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September 29, 2005 >> Photogenics
My face is currently peeling like an onion from the terrible Sunniness of our school's Sports Day last weekend. I'm pretty sure one of the kids was trying to insinuate that I look like an unraveling Egyptian mummy today in class, in his poor-English-speaky. I bathed him in skin flakes from my disintegrating scalp and he shrieked like a banshee. It was awesome.
Last week I was sent on an expedition to Suwon to get my offical Alien Residence Card so I can, you know, live here. Legally and stuff. One of the kids' bus drivers drove me - Mr. Kim, a very sweet man - and I did some cross-cultural detective work and found out that he is indeed a brother to Mrs. Kim, our director. Apparently it's some big secret... and the school secretary Jasmine is their sister but nobody talks about it and everyone gossips and suspects and whispers. Everybody knows - I don't really get it - but I guess it's some crazy Korean family office thingy. And practically everyone here is named Kim.
ANYWAYS, we get to Suwon and I'm ushered into some bureaucratic office where I shamble about from floor to floor until I finally find Immigration and take a number. I'm immediately sent up to another floor because I need some passport-sized photos. The photo booth quickly became my own personal Satan.
ATTEMPT 1: Insert money into machine until something happens. Korean jabbering ensues and FLASH! WHOA! a row of pictures whirrs out of a slot, but apparently I was too busy looking at my shoes and praying for the insight to understand the photo booth's mechanical chanting. Sullenly check out the picture. 5000 won down the drain.
I showed my faux-photo to a passerby and he guffawed. "Look away, your mistake!" he cheerily told me before going to fuck his sister (probably).
ATTEMPT 2: Insert money. Stare intently at the photo booth mirror. Identify Korean countdown, but GAH! my eyes are stinging from not blinking. FLASH! Eyes wide open! Bleeding retinas! Sinking feeling in heart! Whirring once again, and oh no, it appears that I blinked.
Now I was really starting to get pissed off. Mr. Kim was waiting patiently in the bus while I fucked around with this horrendous automaton, and I had just blown enough money for two giant jugs of beer down at the convenience store. I had no more small bills and had to sojourn around the building, looking for change. I accidentally broke into some corporate board room meeting and, instead of looking bashful and apologetic, waved a 10 000 won note at a bunch of serious-looking guys in suits. "Change? Change!! Who's got change?" There was no change.
Eventually I returned to the photo booth with steadfast determination and the money-food I knew it loved. This curtained bitch would give me a passport photo. I needed it. I demanded it!
ATTEMPT 3: Insert money. Stare angrily at the camera. You're not supposed to smile for passport photos, right? Oh God, holding this pose is agonizing... can't blink... won't blink. FLASH! Whirr whirr whirr and out comes a picture of... something. I think it's me.
Crestfallen, I went back down to the immigration desk and sadly handed the trio of hideous photos to the official. He laughed uproariously and made a point of showing the photos to the two girls working on computers behind him. They laughed too, and I begged and pleaded in simplified English for mercy. I told them about all the money I had poured into these 'glamour' shots. Their photo booth had brought me to my knees, and I just needed my fucking card.
The official handed my stuff to one of the girls. "Usually... one week," he said. "Takes one week. But you - for you - today. She will do it now." This was small consolation for my public disgrace, but hey, at least now I wouldn't have to go back to this awful place to get my immigration card.
"Say thank you," the man said. "You are very special case. She thinks you are cute," he confided. I smiled and waved at her. "Komupsumnida!" Obviously this guy was lying: anyone looking at those photos could never mistake me for anything but a monster. Regardless, the fluffing was nice even if the lie was abysmal.
Gripping my ill-gotten card, I met Mr. Kim downstairs and he laughed at me too. Then he bought me a coffee and we were off, him piloting the short bus and me crouched in relieved solitude in the back. Radiohead's Creep was playing on the easy-listening Korean radio station in all its "You're So Fucking Special" glory and Mr. Kim told me that he liked ABBA. Dancing Queen. I don't like ABBA but I gushed and pretended to because he was such a stand-up guy.
I'm so fucking special.
Posted by Chris at 08:29 AM >> Commentations (7) | Permalink
September 28, 2005 >> Sexy Bar Sticker Party
Now that I'm minorly sloshed and no longer pissed off, let me tell you about our Sexy Bar Sticker Party last week.
We were rambling about Sanbon, checking out bar after bar (Bar Magot gets a thumbs down, to my great chagrin... I mean, what a sweet name to live up to!) when we finally plowed our way into Sexy Bar. Sexy Bar is indeed sexy: it features hot Korean bartenders in tube tops and slinky jean skirts. The clientele is exclusively elderly Korean males, many of whom apparently hold high-ranking government positions. They clearly go to Sexy Bar after work to gape at pussy while ignoring the wives vibrating on their cell phones. They drink infidelity and sweat won onto mahogany bars.
So here we are, four boorish Westerners crashing the Sexy party and everyone is looking at us out of the corner of their eye. We are new; we are a glaring white light in the swirling dusk. Belinda immediately struck up a conversation with the table of Koreans next to us, because that's what Belinda does. She also happened to have stickers in her purse - we use stickers to bribe the kids into doing their homework. Beer being beer, we were soon wearing these stickers on our foreheads and me and Belinda went tooling around the bar (it's a small bar) and putting our remaining stickers on elderly Korean foreheads.
"What. Does. Mean?" one greying fellow asked me, and I enthusiastically told him that, "Everyone in Canada wears stickers! It's so cooooool. Fuckin' rad, man!" I was overjoyed by how complacent these guys were about getting an Octopus Sticker jammed onto their faces by some Western dick, even if they quickly took it off when I turned my back. Nobody said no, nobody got pissed. Even the Sexy Girls were okay with being tentacled. Everyone just took it, everyone received the glorious forehead sticker with a quizzical glance at other Koreans. I'm sure they talked some serious shit about us in their dank corners, but I like to think we gave them a Sexy Bar experience they'll never forget. I mean, you can make a massive failure of yourself trying to pick up a bar wench every night - how often do you get an Aussie and a Canadian prancing around your favourite tit bar and stickering you?
Back at the table, Belinda was in full conversational swing and Mike and Sam forced me at knifepoint to ask the table next to ours questions about where I could find "14 year old pay-sex girls". It was particularly inappropriate considering one dude had just finished telling me about his - wait for it - 14 year old daughter. I enquired about local chapters of the Church of Satan and that about wrapped it up. Nobody understood and they were tired of trying. The yangos left Sexy Bar in a swath of noise and failed Sexy Hugs, international relations work done and done.
Posted by Chris at 11:21 AM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
September 27, 2005 >> Magnificent Failure
Today I got right pissed and started talking loudly to one of the Korean teachers about how I was asking around about other jobs. About how maybe teachers at other hagwons don't have to do half the work we do at Herald. You see, Test Week is fucking balls and we have one every month. This ballooned today's workload up to about 12 hours, what with making tests and stealing tests from Mike and photocopying tests and giving tests and marking tests.
The worst part about the whole situation is that the tests truly reveal how retardedly behind some of the kids are. We're talking miserable failure here and in the case that a child happens to be a miserable failure, we can't really tell his parents. Oh my, no! They would certainly blame the teacher and the school indignantly move their business (and retarded kid) to another hagwon. It's certainly not the child's fault that they spend 40 minutes of their parents' well-earned money trying to hide in classroom cupboards and jabbering like a monkey. It's certainly not the parents' fault for overenrolling their kids in so many taekwondo classes and piano classes and goatherding classes that they fall asleep in English class. Hells no!
So when the kids fail, I have to set the bar lower. When they can't use sentences, I fall back onto spelling. When they can't spell, I get them to speak. When they can't speak, I smile and nod my head and give them a fucking cracker. I write glowing notes for them to take home and stick on the fridge, lying with every twitchy pen stroke about how their kid is a magical prodigy.
I'm sure I'm just bitter because I'm seeing all my free time eaten up like Smarties. Some of the kids actually perform quite well, and I have no problem telling their parents that they should be proud. But if a young Korean is a real donkeyface, a shit disturber, then I feel I should have the right to tell doting mothers exactly how subpar Darling Angel really is. I should be able to burst that bubble. But teaching ESL is a business, a big juicy cater-fest, and nobody wants to hear that their beautiful baby is going to be a garbageman and not a doctor.
So I'm pissed off but I'm not really going to quit, because I've been working cushy jobs for far too long. I need to develop some kind of work ethic and it has become wonderfully apparent that Herald is Where Work Is At. It's probably best to learn to put up with it now and not act like such a prima donna. And really, the days sweep by, lightning fast, when Test Week rolls around.
Posted by Chris at 09:50 AM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
September 25, 2005 >> Engrish
Check out my new toaster oven. In part, I bought it because it was the cheapest of All The Toaster Ovens (about 20 bucks). But in another, more amusing part I bought it because it proudly proclaims "Living Essence & Feeling" on the box. I have no idea what the hell that's supposed to mean but it sounds magnificent. I will now cook chicken nuggets embued with living essence: chicken nuggets that will be the very elixir of life.
Korea has an entertaining habit of combining English with Hangul to spawn some very bizarre results. Jesus Loves dumplings. Lounge Bar poisoning. Helpful signs that say INFORMATION in English, followed by the actual information which is, of course, all Korean.
I get the feeling that most products and signs have a snippet of English advertising because it's supposed to be cool and worldly, not because, you know, it makes any kind of sense at all. Most people here probably just see it and say "Ahhh... English. Very good, very good," so I think maybe the advertisers get lazy and throw up the first English words they can think of. The results are usually not very good, but a source of endless amusement nonetheless.
Posted by Chris at 11:07 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
>> Itaewon Revisited
I'm a firm believer that you can get sick, both physically and mentally, if you don't take a break every once in a while to chill, alone, and do nothing of value. And so, this fine Sunday afternoon I am sitting in my apartment and slowing down, catching up on life. I am certainly not going to Yongsan with Mike and Nik and Jak to pick up cheap pirated DVDs and inexpensive USB hard drives. Oh my, no. And the fact that Sanbon is a good hour's subway ride away from anything good in Seoul certainly has nothing to do with it. I am a paragon of self-discipline and regimented solitude.
I'm also moderately hung over (surprise!). Last night it was back to Itaewon, back to the troops of American soldiers in camouflage and full killing regalia. Back to the seeping masses of Western nostalgia.
Jay Bar hit me like a ton of a bricks. It was a basement joint with a sacred Egyptian logo, seedy and full of hipper-than-hipsters. It was Phils' older, slutty sister. On the tiny corner stage, kids jammed and bounced and sang and the bass levels were totally fucked but I didn't care because for an instant I believed that I was home. There was one bathroom for both sexes and I had to pee in front of the American and Irish girls who had kicked my ass at pool earlier. "Fuck all this Korean pop!" one singer shouted. "Whatever happened to rock and roll?" And then he tried to rock. And then we left.
Next we went to some underground club where neon liner was plentiful and Korean pool sharks eyed Western girls dancing to last year's Top40. Mike and Jak swore to me that hot Brazillian models would show up at 1 AM. In the early morning prime-time, the bar flooded with whitey cracker hooches from all nationalities and a wide variety of ESL geeks and wannabe thugs looking to pick them up... but no Brazillian models. After some fruitless altercations with tall, wire-thin Russian girls, we hit the road and I peed on a police station while Sam threw up in their bushes.
Itaewon is a bubble, a growing stronghold of ironclad cultural stoicism. If other, rural parts of Korea refuse to let go of tradition, Itaeon embraces change and globalized American trends like a filthy hooker with a half-hour minimum.
Belinda, our new Australian teacher, loves using her Korean in randomo conversations but the Jay Bar(tender) brusquely told her "No Korean!" when she tried. No Korean in Korea. No Korean in Itaewon. The two are not synonymous.
Earlier we had talked about how people come to "multi-cultural" nu-nations like Canada and American and Australia and just stay in their Chinatowns and Little Havanas. Immigrants learn enough English to survive but hide behind their cultural walls, unwilling to push themselves into the wilds of mass society. They hold on. They build themselves a sanctuary in a strange and foreign land and defend it rabidly. And it was last night, in Itaewon, that I realized that this phenomenon occurs elsewhere too. Welcome to Little USA, where streets are nicknamed Homo Hill and American soldiers stride the strip, marching by unconscious drunks lying in gutters lined with garbage.
SIDEBAR NOTES, TOP TA BOTTOM:
(1) Apparently, the only thing Canada has to offer is the great, snowy wilderness.
(2) I don't know what was in this building, but the hardcore gateway featured one of the deadliest fencing of all time.
(3) This is a public washroom. Girls.
(4) I found this rad umbrella in E-Mart. It features anime characters from some weirdo kids cartoon or video game or something. People look at me strangely when I hold it - I'm a little concerned that maybe I bought merchandise for "Yokimo-Kim's Homosexual Turtle Parade Paradise".
(5) Jen and Chad feeding the corporate agenda at Starbucks. Jen is proudly holding a Prize. Her coffee came with a scratch card and after she scratched it, we realized that the unintelligible line of Hangul symbols could mean anything from "FREE SUV WITH PIMP RIMS" to "YOU SUCK YANGO, TRY AGAIN". So we thrust the card at an employee and she brought Jen a free pen! The pen had advertising on it.
This world isn't perfect.
Posted by Chris at 01:39 AM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
September 22, 2005 >> Teacharoo
Last Friday was the day before Chusok - Korean Thanksgiving - and most of the kids arrived at school dressed to the nines in silky clothes. The boys looked like little Kung Fu masters and the girls had beautiful satin dresses with long hemlines that they kept tripping over. Instead of class, we all made little roly-poly dough pastries and got ourselves covered in flour (although the kids had fancy baking aprons). Apparently making roly-poly dough pastries is Traditional and the shape of your roly-poly pastry is said to resemble your future lover. Since most kindergarten kids are completely inept in that "Help me, teacher!" kinda way, I ended up forming most of the pastries myself. My baking efforts were hideous: misshapen doughy monstrosities with powdered sugar and beans leaking out of every split seam and gaping crevass. If the Traditions ring true, I have damned these poor children. They will all marry Donkeys and Zombies and Fishmen.
There are ups and downs to teaching ESL. The ups are very high and the downs, well, they aren't really too too bad. The kids will jump all over you if they sense weakness, but if they respect you they can be sweethearts if they feel like it.
Some days I take lunch with the kids and just today I made an ogre of myself. I told a little boy to eat a spoonful of green seaweed-stuff, just one, before he could scrape his little bowl and go play with the other kids. He wept pitiably (man that seaweed stuff looked sick) but I was feeling surly and wouldn't budge. Weep weep weep. He definitely hates me now. Later on, I couldn't help but think, "Man, why did I make such a big issue out of one little mouthful?" Because, seriously, I couldn't really give a fuck if he eats gross seaweed or not. I sure wouldn't eat it. But then again, I don't especially care if Weeping Boy hates me. It's a zen balance of indifference, though it's hard to be indifferent when kids bring you little presents of candy or stickers, or make you proud when you can see that they're straining as hard as they can to understand. Sometimes my heart melts, just a little, and it takes a while to freeze back up.
Mike and Cindy (one of the Korean teachers) hooked me up with a private earlier this week. A private is a private lesson, which is technically illegal but a sick way to make a lot of supplementary cash. My private consists of a mother - who works as a professional calligraphy artist - and her two kids, none of whom speak English very well but are all serious about learning. I oblige them and we sit on the floor, drinking jasmine tea and talking about how much Vespas cost back in Canada. Three hours of these lessons per week equals 105 000 won, which basically covers (modest) living expenses all on its own.
By far my favourite student is a 12 year old named Sally. She can carry on a conversation with ease although she sometimes has to reach for appropriate words, and it's nice to talk and not necessarily teach. She is the poster child for Korean over-education, taking parentally chosen classes in English and Art and Music and God Knows What until late at night and then studying well into the early hours of the morning. She yawns a lot and rubs her eyes while we talk about racism in South Africa, but she can grasp the concept of irony which already makes her superior to most English majors I knew back at Wilfrid Laurier. She reads violent comic books about exorcists and magical girls and likes watching Lost.
Sally's parents and teachers have entered her in a speech-making competition this weekend, and she's not particularly nervous or apprehensive - she's tired. She's always tired. I'm proud of her and scared for her at the same time. She has never had time to be a child and this is why people die wondering Why, because they were always chasing the future.
Posted by Chris at 09:03 AM >> Commentations (8) | Permalink
September 20, 2005 >> Week 2: Living With Pears and Dumplings
One of the things that kinda tripped my balls when I first got here was the shower. As you can see, my bathroom is rather small - like a residence don's bathroom, perhaps, or a bathroom that a very devout monk might rock on occasion. The bathroom is so compact because the entire fucking room is a shower stall. See that showerhead on the wall there, beside the mirror? Yep, I hose myself down with that bad boy every day, in front of the sink, and the water pools on the tiled floor and eventually drains (very slowly). I don't know why, but the whole process makes me feel like ridiculous livestock: a glibly showering horse standing on its hind legs.
The rest of the apartment is pretty sweet, albeit a single room. I have a nice big window that peers out onto the highrises and mountains beyond, and a 1/2 sized fridge packed with unintelligible food items. I think one of them is chicken wings, but you never know. Last night, me and Chad and Jen fried up some dumplings and they had purple paste inside, not the sweet meatstuffs we had been eagerly craving.
We had been convinced of the dumplings' quality because the packaging was adorned with an enticing little mascot cartoon. He jauntily held a tray of dumplings in one bulbous hand and joyfully shouted the dumplings' many praises in Korean symbols while wearing a big, shit-eating grin.
The kicker was that the mascot guy was, himself, a dumpling and his hands and feet were also dumplings. So here he is, offering up himself and a big steaming plate of his family for our gluttony. That's some serious advertising, essentially saying: "Yes, that's right - us dumplings are so damn tasty that here I am, a dumpling myself, recommending that you eat my legs and all of my aunties and uncles for supper. You must consume us all!"
But he was a liar. The dumplings were purple and bean-y and gah inside, hardly the delicious feast we were promised. I hope that me and Chad and Jen choked down his family and all his limbs first so he had to watch. And there's one dumpling left, sitting on my kitchen counter, and that's him. I hope that mofo is happy. I'm probably going to throw him out the window later.
Check out this huge honkin' box of pears. My boss got them for me and the rest of the teachers for Chusok, which is the Korean harvest moon holiday and sorta like Thanksgiving. These pears are enormous and their large girth make them rather impossible to eat. I've been giving them away as gifts as fast as I can, but the other teachers who live on my apartment floor have been doing the same. The funny thing is that this big box of pears is worth a shitload of money over here - I saw a 3-pack of these suckers at the grocery store going for about 10 000 won (10 bucks).
Sometimes I wish I liked pears more.
Posted by Chris at 05:54 AM >> Commentations (8) | Permalink
September 19, 2005 >> Week 1: Culture Shock
Okay, so let me just start by saying that I was pretty aware, coming in, of the fact that I was going to be the sole honkey in an ocean of unintelligible Asians. I knew that it would be difficult and that my phrasebook would likely leave me talking like a retard.
Regardless, there was definitely some stuff about Korea that surprised me and caught me off guard during my first week here.
Consider the following:
>>Never leave chopsticks or a spoon in a bowl while eating. You can rest them over top of the bowl or on the table beside the bowl, but if they're in the bowl you're fucked. Koreans only put chopsticks in the bowl when they're setting aside food for their dead ancestors. Unsurprisingly, the dead ancestors never get around to actually using the chopsticks but you will still get grief if you make an accidental sacrifice of your rice bowl during dinner.
>>The number four here sounds suspiciously like the word for "death", so floor number Four is labeled as floor number F in elevators. 4 is bad mojo. 13 is also unlucky, just like back home!
>>If you are ever, perchance, strolling about in Korea, the people will generally ignore your presence studiously as they go about their business. However, you'll catch snatches of things they say: "Yango", most specifically. Yango means foreigner or white devil or stupid American or something like that, so when you hear yango you'll know you're the belle of the ball, even if nobody looks at you!
Speaking of which, gossip is pretty huge over here. I'm pretty glad that I can't understand what the Korean teachers at the school say about me when I'm around, because this way I can just not care. I'm sure that if I told them I fuck Shetland ponies in the ass in my free time, it would be headline news by 6:00.
However, they get excited when foreigners make an effort to learn the language. I'm trading a half hour of English lessons for a half hour of Korean on Thursday nights with two Korean teachers, and they're super happy-lucky-go-go about the whole thing.
>>Itaewon is a double culture shock because it's right by an American army base and serves as a carousing station for swaggering groups of bald-headed armymen. It's sort of like Westerntown and it was pretty fascinating to see a huge black guy walking out of a Burger King, arm-in-arm with a swanky Russian prostitute. Some of the soldiers speak Korean quite well - they've obviously been here for a while. Itaewon basically feels like a variety swirl of society, a global buffet of cultures rammed into a hollow Korean shell.
It's sort of a sketchy scene though. We watched greybeard businessmen bounce young Korean girls on their knees as they smoked cigars, and then we slept in the subway station in the wee hours between bar close and subway open. Itaewon is best served in moderation.
>>TV is pretty funny. Chad watches Korean music videos but I've been fascinated with the specialty channels: one is 24-hour kickboxing and another is 24-hour video gaming. In fact, I've watched many a late night Starcraft match (which is a hugely competitive game over here). It's covered pretty much like sports: a pre-game show delivered by three suited gentlemen who enthusiastically discuss a strategic preview of the map; the match itself, where the coverage switches between battle hotspots and intense close-ups of the competing nerds; and an interview with the victorious nerd after all is said and done. The best part of the whole thing is the show intro, where Korean gamers are depicted as bad-asses who skateboard and listen to rockin' tunes and look cool in a crowd. Unsurprisingly, this is Not the Case.
The commentary during the match is totally fucked - the slightest tiny thing will happen, like perhaps one guy will decide to build a new building in his base, and the announcer will scream hysterically: "Ojo Kamapdina Pokabokawokka Tul!!!!" Or something like that, cuz he talks a mile a minute. They're so serious about this game that you'd almost think an early Zerg rush was the first trumpet of the apocalypse. I watch Starcraft at night to put me to sleep.
>>The subway system is surprisingly straightforward. English signs and everything. No culture shock there, except you will inevitably perform a horrific pronounciation of whatever place you want to go to, and the ticketman will make you stumble through the stop name at least three times before he gives you your ticket. He will also correct your pronounciation, and what he says will sound (to you) exactly like what you just said. You will leave, shrugging your shoulders and muttering "San-bon. San-bon. San-bon." to yourself.
>>If a girl smokes in public here, she is seen as a woman of loose morals - basically, a slut. Korean women smoke but it's very secretive: bar bathrooms and so forth. Standards are a bit more relaxed for Western girls, but Sam (the Australian teacher at my school) has to change shirts if she wants to have a cigarette between classes so the kids don't smell the smoke.
>>I take my eyebrow ring out during classes, but keep the cuff at the top of my ear in. The kids make a big deal about it - one little earring - and insist on lining up to pet it gingerly. Then they'll go back to their seats and draw little earrings on all the characters in their workbook. I had a discussion with one of my older classes about piercings in Canada, and they squealed as I ran down the list of every possible location us Crazy Canucks might get pierced: nose, tongue, lip, bellybutton, Prince Albert...
And tattoos? Holy fuck. They catch a glimpse of the one under my arm every once in a while and scream with mock horror. Once again, they all insist on rubbing it like it's a good luck charm. Sometimes I wonder what they go home and tell their parents about me, because apparently in Korea only Mafia gangsters have tattoos.
>>Food can be either very cheap or relatively expensive, depending on where you go. A nice sit-down meal of BBQ rib or steak with a few beers might run about 15 bucks per person, while you can get a roll of kimbap (essentially sushi) for just over a dollar. Most people drink the filthy Soju with meals, and it's obvious why: you can get a big 'ol mickey of the stuff for about a dollar. Efficient brain-fucking. A lot of places have little coal stoves in the middle of the table where you cook the meat yourself, or - if you're a stupid yongo - they might come over every so often and cook it for you.
These meals typically come with heaps and heaps of side dishes and soups, so many that the entire table is usually covered end-to-end. And yes, one of these side dishes is always kimchi, which is ultra-spicy, fermented vegetables and Korea's national dish. Koreans always ask if you like the stuff and, to be honest, I'm kinda starting to. Chad has this theory that maybe the Koreans like to burn the shit out of their taste buds with kimchi so the following mouthful of rice doesn't taste so bland.
>>Money is pretty simple. Basically, I operate under the premise that 1 000 won is a dollar, 10 000 won is ten dollars and so forth. The exchange rate isn't quite that friendly to the Canadian dollar, but it's close enough. All the cash has proud looking Asian fellows on it, emperors or generals or something stately I suppose. Bills come in 1 000, 5 000 and 10 000 flavour, and coins come in 500, 100, 50 and 10. I only just got a coin under 100 the other day, which is a pity because I had been admiring the Koreans for getting rid of useless pocket change (the penny, anyone?). But, sadly, shitty small increments of money prevail.
I just got so pissed off at world currency that I threw all my 10 won coins out my sixth-story window and I think they hit some woman's umbrella.
GARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
Posted by Chris at 03:37 AM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
September 18, 2005 >> Week 1: Arrival
I've already rushed through my initial impressions, typing wildly earlier this week in an effort to get something, anything down before my anxious mind wipes it all away. Things are already a bit hazy but I can still elaborate. This might take a while.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Okay. At the airport, after my family melted away and I was left by myself with a wallet stuffed with Korean cash (won), reality struck with deadly force. I was the only Westerner in the entire Gate waiting area and it definitely felt a bit disconcerting. I studied my Korean phrasebook intently, hoping that I might somehow be able to converse with the yellow sea of people around me. Unsurprisingly, I did not magically turn into a linguistic god. In fact, I could barely remember how to count to four after 30 minutes of vigorous repetition. My memory - it is shit.
On the plane, most of the Koreans studiously ignored me except when I accidentally stepped on their tiny toes getting to my seat. I was lucky enough be sitting beside a young Korean high-schoolish kid who had been studying in Canada for the last few years and spoke very understandable English. I interrogated him fiercely during the 12 hour flight and found out the following:
>>Using Chinese in Korean culture is similar to using Latin in English culture: an indication of academic prowess (or pretention, I suppose).
>>Korean pop stars all have long hair because young Korean students have traditionally been forced to wear their hair short. Therefore, long hair = rebellion and nonconformance.
>>The Korean mafia often initiates young bullies, as young as seventh grade, who proceed to terrorize the rest of their school with impunity.
>>English test scores are incredibly important for young Koreans with hopes of going to a good university (read: EVERY young Korean). An extremely slim margin of test results separate the good schools from the mediocre schools from the hopeless, piece-of-shit schools. Learning English is understandably a massive stress-fest.
>>Much of Korean entertainment is a hilarious amalgamation of American style: rocker, rapper, cowboy, Top40 Backstreet Boys pop-star and so forth. One of the funniest things I've ever seen was a music video in which a trio of sassy Korean males rapped in English and sang softly in Korean, while a fellow driving a fancy car down a light-spotted tunnel wept passionately onto his steering wheel. Perhaps his girlfriend broke up with him, or maybe he did poorly on his university entrance exam - I couldn't really tell. It's just as likely that he lost a game of Starcraft. Regardless, I laughed hysterically, to the obvious consternation of the elderly woman beside me.
PS: The kid didn't have to tell me that final point. I figured it out all on my own!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Anyways, I got my first real taste of cultural misunderstanding within several minutes of arriving at the airport. I was supposed to call an enigmatic character named "Billy-teacher" once I arrived so he could pick me up at the other end of the line. However, none of the Korean coins I had acquired thus far would fit into a pay phone slot, no matter how angrily I pushed. So I did what any self-respecting Canadian would do: I asked a nearby family if they could make change out of my too-fat coin with a picture of a sagely asian figure on it. Of course, they had no fucking idea what I was talking about despite the fact that I gestured enthusastically at the coin and at them and at the phone, and eventually an ugly little girl with an ice cream cone told me to go away... I think. So I went away and got on a bus.
Luckily, every single bloody person in this country carries a cell phone so I was able to wrangle a call out of the guy sitting across from me. His phone was so complicated and suped-up that it looked like it might possibly launch nuclear missiles out of a remote silo on the Pacific rim. So, naturally, I had to get this strange man to place the call for me like I was some weeping lost infant trying to phone his mommy at home.
All went well and Billy-teacher, who I had placed as an Aussie because of his accent on the phone, was there to meet me in Sanbon. He was actually a well-dressed Korean guy with a British accent. Hmmmm. Anyways, within seconds of dumping my stuff into my apartment, Billy and all the other English teachers at the school rounded me up for dinner and drinks. They are lovely people.
I struggled a bit with chopsticks and the newness of everything and jet-lag and not having slept in 22 hours, but the food was good and the beer was good (although I still think Soju tastes like rubbing alcohol or at the very least, a shot of straight vodka). We hit a number of different places, the last of which ended in me singing very poor kareoke at a norae-bang and us making friends with a group of Korean 20-somethings eager to test out their modest English. One of them in particular took a liking to me and we spent the night exchanging hand-slaps and fist bonks because we were both turbo-drunk and unable to communicate whatsoever. He eventually passed out, his head in his hands, and we all stumbled home at about 4 AM. I gladly collapsed into my unfamiliar bed.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One final, important thing to mention: when I heard that Sanbon was a suburb, I had pictured something like Mississauga: a central shopping district and rows upon rows of houses with white picket fences and basketball hoops in each driveway. Okay, well, Sanbon is NOT that kind of suburb.
Picture rows upon rows of tall, forbidding grey skyscrapers, apartment buildings all. Picture many blocks of neon downtown core, festooned with all manner of gaudy sign above gaudy sign above gaudy sign. Everything blinks, everything moves. The brightness is blinding.
Back in Waterloo, if you want to go somewhere, it's simple - just find the building and go in. Here in Korea, the first floor of a building might house several eateries and a convenience store. The second floor has several PC-bangs (internet cafes) or video-bangs (Playstation orgy central) and another bar. The third floor is a restaurant and a sauna and another bar, and the fourth floor is - you guessed it - another bar. Every building houses business upon business upon business, and there's still shit here that I haven't even heard about, let alone checked out.
Once again, I must stress that this place is a kind of Madness, a Madness that I am down with. When I first woke up in the early afternoon after the night of my arrival, hung-over, I looked out the window in confusion. The mountains and the strange Korean signs and the marching parades of people far below all screamed, "You're here. You're in Korea and it's real."
For a brief instant I remembered the cultural struggles of the day before and wondered how I could possibly stand a chance here, out on my own. But then the sun peeked out from behind Residential Building 642, out on the horizon, and I knew that possibility was there. Possibility is here. It's doable.
Posted by Chris at 03:17 AM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
>> Week 1: Leaving Vancouver
Before I lose the chronology completely, I will begin at the beginning, which is Vancouver, BC, Canada. These are my sisters, weirdos all. From left to right, Katee, Susie and Ruth (aka Monkey, but only I call her that. Actually, I used to call her Poncho once upon a time until I decided that the name Poncho was far too cool and stole it for my very own.)
On my very last night in the Great Nation of Canada, we all pulled out our digital cameras and had a retarded 'ol time taking pictures: a family of true technocrats.
Top left: Susie rolling my towel up like a joint.
Top right: Me smoking the towel like a joint, to Susie's great Christian dismay.
Bottom right: The illustrious parentals. Some say that my father looks like David Suzuki, some say he looks like a mad scientist... you be the judge!
Bottom right-center: Sibling senselessness.
Bottom left-center: Bella the Satanic feline.
Bottom left: Me wearing the fabulous PONCHO that Katee brought me from her volunteer trip to Mexico!
Anyways, it is likely that this touching Clemens Moment is making many of you sick in your little bellies, so I'll leave it at that. I was very glad to make it home before I embarked on my Sketchy Korean Adventure, though, and had one of the best visits ever. It's always interesting to see how each of my siblings is growing in a different direction, especially after not seeing them for so long... so there, fuckers. I'm done.
Posted by Chris at 03:02 AM >> Commentations (4) | Permalink
September 17, 2005 >> Week 1: Beginnings
Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been an entire week since I arrived here in South Korea.
There are ten thousand things to talk about, to describe, to laugh at, but the task seems monumental. Trust me, if I had more time to myself I would have regaled you daily with stories about Korean businessmen, drunk on soju, speaking broken English to us at restaurants to impress their boss. I would tell you about the hilarious signs dotting the neon landscape around my apartment ("Jesus Loves Dumplings!"). I would have pages and pages of new and interesting experiences and observations, every single day.
But something about this place drains you.
It might be the work day. I'm wrestling with English from a whole new perspective, trying to explain the nuances of "Is" versus "Are" in sentences which, to me, is about the same as explaining how to breath. It's tough, maintaining the delicate balance between Interesting and Educating. Keeping the children happy, the parents happy, and the school administrators happy is rather taxing. I've been told it gets easier.
It might be the culture shock. Your brain is whirring on high blender speed 24/7 as you walk around the city, trying to understand everything. Back home, it's easy to stroll around on autopilot, confident that years and years of experience will get you from place to place, to where you need to go. Here in Korea, I've definitely noticed that I become fatigued from effort, pouring everything I've got into a single silly trip to get dinner. The simplest tasks become rocket science. My brain has been assailed mercilessly by booze and children and kebobs of questionable origin, and demands much sleep-time. This, too, will get easier as time goes on.
I already know how to get a beer: "Makchu, juseyo!" even though the Korean waitress will inevitably giggle at my boorish pronounciation. With food, I usually just point at some random collection of symbols and hope that what I get is tasty. It often is, although there's only a matter of time before I get a big plate of still-wiggling squid tentacles or a dog's head in a bowl of soup. Crossing fingers.
There's so much to see and do, and sitting at the computer and writing about it almost seems like a ridiculous prospect. I find my vocabulary shrinking already, my conversational style degenerating into a wild array of hand gestures: "No, no, my place is on the SIXTH floor. SIX!" (I'll flash six fingers emphatically, over and over, and then I'll realize that I'm talking to Chad who knows damn well what six is)
Chad and Jen are actually on their way here to Sanbon via the superduper subway system - we were supposed to spend the day in Seoul but it's raining and the Korean weatherman on TV keeps pointing to a big picture of a thunderstorm. I'm actually grateful for a day of nothingness, because I clearly need it. And in the next couple days I'll hopefully have the chance to post some pictures and a little more info.
I can already see that writing here will be my catharsis, when I get a chance, my release back into the easygoing world that I left behind one week ago. Because as enticing as diving headfirst into a new place may sound, it's always dangerous to leave yourself behind.
Posted by Chris at 12:43 AM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink
September 11, 2005 >> Korean Start Happy-Time Now
I'm Alive!
Yes, alive in Korea. I can't really type much, as I am currently robbing wireless from some poor sap in the neon-industrial complex of Sanbon, but suffice to say that Things Here Are Crazy.
Here's a brief checklist:
-rows upon rows of gaunt grey high-rises, lined up like a grim army of uniform soldiers and punctuated with the occasional blood-red neon crucifix to remind us all that God Is Everywhere.
-being made to drink many shots of Soju (rubbing alcohol, basically) by my co-workers - Sam from Australia, Mike and his sister Nicky from England, and Billy and Brenda from Korea. Yes, their names are Billy and Brenda, and if any kids in my classes don't already have Westernized names, I get to choose one for them! Say hello to little Magus Strombeard and Angus McFacerape.
-having a drunken Korean kid love me (but not in THAT way). He gave me his phone number and a pack of cigarettes and we exchanged many hand-slaps and fist bonks, despite the fact that all he could say in English was "I'm Sorry" and all I can say in Korean is komapsumnida (Thank You). His friend played Green Day on the guitar so we could sing Basket Case karaoke. Booze is the bridge between cultures.
-a wildly skewed light in my bathroom which gave me two electric shocks when I was stupid enough to attempt reattaching it to the ceiling (twice). I look forward to taking many showers with a live current above me.
Aaaaaaaand that's about it. Wow, that's QUITE a bit. I haven't made any Korean babies cry yet, with my filthy foreign visage, but I'm working on it. I start teaching tomorrow!
Posted by Chris at 07:26 AM >> Commentations (8) | Permalink
September 09, 2005 >> Canada's Last Post
Earlier this week, Chad mournfully told me in an email that his big, bushy beard was apparently intolerable to Koreans. His employer made him cut it off, perhaps afraid that it would scare the smaller children, and Chad warned me to prepare my luscious goatee for a similar fate. He looks somewhat like a turtle without his beard, which is quite the handicap when attempting to pull off the Burly Canadian Lumberjack schtick in a faraway realm. Chad is currently a Burly Canadian Turtle.
I look equally hideous without facial hair (see last Halloween), so I decided to spice myself up tonight in the desperate hopes that perhaps I would be such a paragon of beauty when I arrived before my Korean superiors that they would allow me to retain my goatee. Well I got a little overzealous and now I'm sporting a tiny tuft of hair jutting out of a big fat chin. I'm a monster. I look like a French male prostitute.
You're so vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain (you're so vain).
On the plus side, when they inevitably tell me to chop off my grotesque sprout of remaining hair before teaching, because of 'corporate aesthetics' or 'negative employee voodoo' or whatever, I'll know that they're really just trying to do me a favour. They'll be feeling bad for me, the stupid new Canadian with the billy goat face.
PS: I am trying to be jovial, but I'm actually pretty apprehensive. I'm a little skittish, a little freaked out, a little excited, a little scared. I'm definitely more than ready for this ESL ride to finally get off the ground. There's always a crucial point where you have to stop talking and thinking, and start doing. I apparently like to let that point sneak up on me in the night, like a hashassin or the Tooth Fairy. Guess we'll see what's what from the far side of the world, huh?
Posted by Chris at 02:40 AM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
September 08, 2005 >> Happy Mom Learns About Me Smoking Day
"You know, I always thought it would be hard to quit smoking," I remarked to my mother, out of nowhere. We were in the minivan on our way home from Chapters, where I had just picked up a Korean phrasebook and she had chosen a tiny tome about training dogs, with a stupid-looking Oriental beast pimped out to the nines on the cover. To her credit, she usually receives the surprising tidbits I feed her about my life away from home with an an attitude of quiet grace.
"Do you mean just mah-rah-juana, or do you mean cigarettes? Do you smoke cigarettes?" I love the way she says marijuana - so stately, so very posh and refined. She learned that I was a pothead when I accidentally showed her a movie taken during the FR!NGE afterparty a couple years ago. In one memorable scene, Chad is holding a wooden Gandalf pipe stuffed with mah-rah-juana, looks blearily at the camera and announces in a stately wizard voice: "Oh Frodo, you pack the finest bowls of pipe-weed in aaaall the Shire." She thought this was hilarious and told me she wished she had done "things like that" when she was younger. I was proud that her reaction was more intrigue than accusation, and from that point onwards I decided it was cool to be honest with her about my illicit hobbies.
I take great relish in releasing little secrets about my outside life to my family, since I see them so rarely, and I figured that if I could share my private quitting victory with anyone, it would be mom. See, I never smoke while I'm at home in Vancouver and for some crazy reason, I never get any kind of addiction pangs or even very many cravings when I'm here. The whole smoking schtick just kinda melts off me the second I deboard the plane. Back in Ontario was another matter ("Wait 'til the first snowfall! I said I'll quit when there's ONE INCH OF SNOW. That's more like a centimetre." *puff puff*), but in Vancouver I never even consider bringing cigarettes with me and sneaking off to light up. I just ... don't. It's weird.
I explained this to my mom. "You're very lucky," she told me. "Most smokers have horrible withdrawal and often end up raping their families in uncontrollable bouts of nicotine-rage." Uh... yes. She said something like that - perhaps without the family-raping bit. I like to spice up her dialogue from time to time. Anyways, honest, real discussion with her felt nice, as it always does, and we bandied opinions about the nature of addiction all the way home as she steered the van through the ever-vicious Vancouver traffic.
I think that I'm enjoying my family more than ever before.
Posted by Chris at 04:01 AM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
September 06, 2005 >> Television
One of the things I always hated most about watching TV were the commercials. I realize that this is not a particularly profound declaration: it's not like anybody sits in front of the television set, gyrating and touching themselves, until the pesky programming takes a backseat to Mr. Canadian Tire Guy and the newest incarnation of his paternal garden smugness. Nobody mutes CSI until the Rightguard commercial FINALLY comes on. It just makes sense, it's understood - advertising is the repetitive horror we force ourselves to endure between segments, eyes dilating wildly as we try to remember what happened before the 'short' commercial break.
I hate that. I hate having to pull my brain away from something it's interested in at regular intervals, to detach myself from a story and then forceably reattach after five minutes. It makes for bad storytelling in my opinion, poor progression of narrative. It's like reading a book and stopping after every single page to go stare at pony porn on the internet for a bit. The pony porn may be mildly tantalizing, but you'll have a lot of trouble piecing together the book at the retarded pace you're reading at.
Enter the Internet. At least, I THINK that's what it's called. This invisible network doohickey we're cyber-talking on. Now, not everybody knows this, but the Internet can be used to "download" things called "DivX files" and these "DivX files", when opened, often show magic pictures that are virtually identical to my favorite TV shows with one exception: NO COMMERCIALS. The commercials are edited right out! Needless to say, I am not so much watching the Real, Live Television anymore.
Let's weigh pros and cons here:
| PROS
>>I can watch episodes of whatever I want, whenever I want: not just during primetime or whenever the hell they show Joey these days. Yup. Can't get enough of that Joey. >>No routine interruptions to the story! ...of Joey and his sexual misadventures. >>Each episode takes less time to watch once the filthy advertising is chopped out - usually 19 minutes for a half hour show, or 44 minutes for an hour. Uh... and Joey rocks. >>I don't have to wait an entire week to see what happens (unless I'm watching a show that's still on the air: the Internet can do many things but it can't time-travel into the future to snag me a season finale that hasn't been filmed yet). >>I can watch episodes of shows that are no longer sucking network dick (read: Cancelled). This is convenient, as cancelled shows are often the best thing on TV. See: Clone High, Undergrads, Freaks & Geeks, Firefly, Dead Like Me, Futurama, etc. etc. etc. Oftentimes I won't even stumble across a show until long after it's cold in the grave. >>Holy shit it's free. |
| CONS
>>Advertising is what pays for Joey. Nielson ratings are what estimate Joey's popularity. If I don't watch Joey during primetime, or watch any of the advertising that pays for Joey, the networks will think that I do not, in fact, love Joey when I clearly do. And then maybe they'll cancel Joey because they'll think I'm not watching it. >>America might send me to jail for being a swashbuckling pirate. >>In some cases, I might feel guilty for not purchasing the completely legal and available DVD, which would put money in the creatives' pockets and reward their excellent work. Sometimes I do this. Sometimes. Oh Joey, WHEN will Season One arrive at Future Shop!? >>Occasionally I can't find part of a series - often several consecutive episodes worth - online, leading to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I dislike blank spots in the story. >>All this TV requires a mighty large hard drive. Oh woe is me! |
So is this the future of television? Are more and more viewers becoming dissatisfied with the current system of delivery and willing to turn to illegal downloads for their Fix? Will the networks begin twisting the Internet into a revenue-friendly distribution source for media content somehow?
| Will I be able to see season two of Lost from South Korea, solely thanks to the wonderful advantages of illegal downloading? I sure hope so, because if I don't find out what the deal was with that mine shaft and the Numbers and those ruffians kidnapping Walt, I may have to kill myself. For real, guys. I'm for real. |
Will my international cyber-piracy eventually piss off the networks? Will they sue the pants off every ghost they see - like the RIAA and MPAA - or will they learn that strong-arm tactics won't necessarily work with something as nebulous as the Internet? Perhaps the widespread availability of products like TiVo have already shown that Television will be a different battleground from Film and Music.
I'm interested.
...in Joey.
Posted by Chris at 01:05 AM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
September 03, 2005 >> Barkley the Retarded Dog
A few months ago, one of our two cats apparently got a bit restless and ran away from home, its worldly possessions slung over its back in a tiny spotted kerchief. Yes, Smokey - or whatever gay name my mother had dreamed up for this particular cat - was off to a new life, wild and free... or perhaps he got hit by a minivan. Whatever.
I have the advantage of not getting very attached to our frequently interchangeable pets since I only come home to Vancouver once or twice a year. Still, there are often new beasts to contend with and this year was no different: This was the Year of Barkley the Retarded Dog.
I recall talking to my sisters over MSN about the possibility of a replacement for Smokey-Cat-Thing. "We r getting a new dog!@" they all cheerfully told me, one by one by one. "Wut should we call him?" In some stupid haze, I told them "Barkley". I've given up on the really cool names like Magus or Bum Humpster - I've felt the bitter taste of rejection one too many times in pet-name brainstormings past. But Barkley... well, that was a name that might not immediately be discarded out of habit. My sisters promptly told me that Barkley was a stupid name and logged off.
Not two weeks passed when I learned that the family had a new dog... and his name was Barkley. Uh-huh. I was secretly vindicated that I had finally got to choose a family pet's name, and thought that perhaps we might bond. I would be Barkley's godfather and he would not bark at me, or bite me, or do any of the annoying things which have made me hate dogs and want to eat them in a delicious soup or broth in the past.
When I got home from the airport, Barkley seemed to be okay. He was a frolicker and gamboler of a dog, always wanting me to throw a tennis ball for him or drag his ass around the tiled floor by his teeth as he gnawed on a frayed piece of rope. If I refused, he would affix me with a pitiable stare and maybe whine a bit:
Barkley: *whine whine*
Chris: Barkley, if you don't shut the fuck up, I am going to beat you with that extension cord over there.
He is pretty tight and cool about the whole thing, and if I taunt him or threaten him with horrible violence every once in a while, it's all in good fun. He is clearly too stupid to understand my inventive threats involving the cheese grater, as long as I deliver them in a pleasant enough tone of voice. Sadly enough, Barkley is exceedingly stupid, retarded enough to remind me why I prefer cats.
My favorite Barkley moments involve Barkley nosing along directly behind our remaining cat, quietly sniffing like he thinks he's some kind of super-sleuth on the Big Case until the cat turns around, pissed off, and whacks him right in the face with a big paw. SMACK! Hiss! Whimper!
Damn I love those paw whackings and, of course, Barkley never learns that he is not a super-sleuth and so the whackings continue. Please note that I have not bothered to learn the surviving cat's name, despite the fact that he entertains me to no end with his sporadic bursts of pawwy feline rage. I do know that he is black and has green, hateful eyes, and that is enough.
Anyways, Barkley the Retarded Dog's crowning achievement thus far has been mounting me at his every convenience. He is most certainly fixed in the appropriate downstairs area, and yet he has singled me out as a prime target for standing pelvic thrusts. For example, earlier I was playing fooseball with my sisters and scored a particularly sassy goal with the five-bar. Well God forbid I should do an elaborate victory dance without Barkley bounding downstairs, enticed by the commotion, and throwing himself onto me, wrapping his legs around mine and going to town. I threw him off and tried to kick him in the ribs as he pranced about gleefully, tongue lolling, but I cannot REALLY hurt this dog. He is just too stupid. Even my own personal sense of malevolence is no match for Barkley the Retarded Dog.
And this, my friends, is why dogs get away with so much shit in this world despite their obvious mental shortcomings. They look cute and you feel like a dreadful handicapped-baby-beater every time you raise your fist against them. And so Barkley will live on, stupid and rape-happy and chock-full of dripping saliva, but I really, really wish he had been named Bum Humpster now - for obvious reasons. I mean, this dog doesn't even BARK!
Posted by Chris at 11:58 PM >> Commentations (6) | Permalink
September 01, 2005 >> On a Plane
I'm currently sitting in a plane 39102 feet above Wisconsin, according to the built-in monitor embedded in the seat back a foot in front of my face. If I look left, three girls are watching satellite TV - all the same channel, Survivor or some similar nonsense. If I look to the right, a four year old boy is spreading himself out across two seats, covered in blankets, and getting ready to go to sleep. The lights in the tiny porthole window beyond him form a patchwork of civilization - a map of conquered spaces and pitch-black wilderness. From the looks of things, Wisconsin is not a particularly strong bastion of technological triumph at 10:24 in the evening.
Or whatever time it is. Time changes are fluid and there's no marker on the map to tell you when it's officially One Hour Earlier. My laptop has been having fun trying to guess. I've never really been able to wrap my head around the concept that we're flying forward in space and backwards in time simultaneously, but then again, I'll be living a full half-day into the future from everyone in Ontario once I hit Korea. It's really best not to think about it. Time travel is usually Bad News.
This kid beside me is awake again, watching a man in a cowboy hat chase kangaroos on his little screen and eating pretzels. He is traveling alone and particularly good at getting people to do things for him - I've already turned his overhead light on and off about twenty times according to his schizophrenic whims. The kid has a short attention span but I find him to be agreeable, as far as small children go. His dad apparently tossed him on this flight all on his lonesome, and I'm trying to talk to him a bit as a test of my tolerance (seeing as I'm supposed to shortly be teaching The Young and all). It's going okay. We watched the takeoff together and I realized that it had been a damn long time since I actually looked out of the window and watched as my plane raced into the sky.
Earlier in the flight I bought him a pair of cheapo $1 WestJet headphones so he could listen to the tennis game that apparently enraptured him. Actually, that's a lie: I have a wallet full of dimes and tried to spoon them off on the flight attendant, but when she learned that the headphones were for the kid she made me take all those fucking dimes back. So there you go. Anyways, he likes tennis a whole lot and would occasionally scream things in my ear about tennis from time to time. I don't care for tennis myself.
The Silver God is far too massive to fit comfortably into small seating areas. I've learned this on the Greyhound and now I've learned it in the air: a 19-inch screen makes for some poor spacial logistics. I am practically typing this entry vertically, on my chest. Everyone in the seats around me thinks I'm 100% retarded.
The kid is now talking to a similarly parentally-challenged child in the seat in front of him. It's a fairly strange feeling to be typing about Kiddo and taking momentary breaks to talk to him at the same time. I'm pretty sure he can't read, but if he could, I wonder what he would think about me capturing him in text, cataloguing his sporadic interests and ADD antics? I have a feeling that if he did find out, he would forget entirely within five minutes. Or he would ask for publishing rights. Oh God, the flight attendant is currently giving him a Coke. This spells disaster.
Wow, I only just realized that I didn't know his name. Cameron, apparently. As soon as I told Cam that we were flying over America, he pointed his fingers like a gun and said "BANG BANG". Cam clearly understands international politics and Redneck Wrath. I now have a creepy inkling that he's a super-genius of some sort and is currently reading my mind. Hahaha, and then he immediately ruins his newly-minted mystique by reaching down to grab his cookies from under the seat and absolutely smashes his face on the drop-down tray. I laugh. This is ridiculous.
He's passed out now, possibly concussed, snoring quietly, and what began as a story about flying away somehow turned into the Tale of Cameron the Tiny Traveler.
But I digress. I have a beautiful letter and an Entertaining Package of Aeroplane Games given to me by two of my favorite people, and the memories of a thousand goodbyes - some curt, some warm, some wrenchingly emotional - bouncing around in my head, and I am filled with gratitude. I am trying to push the fiery glow in my chest into this keyboard and convert the stinging in my eyes into text, but nothing seems right. Nothing seems full and whole. Nothing complete. I guess I'll just have to settle by saying that you need to know that I feel incredibly blessed by the generosity and well-wishes and presence of the people around and close to me during the last four years in Waterloo. I'm flying away, writing cheesy goodbye sentiments with a child playing with an Incredible Hulk action figure beside me (does this kid EVER sleep?), and all I have left to say is Thank You. I'll be back one day.
Posted by Chris at 02:04 PM >> Commentations (4) | Permalink