The dining hall was basically empty, and I had no problem finding a seat. With over an hour to spend, I did the only logical thing: studied Japanese.

I hadn’t brought much in the way of entertainment to Korea. My Japanese stuff, the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, and a harmonica (why?). After all, the country was supposed to provide for my entertainment. And I didn’t want to lose my finely honed edge in Japanese, so I figured I would make good use of any spare time I had. Unfortunately, at the moment in the dining room two little kids were running around and making as big a nuisance of themselves as possible. They were obviously terribly starved for attention, because the parents did not care one bit what these kids were up to; they just ran around and shrieked for an hour. Had I not been so hungry one of the kids might have become the target of a chicken sandwich. Granted, these kids were the exception. By and large, the kids I saw in Asia (mostly Japanese) were stunningly well behaved and, though it pains me to say it, cute.

So I managed to survive these two bad ones until 2:00, and then headed back to the street in front of the hotel. In case my friend wasn’t exactly on time I pulled out my thrilling, 900 page Russian novel, leaned against a tree, and started reading. The wind was blowing pretty strongly, and though the rain had not continued from last night the air had a cold bite to it. It’ll be nice to get to the warm weather in Chejudo, I thought.

Pretty soon a car pulled up. My Korean friend called me over, and introduced me to the driver, who she said was her best friend. He seemed like a nice guy, besides that he had come from wherever to pick me up. Of course, my sources inform me that Korean girls tend to be a little stronger willed than their male counterparts, so maybe he hadn’t had a choice in the matter. What’s-her-Name told me that they would take me to the subway station, whence I could get to the airport. I said it sounded good to me.

The station wasn’t too far away from the hotel and after a few minutes we pulled, not exactly up, not exactly over, and not really out of the way of traffic, but somehow the car did something to indicate parking. Hoisting my backpack onto my shoulders and carrying my duffle bag with both hands, I walked with the Korean girl into the station.

“You need to go to Gimpo airport,” she told me.

“Ok, how much is it?” in Tokyo, a long subway ride can cost eight or nine dollars. Granted, the subway system there is leagues above almost any other in the world.

“Let me check.” She went over to the counter briefly, then came back. “700 won.”

“Only?” I was shocked. 700 won is less than 65 cents. In Toyko even the shortest trip costs over a dollar, and the longer the trip the costlier the ticket.

“Korea is very cheap,” she stressed, which I guess is one of the reasons they thought it was the best country in the world, aside from its being filled with Koreans.

Saying goodbye, thank you a dozen times, and agreeing to call her once I got back to Seoul, I set off. My subway was on track number five, and fortunately the track number and station names were all written in English as well as Korean. Of course, the names were all alien collections of syllables, like “Buglipusalim” or something like that, so I still had no idea where I was going. The stations were also numbered, so all I had to do was go from station 490 to 513, which turned out to take over an hour.

On this long ride, I was introduced to the main downside of Seoul subways: riding salesmen. What happened was, as I was standing looking inconspicuous, with long blond hair and big nose, blending in with the Koreans like a sumo wrestler at a synchronized swimming competition, a man walked into the middle of the car, pulling behind him a rolling suitcase.

“Anynung has-heyo!” he said loudly enough to be heard over the substantial noise of the subway. He then proceeded to expand on the virtues of his product, which looked like an electric earwax remover, so it’s no surprise that I didn’t see anybody buy one. I felt a bit sympathetic towards the guy, because he probably wasn’t going to meet his quota.

I didn’t really feel like sitting down, so when a seat opened I gestured towards a middle-aged man and indicated he was welcome to take it. In the course of thanking me, he asked if I was going to the airport.

“Yes,” I said (we were of course talking in English).

“Where are you going?”

“Chejudo,” I answered.

“Ahh,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

As entertaining as that conversation was, though, I was glad when he got off the train. Those conversations where neither of you want to talk to each other, nor can you really speak the same language, but feel socially obliged to try, are kind of like pulling teeth, then gluing them back in to be pulled again. Fortunately nothing else cropped up until I got to the airport. I didn't have any difficulty there, either. There were several people working at the counter, and I went up to the prettiest and said I had a reservation. I showed her my passport, she gave me my ticket, and everything was good. This airport – not the international one I had flown into – was pretty small, so I had no trouble getting to gate number two, where I had little to do but wait for the plane, which took off at 4:30. Really, nothing of note happened until I landed in Chejudo, when I realized I had no idea what I was going to do.

I guess I’d been hoping that I would land and the excitement would fall on me like a ton of bricks, but that is not what happened. It was before six o’clock and the sky was already dark. The airport was basically empty, and I didn’t hear any of the ukulele music one would expect of a Hawaii-like island. Oh well, I thought. This is only the airport. I walked over to the tourist information desk to get some advice. I had a conversation in semi-English, but didn’t learn anything useful from it, not that I had any useful questions of my own or anything. No problem, I can handle this on my own.

I walked outside to the bus stops, looking at a map of the island I had bought in the airport. The airport was in the north, and there were what looked like population centers spread liberally on the perimeter of the island. I figured I would just head to one of them. Since I had plenty of time, I sat down on a bench to make some sort of cohesive plan. As I sat there reading, a young Korean guy, probably about twenty-seven, came over to me.

“Can I help you?” he asked in thickly accented English.

Ah, fantastic. A native who speaks English. “Yes, I haven’t been here before, and I don’t know what to do.”

He thought for a long time. “This is your first time?” he asked very slowly.

“Yes,” I answered just as slowly. “This is my first time. What is fun to do?’ I decided to simplify my grammar a bit.

The Korean thought a bit more. “Why you come to Chejudo?”

This was going to be a hard one. “I don’t know,” I said. “My friend told me it was nice.”

“Ahhh,” he said. Then more thinking. Then, “Why you come to Chejudo?” Apparently I needed to slow my speech down a bit.

“I…don’t…know…I…don’t….have….a…reason.”

He nodded and looked very pensive. Then he put his hand on my arm (Koreans are very touchy people) and spoke again:

“Why…you…come…Chejudo? Understand?”

So much better than you, I thought.

“I…

…don’t…

…have…

…a…

…reason…

I…

…don’t…

…know…

My…

…friend…

…said…

…it…

…was…

…nice.”

(A moment’s pause, then: )

“Why…you come…Chejudo?”

I didn’t even answer that one.

A few moments passed in awkward silence. I certainly wasn’t going to make another effort to talk, but he was so nice that I couldn’t just walk away. And since the Koreans are so oppressively helpful, he wasn’t going anywhere either. After some silent deliberation, he gestured towards me. “Come here,” he said. I began following him, and we walked back into the airport, and started heading again to the tourist information center. Oh great, I grumbled to myself. How much less help can I get?

As we approached the desk, the Korean guy started talking to the people behind it and I can only assume he was trying to find someone who spoke good English. Fortunately he succeeded, and a woman – not the same one I had talked to earlier – came over to help me. And she did speak pretty good English. I explained my predicament, and that I didn’t know anything about Chejudo, and that I just wanted some advice. She gave me another map and a very comprehensive guidebook of the island’s various attractions. Then I said I needed a place to stay, and she called a hotel in one of the small cities and made a reservation. With all that completed, she pointed outside and told me to get on bus no. 100.

My brand new Korean friend was still waiting, and I clapped him on the shoulder and said thank you as I walked out the door. Of course, he followed me outside; I was starting to feel really bad about being such a burden for this poor guy, even if he had taken it willingly.

Fortunately, numbers were one thing I could read in Korea, and I sat down on a bench near the stop for the 100 bus. Between my backpack, duffle bag, and bulky winter jacket I was carrying around a lot of stuff, all of which I put down on the bench. The Korean guy was doing I don’t know what, just standing there twenty feet or so away from me. I figured he was being nice and making sure I got off all right, but didn’t he have somewhere to be? I’d been at the airport nearly an hour, and considering that he was just walking around outside when we’d met, he’d probably been there a good bit longer.

Busses arrived quite frequently, and it was no more than a few minutes before I saw one with the number “100” printed on its side. It stopped violently and the doors clanged open in front of my bench, and I figured it was the bus I wanted. I started to gather up my various belongings – which took all of ten seconds – and walked towards the bus, but apparently I was too slow, because the doors slammed shut and the bus took off without me.

“Ahh, what the hell?” I asked myself. It seemed very rude, to me. I had been moving purposely towards the bus, and either the bus driver didn’t care, or he wasn’t paying attention to who may have been boarding his vehicle. Either way didn't seem too nice to me. It wasn’t that big a deal, there would be another bus in fifteen minutes or half an hour, and I’m a fairly patient person, but of course the Korean guy would have none of that.

He came over to me and we established that, yes, I had missed the bus. “Where you go now?” he asked?

“Jeju,” I said, which is the city where my motel reservation was.

As we were having this conversation another Korean guy, this one middle aged, started talking to the first guy in their native language. I can only assume their conversation was something like this;

K2 (older guy): “What happened?”

K1 (younger guy): “He missed the bus.”

K2: “How did he do that?”

K1: “He was too slow.”

K2: “What an idiot. These Americans, they are all fast when they want to get one of our women into bed, but too slow to catch a bus,”

K1: “It is terrible. And they are so arrogant. This one doesn’t speak a word of Korean.’

K2: “Not a word?”

K1: “No. I’ve been trying to help him, but it’s impossible. It’s like they expect everyone in the world to learn English.’

K2: “It is! And I bet he doesn't appreciate all your efforts on his behalf, either.”

K1: “How would I know? He can’t even say ‘thank you’ in our language.”

K2: “That’s pretty pathetic.”

Somewhere in that conversation they also decided that the 200 bus would take me to Jeju. It arrived about a minute later, they talked to the driver, and I got on board, thanking them profusely for their help. After I’d gotten about three steps on board, the driver jammed his foot down on the accelerator, and it jumped forward like we were in a A-1 driver’s education car where the student’s previous driving experience was Cruisin’ USA. I managed to save my dignity by falling gracefully into my seat.

The ride into town was far from luxurious. There was just as much traffic density on this island as there had been in Seoul, and the bus was not in great condition, to say the least. Furthermore, the driver must have been trained in a New York taxi, because he honked the horn anytime the bus

a: was moving and stopped

b: was stopped and started moving

c: slowed down

d: sped up

e: was behind another automobile

Also, in what I found to be typical of busses on this island, it only paused for a few seconds at each stop. Passengers had to virtually dash onto the bus to avoid being left behind. And once someone had two feet off the road that was enough incentive for the driver to dash off again, causing the poor person to flop ungraciously down the aisle to the first unoccupied seat (though sometimes he or she staggered all the way to the seat furthest from me, or at least it seemed that way).

I of course wasn’t sure where my stop was, or how I would identify it once I got there, but fortunately the bus driver and one of the other passengers were well aware of my plight. This passenger was an older man, the transient-looking type, and though he didn’t speak English he was able to indicate to me at every stop that I should not get off. Eventually, he departed, but still to the last moment waving his hands at me in that downward movement that means either “don’t move” or “this is an ancient tribal dance.”

The bus drove further into the island, and buildings and planted trees and other signs of civilization became more apparent. We hadn’t actually been driving for that long, twenty minutes maybe, but of course it felt like much longer. Finally, I glanced casually out the window and saw the sign for my hotel for the night – Golden Park (written in English). One block later the bus stopped, and I figured correctly that we had arrived at Central Terminal, the main bus stop on this side of the island. Gathering my stuff and thanking the bus driver, I disembarked. A quick glance at my watch showed that it was around 7:00, not too late, but definitely past early. And definitely late in the day for what I had accomplished, which was nothing. I looked around. The hotel should be just around that corner…

And it was indeed. I walked through the doors and approached the counter, which was barren except for a key. Probably mine, I thought but where is the employee? As I looked behind the counter, a middle-aged woman appeared from a back room, and we had a nice telepathic conversation.

“Hello.”

“Good evening.”

“You must be the American that the woman from the airport called about?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Ok, follow me.”

She took me around the counter and to the first room in the hotel. It wasn’t exactly a paradigm of luxury, but it wasn’t very expensive either. And it was clean, had a sizeable bathroom, and a TV, so I was content. The only real downside, as far as I saw, was the pink-and-green color scheme, which slightly offended my manliness.

There was a low desk – low by western standards – and I spread the map and tour guidebook on it, preparing to plan my next few days of adventure on this tiny island. But my stomach was growling. I hadn’t eaten since about 1:00 that afternoon, and after a hard half-day of traveling, I was a little famished. By now it was a little after 7:30, and I decided to hit the town. After all, I had spent all this effort to get here, I might as well go exploring.

I stepped outside, turned the corner, and took stock of my options. I could either go left, right, or straight. I’d come from the left, and there didn’t seem to be much straight, so right it was. The air was brisk, and I shoved my hands in my pockets and hunched my shoulders against the cold as I walked. Hopefully the weather would improve, this being a Hawaii-like island and all. The direction I had turned seemed to go slightly uphill, and I trudged steadily along looking for fun and excitement, but there didn’t seem to be too much around. The streets were sparsely populated, and there were no flashing signs advertising…anything. I resigned myself to finding some food, leaving the excitement for other days. But where were the restaurants? I was pretty sure that I was passing them as I walked, but I couldn’t identify any for certain. Not until I got to a sign that said, in English, “Japanese Restaurant.”

Well cool, I thought, maybe someone speaks Japanese in here. It didn’t bother me that it was a pretty long shot, and there wasn’t really much of a point to it. What was I going to do anyway, try to have a conversation? I wasn’t that desperate to keep my Japanese in shape. But humans gravitate towards familiarity, and I went in anyway, coming out a minute later with the knowledge that it was too expensive for me. And nobody spoke Japanese anyway. I kept walking. After a time I arbitrarily decided to turn left. I don’t know why, the feeling just grabbed me. Left turned out to be very downhill, and as I clopped along I started thinking in advance of having to make the return trip uphill. The price I’m willing to pay for excitement.

I walked about ten minutes downhill. There wasn’t a whole lot going on, really. I did pass what was definitely a restaurant, figured I could hit it on the way back uphill if I hadn’t found anything else, and kept walking. Eventually the slope began to flatten out. I passed a luxury resort hotel, with bright lights, palm trees, and a sauna. It looked a little more comfortable than where I was staying, but of course much more expensive. I bet it did great business in the summer. I kept walking.

Eventually I came to a Family Mart, a ubiquitous convenience store chain in Asia that I loved dearly. Since I still hadn’t eaten I decided to stop in and grab a snack. There were a few other people walking around this area as well, certainly more than I’d seen in any other one place on my walk, and it seemed like the power of gravity had compelled everyone in this direction. I crossed the street to the Family Mart.

“Hello!…”

“Hello!...”

“Hello!…”

“Hello!…” someone was talking to me! Walking along in basically a daze, it took me a bit for that word to penetrate my skull. I jerked my eyes from the ground, where they’d been for the last half hour, and turned around looking for the source of the voice. The source turned out to be two young girls. Now, Asians look younger than Westerners – that’s just life – and science has reportedly found the difference to be an assumed four years. That is, a twenty-two year old Asian will look eighteen to a Westerner. Based on my own research over here, it seems about right. It doesn’t help that they all seem to act eight years younger than they should. These girls could have theoretically been high school students, but it works much better to think of them as middle school aged. That’s what they seemed, at least. I said “Hello,” back, and then went into the store, leaving them behind me.

The Family Mart was set up pretty much like any convenience store, and I started wandering up and down the isles at random, looking for something to satisfy my growling belly.

“Hehehehe!”

“Hehehehe!” What the hell was going on? I turned around…

“Nice to meet you!” they exclaimed.

“Nice to meet you too,” I said with a total lack of enthusiasm. This situation supported them being middle school students, because I believe that’s when a lot of Koreans study English. I walked on.

“Hehehehe!”

“Hehehehe!” Not again? I turned around…

“Nice to meet you!” they exclaimed.

“Nice to meet you again,” I said. In fact, I was lying. It was less fun the second time.

I wandered over to the opposite side of the store, where the sandwiches were. As I was trying to decide which prepackaged, tasteless, nutrition-stripped sandwich appealed most to me, a Korean guy standing nearby grabbed my attention.

“Excuse me,” he said in heavily accented English.

Christ, not again? “Yes?” I answered. A glance at this guy was not encouraging. He looked to be in his twenties, and was definitely drunk. Even if the look in his eyes hadn’t given it away, the flecks of vomit around his mouth would have clued me in. I don’t remember the short conversation we had, so I’ll make it up, but let me say that nothing I could imagine would make less sense than what he said.

“Excuse me,” he started, “I, do video…lobster bus stop”

I shook my head, “I don’t understand.”

He got a determined look on his face, like he had an “If you can’t join it, beat it” attitude about the English language. “I…see…onion flags now…mmmmmmmmm.”

“I don’t understand,” I said again. You crazy nut, I added in my head. Offering an apology, I took my sandwich over to the counter, paid (the two girls giggling behind me the whole time), and hightailed it out of there.

I figured I was having so much fun, why quit now? So I kept walking. I only went a few more blocks before I came across someone selling what looked like giant corn dogs from a stand on the side of the street. Why not? I crossed over and began the laborious process of ordering. First I pointed at it, which was a pretty obvious gesture that is understood by everybody. Then I pulled some money out of my pocket, asking how much to pay. The woman running the stand pointed to the shop behind her, which was kind of like a closet packed full of snack food, mostly Korean. So I went in to pay, and the woman in there took one of my 1000 Won bills (The motto of Korea’s tourism industry should be “You don’t have to be a rapper to spend G’s”) and nodded her head affirmatively. She also held up a bottle of ketchup, and I nodded my head. That stimulating exchange completed, I decided it was time to get back to the hotel, and I began the long trek back up the hill, pleased with my find.

Pleased, that is, until I took a bite. It was terrible. At least the first bite was. It got better after that, but it definitely wasn’t a corndog. The outside was right, but the inside was…something else. I didn’t ask, not like I could have if I wanted too, but it has occurred to me that Koreans have been known to eat dog. Now, there’s a pretty low chance that I was chomping down on Old Yeller, but the fact that it’s a chance at all is really too bad. But I was hungry, and I gobbled the whole thing up.

Between the dogdog and the sandwich, my stomach was somewhat satiated, and I began climbing back towards my hotel. The lack of good lighting and emptiness of the streets produced a somewhat sinister atmosphere, making me hope that no North Korean kidnappers were about (a deserted island would be just their style) but I reached my hotel intact.

Once in my room, I sat down with my maps and guidebook to plan my stay on this island. There was certainly no lack of stuff to see: mountains and valleys and waterfalls and caves, inlets and outlets and beaches and who knows what else. I started to get excited. Most of the attractions seemed to be around the perimeter of the island, save for Mount Halla, which was smack in the middle. It was a pretty small bit of land, though, about twenty miles long and maybe thirty-five wide, so it wouldn’t be hard to get around. I discovered I could take a bus in basically a full circle around the island, so I figured I could catch a ride to the vicinity of an attraction and walk the rest of the way. Though the busses were quite cheap (it was maybe fifteen dollars to go all the way around the island) I planned on doing plenty of walking so as to better enjoy the fine weather and scenery of this magnificent place.

All of that planning took me probably an hour. Though I wasn’t too tired by that time, I decided to call it a day. Getting in bed and turning the TV to the American movie channel, I ended up watching the entirety of an old Kevin Spacey movie. I don’t think I ever learned the name of it, but it wasn’t spectacular. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers. The following program was an old Kevin Bacon movie, but I opted out of that. Maybe it was a series of “Movies where the lead actor’s first name is Kevin,” in which case the next movie would have starred Kevin Costner, followed by Kevin Smith, and God knows who else. Popular actors named Kevin don’t exactly spring to mind.

Finally, my senses numbed, I turned off the light. As I attempted to fall asleep I contemplated the next few days. I anticipated nice weather, scenic attractions, friendly and attractive Koreans; things were looking good. Contemplating these wonderful thoughts, I slipped into unconsciousness. Two days gone by.

2010-10-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

Stranger in a Stranger Land

In 2002 I was living in Japan, and took an ill-fated trip to Korea while on break from school. Since I haven't written much lately, I'll be posting the accounts of my travels over the course of October.

DAY ONE

What an awesome plane, I thought as I stepped on Asiana Airlines flight 1213 bound for Korea.

“Nice plane, isn’t it?” I asked my traveling companion.

“Yes,” she replied. “This is the second largest airline in Korea.”

“Oh is that so?’

I was taking off to Korea for a week of vacation. I saw it as an opportunity to spend a relaxing few days in a foreign country gaining valuable cultural experience. I also saw it as an opportunity to renew my visa, since I was living in Japan.

In fall of the year I graduated from high school, I passed over immediately becoming a freshman in college and instead opted to travel abroad for a year. After carrying an interest in Japan for over a decade, stemming from my long involvement in martial arts, I finally managed to pursue my dream. The only snag was that, due to various complications, I was traveling on a tourist visa. And a tourist visa only permits you to stay in the country for three months. Since I was planning to live in Japan for nine, I would have to renew my visa twice; and the easiest method of renewing one’s visa was to travel to a different country and return.

My only possessions were two pieces of carry-on luggage, and I forced my duffel bag into the overhead compartment, the one thing I had seen so far in Asia that wasn’t smaller than its western counterpart. My friend had checked all her luggage. She was Korean, a fellow student at the Japanese language school I was attending, and we’d decided it would be convenient to travel back together. And like all Koreans that I met, she was very helpful. She’d made my reservations for me through a Korean travel agency, probably saving me a sizable amount of money, without me even asking.

We had both completed level one at a Japanese language school, and after studying three hours a day, five days a week for ten weeks our Japanese had become quite mediocre, but it was the only way we could communicate.

“Japan from Korea to how long about will take?” I asked her.

She thought for a minute. “Two and a half hours about.”

“Really? I came America from when fourteen hours took.”

“Really?”

Ok, so we hadn’t mastered Japanese, but after three months of intensive study in Tokyo we could at least talk to each other. And here we were traveling to Seoul, capitol city of Korea, together, though our paths would separate once we arrived. She was going home and I was…well, I had no idea, but I hoped to make it an adventure. Somehow planning hadn’t entered my preparations. I had asked one of the other English-speaking students, a Korean-American girl, for her advice, though:

“Rebecca, what should I do in Korea?”

“You should go to Chejudo?”

“What’s Chejudo?”

“It’s an island a little south of Korea. It’s like Hawaii.”

“Really? Awesome. I’ll go there.”

So I was all psyched to go to Chejudo, and my Korean traveling companion What’s-her-Face (I never could pronounce her name correctly) confirmed the stories.

“Yes, Chejudo is very good.”

“How do I go there?’

“Take a plane. It is not expensive.”

Even more good news! I couldn’t wait to get to Korea. And best of all, in this plane there was a TV in every seat, even in coach, which is what had prompted me to think it so awesome.

Reasonably on time, the plane taxied out to the runway, and the trip was officially underway. After ignoring the safety lecture and listening to the flight details in three languages, none of which I understood, I decided to check out the TV. My traveling companion had not slept well the night before, and was already conked out against the window.

I turned on the TV, after taking a few minutes to figure out how to operate the remote control – how cool is that – stored in the armrest. Once the picture was up and running I was even more pleased. No fewer than ten movies were playing at the same time. About half were Hollywood blockbusters – like XXX – and the others were Asian movies. There were also two old black and white American movies, for what reason I knew not. Given the plethora of choices, it was only natural that I would settle on Spy Kids 2.

The choice was especially ironic because of a brief conversation I’d had with my friend just minutes earlier. Two toddlers were seated behind us and, since they were on a plane and were obnoxious brats whose mother was too lenient – I swear, it wasn’t like this back when I was that age – and because they were sitting close to me, they started wailing up a storm. I leaned over to my seatmate and said, “I don’t like kids.”

I was actually a bit surprised when she replied, “Me neither. I really dislike them.”

“Really? Excellent.” I’m always glad to find fellow sympathizers with the resistance.

But the deep-seated dislike of children didn’t stop me from enjoying the film. As is so often the case with these types of movies, much of it was quite clever. Of course, I wasn’t sure how to explain that to Someone-or-Other when I woke her up with my laughing.

“In the movie, everyone is a child, but it’s funny.”

She just went back to sleep, and I resolved to laugh more softly. With the entertainment of the movie the flight passed quickly, and the meal was decent, consisting mostly of cooked rice and some small vegetables. It wasn’t very filling, but I figured I could eat once I got to Korea.

The plane landed on time at around 5:00 pm, taxiing into Seoul Incheon International Airport. Thanking the stewardess in a variety of languages, we walked off the plane and had gotten about halfway down the walkway when the Korean girl turned to me and asked, “What do you think of the airport?”

“It looks like the one in Tokyo,” I replied, not entirely sure how I could answer that question properly, inasmuch as I had seen all of fifty feet of it.

“It’s only two years old,” she said, obviously very proud.

“Oh, really? Well it’s very pretty and clean,” I added somewhat dubiously to appease her.

Customs and immigration were relatively easy. Having an American passport is very useful at times. The immigration official did seem a bit confused by our conversation, though:

“How long will you be in Korea?” he asked, this in English.

“About one week,” I answered.

“And where will you stay?” the official asked.

I raised my hands, “I don’t know.”

His face adopted a slightly perplexed expression. “You don’t know?” he checked.

“I’m going to travel,” I elaborated articulately, waving my hand in a circular motion as if I were stirring a pail of water.

The official shrugged and stamped the passport, but didn’t look too enthusiastic about my plans. With my long blond hair, a little different even to Americans and an eye-opening shock to Asians, I probably didn’t look too competent. I took the passport and stepped through, finding my Korean companion on the other side.

“Everything is fine,” I assured her, switching back to Japanese like the big bilingual stud I was. “Let’s go.”

And so we did, breezing through baggage claim to pick up the massive bag of clothes she had checked through, and the proceeding to the arrivals gate, where we would meet her boyfriend. Once we arrived in the main floor, she turned to me and said, “Wait here a moment.”

She doesn’t want me to see the joyous reunion, I thought. That’s ok, I don’t really care to see it either. After a minute or so, she brought the boyfriend back to where I was standing. “This is my boyfriend,” she said.

“Anyung has-heyo,” I greeted him, using every bit of my knowledge of Korean and pronouncing it incorrectly. The boyfriend, whose name I never learned, was well dressed and looked like he was fairly well off. That suspicion was confirmed when the three of us got to his car.

“Ahh, nice car isn’t it?” I observed to What’s-her-Face.

“Yes, it is.”

“Is that why he’s your boyfriend?” I inquired as mischievously as the Japanese language would allow.

Laughing, she replied. “Yes, he’s a very convenient boyfriend,” which may have been less of a joke than it sounded. You hear stories…

He certainly was kind to give me a ride, though, and I reflected that the Koreans seemed to be a friendly, helpful bunch. The ones in my class in Japan further supported this assumption, which is why I had no worries about the trip. In fact, the Koreans that I knew were so friendly that one of them invited himself over to my house in America to marry one or more of my sisters. You don’t get much chummier than that. Unfortunately they also tend to be pathological exaggerators, which I was to realize over the next few days. Five minutes into the ride, my friend turned to me and asked, “So what do you think of Korea?”

“I don’t know yet,” I answered, thinking that maybe Koreans have a bit too much national pride for their own good, as if I was supposed to be rubber-legged from arriving in such a fantastic country, as opposed to being rubber-legged from not having eaten since breakfast.

The airport was a good distance from Seoul, and in the heat of rush hour the roads were crowded with typical Asian traffic. Though Korea is not a big country geographically – only slightly larger than Indiana – 48 million people call it their home, and 10 million of those live in Seoul, all of whom were currently on the highway with us. After a while, my friend pointed out the window at a skyscraper, “That is the tallest building in Korea,” she said (I would later read a brochure claiming that this building was the tallest in Asia, which was not at all true). “It’s sixty-three stories tall.’

“Oh, pretty tall,” I concurred, secure in the knowledge that in America, sixty-three story buildings are as common as pine trees.

“America’s tallest building is…?” she asked.

I thought for a moment; it was little over a year since the answer to that question had been changed dramatically. “It was over a hundred floors,” I said, “but then an airplane…”

“Oh, I understand,” she said, completing the sobering thought for the day. It’s never fun to be reminded of such a tragedy, even if it’s one we shouldn’t forget. And with the close proximity of North Korea, I didn’t need any encouragement to feel unsafe. In Japan, North Korea had been on the news daily for three months, after five Japanese citizens who had been abducted to North Korea were allowed to return home. The Japanese had been in North Korea for over twenty years, and their families still were. Though North Korea’s kidnapping had been exposed, the government still refused to release the family members of the abductees. And once the five Japanese returned to their homeland, North Korea increased its efforts to make trouble worldwide. It kicked U.N. inspectors out of its nuclear plants, covered the cameras, withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and told the United States that if we made any aggressive actions against North Korea, then they would turn around and bomb South Korea and Japan. Millions of citizens starve, often eating grass, because all the money in the country goes to support North Korea’s army of one million, indoctrinated on the government propaganda that runs on TV from early morning to prime time. The radios have only one channel, owned by the government. Make no mistake, North Korea is trouble.

We finally arrived at what must have been the other side of Seoul. I was pretty much oblivious to everything, so when the car stopped at some random sidewalk – no more than three inches out of the way of traffic – I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, a situation which was to become quite common. But the two Koreans started getting out of the car, and I figured I should follow suit. It turned out that we were in front of a hotel, the intention being that I should stay there for the night. Unfortunately it seemed to be full, that being one of the problems with traveling around Christmas (it was the evening of December 23^rd), so it was back in the car and on the road again.

For all of five minutes. We very quickly pulled up to another hotel, and this one did have a vacancy. It was a bit expensive – about thirty-five dollars – but I figured I could spare it, being a rich American tourist. The room was pretty nice, actually, and definitely worth the money, so I didn’t mind.

“Alright,” I said. “This is good.”

“Good,” replied my friend. “Make a plan for your stay, and then call me tomorrow.”

“Sounds good,” I said, not really caring that I had no guidebook, map, or knowledge of Korea. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

And they took off, leaving me alone to figure out an unfamiliar country. I wasn’t entirely sure how I would do that, but I figured I would take a walk and try to run across somebody who could speak English, which in retrospect seems like the dumbest possible idea I could have come up with. But according to my sources, a lot of younger Koreans could speak some English. That turned out to be an early case of pathological exaggeration.

It was bitterly cold and drizzling outside, Seoul being nearly as cold as Boston, and whatever subdivision I was in wasn’t the liveliest. My secondary goal was to find some food, because it was getting on 7:30 and I was hungry. After walking around for a few minutes, I found a place where I could take care of both my objectives for the evening: a Burger King.

The Burger Kings and McDonalds in Asia are not like they are in America. In this part of the world they approach what is, for a fast food restaurant, luxury. The size, cleanliness, and service are all far superior to those that I experienced back in America. McDonalds routinely stretch three stories vertically, and the floors shine with cleanliness. In Korea you don’t even throw your cups in the trash. There is a special can to empty the remaining contents, then you stack the cups in a special rack. The plastic tops also have their own special location. It’s a lot of responsibility for the average fast food customer to handle; I’m not sure it would go over too well in the West.

The particular Burger King I was looking at comprised two spacious floors and was heavily windowed, which is how I could spy two white people sitting in the upper dining hall. I figured my chances weren’t going to get any better, so I entered, bypassing the counter where a normal customer would order food and heading right up the stairs. I saw the two guys, and they were sitting with a Korean, which was even better. As I went to talk to them, however, I was struck by a moment of hesitation; I never have been the most outgoing person. I soon realized, however, that I was lost on my own. Nervously, I approached.

“Excuse me guys,” I said, “could you help me out for a second?”

They both looked up. I could see that they were wearing dress pants, white shirts and ties, which should have clued me in that something was terribly, terribly wrong. But it didn’t, because I never pick up on the obvious.

“Yeah, sure,” they answered helpfully. “What do you need?’

Whew, lucked out here, they seem to be friendly.

“I just came over from Japan, and I’ll be here for a week, but I don’t really know anything about Korea.”

“Oh, what are you doing in Japan?” asked one of the guys. I noticed he was wearing a nametag that read “Elder Katz.” Hmm, ‘Elder.’ that’s a first name you don’t run across much. It’s got a nice ring though.

“Oh, I’m over there studying Japanese. But I’ve only got a tourist visa, so I have to leave and re-enter the country to get my visa renewed.”

“Oh, cool. Where are you from originally?” he asked.

“I’m from South Carolina.”

“Really?” he said in the tone of mock surprise that always accompanies finding out where someone is from. “I have a sister in South Carolina.”

Etc. Etc. We did the whole “Where in South Carolina?…Oh really, I have a friend there…yeah, it’s a great state…hot in the summer though…” until I asked “how long will you be here in Korea?”

“Until June,” replied the other guy, who I could see was also wearing a nametag. Hmm, ‘Elder Davis.’ How amazing that two people named ‘Elder’ would end up together in Korea. “Until June? That’s great.”

“Yeah,” replied Elder, “Our mission is…”

Hold on.

Alarms went off, the clues began to fit together. Granted, they should have fit together many minutes ago. Official looking clothes…traveling in pairs…on a mission…both named ‘Elder”…

It could only mean Mormons.

Oh no.

As humans, we are all born with an innate fear of having to listen to someone lecture us on why we should follow some arbitrary person who found stone tablets in mountainsides and then encouraged his followers to marry as many women as possible, when a man’s life expectancy is short enough as it is, and I was no exception. My first instinct, which I am ashamed of, was to flee, and take my chances in the wild. Fortunately it was only a fleeting impulse, and I calmed down and realized that they would have to be pretty hardcore Mormons to attempt to recruit a weary traveler from Japan on the second floor of a Burger King. There was a pretty good chance that they were just nice guys who would help me out, and if I did somehow have to listen to a proposition from them, it would only be fair after they talked to me.

But I never did. The Korean guy (just a friend of the Elders) didn’t speak much English, but in keeping with the characteristics of his countrymen was extremely helpful. One of the Elders spoke pretty good Korean – he’d been in the country for sixteen months – so between the four of us we managed to communicate. Unfortunately I didn’t get much more advice than to go to Chejudo, which is that small island supposedly like Hawaii. The Korean said going east would be a little cheaper, but south would be more fun. So south it was.

We talked for about an hour about random things, family, traveling, etc. They asked me if I knew much about Mormonism, and I answered that I’d had a Mormon friend in high school, which is kind of like saying you have a gay friend to prove you aren’t homophobic. They asked me if I had any plans for Christmas – less than 48 hours away – and I honestly replied that I had none. They invited me to their church in Korea for a Christmas party, if I were to be in Seoul that day. As friendly as they were, I didn’t think a Mormon Christmas party would have been my scene. Probably would have been a great place to meet girls, though.

Before we left, another American came up into the dining hall. “All right, white people!” he exclaimed in a Wayne’s World voice as he walked in, then walked over to another table. I suppose he was another refugee, like myself. He sure looked like one, but I never got to hear his story.

“So how do you guys go about learning Korean?” I asked, genuinely curious, having taken an interest in language-learning myself.

“Well,” answered Elder, “we have the service in Korea, and random bits of church literature are translated.”

“Wow, sounds tough.” It really did, because I was in school three hours a day doing only Japanese and that was challenging enough.

“Well, you work on it, and really, it wouldn’t be possible without God’s help.”

Oh great, here we go,

But my fears never materialized. They never pushed their religion on me, and meeting those two guys really improved my image of Mormons in general. Elder #1 made the point that, “Not everything we do is an effort to expand our membership,” and I believed him.

After we stood up, they offered me a postcard with a picture of the big Church in Salt Lake City, and for all the reservations I had about Mormons, it was a beautiful church, big and majestic, polished white but somehow outlined in a glow of purple light. No wonder they get so many women. They also very generously offered me their phone numbers and extended an offer to “come to any of our churches, any time, or give us a call.” That’s pretty generous.

At around 8:30 pm we all left the Burger King and parted ways, me still having not eaten. On the short walk back to my hotel, though, I saw a small restaurant where the food seemed to average about three dollars. Korean food in Korea is very cheap. Actually, everything in Korea is very cheap, which was quite fortunate for me. Feeling adventuresome, I stepped inside. The food ranged from 2,500 Won ($1 = ab. 1110 Won) to 7000. Of course, everything was written in Korean, which is an alien script of circles and lines straight out of a B-movie. Come to think of it, a lot in Korea could fit that description. I compared the symbols with picture, not an easy task because all the symbols looked the same to me. I saw something I wanted represented in picture form on a wall menu, then checked the name against a wall price listing, and found that it was less than three dollars. Fine with me.

But when I indicated through gesturing (I’m going to be a master charades player when I get back to the States) that I wanted this dish, the waiter or whatever he was looked reserved. Then he opened his mouth and huffed and waved his hands, which indicated that the dish was hot and/or spicy.

I gave him the thumbs up, then sat down. I’d been out with my Korean friends enough that I was well aware of the spice factor. According to my sources, Korean guys are fairly competitive, so when I went out to eat with them I made sure not only to order the hottest food available, but also to douse it with extra spices to prove my manliness. So I was all prepared for whatever came out of the kitchen, but after a minute the guy came over to me and – I don’t remember how he did this exactly – informed me that the kitchen wasn’t making that dish tonight. That was too bad, but I had no problem ordering something else. What I did have a problem with, though, was when five minutes later he served the couple sitting in front of me – a Korean couple – and gave them the dish that I had ordered first. I don’t know if he was trying to protect me or just didn’t think that I could handle it, but I certainly didn’t appreciate it. The food I did eat was pretty good, and I handled the inevitable spiciness well, though I did need to refill my water glass several dozen times.

I finally returned to my hotel room, which was as hot as a furnace. My programming as a male forced me to turn on the TV, and I was pleased to note that I had an abundance of channels, then disappointed to note that two of them were computer gaming channels. Korea is the biggest nation in the world for computer gaming, so much so that the most successful players become celebrities who are actually recognized on the street, like basketball players, and hounded for autographs. And apparently one very dedicated gamer died after a marathon 86 hour session, fueled by caffeine and extreme dorkiness. Unfortunately, watching two people stare at computer screens was not my idea of quality evening entertainment. I scanned through the other channels, noting a 24-hour adult channel which, in a HUGE strike against Korea, was no more interesting than the video games. I eventually settled on a Steven Segal movie, to continue the theme of poor movie choices.

In due course I turned off the light. It had been a long day, and I had many more ahead of me. Listening to the steady drizzle outside, interspersed with sporadic traffic, I contemplated what the rest of the trip would be like, which was not easy since I had no idea what I would be doing. Slowly I drifted off to sleep, and with that, the first day was over.

2010-09-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Travel Light

Overnight flights always seem like a great idea before you get on the plane. Then you realize that you have to pass a few fitful hours sleeping upright in a tight chair with no legroom, shoving your forehead against the window trying to find just the right angle. But fortune was on my side, because in the seat next to me sat the Holy Grail of airline travel: a cute girl.

She was traveling with her older sister, who had a 15-month old kid, who was mercifully unconscious the entire time. I used the sippy cup in her seat pocket as an excuse to start talking, and everything took off quite well. After some initial exploratory flirting, wherein I was even more charming than usual, we got to the standard airplane questions:

Me: So where are you from?

Girl: Connecticut.

Me: And what were you doing out in LA?

Girl: We came out here for a Dave Matthews concert.

Me: (Facepalm).

When I first started talking to this girl, I obviously held out a bit of hope that she was traveling to Raleigh as well, and was a bit disappointed to hear she lived in Connecticut. But once she told me about the concert, my first thought was it's just was well.

“Does he not tour on the East Coast?” I asked. I don't know if she detected the edge in my voice.

“Haha yeah. My sister's been to like, seventy of his concerts.” She referred to the kid, “He slept right through it.”

“Yeah, that's probably what I would have done.”

I was deterred, but it's a long flight and you have to pass the time somehow. We talked a bit more:

Me: What do you do out in Connecticut?

Her: Oh lots of stuff.

Me: Ok, what's the most interesting?

Her: Well, we're Jehovah's Witnesses.

Me: (Double facepalm).

Disappointing as that was, it's really for the best. After all, I won't see her again unless I go to a Dave Matthews concert. So in other words, I'll never see her again.

2010-08-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

Approval Pole

A fitness poll dancing studio in Canada has started offering classes to kids. Already I approve. I know it seems scandalous, but as people get older they usually give up on their childish pursuits, so in this case it's a good thing. I mean, how many 19 year-olds do you see “paying for school,” by playing hopscotch? Predictably though, the studio has raised some ire among the stuck-in-the-mud, out-of-date bigots who see something wrong with 4th graders twirling around a pole in a class called Promiscuous Girls.

The studio is run by a woman named Tammy Morris, a former exotic dancing champion. She sees no issue with kids learning how to pole dance, saying there's nothing about the activity that's inherently erotic, arguing that kids will see the same “apparatus” at the playground. I now realize that nine-year old Canadian boys are going to have much more fun on the jungle gym than I ever had. Her attempts to describe pole dancing in neutered terms are...unsuccessful, to say the least. Here's a representative gem:

“I challenge anybody who has anything to say about it being a bad thing or a sexual thing or ‘how can you let your child do this?’ to get up on the pole and try to pull their legs over their head.”

Well! Anybody who didn't already think there was anything sexual about the pole certainly does now. I mean, for god's sake, how can she say that sentence with a straight face? There is no guy, anywhere in the world, who could take that statement as anything but innuendo. For example:

Tammy Morris: “I challenge anybody to get up on the pole and try to pull their legs over their head.”

The Pope: “I challenge you to get up on MY pole and pull your legs up over your head.”

Ok, that may have gone too far. I don't think Tammy is the Pope's type.

Anyway, just because something is physically challenging doesn't make it non-sexual. Removing a bra with your teeth is damn hard, but hardly innocent. But there's nothing erotic about pole dancing, because, “Kids love the pole.”

As do adults, Mrs. Morris. As do adults.

Her studio doesn't do a good job of hiding pole dancing's carnal nature, with class names like the aforementioned Promiscuous Girls, and Sexy Flexy. “Children have no erotic association with the pole whatsoever,” she says. The goddamned class is called Sexy Flexy! If they didn't have an association before, they damn sure will after they see the name of the class!

Before I set Mrs. Morris in the pillory though, I have to acknowledge the similarities of my own work. I teach Krav Maga to kids as young as five, and sometimes people ask if it's too violent, or should I really be teaching kids to hurt other people? And it's a valid concern. Krav Maga is a military style, born from and steeped in violence, and no matter how much I present it as self-defense, or character building, or fitness, that association is always there. People don't seem to mind as much, and I'd wager the reason has less to do with it being a more wholesome activity than with our unabashed cultural love of violence.

So my issue here isn't the young age of the dancers (I mean, I'm not completely ok with it, but logic and perspective keep me from condemnation), it's with the hypocritical defense of pole dancing. So what if it's sexual? It's 2010. Women can have fun and get exercise however they damn well please, and if it gets a little erotic along the way, then so be it. But to say there's nothing inherently sexual about pole dancing? That's like saying Krav Maga isn't inherently violent. Yes it is. That's the whole point. We don't go out and hurt people, but everyone in my class likes feeling that viciousness, that edge. And the reason these women (primarily women, I mean. There are no doubt male pole dancers out there as well, to which I say, how many poles does one man need in his life?) the reason these women enjoy the exercise of pole dancing is because of that same reason: the edge, the danger, the taboo. I get it; it's fun, exciting, a touch illicit. Were it just about the exercise, there are cheaper gym memberships out there.

On the occasions I have heard a girl talk about a pole class, or cardio strip, or any variation thereof, she always has to emphasize, “It's not about the dancing, it's just a great workout.” Why can't it be about the dancing? I mean, the only reason people work out is to be sexy anyway (just admit it), so really, these women are just being efficient. Like if guys worked out by riding horses.

This pole dancing dispute clings to a larger issue: are kids being sexualized younger? That's a hard question. I was about to do some internet research, then realized I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a dark federal prison so desolate that toenail shards were my only friends. Of course, everyone thinks kids are being sexualized more than ever, but people always think things are getting so much worse, oh my goodness this world is just going crazy, this never would have happened when I was growing up, etc. That manner of agitation is almost inevitably false, so they can all shut the hell up until they come up with some facts. And if they want to prove their hysteric myopia, they can search around on the internet until the FBI comes knocking.

I can at least discern the anxiety over children's sexuality has a long history. Shirley Temple was accused of, at the least, being too sexy back in the pure days of 1937, and the language used to describe her would get you chased under a bridge today:

“Her admirers—middle-aged men and clergymen—respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire.”

At the time of this quote, Shirley Temple was nine-years-old. Wow that's creepy. And that's an actual quote, published in an actual magazine. I don't think anyone could get away with talking that luridly about a child today. It's possible that, at the least, we're more sensitive and protective of kids' innocence today.

It's hypocritical to just slam on pole dancing, and not just for me. Kids much younger than nine are reading the Bible, and there's some really vulgar stuff in that one. Lot and his daughters come to mind, and Jesus hung out with a prostitute. But the people who send their kids to Bible school (or Krav Maga class) say it's all about the context. Well, Tammy Morris can use that argument as well. And no matter how we pretend, children aren't innocent little cherubs ruined by a vulgar society. Kids – even very young – fight, lie, and steal without ever being taught; they can pick up plenty of bad habits on their own.

Declaring something taboo, especially based on age, is one of the biggest temptations you can dangle. D.A.R.E was a disaster, and the drinking age is an inconvenience, not a deterrent. I don't think that, were I a father, I'd sign my daughter up for pole dancing. But I don't think that would stop her from learning about it anyway. And I can't say that it's worse than coming to my Krav Maga classes, or playing video games, or paintball, or going hunting. They might get teased a lot in middle school, but everybody does. And if it helps them stay fit, and get confident, that is a big mitigation to the libertine nature of the activity. I think most girls who take those classes will grow up just fine, go to college, and contribute to society in more ways than just climbing around a pole on a stage.

And ultimately, they'll always have a skill to fall back on when they need to pay their way through school.

2010-08-12T13:41:00.001-07:00

I Don't Know What Reverse Sexism is, But it Sounds Hot.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, I stumbled across a great essay entitled, "5 Stupid, Unfair, and Sexist Things Expected of Men." Written by a self-described feminist named Greta Christina, the essay collects and analyzes input from the men in her life on what they feel it means to Be A Man. I'm not clear if, in her essay, Mrs. Christina uses “man” to mean “male human,” or more more specifically “Man,” like Steve McQueen. It doesn't really matter, because the goal of every male human is to become a “Man,” so the two definitions are ultimately the same. Rather than tease them out one at a time, I'll just pull the band-aid on all five expectations: Be willing and able to fight; Be a good partner, but don't care too much what women think; Be hot to trot all the time, with anybody; Keep a stiff upper lip; Be afraid of being perceived as gay.

Now, I can't claim to be an expert in the field, but I can tell you one of the key tenets of what it means to Be A Man is, “Who cares what it means to be a man.” Masculinity is about action, not self-reflection. I appreciate that Mrs. Christina extended the same concern to men's issues that she does to women's, but whether because of bad input or bad analysis, this essay just doesn't hold water. And while it's not very robust to get wrapped up in a discussion of maleness, I'm willing to trade some of my vast stores of excess masculinity to warn other, less assured guys off a perilous path of misconceptions. Let's take each issue one at a time:

#1 Be Willing and Able to Fight

I definitely agree that fighting is heavily conflated with masculinity, but it's not about simple violence. Never back down? Certainly. That seems pretty manly. But there are more ways to “win” a confrontation than beating the crap out of someone. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” Yes, most males would rather win a fight than lose, but society esteems just as highly the man who can resolve a dispute with clever words or action. Odysseus comes to mind here. Men certainly should not jump to violence, but we all want to be strong, able to protect ourselves. And what if you have to defend a lady? “Yeah baby, sorry that I didn't protect you from that guy who stole your purse and slapped you around, but with these new progressive gender roles...it just wasn't an option.” That's not enlightened, that's just weak.

“But Ken,” you say, “women aren't weak, passive creatures anymore. We don't need men to defend us.” I agree completely. Were I out with a girl, and we were accosted by a villain, I would definitely let her have first crack at him. But on the off chance that I had to step in, I'd want to be capable. As long as she can hold out long enough for me to watch his moves for a bit, see how he fights, I should be able to finish things up.

#2 – Be a good partner, but don't care too much what women think

The basic concept here is that men have to navigate a fine line between being sensitive to their partners, and being independent. Mrs. Christina notes that men who rely too much on their girlfriend's advice are considered "pussywhipped" by his friends. I'd say the problem here is with the guy's friends, not society. They're probably just bitter because they're single.

She refers to a former husband of hers, ridiculed at work for considering her opinions: “Of course, while it was horribly unmanly for him to be guided by his wife, it was perfectly fine for him to be guided by the guys he worked with at the auto shop.” Small-minded sexist mechanics at an auto-shop? Ridiculous! And even if they'd all gotten Ph.Ds in Women's Studies from Warren Wilson College, I have yet to discover a group of guys who, when left to their own devices, will not mercilessly insult each other. Maybe the problem wasn't society's expectations, maybe the problem was this guy couldn't take a joke.

The problem with this “expectation” is that it links two disparate qualities: being perceptive and being independent. Those are not mutually exclusive, they're not even related, and I think it's perfectly fair to expect men to balance both. We expect women to balance modesty in public with wanton sexual abandon in the bedroom (or living room, or kitchen, or car, or just around the corner from the public) so it's only reasonable.

#3 Be Hot to Trot, Always and With Anybody.

This expectation is just flat out wrong. While a strong libido and sexual prowess are certainly correlated with Manliness (not as a component, I think, but actually as a byproduct), indiscriminate fornication is just stupid. Here is a representative concern from one of the surveyed: "Have sex with any woman who says yes, or who offers herself. If not, I must be gay, right?"

I honestly have no idea where he could have gotten that idea. Indiscriminate sexual activity is for rabbits; men have standards. You don't see James Bond bagging a lot of ugly girls, I can tell you that much. And at no point in my life have any of my friends, even the most earthy, said, “Hey Ken, remember that girl from last night that was all over you? The heavy chick with one eye? Why didn't you take her home?”

Certainly charisma and seduction are prized qualities in men, but that's a far cry from being a desperate, panting dog. There are many famous movie characters who seduce stable after stable of women, but when the movie really needs to make a point that this guy is A Man, he turns one away. As with so many of these other expectations, it's really about control. Having sway over others, and control of your own base instincts, that makes you a man.

#4 Stiff Upper Lip

Men aren't supposed to be emotional. Well, yeah. That's different from not having any emotion, it just means have some discretion. I really don't see what the problem is here. As quoted by a guy in her survey: "No whining, no complaining, and no crying." YES! I concur in the strongest possible terms. At this point in her essay, I start to suspect that many of the respondents were not necessarily disagreeing with their own points. After all, if I ever meet the guy who says, “I hate not being able to whine, complain, and cry,” I will punch him in the face and then sleep with his girlfriend. Certainly lots of guys complain all the time. We call those guys, “Not men.”

There's also a failure to distinguish between “being emotional,” which is bad, and showing emotion, which is fine. Men show emotion all the time, whether it's pride in their child's accomplishments, sadness at the passing of parent, or passion for a worthy cause. Those aren't the same as crying when your get rejected by a girl at the bar. No decent man has ever punched his buddy in the groin for subtle tears at a funeral. But over the demise of a ten-day relationship? That's not even an excuse for drinking.

#5 Be Afraid of Being Perceived as Gay

Well this is easy. Straight men are only afraid of being perceived as gay if they're insecure about their own masculinity, or if they're just ignorant bigots. I firmly believe that we only fear the accusations that have elements of truth, so if you're not gay, what's the harm? If you're not homophobic, it shouldn't be a big deal, and if you are homophobic, you're certainly not a Man. Men aren't afraid of things that are a little bit different.

A buddy of mine and I in LA used to do this routine: If we were going to some shop together, like Coldstone Creamery (already you can tell we don't care if people think we're gay), we'd get to the counter and the following exchange would take place:

Cashier: Are you two together?

Me: Yes, but we're paying separately.

Everybody: (Raucous, confident laughter).

Tons of guys pull routines like this, and who cares? The only time I'd be worried is if confronted by violent homophobes, but that wouldn't really be an issue because I could beat them all senseless, then sexually satisfy their girlfriends (without giving a damn what said girls think), all without getting the least bit emotional.

Also, does this qualification mean that gay males can't be men? I know gay guys who can fight, manage their emotions, and hell, even get any woman they want. Going all the way back to the first point about fighting, a man shouldn't be afraid of much, and certainly not of some idiot's opinion.

That covers the five points from the essay. Honestly they all seem to come down to insecurity, which is absolutely the least manly characteristic out there. It's part of the human condition of course, but any male (or female, really) should strive to overcome it. All these qualifications and expectations come from the men in this writer's life, and them seem almost...feminine in their anxiety. Maybe they're gay - NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I'M TOTALLY COOL WITH GAY PEOPLE, EVEN THOUGH I PERSONALLY AM NOT GAY AT ALL, NO SIR NOT ONE BIT, I'M ALL ABOUT THE LADIES: YOUNG, OLD, BIG, SMALL, I'LL GO WITH ANY OF THEM....oh damn. I fell right into that trap. Maybe society's pressures are more cunningly affecting than I thought.

Nah I'm kidding. All this talk and analysis is really just nonsense. This whole discussion on Be A Man reminds me of the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching: “The way that can be spoken of is not the true way.” The more you talk about Manliness, the farther away from it you actually are (which means I'm quite distant, at this point). There's a reason I used Steve McQueen as an example: his sort of effortless cool is what it means to Be A Man. When Mrs. Christina asked all her male friends what they felt was expected of them as men, they could have just sent back pictures of Cary Grant, Sammy Davis Jr, John F. Kennedy; After all, it's a lot easier to give examples of "men," than to explain the qualities that makes them so. (I don't mean to focus on celebrity types, it's just that their images and easy for us to recall. I'd quickly put – for example – Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, and George Orwell on that exalted list as well). Their character is always just beyond description. Entire books have been written on Marlon Brando, but no amount of explanation will clarify him.

Of course, it's much easier to tear down someone else's argument than make one's own. It wouldn't be fair – or masculine – for me to get out without putting my own opinions on the line, so now it's my turn to present, “5 Fair, Reasonable, and Enlightened Things Expected of Men.” Here we go:

#1 – Do your own thing, and do it well.

#2 – I think we're done here.

2010-08-06T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hip to be Square

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: It's a really obscure number, you probably haven't heard about it.

People just do not like hipsters, myself included. I pride myself on being on the vanguard of the anti-hipster movement, in fact, I was hating hipsters before it became popular. I don't have any particularly clever reason, I just despise the way they dress and their terrible music. That seems a little shallow, and it definitely is. But hipster hate is more than just a personal opinion; it's like the way that baseball fans from all over the country hate the Yankees, except that the Yankees have money and accomplishments. But why? What motivates this universal disdain?

I notice that hipsters are not, generally good looking. To be fair, most people are not good looking. But most people will make the best of what they have: wear clothes that flatter, or at least obscure; carefully apply makeup, or make sure their facial hair, if existent, obeys certain aesthetic guidelines. However hipsters have clearly decided to fight fire with bigger fire. Apparently being attractive is too mainstream. I mean, skinny jeans? You'd think they have slightly more muscular legs from riding fixed wheeled bicycles everywhere, but somehow the guys are so skinny that even jeans that would be tight on a flamingo droop off their sad, featureless bodies like old curtains. And the only reason hipster guys aren't immediately thrown in jail on suspicion of pedophilia, based on their horrid mustaches, is that none of them look like they could overpower a child. “But they're just expressing different aspects of themselves,” you say. Yes, the aspects that suck.

For all my strong opinions, I realized that I'm not sure I've ever actually interacted with a hipster. Not in depth anyway. I did go out a couple times with this girl: on our first date, she ordered a PBR. Also, she called movies, “Films.” Let's just say those are two warning signs I will never again ignore. But maybe I'm being too harsh on the group. After all, it's hardly fair to criticize a whole subset of the population with whom I've had no direct interaction. Maybe I should learn a little bit more before making baseless, overarching generalizations. I didn't even know where hipsters came from. I knew the term had been around since the 1940s, maybe it was a really cool culture that's being ruined by an overexposed minority. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say about the original hipsters:

Initially, hipsters were usually middle-class white youths seeking to emulate the lifestyle of the largely black jazz musicians they followed.

Ah, so they're always been posers. Well, so much for giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.

While doing this research on what constitutes a hipster, I found that some people take hipster analysis VERY seriously. Whole academic articles with formidable jargon, and it struck me that, for all the derision, hipsters have done a great job of swinging cultural attention towards themselves, even becoming the foci of such eminent social commentators as myself. I also realized that, when I think of a hipster, what comes to mind is more of a caricature. Now I'm starting to think that, what I think of as a hipster, isn't a hipster at all; it's just a sad parody, like high school sophomores who wear tye-dye and patchouli and think they're hippies. There might be authentic people out there who wear keffiyeh for the warmth, and genuinely appreciate the atonal squealing of Vampire Weekend, but do it much more subtly, and honestly, than the person who comes to mind when I think of hipster. I doubt it of course. I mean, there's not much to enjoy about hipster culture when you take away the trappings of obscurity (let's be honest, indie bands aren't little-known by choice), but I suppose it's possible.

Regardless, I realized it's time for me to care a little less. Hating hipsters is like hating penguins (except so, so much easier). There's no reason. I can't interact with them, and they're really only part of my life if I look up pictures of them on the internet. I'm now disappointed that such an ineffectual group of people has become such a cultural talking point, and since I certainly don't think they deserve anyone's attention, it's time to stop giving them mine.

And who knows, next time I run across some hipsters (they're not actually all that common in the wild) I might actually talk to them, and see what they're all about. Maybe it's time to reach across the aisles and find out that we're not so different after all. Am I worried than any hipsters might see this blog and get offended? Not a bit. I know that at least ten people read this blog. That makes it way too mainstream.

2010-08-01T21:06:00.001-07:00

Common Sense

Of all the two million articles on Wikipedia, the absolute best is the “List of Common Misconceptions,” which may as well be called, “List of ways to sound like an arrogant know-it-all.” Which is awesome. I've already got the arrogant part down, I may as well know what I'm talking about.

Some misconceptions are mostly harmless. The idea that George Washington had wooden teeth, for example. He had fake teeth, yes, but they were made were made of, “Gold, hippopotamus ivory, lead, and human and animal teeth (including horse and donkey teeth).” So basically, the father of our country propagated the grills that would become so popular among two-bit rappers in contemporary times. He's not the only skewed historical figure: Napoleon was actually quite average in height, at about five and a half feet tall, very reasonable for his time (current American men average about 5'9”). No great harm in the error, but his legacy as a great general is tarnished by association with, “Short-man syndrome,” which is in itself a myth. So that's a myth-within-a-myth.

Other fallacies generate the reaction of, “Surely that can't be a common misconception.” For example, apparently a significant quantity of people think it's easier to balance an egg on its end on the first day of Spring. This is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. I mean, just look at an egg! The myth is based on the fact that the Earth's axis is perpendicular to the Sun on the equinox. I was actually unfamiliar with the whole concept of egg balancing before this Wikipedia article, to be honest. I probably tried once or twice when I was younger, but in my opinion, eggs are not for balancing. Eggs are to take up the rest of the space on the plate not occupied by bacon.

But there's a whole world of egg balancing enthusiasts out there, leading to the natural conclusion that for these people, their eggs are the only things that are balanced. There are two types of people who try to balance eggs: Wide-eyed children, and wider-eyed adult lunatics. To believe this myth requires not only a general ignorance of gravity and astronomy, which is disappointing but believable, but also some sort of geometry myopia, where you can look at a smooth, round egg and think, “Yeah, this would stand upright.” You can, of course, balance an egg given the right circumstances, which are flat or bumpy patches on the shell, and/or bumps and divots on the balancing surface. But for a worrying mass of people, simple aberrations in the egg's surface are what they think of AFTER insane cosmic alignments.

Some misconceptions are sad in the way that they prevent people from understanding the world. The idea that humans evolved from monkeys (instead of descending from a common ancestor) is sadly prevalent, even among people who accept evolution. I suppose the deniers would continue to deny, even if they were denying the right theory, but at least the correct concept would be out there. And they wouldn't be able to shout out that, “My grandfather wasn't a monkey!” nonsense that is somehow true and ignorant at the same time.

And some seem like they better not be misconceptions at all. The idea that airplanes throw their human waste from the toilets out of the plane while it's flying? Who would think that? For you to believe in a myth, it has to make sense to you. I don't want to meet the person who, when asked, “How would you dispose of airplane waste?” comes up with, “Throw it out the hatch.”

Not every misconception is harmless, though. Actually, I'm not sure that any are, but some are demonstrably injurious. Columbus wasn't ahead of his time in understanding the shape of the Earth; no educated person of Columbus' era thought the Earth was flat. You'd think this fallacy wouldn't have survived long, but even modern textbooks recreate it. Although it has since been rectified, even the AP US History textbook – one that I remember well from my own high school – made the error.

The problem here is people have the idea that Columbus bravely and brilliantly realized the shape of the Earth, and it elevates him as an adventurous hero, instead of a selfish and ruthless conqueror. In fact, he grossly miscalculated the circumference of the Earth, even though a Greek named Eratosthenes calculated it to extreme precision 750 years earlier! But today Columbus is well known and, if not revered, he has a day on the calendar; far better than he deserves.

Another great misconception? The Immaculate Conception. Most people think it refers to the virgin birth of Jesus, but actually it refers to Mary's conception devoid of original sin, in preparation to bear Jesus. It's a religious myth with a long and fascinating history, but for now it just needs to exemplify that even passion and belief don't inoculate us against error.

There are dozens of other misconceptions listed, and the list is nowhere near complete. I have no doubt beliefs of mine will end up on that list one day, and when I discover them I'll be extremely grateful. And I definitely want to catch my own errors before someone else does it for me! Jarring as it is to have a long held certainty exposed, you can't object to the truth. As said by the eminently quotable Carl Sagan, “It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” He always expressed things so nobly. I'll add my own addendum, not as virtuous, but very relatable: Sometimes the facts aren't as exciting as the fiction, but knowing the truth, and reveling in your intellectual superiority over others? That's the most satisfying of all.

2010-07-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

You Are Always Fine

When someone asks, “How are you doing?” the most negative answer you are allowed to give is, “fine.” Apparently many people are unaware that the phrase “How are you doing?” is not actually a question, it's a rewording of, “Hello.” Because let's be clear, unless it's a really close friend of yours on a sympathetic day, he really doesn't care how you're doing.

There are exceptions, of course. If you have just lost a family member then of course we couldn't expect you to be “fine.” I mean, that would just be rude to the deceased. If your house recently burned down in a fire, feel free to say, “I'm ok, although my house did recently burn down in a fire.” HOWEVER, please don't mope about it too much.

If you simply must express anguish, say that you are “tired.” Tired is an excellent catch-all description for everything from, “The dog kept me up last night,” to, “I got fired from my job for refusing sexual advances from my worthless boss then when I told my girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse that I'd been fired he/she left me and said that he/she had been cheating on me for months now but was just staying with me for the financial security and so I've been drinking a lot and taking a lot of amphetamines which are keeping me awake at night and so I'm pretty tired.”

If after you say, “Tired,” the other person foolishly asks, “From what?” you may be tempted to launch into a detailed recounting of your various trials and tribulations. Don't. That would be the most callous and selfish action possible, punishing your friend for her kindness. Instead just say, “Oh, you know, the usual stuff. It'll pass.” After all, you're already a loser, don't be a whiner as well. This stoic response spares your friend the agony of attending to your issues, and establishes you as the strong silent type. That way when your adversities eventually surface, you'll look more like the strong silent type and less like a mewling child. However, if your sounding board then persists, “What's the usual stuff?” all bets are off. After all, you gave her two chances to back off, so go ahead and open the floodgates.

My late, great Karate teacher, Ridgeley Abele, had many wise and pithy quotes. Of all the wisdom he bequeathed one sentence at a time, here is my favorite:

Your life doesn't suck, you suck.

Fifteen years later I still revel in the sublime beauty of this phrase. At first it may seem like an insult, but that's far from the mark. It's a simple expression of personal responsibility. Although we are subject to the vagaries of life, ultimately the only control we have is our own actions. So when I ask someone how he's doing, and he says, “I'm terrible, I'm stressed out and blah blah blah,” all I hear is, “I create problems for myself that I can't deal with.” After all, most of us aren't dealing with malaria, or bombs landing in our neighborhoods; we're dealing with annoying bosses, congested freeways, and unrequited loves. So to me, bemoaning one's discords is almost an omission of inadequacy. Certainly one that I commit on occasion, but I bite my tongue to the best of my abilities, and on those rare occasions when I do pour out my troubles, I always feel worse afterwords; lesser, like I should have been tough enough to stay quiet and I wasn't.

Your role model here should be Jack Bauer, who has responded to the following list of adversities with, “I'm fine.” : Betrayal of a close friend, betrayal of a boss, betrayal of the President of the United States; being shot, being stabbed; seeing a friend stabbed, seeing a friend shot; stabbing a friend, shooting a friend; being blown up, failing to prevent someone from being blown up, intentionally blowing up other people; kidnapping, torture, staged death, and real death.

I can hear the whiners now: “But Jack Bauer isn't a real person.” You know what I say to that? Stop complaining. I have to get inspiration from somewhere, and it sure as hell won't be from a bunch of malcontents who can't even obey unspoken rules of conversation. It's a trade, you pretend that you're fine, and the other person pretends that he cares. And to address the final issue, what about good friends who really do care about how you feel? Well, first off, if they're your good friends, why would you assault them with your problems? Simply relaxing and having a good time, taking your mind off your troubles, is a lot more therapeutic than complaining. And if they really are your good friends, should they even have to ask?

2010-07-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

Raise Yourself Up

I'm always looking for new exercise routines, and I was running out of ideas when another friend's Facebook page led me to the Body Gospel. It seems the Christians are expanding; it's not just music anymore! Body Gospel is the “First faith based in home fitness program set to incredible gospel music that makes it easy for beginners, and effective for everyone.”

It makes sense, Christians have a long history of hard training; I mean, fighting a lion to the death certainly puts cardio-kickboxing to shame. And I'm sure carrying that cross was a hell of a workout. The Body Gospel looks a little more tame in fact, as far as I can tell, the program doesn't do much with its central conceit. There's a prayer before every workout, and it's set to Gospel music. So basically a standard home workout DVD with the wretched pop music replaced by wretched gospel music. The workout itself seems pretty generic, comprising – according to a review - “Dancing, clapping, singing, and even stepping!” WOW! Even stepping! Talk about inspired! That all seems sadly generic, with no suggestion of any Christ-specific exercises (“Extend your arms straight out to the side! Hold them there...now to work on your balance, cross one foot over the other!”)

I wouldn't tease the Body Gospel without doing some research, and it turns out there's a whole world of faith-based exercise out there. Of course yoga mashed up exercise, spiritualism, and bad music eons ago, and a cursory search of the internet revealed both Jewish and Muslim workout routines, as well as religion-appropriate workout gear. I will concede that, while I think faith-based workouts are laughable in their premise, anything that helps inspire people to work out is fine by me. Motivation is always the sticking point of getting in shape, and as someone in the field, I appreciate all methods. I just think that the Body Gospel isn't quite going to cut it. Fortunately it's not my nature to sit around and complain without being proactive. I've come up with my own faith based workout plan, one that I think provides a much more well rounded and enlightening approach to fitness. For marketing reasons I didn't want to limit it to just one religion, so I have developed an integrated plan based on several major faiths:

***

Monday: Let's kick the week off with inspiration from the guys who built the pyramids! Somehow Jews have gotten a bad reputation for an aversion to physical labor, but you wouldn't hear that complaint from the ancient Egyptians. This workout is old school: All you need is one heavy sandbag and a table. Hoist the sandbag on your right shoulder, then drop it on the table. Drag it back to the floor, and repeat on the opposite side. It's a little monotonous, but when you start to flag, imagine someone whipping you. Need more help to keep you motivated? Throw on the soundtrack to Disney's Prince of Egypt.

Tuesday: The Eastern Orthodox Church devotes Tuesdays to John the Baptist, so it's time to go swimming! Go down to the local YMCA and jump in the pool. Don't know how to swim? Not a problem, just thrash around like a poor, confused little child who has no idea why he's being thrown underwater repeatedly.

Wednesday: Wednesday is “Hump day,” which means camels, which means the middle east, which means Islam! Today is a day of fasting. Eat small amounts of fruits and vegetables, with one slice of bread for breakfast. Smoke a hooka to suppress your appetite. Your body is still burning from all the workouts though, so have as much skim milk as you like.

Thursday: Since Thursday means “Thor's-day,” today is all about the hammer! Get a good-sized sledgehammer and start smashing it into a tire. Don't count reps or time yourself, just go crazy. Ideal music for this workout will be the anguished screams of women and children, but Limp Bizkit will suffice. This workout is very intense, and you'll need to replenish your body, so go to the store and just eat whatever the hell you want, right there in the store. If someone complains, let them know that you're a god-damned Viking warrior, and if they have something to say, they can say it to your hammer, which you are still carrying.

Friday: We'll travel east today to draw on the long Indian practice of yoga. Intense training like we've done all week is very hard on the body; the smooth stretching in yoga will relieve tension, increase flexibility, and strengthen you in ways neglected by the higher-impact exercises. It's truly one of the best things you can do for your body, as evidenced by it's long survival into modern times. After all, yoga predates almost every current religion by thousands of years! Mindless chanting is the preferred soundtrack for this workout.

Saturday: We don't want to neglect our non-believing athletes, and what better day for them than Saturday, named in a very secular manner after the planet Saturn! I don't have any recommendations for this workout, because why the hell would you listen to some impersonal authority figure you've never met? Just do whatever you want, and listen to an audiobook of Richard Dawkins..

Sunday: Rest and recovery are just as important to getting stronger as the exercise, and one out of three gods recommends taking this day off. Make sure to get plenty of sleep. Turn off your alarms, draw the shades, and don't get out of bed for ANY REASON AT ALL until you are totally rested.

***

And that's it! I apologize in advance to the Body Gospel, and all the other faith based workouts that will soon go out of business after I release my fitness plan. I'm sure they'll rise again! No I kid, there's enough fat people for every religion to have plenty of exercise members. The Christians will do very well with aerobics, and will no doubt soon expand into weightlifting, yoga, boxing...you name it, they'll bless it.

I think we can be pretty certain, though, that they'll never get into Pilates.

2010-07-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine asked me to write a fairy tale about kittens. That's a little outside my usual genre, but it's always good to stretch. I hope you enjoy:

Pet Peeves

There were ten cages at Pet Peeves. All ten used to be full, but now it was just Aberdeen and Tommy. Well, there were plenty of other cages holding hamsters, gerbils, snakes, and water cages holding fish and turtles, but Aberdeen and Tommy were the only cats left. Aberdeen missed the other cats, it used to be so exciting, but one by one they were adopted, and so it was very quiet.

Tommy was no help. He'd long ago given up on being adopted. When people came into the store and started playing with the cats, he didn't even perk his ears up. “Who cares if someone takes me home,” he said. “They'll probably just put my food way up on the counter and make me jump up to get it, like my last family. That's the last thing I want to do when I'm hungry.”

“You want to just lie here in a cage for the rest of your life?” asked Aberdeen. “Don't you want to run around and chase mice and tear things to shreds?”

“That's what I used to do, and then my family took my claws out. That's probably why I could never catch that damn red bug that was always floating around. I swear, so many times, I thought I had it. It would sit there on the ground, twitching, and I snuck up on it so slowly. Oh, back in my day I was quite the hunter!”

Aberdeen but her head down on her paws, steeling herself for one of Tommy's long stories of questionable veracity. Talking about himself was the one thing that got him excited.

“Every fur on my body would be still as I crept up on that pest. Why, if you'd been watching me, you would have thought I was a statue! There was no way that bug could have known I was behind it. And finally, after incredible patience, I'd pounce on it like you've never seen!”

“Yeah, if I saw you moving fast, I definitely wouldn't believe it,” said Aberdeen, but Tommy was too caught up in his story to notice.

“I'd land on it, but as soon as I did it was gone. Sometimes it was just a few inches away, sometimes it was all the way on the wall. I have no idea how it did that. Not even I could move that fast! And sometimes it would be sitting there right on my paws, like it was mocking me.”

Tommy continued, but Aberdeen had zoned out. She'd heard the story a bunch of times before, not just from Tommy, but from any of the other cats who'd had owners. Apparently every house had a big problem with quick red bugs, and no cat had ever – EVER – caught one. Aberdeen knew that one day, she'd get to live in a house, and if that house had red bugs (which seemed likely), then she was going to be the first cat to catch one.

Diana, the woman who ran the pet shop, came over to feed them. Aberdeen liked Diana the best, she always brought her treats, and knew exactly where to scratch behind her ears. “Hey Aberdeen, how are you doing?” said Diana. Aberdeen of course didn't know what she was saying, but the way she talked always sounded nice, like everything was going to be ok. “It won't be too long sweetie, I promise.” Aberdeen ate her food, and put her head down. She was tired, but didn't want to nap. If a human walked in, Aberdeen wanted to be perky. She was frustrated, but she wasn't giving up like Tommy.

- - -

The shop was getting pretty empty. Every time some person came in and took a gerbil, or a hamster, or a snake, that cage stayed empty. Diana used to put another creature in the cage, but lately she'd just been leaving them vacant. “She's closing up,” warned Tommy. “This happened to me before, at the last store I lived at. There were fewer and fewer of us, until one day he just turned the lights off and put us out in the street.”

That all sounded pretty bad to Aberdeen, but of course with Tommy, you never knew what was true. He had so many crazy stories there was no way they all actually happened.

“It was just four of us. Two cats, a dog, and a ferret. And if wasn't long before the dog ate the ferret. Everyone says ferrets are all smart, but it seemed to me like he was more tasty than anything else.”

Ok, now he's definitely making it up, thought Aberdeen. At least, she hoped he was. She didn't remember much about life before the pet shop, but she had flashes of living on the street. Hungry and wet from rain. It might be quiet and lonely in the store, but it could be worse.

- - -

One day a person came into the store. Aberdeen couldn't remember, but it seemed like it had been a while since someone had been in. The woman walked straight over to Aberdeen and started petting, and cooing in an enthusiastic tone. Aberdeen instantly flushed with excitement, and then tried to check herself. She'd been here before, with a human lovingly petting, scratching, talking, every sign pointing to this day being the last day she woke up in that cage, in this store; and yet Aberdeen was still here, and the other cats were gone.

The woman then walked over to Tommy and tried petting him. But Tommy was having none of it. He halfheartedly batted a paw, then slumped down again. Aberdeen felt bad for him. She understood he was worn out and disheartened, but you have to keep trying! The woman walked over to Diana at the counter and they started talking. The woman looked excited, and kept pointing at Aberdeen.

Aberdeen tried not to get her hopes up. Yes, it was just her and Tommy, and as much as she respected the old tabby, who was going to take him home, honestly? But she'd gotten her hopes up too many times before. The woman gave Diana some money and came back over to Aberdeen, reaching in to pet her again, and then finding that spot behind her ears that only Diana knew. Diana must have shown the woman! Aberdeen couldn't hold her excitement in any longer, she knew she was leaving the store today. She fantasized about food on high counters, and red bugs, and couches (whatever those were, Tommy had never really explained), and cat doors and scratching posts, and all the other things she rarely dared to dream of any more. They flashed before her eyes in beautiful pictures, as the woman leaned her face in close, kissed Aberdeen on the nose, and walked over to Tommy's cage and carried him out of the store.

“I'm sorry sweetie,” Diana said, coming over and scratching her ears. “I'm sorry.” Her voice was sweeter than ever, but it wasn't soothing today. Aberdeen didn't think everything was going the be ok.

- - -

Aberdeen and Diana were the only living creatures left in the shop. Diana turned the lights out. Aberdeen kept her head down. She knew she was going back into the streets. She would have rather stayed in this cage for the rest of her life, which probably wouldn't be that long once Diana left. After all, she didn't know how to find food, or clean out her litter box. And it was so lonely, even Tommy's company was looking pretty good right now. But he'd been taken to some other family, to begrudgingly jump onto a counter for his food, and chase the red bug around the house. Maybe he'd finally catch it, Aberdeen thought. Someone had to, and it wasn't going to be her.

Diana came over and opened the cage door. “Hey Aberdeen,” she said, even more softly and sweetly than usual. Her voice still sounded nice, but for Aberdeen, there was no longer any effect. She wasn't sad, just numb, like she'd been given a cold bath for too long.

Diana started petting her. “I'm sorry you had to wait so long. All those times people came in and played with you and petted you and gave you treats, you had to wait. I know you wanted to go with them, and they always took another kitty home.” The petting turned into scratching, and Aberdeen found herself reluctantly hoping Diana would get her behind the ears just one last time. “I felt so bad, knowing you had to watch all the other cats leave, while you got left behind.” Diana's finger finally reached back to find just that right spot.

“Because I wouldn't let them take you.”

Diana reached into the cage and Aberdeen felt herself lifted up and out. “I know it's been a long time,” said Diana, “But I was saving you for myself. Today, you're coming home with me.”

2010-07-14T11:31:00.001-07:00

Raw Courage

Fair warning, the following completely true story is quite entertaining, but it is also mostly about my penis. Read at your own discretion.

I took my Krav students to the beach this weekend for a beach training session. We punched, kicked, and held each other under water, and it was awesome all around. However, after a five hour workout in sand and salt water, most of us had suffered some pretty serious chafing.

I personally, had suffered abrasion in the most sensitive area possible. As in, I'm pretty sure it was on the area with the highest concentration of nerves in the body (I tried to do some research to confirm this belief, but the internet scared me). I didn't notice anything during the training, but afterwards I was so raw that I couldn't walk unless I held my board shorts away from my body, like some dignified Victorian lady keeping her skirts out of muddy water.

Crippled with discomfort, I had to come up with some sort of solution. The best I had was to take a bandanna and fashion a sort of sling for myself, which kept the injured area out of contact with the rough material of my shorts. It worked reasonably well so long as I didn't move too quickly, but it also required frequent and unsubtle adjustment.

The bandanna held up throughout the evening and night as we camped on the beach, and since I woke up nice and early courtesy of the sun, I'd almost made it back to Raleigh by ten in the morning. Since there was a frisbee game across town that started at ten and I love frisbee, I thought why not just drive straight there? Yes I was as bit tired, sunburnt, bug-bitten, and smelled like a wet cat, but I'd had a delicious and nourishing Bojangles Cajun Biscuit for breakfast and was raring to go.

The chafing though, that was a problem. The bandanna fell apart after one hard sprint, after which I was relegated to wincing around the field, and it's hard to catch a frisbee when both hands are occupied keeping your shorts from contacting your body. I quickly called for a hockey sub and hobbled off the field.

At first I resigned to being a spectator for the day, but after several minutes of watching I grew frustrated. I hadn't driven an extra half hour out of my way to sit on the sidelines. I tried a few sprints on my own, to see if I could grit through the burning, but I was not man enough (or too much man, perhaps....). There has to be a way, I thought. I went to my car for inspiration. By virtue of not cleaning it for several months, my car is a repository of random crap, and that's exactly what I needed.

Vaseline was the first thing I looked for, but there was none to be found. I very cleverly thought that maybe sunscreen, applied heavily, would do the job. And in fact it did, if by “job” you mean “provide the sort of burning sensation normally associated with a trip to Thailand.” That discomfort mercifully passed after several tense minutes, releasing me to find other, less painful solutions. I rummaged through the refuse in my car: old tax documents, empty water bottles, my dirty clothes, other people's dirty clothes. At last I found it: Gorilla Tape.

For those of you who don't know, Gorilla Tape markets itself as “The toughest tape on the planet,” and claims to be 145% stronger than duck tape, so you can imagine my excitement at putting it on my privates. (If you've read the Halloween piece, you'll know that I'm all too familiar with the consequences of genital taping). Actually, the tape worked really well, everyone in the game was quite surprised that I'd left the field gingerly limping and came back sprinting.

I played for a while, but eventually massive sweating detached the tape. Or at least, it separated from where I'd attached it to my lower abdomen, but was still very firmly stuck to my...not lower abdomen. This removal required the deft hands of a surgeon (I'd used a LOT of tape) but since I don't have those, I just had to soldier through. Not to get too graphic, but if you've ever left a stick of gum in the car for so long that it half melted, then tried to peel it off the wrapper, you'll know what I experienced.

And thus my MacGyver day came to a close. I'd managed to make it from the beach to the frisbee field, overcome a severe physical obstacle to play and discovered yet another application for heavy duty adhesive. I'd also learned a very important lesson: Next time I go to the beach, put the tape on first.

2010-07-12T07:42:00.000-07:00

Empty Your Mind

Like so many of my regrettable decisions, a girl was involved. I have no intrinsic objections to taking a yoga class: it doesn't offend my masculinity, I think the physical work is valuable, and I'm painfully inflexible. It's just that nearly every yoga class I've ever taken has been awash in pseudo-scientific, housewife-hinduism nonsense. But I'm a sucker for a pretty girl, and so I went. We had plans to go see Avatar after the class (yes, all this happened quite a while ago), but I still felt like a chump.

Since we were driving separately I checked the studio's website for the schedule and location. The class description was the first warning sign:

SPECIAL WINTER SOLSTICE WELCOMING THE LIGHT WORKSHOP – Join us as we celebrate the turning of winter and the rebirth of the soul!

I very nearly cancelled the whole occasion right there. Like anyone else, I was getting worn down by the progressively earlier onset of darkness, and eagerly anticipated the longer days. And I could totally get behind a party to celebrate the occasion. But hard years had taught me that a bunch of soul-searching upper middle class caucasians moaning “ohmmmmmm...ohmmmmmm...” didn't excite me very much.

The studio was dark, with candles providing the only illumination. And there was live music, courtesy of two guys playing the sort of a-melodic clamor that should have gone the way of smoking banana peels. This was very exciting, if you like the sound of a congo drum raping a sitar.

We corralled in the studio, sitting on our mats, as the instructor, a friendly, flighty woman named Carson, started introducing the class in the sort of breathy voice I'd expect from a stoned cheerleader. She talked about rebirth, and letting go of the old year and welcoming the new one, about “taking this opportunity to learn more about ourselves.” Well, I've learned that I'm a sucker for pretty girls. I mean, I knew that already, but I've learned that it's even worse than I'd thought.

Carson passed around slips of paper showing a sanskrit prayer. “I thought we could finish class with some chanting.” Great. I think it's safe to say that no one in the class spoke Sanskrit (safe to say because I firmly believe that anyone who loved that culture enough to actually learn Sanskrit probably respected the tradition too much to be caught in this weak tea version), which meant that we would all just be mindless drones.

We started the class, and immediately it became clear that things would be even worse than I'd feared. Every pose, every motion was accompanied by some pesudo-spiritual drivel:

While extending our feet towards the ceiling: “Now kick your heel towards the moon and spread your toes like the stars!”

While descending from a pushup position: “Now dive down into the darkness inside you and burst back into the light!”

I later went to a map and figured out that we had not, in fact, been pointing our heels towards the moon. But I guess the actual astronomical positions of celestial bodies are much less important than vague concepts of their existence. I was definitely diving into the darkness inside me; I can't think of another period in my life when I've had such a concentrated density of murderous thoughts.

The madness really hit its zenith when we were lying on the ground, stretching our heads and backs upwards. Then Carson broke out this gem: “Now look left, and right, and massage your heart with the energy of love.”

I groaned out loud at that one, but no one heard me over the “music,” which had reached the dissonant level of the noise used for sleep deprivation studies. I'm only an amateur scientist, but I was unfamiliar with the energy of love (later research revealed that it was, in fact, not a form of either potential or kinetic energy).

All the prating aside, the actual physical components of the class were excellent. And it's only fair to point out that Carson could do some of the most impressive things I've seen from anyone. Some of the poses – crazy handstands and such – would have been impressive coming from a gymnast, much less a space-cadet. And had I been looking for an immersive, sacred experience, I'm sure I couldn't have done better than her class. It's just that I have a proclivity towards reality.

After an hour and a half we'd finally finished the training, and we all sat cross-legged to dishonor Indian culture with meaningless chanting. Following that sad display of misguided multiculturalism, we lay down on our back to meditate on the changes we'd enact in the new year. I rose up promptly, after taking about twenty-five seconds to meditate on the fact that I was a total sap for women, but would no doubt continue to be in the new year and for the rest of my natural life, until such time as I died on some imprudent quest to impress a girl.

My companion enjoyed the class just fine, and I tried to bite my tongue out of a sincere, open-minded desire to have sex with her. And things seemed to be going alright. Later that night, when we were in line to see Avatar (continuing the theme of heavy-handed fake naturalistic spiritualism), she said she was enjoying my company:

“I'm glad you came to that class,” she said.

“Well,” I replied, “that makes one of us.”

It didn't work out.

2010-07-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

Independent Thinking

A recent survey claims that 26% of Americans don't know the country from which we won our independence. If you're like me you're probably thinking, "Twenty-six percent? That's not bad!" I know it's fashionable to hate on how dumb people are, and you might incline to think that facts about the American Revolution are sacrosanct, but I think it's pretty impressive to find any item of knowledge that three-quarters of the population actually knows. That's about the same proportion that understands the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way around. And just think, this means that 74% of Americans have at least some vague concept of a foreign country!

So I'm thrilled that we're no more wretched at rudimentary history than rudimentary astronomy. Most of us have the general idea of how the revolution went down, but I worry that the details may have faded, and I honestly think that it's not enough to have simple, jingoistic pride in one's own vague concept of the American Revolution. We need to have clear, objective knowledge:

Britain had committed a number of oppressive moves against the colonies: Levying new taxes, quartering their troops, protecting Native American land, disallowing slavery - this would not stand in the colonies. How dare they try to run our country from the other side of the Atlantic, especially when we'd gone to the great trouble of liberating it from the indigenous peoples! And thus armed revolt was inevitable.

Britain had an admittedly stronger military, and the situation looked grim, until George Washington hit on the brilliant idea of stuffing all his men into a giant turkey, which was then delivered to the British on Good Friday and three days later on July 4th, when the British were carving the turkey (it took a long time to thaw), Washington and his group of Hessians burst forth and delivered the Gettysburg Address, reading straight off the parchment written by Thomas Jefferson. Blown away by his powerful oration and clear passion for freedom, the British vigorously declared their once prized colony independent (the so called "Emancipation Proclamation") and sailed home never to be heard from again in the next thirty-six years. The newly independent Americans were so pleased by the success of Washington's surreptitious attack that they started a new tradition where on the night of July 4th all the town's children would dress up as British soldiers and visit every house in the neighborhood and get candied turkey giblets. Because the children would use a traditional British greeting - "Hello," but with an accent so it sounded like "Hallo!" - the holiday came to be known as "Halloween." The holiday was later moved to the end of October, because in July it's just too damn hot to put on a wool soldier's uniform, and those picky, obnoxious kids started demanding actual candy instead of minute sugar-glazed turkey organs, and eventually "British Troop" went out of style as a costume, giving way to "Effeminate Vampire," but the spirit remains.

So you all probably knew that history stuff already, but a refresher never hurts. And as the year of independence falls further and further into the past, we must diligently remember the true reasons why on July 4th we celebrate the great accomplishment, the era-changing, epoch-marking moment when Americans, tired of Britain's oppressive demands, out-manned and outgunned but unmatched in pluck and noble resolve, overthrew an oppressive tyranny all by our scrappy selves, with just a little help from France.

2010-06-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Lose Yourself

Recently, while trawling the internet for amusement, I came across a forum thread beginning with this quote:

"Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it." - Bruce Lee

Various people commented on the post. Several replies down was:

"That's all well and good unless you have a shitty personality and no talent." -

With all respect to the late, great Bruce Lee, I'm going to have to go with Random Forum Jerk on this one. "Just be yourself" is one of those appeasing but misguided bits of advice predicated on a false pretense: in this case that within all of us is a dynamic, interesting person waiting to burst free, restrained only by anxiety and a flawed desire to conform.

To put it more simply, some people are cool, and some aren't. Simple math dictates that half of all people are below average. I can hear the protests now, “But everyone is special in his or her own way!” (Actually the protests would probably be “Everyone is special in their own way!” but I like to clean up my detractors' poor grammar). Well, that statement is only true if you mean that half of all people are specially awful. Even my friends who far outstrip me in empathy and compassion would rather certain people just quietly stop contributing to society.

We - guys at least - always get this advice before going on a date. "How should I act?" "Oh just be yourself! You'll be fine!" What crock. Your date will be attracted to a certain personality. You have a certain personality. If your personality doesn't match what she's looking for, I'm sorry, it's not going to happen. It's like Settlers of Catan: If she's looking for wood, and all you've got is sheep, there won't be a trade.

You want to see people truly being themselves? Go to Walmart. You'll see what it's like when people truly, truly don't care what other people think. And you can find many a distinct individual expressing himself at Star Trek conventions, yet no one holds up Trekkies as social exemplars. At best they get sympathetic credit for being themselves, from people who really wish the Trekkies would go be themselves somewhere else.

Really, the only people giving that advice, or being asked for it, are people who's natural intelligence and charisma has carried them up the social ladder. “Being himself” worked well for Bruce Lee but I hope everyone remembers that sad display, a poor kid who taped himself fooling around like a Jedi. The tape was distributed on the internet by his alleged friends, and after several hundred million people saw this shining example of personal expression, of devil-may-care individuality, they mocked and derived him to the point where he finished the year in a psychiatric hospital.

All in all, now that I've formed my opinion over the course of writing this piece, I'd have to say that “be yourself” is some of the worst advice I've ever heard. How about, “Be a little bit better,” or, “Be less obnoxious.” Here's some advice: if you be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, and you don't like the results, the only thing to change is yourself.

2010-05-21T12:10:00.001-07:00

Blue Balls

I decided to get my hair dyed blue in preparation for the Warrior Dash, an obstacle course race I ran with a training buddy of mine. He'd casually mentioned making a blue mohawk out of his hair, and that was all it took to get my competitive nature going. I've never done anything crazier than take too long (far too long) between haircuts, but there's a first time for everything, and since I don't have a boss telling me what I can and can't do with my appearance, I may as well enjoy the freedom.

I've only been to a hair salon one time before, and longtime readers will know how much I enjoyed THAT experience. But there is a salon in the same building as my Krav studio, I knew the owners, and it's always nice to support a local business, so I braved the forest of high chairs and mirrors.

I checked in and headed to the waiting area, where I searched in vain for a magazine marketed to guys. There was a woman sitting down already, and soon another came in. Then another, then a group of three, at which point any modicum of masculinity I brought into the salon was exhausted, as I sat there reading Shape magazine surrounded by women.

Fortunately Dana came and rescued me. She took me over to her chair and gave me the rundown, which included this very ominous sentence: "So first we're going to bleach it, to lighten it up, that way the blue will really pop."

Now, I have my opinions of guys with bleached hair, and they are not charitable. But it was only going to be an intermediate step, and who was I to argue with a professional? I sat in the chair and Dana started slathering my hair with bleach using essentially a paintbrush, which surprised me. Somehow I'd imagined something a little less blue collar, but this was oddly like varnishing a table, powerful smell and all.

"Let me know if it gets too strong," she said. "Some people find the bleach a little overpowering."

I was pretty sure that no matter how bad the smell got, I wasn't going to beg for mercy from a stylist. "Well, in my mind it's already dicey enough that I'm in a hair salon,” I said. “It would be unacceptable to say that it was too tough for me."

Dana laughed a little. "You can be in a hair salon and still be masculine,” she said.

“Right.”

“You can get your hair dyed blue and still be manly."

"Clearly, as I'm about to prove," I said.

Once Dana had finished slathering my hair I had to wait about 15 minutes with a plastic cap over my head, yet another experience I honestly never thought I would have in my entire life. It did give me some time to talk to Steve, the burly stylist working next to me. He certainly proved Dana's earlier point about being masculine in a hair salon, inasmuch as his forearms were as big around as my waist. He asked me about the Krav studio, and we chatted about working out for a bit (I'm sure neither of us were compensating for anything) until Dana came back.

She took me over to the sink to rinse my hair, and after the bleach, my hair was a bright, abusive yellow of the kind normally associated with fraternity date-rapists. I don't often avoid looking at myself in the mirror, but every time I caught my reflection I had to struggle not to punch it in the face.

During the hair washing though, I had finally realized that people came here not for the hair treatment, but for the pampering. Sure I was paying for it, but reclining in the chair, my head tossed back under the warm water with this very nice looking stylist massaging every follicle, you could slip away into the fantasy that you were so important, so entitled, that it was peoples' job to attend to your every desire. Which is no doubt why, minutes later when she was caulking blue into my hair, she said, "Yeah, if my boyfriend didn't have a corporate job, I would totally talk him into doing this."

"Well maybe you should break up with him and get with someone who runs his own life," is what a cool person would have said. I of course was not so clever. Again, long time readers will already know my response.

"Mmm-hmmm," I said.

And there goes the fantasy. OF COURSE she throws out the boyfriend card. I assume though, that she breaks that out for every male client. After all, you're in a very suggestible state, and you know how guys can be so dumbly optimistic: She's washed my hair and massaged my head, she must really like me. So what if I'm paying her enough money for a cheap but reasonably clean prostitute?

Another round of waiting with the paint in my hair, another round of washing in the sink, and it was all over. And how did it look? In a word, blue. In another word – awesome. I was definitely ready for the Warrior Dash, and pretty much anything else life could throw at me. I would at least enjoy a few days of blue hair; whether or not to keep it afterwards I wasn't sure. My students were pretty easy going, but I still had to teach, and they needed to take me somewhat seriously at least. And I'm not sure I have the personality to pull off bright blue hair among all my friends and the random people one meets. Driving home, I was pretty sure I'd just keep the hair for the race, and then cut it all off. I pulled into my driveway and as I got out of my car, a very nice looking young woman walked by with her dog. She looked at me.

“I like your hair,” she said.

I think I'll keep it.

2010-04-02T19:43:00.001-07:00

Dance Like Everyone's Watching

It's a popular axiom that it doesn't matter how good you are at something, providing you do it with enthusiasm. You're free to inflict your woeful lack of ability on the world, as long as you do so with reckless abandon. This inane guideline crops up frequently for performance activities like, singing, playing a musical instrument, and most especially, dancing.

"It doesn't matter how good you are, just get out there and dance!" How many times have we heard that before? I have long protested this ridiculous advice, typically given only by those who feel - often erroneously - confident in their own hot stepping. I can tell you, my friends and I are no meaner or more judgmental than average, but if we're at a club and someone's on the dance floor flopping about with all the grace of a Parkinsons-riddled octopus, there will be ridicule. And if you've never laughed at someone's fervid, hopeless paroxysm on the dance floor, then either you've never gone out, or you're a prime candidate for beatification.

Well fortunately science has come along to back me up. And while it doesn't bode well for my mating possibilities, I'm always delighted to have my worldview confirmed. An English psychology professor published a study comparing dancing skill and attractiveness to the opposite sex. You can read the whole study here, but in quick summary: Girls liked guys who danced, but only if they danced well. The worse a guy danced, the less attractive he was to girls. And the study defined bad dancing as "large, uncoordinated moves." That sounds exactly like someone who has been cruelly misinformed about the power of enthusiasm.

I'm certainly not advocating that only highly skilled figurants be allowed on the dance floor. After all that would exclude me on the three occasions a year when I've drunk enough to get out there myself. But let's stop pretending that it doesn't matter how good you are. People are watching, and they are judging (though you as the reader are free to pretend you're the exception). And that's fine. That's just the way people are geared, and our nature is only a problem when we delude ourselves into thinking we're better animals than we actually are. So get out there and have fun, but if you want people to take notice, you'll have to earn it. And if you dance like no one's watching, nobody will be.

2010-03-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

Split Ends

According to a highly scientific poll on Pantene's Facebook page, more women would rather have great hair for the rest of their lives than an extra ten IQ points. Scattered amongst the comments is everything from giggling agreement to misogynistic derision, and after pondering for a bit, I have to lean towards agreement. At the least, I won't look down on someone for choosing hair.

Of course, to comment on the study, we have to overlook the obvious selection bias of people who are already browsing Pantene's Facebook page, not to mention that the people who most need the extra IQ points don't realize it. Regardless, I can imagine that having effortlessly great hair is quite rewarding. Full disclosure, this is coming from a guy who buzz cuts his own hair, and even that 20 minutes of effort every two months is a little obnoxious. Struggling with follicles day in and day out, washing, drying, curling, straightening, cutting, coloring, styling, extending; that shit is a lot of work. And that's just to keep up.

Without doing another highly scientific poll, I would guess women observe and comment on each others hair more than their intelligence. Intelligence is often subtle and overlooked, but your hair is RIGHT THERE! There were many comments along the lines of, "looking better is the way to get ahead in this society, you'll make more money if you're pretty than if you're intelligent, etc etc etc," - basically the bitter, frustrated stuff you'd expect from a bunch of people with stringy hair, poor social skills, and just above average intelligence. I don't know if looks are more important than intelligence for success, and I'm pretty sure those commentors don't know either, save that simply from their griping, they seem to have neither.

If someone conducts a thorough, scientifically rigorous study comparing hair quality and intelligence to success in life, then we could have some interesting results. (And some interesting methods as well: "Alright you girls in control group A, no washing your hair this month!). Until then, I think it's only fair to cut some slack to people who would rather keep their current level of intelligence than struggle everyday with an increasingly complex process with uneven results. And fellas, we better keep our mouths shut, because you know there's not a guy out there who wouldn't forgo ten measly IQ points for a couple extra inches.

2010-02-08T01:23:00.000-08:00

They Really Do Come True

There's a great scene in Season 2 of Dexter where he dreams he's dragging the corpse of his latest victim through the police station as his co-workers stare. When Dexter wakes up he monotones, "Great, my subconscious isn't even bothering with symbolism anymore." And to quote an excellent song, last night I had the strangest dream, in that it wasn't strange at all. In my dream I was chasing after a girl. She wasn't fleeing from me (this is how I knew it was a dream and not real life) more like we were running away from the same thing. She was a little ahead and I just couldn't keep up.

I read an article once proposing that dreams were practice for real life situations. According to this article, we have many more negative dreams than we realize (since we forget so many). The theory was that if primitive man could 'practice' the dangers of prehistoric life - falling off a cliff, being chased by a sabertooth tiger, etc - while dreaming, and thus in real life would better deal with the danger.

This theory I can get behind. It's nice and scientific (scientific-sounding at least), it shows evolutionary advantage, and it's free of all the woo-woo nonsense that usually accompanies dreams. I tried to find the article again, but using the word "dream" in a google search just leads me to the usual babble of interpretations, lucid dreaming, and astral projection. For now, we'll have to go on anecdotal evidence.

I've had many running dreams, and for as long as I can remember, in them I can't run. Though gazelle-like in life, asleep I'm ponderously slow, and no matter how much my brain tells my legs to churn faster, they just won't comply. I can't even keep my body upright, I'm stooped over and my head feels twice as heavy, so I end up lurching along hunchbacked, moving my legs just enough to not fall over. Sometimes I don't even succeed; I have vivid memories of dreams where running was so laborious I just traveled via constant front rolls.

So in this chase, the running was not going well. The girl stayed in front of me, I don't know who she was, or don't remember. Someone specific, that I knew, but not the same person throughout. Rather she faded from one significance to the next, more of a "greatest hits" montage. Eventually she hopped on the back of a truck which started pulling away and, in a scene straight out of an action movie, I gave my last best effort to catch up, but to no avail and the truck pulled away. All in all, not a winner.

I'm not one to assay dreams, but if I were, I'd probably come up with something about how I was chasing a girl/job/personal goal and just when I was close, it slipped away. Not a hard analysis, because that's what actually happened. However, for fun I looked up "running" and "chasing" on some of the dream websites I discovered while trying to find that aforementioned article, and they took a decidedly less literal approach:

To Run After Something, Or Someone, You Are Unable to Catch ~ A unexpected cluster of events will occur one right after the other over the coming few days. There will be invitations that you will be able to pick and choose from, amongst them one special event that it would be wise for you to attend. This event will be more glamorous and exciting than the others and will require you to wear some formal dress. Make sure you prepare yourself in time so you can look your best as you will have a very enjoyable time at this event and meet a number of powerful and influential people.

Chase ~ If you see a chase in progress or if you participate in a chase you will look forward to a comfortable retirement and good health in your latter years. If fear is involved in this experience then you must test all the signs and employ meditation to seek the answer.

My favorite for sure though, even though it's less applicable:

To Run and Be caught by Someone or Something Frightening ~ You must be very careful not to contract a virus or a sexually transmitted disease. Be aware that your immunity is low because of extra stresses at this time. get plenty rest and try some isolation to regain your energy levels. Eat well and drink plenty water.

Yes folks, if you have a dream you are run down and devoured by a monster, it might be herpes. But don't worry too much, just rest, eat well, and hydrate. I don't know how they came up with all this bullshit, but I don't think it was with scientifically rigorous double-blind studies. Also, all these websites have really terrible layout and color schemes, almost as if they were created by some flighty crystal wearing hippy. Their dream analysis ranges from obvious pap to deranged insanity.

And what do I think about the dream? Nothing, aside from that it's a subject to write about and I'd rather not have it again. I certainly don't think it's a prediction of a fancy party, and I'm sure that if an STD is in my future I'll have other, better warning signs. If someone is able to scientifically measure and verify the "meaning" of dreams - if such a thing even exists - I'll be interested for sure, but what difference does it make? Certainly we shouldn't start letting dreams inform our lives; people are deranged enough fully conscious.

I do favor the explanation of dreams being practice for the hard parts of life, though why in this case my brain need to practice something we've been though so often I don't know. Import aside, I anticipate many more nights of staggering along, rolling and flopping on the ground after some wisp of a desire, watching it slip away. My favored theory of dreams fall apart here, though, because as many times as I've gone through that scenario while I'm asleep, I'm never ready for it when I'm awake.

2010-01-24T18:49:00.000-08:00

Hallowed Ground

Halloween is one of those activities that's cool when you're young, lame in adolescence, and great again when you grow up. Like spending time with your parents, or pooping. Sad to say, I missed out on most of the parts where Halloween got fun again, year after year saying, "This year I'm definitely going to go big on Halloween," and then somehow it was November first already. Finally this year I had the right friends and the right party, so it was time to atone for my past delinquency.

The issue then becomes, of course, what to wear. For a decade I'd desired to dress as the devilishly dapper Darkwing Duck, because how great is that show? I could run around setting off smoke bombs and speaking alliteratively. Actually, when I re-watched that show as an adult, the similarities between Darkwing Duck and myself were striking: Expansive but haphazard vocabulary, stubborn resistance to accepting help, burning desire to not just do the right thing, but become famous for it as well. But I'm as lazy as I am creative - possibly more so - and without a significant investment, I don't know where I'd come up with a purple double breasted pea coat, duck feet, or a hat as dramatic as his.

One hat I do have is a black bowler, so I thought maybe a droog from Clockwork Orange. Looking at the costume though, it's not all that flattering, basically white longjohns and what seems to be a groin cup worn on the outside. Good to indicate sociopathy, but not so great for partying, and I'm not eager to find out what I have in common with those guys.

With Halloween only a week away, inspiration came, as it so often does, in the shower: Apollo. Greek god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery, medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts. The similarities are so obvious they don't bear mention. Brilliant costume idea in hand, it was research time. In my mind I had hastily assumed some sort of robes, cape, laurel; generic toga party attire with perhaps a bow and arrow, or lyre to specifically indicate I was Apollo. I was quite surprised when a bit of Google research revealed that mostly, Apollo wore only a fig leaf.

This changed things. As my very first blog post indicates, I have no intrinsic problems with nudity, but I'm not a rank exhibitionist. Although the first thought to cross my mind was "too bad, I can't do this costume," the very next was, "If I don't put on this costume, I will regret it for the rest of my life."

And that's not a huge exaggeration. It was time to go big or go home, and too many times I'd chosen the latter. I knew that if I went to the party as anything other than mostly naked Apollo, I'd do nothing but think "Man, this costume could have been so much better." And as my roommate said, with the advice that probably pushed me all the way there, "Do it while you're young."

Fortunately the costume was easy to put together. Components: Gladiator sandals, laurel, cape, and fig leaf. Color: Gold. Sandals from a costume shop, cape fabric from Joannes, as well as the laurel, which was actually a wreath of fake gold flowers. And as it happened, we have a fig tree in the back yard, with sufficiently large leaves. Half a can of gold spray paint and I was good to go.

Well, except for the issue of how to attach the fig leaf. Safety pins were out of the question, so I hit on double sided tape. This turned out to be a huge mistake.

Obviously, you want to fig leaf to cover everything, and this leaf was large enough. Ideally it would hang like a curtain, but due to the natural vagaries of anatomy, it ended up more like an awning, where from the front there were no problems, but from the side, you could see right through. Not to mention as I walked, the leaf would sway with my swagger. To solve this problem, I liberally attached double sided tape to the underside of the leaf and...pressed it on. This did not work, despite repeated adjustments, each more painful than the last. Realizing there was no hope for this solution, I just taped the stem to my lower stomach, freeing the leaf to flutter away in the breeze like my modesty.

After that it was all over but the crying. Actually, the costume was a big hit, although I notice many of my friends won't look me in the eye anymore. Also, the number of drinks it took for me to heedlessly wear the costume came back to haunt me. You can see in the pictures, early in the night I'm semi-modestly attempting to cover at least part of my body with the cape. By the end I'm posing with the cape thrown over my shoulder, arms proudly akimbo. And at the very end of the night I'm asleep on the floor, with only the cape to protect what little dignity I had left (it failed).

But it was all worth it. Halloween '09 was a landmark moment, one that I can always remember, and that my friends can never forget. A master stroke or creativity and boldness never to be equaled or surpassed...

Until next year.

2009-12-13T15:58:00.000-08:00

Christian Side Hugs

Christian rock has long been the whipping boy of music, but it may finally get a reprieve with the introduction of Christian rap, specifically the song "Christian Side Hugs."

A group of pastors, apparently seeing the lackluster results of promise rings, decided to take abstinence promotion to the next level, forbidding regular face to face hugs in favor of the the same pose you do when having your picture taken. The laughable nature of this measure will be well elucidated by countless other observers. My issue isn't so much with the side hugs - people are free to repress themselves in whichever way they see fit - but with the lamentably poor presentation.

There's just some inherent flaw with contemporary religious music. And I'm not just picking on Christian Rock; I've heard Atheist pop music as well, and it's just as bad. Worse, possibly, although atheists at least have the excuse that, when they write terrible music, there's no god who should be stopping them.

I think a big issue with religious pop music is that it's way too on the nose. Our God is an Awesome God comes to mind. Good music requires at least an attempt at subtlety, symbolism, metaphor, imagery; the best songs are well nigh incomprehensible and yet, religious pop writers apparently feel that John Mayer is too subtle. Music needs tact; if you want to hammer home your single point in the most obvious, pedantic language possible, write a letter to the editor.

Which would have been a much better approach than creating "Christian Side Hugs." Somehow, this song has not been recorded by a major record label, but fortunately video exists:

It takes a certain person to write and perform a rap song. A white fundamentalist pastor is not this person. Seeing a group of pastors ape the Yin-Yang twins is comedy matched only by its racism. You can tell they did their research though, because they nailed that "comically-thuggish-from-the-streets of Illinois-modestly-educated rapper-of-small-vocabulary-but-great-enthusiasm" style. Let's take a look at some of the lyrics:

Gimme that Christian side hug / That Christian side hug
Gimme that Christian side hug / That Christian side hug
I’m a rough rider / Filled up with Christ’s love
Gimme that Christian side hug / That Christian side hug

So...those are some pretty excellent lyrics. I guess 'rough riding' here refers to that one time the air conditioning in the church van broke on the way to an abstinence-only sex-ed class. I notice as well that the music style they adopted was popularized by artists who, shall we say, are probably not restraining themselves to side hugs. Though these same artists do show a penchant for wearing crucifixes.

Interesting as well that they make such a big deal of the side hug as specifically Christian. Perhaps the writers needed those extra two syllables to fill out the meter, but I think it runs deeper to their identity; other religions aren't devout enough for the restraint of a "Christian" side hug. All told though, it's not that impressive. I mean, they have a long way to beat the Muslims at sexual repression.

Again though, the issue is not the stupid content. Anyone can write a bad song in any genre. Religious pop, however, seems a doomed genre, at least until they can understand the concept of symbolism (you'd think that would come naturally). I could be overlooking a plethora of excellent worship rock that uses a smaller anvil. Creed and P.O.D. fall into that category, but the only way they bring me closer to faith is that listening to their music is like being crucified. Ultimately, the medium doesn't fit the message; after all, there are no hymns about sex, drugs and rock n' roll.

2009-11-27T12:02:00.000-08:00

The Santa Clause

The saccharin music chirping through retail stores everywhere today confirms it: Christmas season is here in force. Actually, it seems to come earlier every year as evidenced by the displays in stores, but that's been well covered. I actually like Christmas quite a bit. True, if I never hear “Jingle Bell Rock” again in my life it'll be too soon, but I do enjoy the mass efforts to be a little nicer, a little more considerate, and a little more thankful.

There is one part of Christmas though, that rankles me to no end, and that is Santa Claus. I don't know how that greybeard loon became such a holiday fixture, but it wasn't with my blessing. And my distaste has nothing to do with the true meaning of Christmas. I don't give a damn about the true meaning of Christmas, and neither does anyone else, or else he or she would celebrate it in November or July or whenever the latest revision of Jesus' birthday currently falls. My issue with Santa Claus is the dishonesty.

Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus. This is not like life after death, or aliens, where you can't prove a negative. EVERYONE knows. No only do we know there is no Santa Claus, but we also know that all those presents got under the tree, because adults put them there. And they weren't delivered in a sled but in a Ford. The closest thing to truth in the whole tale is that the toys are made by little unpaid workers. So for someone to look in a kid's eyes and boldly tell them that there is a fat man with a beard, who lives in the North Pole – where there is no land – and makes toys and gives them to all the good girls and boys – which is bribery pure and simple – and who watches all the kids and knows who's been naughty or nice – HOLY CRAP WHAT THE HELL KIND OF STORY IS THIS? I bet if you took a poll of every parent in the world and asked, “Is it important that your kids are totally honest with you?” they would all, to a man and woman, answer yes. Yet it's no problem to sell them a fairy tale whose offenses against morality are trumped only by those against physics.

Just as people bemoan the lost meaning of Christmas, Santa Claus has a noble heritage degraded into farce. The main inspiration seems to be the 4^th century Saint Nicholas of Myra, who was noted for his generous gifts to the poor and in particular for giving a dowry to three sisters so they could get married and avoid a life of prostitution. Somehow we've gone from that noble philanthropist to an overweight flying watchdog who bribes children to behave well. As usual, the terrestrial explanation is so much more grand.

A friend of mine who harped at length about the importance of honesty, even in friendly games of Wii Baseball, conceded without shame that she planned to tell her kids about Santa Clause. When I pointed out here obvious hypocrisy she said, “But I remember how magical Santa was for me, and I want my kids to have that too.”

First off, no you don't remember. The fallibility of memory has been proven many times over, and what you're really “remembering” is the way your present 'you' feels about the idea of Santa, and maybe combining that with some speculation on the joy of of having little rugrats of your own to share the tale with. The odds that you actually remember how you felt, as a five year old, thinking about Santa, are miniscule. I think it's a pretty good bet that any joy and wonder you did feel were not because of Santa, but the MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PRESENTS you were about to receive. It doesn't matter if it's a jolly man in a red suit, a jolly green giant, or a green goblin; if he's bringing you a Nintendo you'll feel pretty magical.

On occasion you'll hear an outcry because some random adult disabused a child of this foolish belief (I have an article up right now about a substitute teacher fired for telling a classroom of seven year-olds there was no Santa Claus. The outcry was severe). People will say it's the parents' right to raise their kids how they want, but that argument never held water for me. If parents wanted to raise their kids to be filthy little racists, is that their right? I certainly hope not, and we would all hope, in that situation, for an honest teacher. If it's the parents' right to lie to their kids, it's certainly a teacher's right to tell them the truth.

(As a side not, my wonderful mother, a Montessori teacher who never bothered her kids with this fairy tale, accidentally yet frequently let slip to her students the truth of Santa's non-existence, even to kids as old as nine. Nine!)

I never advocate a fantasy over reality, part because of the dishonesty, but also because, as with the truth behind the real Saint Nick, reality is always so much more grand, so much more impressive. People talk about the magic of Santa Claus, but how does that compare to the love of your family? Parents who will take the time to find the right present for you, spending money they might not even have, because they want to see the joy on your face Christmas morning? And if you've transgressed a time or two over the last year, well...you're still their beloved child. Next to that, the 'magic' of Santa Claus is weak stuff indeed.

2009-01-06T00:29:00.000-08:00

There’s Never Been a Better Time

Don’t immediately hit the back button on your browser, but the other day I was reading a blog about feminism. I think I linked to it via aldaily.com or some other source of reputable essay and opinion, and you can link to it here. The post was some sort of progressive-feminism thing, positing that women could wear makeup and short skirts and still be feminists. Whatever makes them happy is my feeling, I’m not addressing women’s issues today. The article held my interest well enough, until I got to this jewel of a sentence: “At the same time as being more emancipated than ever, we have never been more obsessed with youth, thinness and celebrity.”

I’m sorry?

Does that sentence give anyone else pause? If not, you may want to read it a few more times.

The first half of the sentence is fine, it’s the part that begins “we have never been more obsessed with….”

Ok, let me say this very clearly – Stop saying things like that. Stop making statements about how things now are so much worse than they used to be. I hear this nostalgic junk all the time, one statement after another that essentially says, “People used to be better than they are.” Always made with no authority and no evidence. You weren’t there. Wherever there is for such an impressively vague statement. I’m not talking about just women’s issues, it’s only that this particular article got me going. Things are not bad today, and they were not better yesterday. They are better today than they ever have been. Let’s look in turn at each claim of that offending sentence.

Youth--------------

Not that I’m entirely sure what is means to be obsessed with youth, but I’ll take it to mean “obsessed with staying/appearing youthful,” and not “obsessed with the cast of ‘Harry Potter.” I’m certainly interested to see where the authors of that column got their data about people’s obsession with youth over the entire history of the world, but we can probably assume they just made it up. I can certainly see why it’s crazy that a woman in her fifties would be concerned about her looks or health, since a century ago she would have been dead. I could guess people were more obsessed with youth “back in the day,” because they kept dying in the middle of it. Besides, isn’t saying “obsessed with youth” like saying “obsessed with breathing?” As if it’s obscene to preserve the image and feelings of health, virility, fertility, and everything else that goes along with youth. I’m sure the authors of that column welcome a short decrepit life followed by an ugly death, but I can’t blame others for trying to hold on to the good parts.

Thinness-------------

Women used to wear corsets. Now they don’t. It’s just that simple. Also we are fatter then we have ever been. So…there goes obsession with thinness. Next!

Celebrity-------------

There is merit to this claim, in large part because technology has enabled global exposure. But that doesn’t mean we are more obsessed than ever, just that we’re able to act on our obsessions to a much larger degree. I might not care about Natalie Portman if I'd never been exposed to her through the internet, cable tv, and magazines in every checkout aisle. I also might not care about here if I were tilling a field and dying of the pox, or had died in infancy as used to be so common. Here’s an important point: I was all fired up to dismiss the claim of “obsessed with celebrity” as a bunch of crap because it was in a sentence with two completely false assertions, and because I just didn’t think it was true. But before I claimed anything, I did some research. I read about how global media has changed the nature of celebrity, and now I’m informed and can make knowledgeable statements instead of just having knee-jerk reactions.

I don’t need to single out a poor sentence in an otherwise decent article. Misconceptions abound in every part of life. I highly recommend the book The Science of Fear, which basically shows how we are all stupid and gullible, although the author puts it much more kindly. I will not.

We can look at almost anything. People talk about being afraid to lock their doors at night, and how everything has gotten so dangerous, but violent crime has been decreasing. Go to the DOJ website and look at it yourself. Also consider the reporting of crimes. The data shows an increase in rape over the last hundred years, but what counts as a rape now was probably standard behavior for a job interview in the fifties. Obviously a facetious fabrication there, but the valid point is a large part of the escalation is probably increased reporting of rape, and tougher definitions. The rise of women in college probably has an effect, but I don’t know many women who would give up all the progress that let them have equal educational opportunities because of dicey behavior at frat parties.

There’s a commercial that’s been on lately, I don’t know what the product or company is, but it shows a young girl of probably nine looking at a sexy billboard, then it flashes through a bunch of similar images before the voiceover says, “Girls today are under more pressure than ever before. Blah blah blah.” (my edit obviously). Again, the first problem here is how do you know? How do they know that girls are under more pressure today? Has there been a decades long study involving questions like, “how much pressure are you under?” I can see how they might be under extra pressure at school, because now that people are finally coming around to the idea that girls can be as smart as boys, they might feel some pressure to get good grades and maybe, I don’t know, go to college. And then they have the pressure of deciding if they want to try to raise a family right away, or maybe wait so they can have a career, or try to do it all at once. You know, there was a time when all of those decisions would have been made for them, since all they had to worry about was finding a husband (easily done, since no one back then obsessed with being thin!).

This debunking can go on forever. “People are wusses today.” Well, none of us are as strong as a gorilla, so I guess we should all lament the day we started walking upright. “People are so lazy today.” Yes it’s true, people just don’t value a good hard day’s work any more. Why, time was a man would spend a whole day making candles, dipping the wick in and out of hot wax hundreds of times just to make one candle. Nowadays we lazy bastards just go to the store and buy them. Shameful.

Almost any statement of this type is blatantly false, and the ones that do have a shred of truth always turn out to be for the best. I believe people may have been physically stronger decades or centuries ago, but that’s because life was difficult and unpleasant. If you had to walk everywhere because there were no cars, then yes, you’d be good at walking and “in shape,” but it would mean you’d spend the whole day on a social call. The fact is, life is easier now. Humans don’t work any harder than they have to, so any small superiorities we may have had in the past (and I’m sure they are few and minor) were only from necessity.

Take obesity. Yes, we are all fat pigs. Yes, our preceding generations were not. Because they had no food and had to walk everywhere. Today US Agribusiness produces 3900 calories of food per day per person, half again as much as is required. And while that is a terrible bit of profit-making irresponsibility on their part, and a terrible failure of self-control on our part, we eat cause it’s there. I firmly believe that if you go back any number of decades or centuries and offer then 3900 calories of food per day, they will plump up like those sponge dinosaurs you throw in a bathtub. Can I prove that statement? It would be tough, because I wasn’t there, and neither was anyone else. We could look at wealthy people throughout history, the ones with access to copious amounts of food, and see what the incidence of obesity was among them, if such data exists. Then look at other wealthy countries without high obesity and see what they’re doing. How many calories per capita are produced in France, for example. It’ll take serious research, which someone else will have to do. Still, I have a theory, and have presented it as such, instead of just a flat declaration that “Things are bad! I wish they were good like they used to be before I existed!”

Bottom line is, things are better than they’ve ever been. Health care is better. Roads are better. Opportunities for women and minorities and better. The Civil Rights Act was only in 1964, for god’s sake! Only forty years ago, and as a nation we’re just getting around to the idea that segregation is bad. So now tolerance is better. Education is better because our knowledge of the world is growing by leaps and bounds. And the best part is, it’s only going up from here! Even this economic crisis has an Other Side, and things will be even better once we get there. So rejoice that you’re alive today, and not yesterday. Leave idle and specious speculation about the past and look towards the future, because things are better than they ever have been, but not as good as they will be.

2008-12-09T21:28:00.001-08:00

Buick on Fire

I started 2008 knowing it was was going to be a very new year. Over the holidays I'd decided I was going to resign from my job. Teaching Karate had been great, and I always enjoyed the time on the mat with the kids, but my satisfaction with the company had deteriorated to the point where I spent each weekly company meeting with my head in my hands, making noises normally associated with a sick dog. And I knew they weren't happy with me, because there were strict company guidelines about how to teach, and I was way off the map, teaching however I wanted, the Sensei Without a Cause.

My first day back in '08 was supposed to be the 2nd, which was the one day each week I taught at an alternate location, in Redondo Beach. Same company, same bosses, just a different part of town. At 10:30 am, several hours before I going in to teach, I got a call from Alec, the manager there.

"Hey Kenny," he said. "I just wanted to make sure you knew that you didn't need to come in today."

Well...this either was or was not an auspicious beginning to the new year. Were my bosses up to something sinister? The fact that, rather than let me know in advance, they let a subordinate call me a few hours before showing up to work should illuminate my desire to quit.

That made Thursday January 3rd my first day of work. I made it to my last class without any incidents: no kids cried, no one peed on the floor, no one puked all over the place. Then at 6:30, half an hour before I was home free for the day, two managers came in. Immediately I knew there was trouble. Bosses don't work past 5 o'clock. And it's not like two bosses come in to give good news, like, "Congratulations! Were going to sing a duet about the huge raise you're getting?"

Finishing class was not easy. It was Dead Sensei Teaching. I struggled to resist saying, "Kids, get this right, because you'll never see me again." I finished class, the kids and parents left, and I walked out the the lobby. My bosses sat together on one side of the desk, I sat down across from them. We started at each other. Everybody knew what was coming:

"Well, Kenny," began my General Manager Alesia, "over the Christmas break we all met, Dawn and Andrew and Ben and I, and...we've decided to let you go."

Let you go. Whichever HR lackey thought that one up was a true wordsmith. Let you go. Notice how "fire" and "terminate" have such violent connotations, but let you go is so gentle, almost merciful. Let you go. Like a captive animal released back into the wild.

"We're doing this for a couple reasons..." they started.

"No no," I interrupted. "That's a good call."

They stared. Probably not the response they were expecting.

I continued. "It's been obvious from the way things are going that, either I was going to quit, or you guys were going to fire me. It's fine."

So I was out, and with a great deal more grace than, frankly, they deserved. But whatever, they just moved my timeline up a few weeks. In fact, it saved me from two weeks of totally phoning it in. Getting fired didn't bother me too much. I was going to be out of there by February, and while I'm a little bummed I didn't get to leave on my own terms, I was pretty happy to wake up and not have to go to work the next day. And this followed a two week break, so it was just extended vacation. I had another interview lined up for the next day anyway, which I'd set up over the Christmas break while planning my exit strategy. The place I was interviewing was another kids martial arts program, in fact I'd already interviewed there and been offered a job over a year before, so I felt pretty good about my chances.

So one mere day after I was "let go," I was driving in my 1996 Buick Regal up the majestic freeway that is the 405, marveling at the scenery as it passed my by at 14 miles an hour. All of a sudden, I started to feel the car stuttering. I looked at the hood and smoke was pouring out. "Oh boy," I said to my friend on the phone - because OF COURSE I was on the cell while driving - "this is bad."

I pulled over to the shoulder and got out. The situation did not look good. My car was twelve years old, and had 145,000 miles on it, but I wasn't expecting the smoldering wreck just yet.

"What's going on?" asked Mike on the phone, because I would NEVER think about interrupting an important cell phone conversation because of something as trivial as vehicular immolation.

"My car appears to be exploding," I said. "Hey, could you look up the non-emergency number for the fire department?" I knew that someone had to come help out with the car, but didn't quite feel the drastic urgency to call 911 for that. I mean, the car was simply pouring acrid black smoke into the air; I think of 911 as the number to call after I've been shot but before I bleed out.

I got the number, called and explained the situation. While talking I examined the hood of my car, which was starting to blister like the cheese on a tuna melt left too long in the toaster oven.

"You need to call 911."

Once again, another blow against selflessness.

I called 911, and was immediately put on hold. There better be a life and death domestic violence call on the other line, I thought. I made good use of the time to walk a safe distance away from my car. Even though I know intellectually that cars don't blow up, I've seen it so many times in movies that, in my mind, the image following a smoking car is an exploding car.

Finally the operator picked up and asked me the nature of my emergency. "Hi, I'm on the 405 northbound just south of the 101 interchange, and I had to pull over because my car started smoking." I looked at my car and saw what looked like small flames lapping at the front tire, but it was hard to tell because I had retreated to a safe distance of approximately 2 miles. "I'm not sure if it's on fire, but there's a lot of smoke and..."

BOOM!

"Ok, it's definitely on fire."

And it was indeed a spectacular wreck. The front half of my car was completely engulfed in flames. Thick, thick black smoke poured out of the hood, drifted across the right two lanes, and the rising column was so high that cars from a mile back around the bend had already pulled over.

A bit down the road, I saw a small black car pull over. A very nice woman climbed out to see if I was ok. She was very nice, very friendly, and obviously a great Samaritan. "Thank you so much for pulling over," I said.

"Oh, for sure honey," she said. "I'm just doing what Jesus put me down here to do."

...........................

"Ahhhhh. Yeah"

"You don't worry now, Jesus will see you through this. He's with you."

... "Indeed." Yeah, lost the job yesterday, lost the car today. I'm definitely only seeing one set of footprints now.

And so 2008 began. Four days in and my job imploded and my car exploded. But I'm an optimist. One thing always leads to another, and as long as you have the right attitude, it always leads to something better. I started this post back in January, and it looks like I'll manage to finish it before the end of the year. Again, that's me being optimistic. I'm pretty happy where I am now, and I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gotten fired all those months ago. So am I actually grateful to those people who fired me? No, not at all. They sandbagged me in the most cowardly, malicious way possible. But I'm glad I'm not there anymore. In fact, one could say that my car explosion has led me to finally get back to writing, after nearly two years. So really, the whole world should be grateful.

2007-04-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

Recycling is Good for the Environment

There's a little excitement at work these days, involving one of my subordinates, who has become an insubordinate (see what I did there?), and all signs point to a magnificent installment here on the richstud dot com, but for the moment I'm dredging up a bit of writing from my college days. I hope you enjoy.

Used Vehicles

“No, it’s not a mid-life crisis, I just need a new car.”

“Of course, sir,” replied the effusive salesman. “That’s not at all what I was implying. I simply meant, Winston, that you were probably looking for something sleek and modern.”

“The word I had in mind was ‘refined.’”

The salesman nodded seriously. “Of course Winston. If you’ll just follow me this way, I think we have something that will appeal to you.”

Winston followed the young salesman, self-consciously unbuttoning his suit, trying to look more relaxed. They passed several rows of Buicks and Fords before stopping in front of a grid of Porches.

“We just got these in a few days ago,” the salesman claimed. Winston tried to remember his name, Bill or Chuck or some enthusiastic, earnest name like that. Hell, maybe his name was Earnest. “Of course, they’re as new as any car could possibly be and still qualify as ‘used.’ You’ll look good inside one of these.”

“Look, Earnest…”

“…Chuck,” the salesman corrected, never breaking his smile.

“…Chuck. Look. These are nice cars, but I’m looking for something a little more practical. I’ve got a wife and two kids, a dog and a cat. God forbid we should all have to be in the car at the same time, but if it’s got to happen I need a car that can fit us all.”

Chuck clasped his hands in front of him, pursed his lips and closed his eyes, apparently praying to the patron saint of high commissions. “Winston,” he said. “Winston, of course I could have showed you the ‘economy’ cars. I could have taken you to, say, the Pontiacs, or the Subarus, which are nice vehicles, but I look at you and I think ‘here’s a man who deserves a little more.’ It’s the details, like the cufflinks. A man with cufflinks like you doesn’t drive a Subaru, he drives a Porsche.”

Winston sighed. “Look, thank you, but I don’t want a sports car. My Buick is starting to go the way of all cars after a decade or two, and I’m looking for something equally functional but more comfortable. That’s all.”

Chuck tilted his head back as he took in this information. “Of course Winston, I think I can help you out there. Just follow me.”

They passed a few rows of four-door Volkswagons and Saabs. “Right this way,” called Chuck.

“Actually,” Winston tried to say, “what about these…”

“I think you’ll really like what I’m about to show you, Winston,” Chuck interrupted with a smile, and kept walking. Winston followed, scowling.

I'm sure I will, he thought.

After dinner that night, when he had sent Mary and Elliot up to the third floor study to do their middle and high school homework, he looked at his wife. Their meals had been a little bland lately, due to whatever diet she was on currently, where she could only consume raw lettuce and unsweetened water or whatever, which baffled him since she hadn’t gained ten pounds since they’d married. Her skin showed a few wrinkles, but her brown hair wasn’t thinning or graying. Of course, she’d been a redhead when they met but…well, he’d aged a little himself.

“Sally,” he said cautiously, “I’m thinking about buying a new car.”

He’d expected some enthusiasm, maybe an inquiry as to what kind of car he was looking at, perhaps relief that he might finally get rid of the sedan they’d taken on their honeymoon. Instead, his wife instantly grew solemn. “What’s wrong with the Buick?”

“What do mean, ‘what’s wrong with it?’ It’s seventeen years old.”

There was a pregnant pause while Sally looked at him with probing eyes. “It just seems like a random time for a new car, is all.”

“But we’ve had that car since we married. I was a clerk then, now I’m a vice-president,” he rubbed his wife’s back through her caramel-colored cashmere sweater. When had she bought that? Winston made a mental note to peruse the credit card statement more thoroughly. “I’ve got a beautiful family, only a few gray hairs, a house with only a few years left of mortgage, and now I want a new car to go with them. Besides, I was looking at used cars.”

Sally looked at him under her chestnut bangs. “Are you feeling all right?” She asked.

Winston gasped. “Sure, of course. Why?”

“You’re just acting a little strange all of a sudden.”

“Strange? I thought you’d be a little more enthusiastic about the idea, instead you just look worried.”

Sally reached out to her husband’s arm. “I’m just concerned that you’re getting depressed.”
Winston paused, shocked, then laughed. “Honey, don’t tell me that you think…are you implying that just because I want a new car I’m starting that whole mid-life crisis thing?”

“Well, no,” she bit her lip. “But I want to make sure you’re happy, that's all.”

Winston turned away and paced around the room. “The car salesman today was implying the same thing. He…”

“When did you see a car salesman?”

“This afternoon. I took the afternoon off work and went, you know, window shopping.”

“Oh honey,” Sally worried, “you’re not unhappy with your job, are you?”

Winston huffed in exasperation. “Because I want a new car?” He took a deep breath, walked over to his wife and embraced her. “Sally, I know I’m almost fifty. I know we’ve seen some of our friends divorce, and I know that you’re concerned about me.” She looked up at him. “But mid-life crisises – crisi? – either way, they aren’t for me.”

She nestled her face into his collarbone, “Ok honey, as long as you’re happy.”

For the remaining three days of the workweek, Winston resisted the urge to car shop. Sally had dropped the mid-life crisis challenge, and he wasn’t going to prove her right. He left work on Friday two hours early, to beat the rush of everyone who left one hour early to beat rush hour, and drove home leisurely, trying to think of positive things about his car. Well the air stays in the tires, and the automatic windows still work. There was a jolt as the transmission stuttered. The broken antenna prevents me from hearing all the crap on the radio…
He stopped to pick up some flowers, and ten minutes later pulled into his driveway. Sally would be surprised to see him home this early. Kind of like how Janice next door – and her gardner – had been surprised to see Andrew home so early two months ago. Fortunately he didn’t have to worry about that with Sally.

The dog announced Winston’s presence immediately, and Sally came darting out of the bedroom. They greeted with kisses, and Winston explained his early return.

“I’ll put some coffee on,” said Sally.

“Great, I’ll go change.” He headed back into the bedroom, tossed his jacket over the desk chair, and sat down on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes. He always sat on Sally’s side, because the cat liked to sleep on his. The drawer of his wife’s bedside table was ajar, and inside he could see the spine of a book. He didn’t recognize the cover, so he pulled it out.
What the hell? Winston held up the thick paperback book. How to Survive Your Husband’s Midlife Crisis. Had Sally bought this? Obviously she had, since it was in her bedside table. Unless she’d borrowed it from Janice. Did Sally think their marriage was going the way of Janice’s and Andrew’s? Was all of this just because he wanted a new car? He hadn’t thought his idea would be taken so seriously.

“Honey,” he said to Sally, back in the kitchen, “I don’t think I want a new car anymore.”

He expected her to be happy. Instead, Sally looked sadly at him. “Oh honey, if you really wanted the car you shouldn’t give up on it.”

What? “No, it was a whim, a temporary urge.”

Sally looked at her husband. “Winston, is everything ok?”

Winston coughed in astonishment. “Yes, everything’s fine. Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Well…” Sally stroked her ponytail nervously “You’ve been acting so strange, what with this deal about the new car, saying first you want one, then you don’t. I worry that you’re getting depressed with these constant mood swings.”

Winston wondered if that book had been putting these ideas in her head. “What mood swings? Deliberating the purchase of a new car doesn’t mean I’m having emotional problems.”

“I’m just concerned, that’s all,” his wife shot back, hurt.

Winston contained his anger. “Look, I’m fine, I’m not having a mid-life crisis, and I don’t want a new car.” He took a deep, calming, breath. “What’s for dinner?”

The next Wednesday, Winston left work frustrated. Accounting firms were brutal when April 15 was just around the corner, and crisis after crisis was pouring in. He got in his car and turned the key, and as it revved to life the ‘service engine soon’ light came on. “Goddamn it,” he growled. Ignoring the light, he pulled out into rush hour. The drive was slow, and he wished the radio worked so he could hear a traffic report. Down the highway the large sign of the car dealership loomed into view. He turned his eyes as the Buick crawled along, but the temptation grew stronger with proximity. I could just stop in to look for a second, he thought. I could wait out the traffic and browse a little.

He pulled in. Before he’d gotten ten paces from his raggedy Buick, a cheerful young saleswoman, he hadn’t seen many of those, sidled up to him.

“Hello sir,” she said through a brilliant smile. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, I’m just browsing,” he replied, noting that she was a redhead.

“We’ll browsing for what, maybe I can help?”

Winston held his breath, and looked over the lot. The cars stood like military personnel awaiting inspection.

“Honestly,” he said slowly, “I’m in the mood for something a little sporty.”

2007-03-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

Turtle Power

As I'm sure you all know, recently the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made their triumphant return to theaters. This is a big deal for me, because Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael are a huge part of my life. In fact, I'd say that after my parents, the Ninja Turtles are the most influential figures in my life.

Perhaps you think I'm joking; perhaps you are a fool. I watched the first Ninja Turtles movie when I was six. As soon as the credits rolled I went to my parents and said, "I want to do that." My parents went back and forth for a bit, but after a little deliberation they went out and bought me a giant green turtle suit.

No, actually they let me sign up for Karate, an action which set the course for the rest of my life. Two roads diverged, and I, I took the path of bad metaphors. And every direction in my life since then derived from that decision. Almost seventeen years now, and for better and worse my thoughts, my actions, my values, are so wrapped up in martial ethos that I can't conceive of my life had I not seen that movie so long ago.

Martial arts led me to Japan after high school; I applied to Tufts University solely - solely - because I wanted to train at a particular Kung Fu school in Boston, which led me to the Naked Quad Run which, besides being a defining moment in my life, also precipitated this blog. So I guess everything goes full circle.

Post college I moved to LA to pursue a career in fight choreography; after a few months of not getting much going on that, I got a job teaching, which was just going to be a part time gig, but it turned into a full job, one that I really love, maybe even a career, who knows. But ultimately I'm here in LA, now, teaching karate for a living, because I saw some stupid movie when I was six.

And now my future might involve opening my own school one day. Or maybe not. I might get sick of martial arts and become, I don't know, a ladies shoe designer. But if so, it'll be because, ultimately, I saw some idiot movie about giant Karate turtles. I'm not sure how many people can say that watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the most influential moment of their lives, but I'm proud to make that claim. Seventeen years behind me, and looking at the infinite expanse of potentials in my future, too vast to even start to comprehend or anticipate, I only need to say,"Cowabunga, dudes."

2007-03-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

Pleasant Surprise

By virtue of living in LA, I'm often asked, "So, seen any celebrities out there?" My first reply is "Only every time I look in the mirror!" but after the asking party has calmed down from his hysterical laughter, I brag that celebrity sightings are for amatures. I have done much, much better. And like almost everything else, I owe it to martial arts.

Martial arts is my job and my hobby: teaching at the Karate school and training at a school that teaches Krav Maga. Krav Maga is a fine martial art, and it's gotten a lot of media attention out here, so besides the hundreds of members, there are a lot of celebrities who have done Krav Maga, either at the training center or privately, for upcoming movies etc. A few months ago I was in class, and a new guy walked in. He was about my height, black, little goatee, and very familiar looking. He looked an awful lot like Harold Perrineau, whom you may know as Michael from LOST, or Mercutio from the more recent Romeo and Juliet, or even Link from the second and third Matrix movies.

Damn that guy looks a lot like Michael from LOST, I thought. If only I could confirm his name is Harold. Fortunately I had a plan: we do a lot of partner drills, so I'd just start working with him, introduce myself, he'd give me his name, and I'd know.

That class I never got to work with him, so the mystery went unsolved. Next week, however, he came to class again, and this time I made sure to work with him on a drill. I stuck out my hand and said, "Kenny."

He shook it - the moment of truth approached! - and said, "Harold."

"Damn right you are!" I did not say.

Harold turned out to be pretty cool. His wife was in the class as well, in fact I think she had started before he had, so maybe that's how he got into it. Lucky I hadn't hit on her yet.

The Karate school I work at is an all kids program. There are four separate schools in the company, one in LA and three in the Valley. We're kind of an upscale Karate school, which I didn't even know was possible. I'd always thought Karate schools were rickety one room affairs that always looked a good kick away from falling down, and then I get hired at this place that's like the Saks Fifth Avenue of martial arts. So we're ritzy, and as such, we attract a certain number of celebrity parents. I won't reveal any identities, but suffice it to say that some of the moms we get in are jaw-droppingly gorgeous. There is one woman, the girlfriend of a definite celebrity, who is without a doubt the hottest girl I've ever seen in my life. That is not hyperbole. It's like if I went to China and said, "That is without a doubt the longest wall I have ever seen in my life." She's the Great Wall of Hottness.

We have writers, producers, directors and actors, but there is only one celebrity attached to the school whose identity I plan to reveal. He's someone with a martial arts background, and the first time I met him was during weekly staff training. He's not part of the staff, just a friend of my boss. He's someone very likely to appear on VH1's I Love the 80s. His most known role was as a Harley-riding rogue bounty hunter with long flowing tresses. His surname is a homophone for plural humpless camels. His identity: Lorenzo Lamas.

That's right, I train with the RENEGADE.

And he seems like a pretty cool guy. Laid back, just interested in training. Just yesterday we were talking before class started, and somehow the topic veered towards fatherhood.

"Are you a father?" he asked.

I wasn't sure how to answer. I have to say, that's not a question I get a lot. "Do you seriously think you'd have a chance with a girl like me?" Sure, I get that all the time. I've got dozens of stock responses. However, when Lorenzo asked "are you a father?" my first thoughts were along the lines of, "How dumb do I look?" But I didn't want to be that sarcastic with the Renegade, since he has more children than many small villages. I finally settled on "No."

"You know, I was a father at 24," he said. "And when it happened, it was a pleasant surprise."

"Well, if it's a surprise for me," I said, "I certainly hope it's a pleasant one." Really I think the only surprise would be finding out how fast I could get my luggage packed. And this even with a radical lightening of my attitude towards children. Yet another thing I owe to martial arts, specifically this teaching job. I taught kids before, at home before I went to college, but they were a little older, and although I was good at teaching the technical aspects, I just didn't like children.

That doesn't mean that I though they were evil, or anything like that. But all the characteristics that people found cute in children just rubbed me the wrong way. Proponents of children would always say, "I just love how they're so innocent, and they always tell you what they're thinking." Great, so they're dumb and irritating. Bring 'em on over. I can't think of any two traits that scream "endearing" so much as ignorance and tactlessness. So my reaction to children, except in the narrow venue of teaching the karate, was revulsion. If I was in a social setting - dinner party with friends of my parents say - and a kid walked near me, it may as well have been a giant tarantula.

Everyone: "Aww, isn't he cute!"

Me: "Get that thing away from me."

If I'd ever been "surprised" with a kid, I would have probably denied his existence well into middle school. Him: "Daddy, can you help me with my algebra?" Me: "I could if I knew who you were, little buddy." Him: "Mommy! Daddy's ignoring me again!" Her: You bastard! Why can't you admit we have a son!" Me: "Who's this 'we' you keep talking about?"

Eventually I got a little older and wiser, though, I realized that, as with all things, the root of the problem was me. Kids would be kids; sure they were dumb, but the problem was my inability to relate to them. Just like a guy who writes off his romantic failings by saying "women are dumb," I was doing the same about kids. However, realizing the problem in oneself is the first step towards overcoming it, and I immediately set out solving my character failing by avoiding children whenever possible, including crossing to the other side of the street if necessary.

I could ignore it for a while, but eventually I began to regard my awkwardness with children as a huge stain on my personality. I envied severely my friends who could relate to little kids so well. When I got this job teaching, at a karate program that focused entirely on kids, I finally got the chance to learn.

Suffice it to say, I've learned a lot. My friends are shocked to hear me say things like, "I love my kids." I'm a little shocked to hear it was well, without replacing "my" with "to hit." About two months ago I realized that I'd achieved my goal of being "good" with kids. That's a milestone for me; a huge step on the road to manliness. And then a few days later I finally learned how to drive a stick, so that was a big week for me.

So I'm not averse to kids any more. I've come a long way from the days when I would recoil from a child like it was a three-and-a-half foot open wound. I don't adore them unconditionally, though. Anyone who says children are innocent is a damn fool. Children are not innocent. They are malicious, mal-intentioned little beasts. But they're alright. They're malleable. I still have no desire for a kid of my own, but at least now, if some future girlfriend or even (gulp!) wife one days says, "Kenny, I'm pregnant," I know I have the maturity and experience to not panic, not regard my life as over, but to look her in the eye and say:

"Who are you?"