Meeting Mr Kim

by Jennifer Barclay

  Not all of them, I thought, smiling to myself.

  At the station, Jae bought me a bag of sticky buns and announced he wanted me to accompany him and Wook back to Seoul. I reminded him yet again that I wanted to go to Tanyang, even though it was not the correct time of year to do so. Mayhem ensued, with Wook running back and forth to the ticket desk to prove that getting to Tanyang would be far too difficult, almost surely impossible. Grinning Jae had me rooted to the spot, and I wasn’t arguing with an inebriated former ssirum wrestler, so before I knew it they had bought me a ticket to Seoul on the same bus as them. I relented. Perhaps they were right. It was funny to think of the early days in Seoul when I couldn’t meet any Korean people. Now I couldn’t seem to shake them off.

  Before we boarded, I managed to buy a copy of the new Korea Herald. We got seats at the front of the bus, directly behind the driver. Wook sat next to me, while Jae, across the aisle, promptly fell asleep. As we set off, I opened the paper and found my Suwon article. Excited, I showed it to Wook, and he proceeded to read it out loud, very loudly in fact, until the driver barked at him to pipe down. Then Wook told me the piece was written at ‘a rather low level’ because I didn’t know Korea very well, which wasn’t the kind of reaction I was hoping for. He tried to wheedle back into my favour by asking carefully polite questions, and then making odd jokes about alliteration in the title, unaware he was breathing over me an overpowering combination of bean paste stew and soju. I couldn’t help laughing.

  Gradually he fell asleep. His head kept falling onto my shoulder, and in the interests of propriety I thought I’d offer him my inflatable travel pillow instead. He thanked me but explained it was unnecessary: he had a friend to lean on. I really had found a friend this time.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN:

  THE LAST DAYS OF SEOUL

  About a quarter of Koreans are Christians. Christianity entered Korea through Jesuits from the Chinese imperial court in the eighteenth century, and spread quickly but was suppressed by the royal family. Those suspected of sympathising with Catholicism were violently repressed, tortured, even executed – just as the Shilla Dynasty had beheaded the first Buddhist monk to arrive, before deciding Buddhism wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Christianity showed up again with American Protestant missionaries who founded schools and hospitals; and after the Korean War missionaries from Ireland came too.

  On the way back from Puan, I had noticed a traditional ancestral burial mound on a hillside, with a statue of the Virgin Mary, which I’d thought a strange combination, but in fact Catholic and Protestant denominations thrive alongside Buddhism and Shamanism, and of course Confucianism, which is not quite a religion but certainly a moral framework.

  After my telephone conversation with Immigration, I was dreading the trip there to extend my visa, not even knowing how I’d find it with those vague directions, ‘get out at exit six and walk for ten minutes’. I took the subway out to Omokkyo, and got out at exit six. It was pouring with rain and had been raining hard, non-stop, for two days now. This really was monsoon, and it’s no wonder Korea is such a green country. I tried to get directions from the few people out on the street in this atrocious weather. Gradually, it dawned on me. You’re supposed to keep walking straight in the direction you’re facing as you come up the steps of the exit. I supposed there was an ordered logic to it. It was funny how even at frenzied times of day, people kept to the correct side when going up or down the steps to the underground passages you needed to cross the busy roads.

  I found Immigration and arrived just as most of the staf left for an hour’s lunch break. I waited for an hour or so in my drenched shoes and clothes.

  I passed time reading the signs on the walls. One said that the Nationality Law was amended in 1998, so that dual nationals who did not choose to become Korean would lose their Korean citizenship as of 14 June 2000. Interesting that you couldn’t have dual nationality, you had to choose to be Korean or not. I also noticed a counselling room ‘for non-Koreans who may be suffering unfair treatment or infringement of human rights by employers’. I’d heard that sometimes the schools treated foreign English teachers badly and refused to pay their wages, which seemed bizarre given the paramount importance given to education in this country. What did that say about the attitude to foreigners?

  Finally, my number was called. The man at the desk was very confused that I didn’t have an airline ticket to depart the country. I didn’t buy a return ticket as I didn’t know when I’d be returning home, or where from. Gav and I planned to cross the country to Pusan, the south-eastern tip of South Korea, and take a ferry to Japan for a week – I would automatically be granted another three months’ visitor’s visa when I returned, and then we could spend time travelling around Korea together before heading to China. So I just needed to extend my visa for this last week. Instead of having my itinerary documented in tickets, I wanted to go to Pusan and buy a ticket for the ship to Japan when I got there. This seemed to amuse the immigration officer – although I now realised that sometimes smiling was a sign of embarrassment in Korea. He couldn’t believe I’d practically allowed my visa to expire, leaving only one day to renew it! I wasn’t sure myself how it happened, and to Koreans, such lack of planning, such disregard for the rules and formalities, was unheard of. He was surprisingly nice and helpful, however, forgiving everything because I was a foreigner who was clearly mad. He made me write out an explanation of my situation on a piece of paper which he attached to the form, then told me that the application for an extension would be processed.

  On the way back, as the train crossed the Han River, I saw the construction site of the new World Cup stadium, Mapogu Songam, which would be the biggest soccer stadium in Asia, holding 63,930 fans. Although they could have merely revamped the Olympic Stadium, they decided to build something new and symbolic, something strongly Korean. Apparently the design incorporated three themes: the octagonal shape was that of a traditional tray, the ‘floating’ roof was taken from the design of a kite, and the roof supports emulated a traditional Han River ship. Perhaps this would help them beat Japan. South Korea would host thirty-two World Cup matches in Seoul, Suwon, Inchon, Taegu, Pusan and other cities across the country, while the rest of the matches would happen in Japan.

  Gav’s contract had almost ended and suddenly we would have time together, evenings together. It would be interesting to see how things worked out. I had needed the times on my own, but was happy to be with my man again. I felt refreshed and fit from all my time in mountains and open air. Gav was fit too, from drumming almost every night for more than three months. We made plans to leave the day after his last show. Trying to plan the trip in an organised manner, I gathered all sorts of information on trains from the government English information service, probably a waste of time as the information always seemed to be wrong. I wondered if they didn’t update it frequently enough, or if the English hadn’t been checked properly for errors. There probably weren’t enough people using it to make it worthwhile.

  One evening, I finally visited Chongdong Theatre in central Seoul. Its show of traditional Korean dance and music was for tourists, but the performances were mesmerising. There was samdopungmulgut, five men playing powerful rhythms with gongs and drums, and pangut, a group of drummers who dance with trailing long white ribbons, full of raw, primal energy. Afterwards I walked through the city, passing through Namdaemun Market where I bought a beautiful celadon vase – the porcelain covered with a cracked, pale, cloudy blue-green glaze that is a prized Korean tradition – as a gift for my mother, though I wasn’t quite sure how I’d get it home. The vase was simple, restrained, graceful, the qualities prized in Korea.

  There was a phone call. ‘It is Mr Kim. Can you remember me?’ Mr Kim, hmm, might have to narrow it down a tad. But of course I did recognise his voice. It was Wook. He’d been in Soraksan with his family and unable to call earlier, but promised to pass on my best wishes to Jae, and to keep in touch by email. Meeting Mr Kim had been the culmi
nation of a wonderful period of getting to know Korea, of learning that South Korea really was a place where you could come for happy memories, in spite of its centuries of troubles, particularly the last one.

  We said goodbye to the Kimbap Ladies, and had a farewell lunch of mandu ramyun, noodles with dumplings, and kimchi. For the last show at the Hyatt, we bought bottles of beer at the supermarket and sneaked them backstage. One of the band’s fans, a Swiss businessman called André, was there and so I had someone to dance with. During ‘Hotel California’, Leroy unbelievably forgot the words and had to hum an entire verse, which didn’t really work with that song. But nobody in the crowd seemed to notice apart from me, and the crowd demanded a couple of encores before Good Vibes finished its final show. Gav and I joined the others to celebrate at King Club in Itaewon.

  It was a funny place, King Club: seedy, full of Russian prostitutes, and yet it looked like a bingo hall, set out with formica tables, and the waitresses were solid Korean women of a certain age, wearing the kind of uniforms you find in American diners. Dean was sitting with his arms round a homely waitress, presumably to hold himself up; he kept throwing cigarettes in the air to catch them in his mouth, but dropped most on the floor. Another waitress flashed her knickers at Vinny, but he was too glazed over with booze to notice. Moodily, Vinny and Dean both gave Gav unbridled grief for leaving the band, putting paid to Gav’s hope that everything could end on a friendly note. Barry sat drinking shots with a thin Russian girl of about twenty who seemed to have her kid brother in tow. It was altogether a bizarre scene. Same as it ever was.

  After, Gav and I went for one last Hyatt breakfast. Sweaty, laughing, probably still drunk in our dancing clothes, we swept past the immaculate staff and took our breakfast outside onto the balcony to escape the freezing air conditioning, and sat watching the grey city awakening.

  Leaving music equipment and my rash pottery purchase in storage at the Hyatt, that night we caught the overnight train to Pusan.

  PART THREE: WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE SEOUL

  ‘The two days which you and Jae and I spent last summer will be remembered forever between ourselves. Hope to have cheerful days.’

  Wook in Seoul

  ‘Life demands that we offer something more – spirit, soul, intelligence, good-will...’

  Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi

  CHAPTER TWENTY:

  SLICED LAW FISH

  English teachers in Korea often went to Japan on the overnight ferry to get a taste of luxury and comfort and western things you couldn’t get in Korea. But in Japan something called ‘Korea-envy syndrome’ was emerging. A Japanese man had even started a blog about it. He’d discovered that Korean people were expressive and confident. He loved the busy markets, the passion and kindness, the music and movies. The country that had once brought Buddhism and temples to Japan was leading the way once more, this time with technology, ubiquitous high-speed broadband, home appliances that could be controlled across the net. Having embraced the Internet with creativity (online auctions, stock trading, game software industries), Korea was surpassing its powerful neighbour, which had been far slower to change.

  Still, we were ready for a holiday in Japan. Crossing on the ferry from Pusan to Shimonoseki, we took a super-efficient train north to beautiful Kyoto, where the streets were calm and quiet, and there were grand and famous temples. At the glittering Temple of the Golden Pavilion, which Gav had longed to see after reading the Japanese author Yukio Mishima, everything was so manicured someone was actually sweeping fallen leaves off moss to keep it perfect. We walked together through palaces, took delight in open-air art galleries and funky shops with unfathomable names like ‘Elephant – U Represent Individuality’. We ate sushi presented the same way as back home, in colourful packages, and delicous patisserie cakes. Gav bought a full-size replica samurai sword. He liked playing with it so much that, after I found myself cowering in the corner one night, I forbade him from taking it out of its box in our tiny hostel room after he’d had more than one drink. It was good to see him with energy again, no longer saying daily, ‘I wish I didn’t have to work tonight.’

  The hostel had a social lounge where you could meet other travellers, and the porn videos and circular waterbeds so prevalent in Korean yogwan were conspicuously absent here. In a lively little neighbourhood bar we ate yaki soba fresh off the griddle and were welcomed cheerfully night after night. The woman thought Gav looked like a movie star and slapped him on the back shouting out the name of the stars she thought he resembled – ‘Kevin Koss-ana!’, ‘Shan Connari!’ One day we went for a long walk in the hills, and were thrilled to be caught in a rainstorm in the middle of a forest. We dried off in the sunshine, walking through immaculately designed gardens.

  In Nara, a short journey from Kyoto, where deer roamed the streets, we visited more grand temples and pagodas, gorged ourselves at an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet, and bought cold Sapporo beer from vending machines on street corners. Then we took the sleek bullet train to Hiroshima, and spent reflective moments at the terrible spot that marks Ground Zero for the atomic bomb. Enquiring at the tourist office about cheap accommodation, we were asked, ‘Would a campsite on an island do?’ We set up our tent among the trees on an empty beach a short walk from the picturesque ancient temple of Miyajima, overlooking glittering blue waters. The days were hot and sunny but not stickily humid, so we could dress up like proper tourists, I in my short flowery dress, Gav in his yellow shirt and chinos. There was so much to do during those sunny days in Japan, and it was wonderful to be strolling around together with no stress, no rushing back for work.

  Japan was sophisticated and lovely. The people were polite and helpful. And yet, after a while, perhaps we missed the madness of Korea, the effusiveness of the people, the unfathomable differences, the rough-around-edges quality. Besides, without doing anything extravagant, merely being in Japan was astonishingly expensive, twice as expensive as Korea. Even a segregated dorm bed in a stifling hot room with a curfew in Nara had cost far more than those sleazy but comfortable yogwan rooms in Korea. It was so tempting to eat sushi forever, but we had to leave before we ran out of money.

  On the overnight ferry from Shimonoseki, we met a very large Japanese man in a white suit and a black waistcoat, with square black sunglasses. We encountered him in the snack bar in the evening where he insisted on buying fruit and ice cream, and sharing his beers with us. We bought him one in return, but he said it was dangerous to drink with him: ‘I am a heavy drinker.’ He had a business with a hundred employees in some kind of care for the elderly, he said. After we tried to buy him another beer, he told us, ‘Don’t worry, I am rich’ – at which point he opened one of the pockets of his waistcoat and flashed a thick wad of 1,000-yen notes, thousands of dollars in cash.

  At Customs and Immigration, re-entering Korea, we stood in orderly fashion behind the white line, waiting to be called. Suddenly, a crowd of middle-aged Koreans surged forward, pushing and shoving. Welcome to Korea. Eventually emerging into Pusan early in the morning, we were almost run over by an impatient motorbike trying to share the pavement. Welcome back to exasperating, inimitable Korea.

  Pusan is Korea’s biggest port on the Pacific, less than a day from the Russian port of Vladivostok, and just north of the East China Sea. The dockyards harboured hundreds of big sea-going ships. You could board one of these ships and cross the world. It was a big, hectic, confusing port city, industrial and industrious, the streets full of dust and noise and chaos. Yet behind the white high-rise buildings, the typical Korean green, forested hills rose up into gentle peaks.

  The humid, monsoonal summer had given way to clear blue autumnal skies, cool sunny days. The fish market was full of cheery women squatting on the ground shucking huge clams and oysters and mussels. The seafood here glistened on ice, as in every country market I’d seen in Korea but bigger and fresher: purpleish squid with staring eyes, sleek silver-grey fish, rock-like shells as big as your fist. Mosquito coils kept fli
es at bay, leaving an incense aroma in the air on top of the strong briny smell that was like a mouthful of ocean. Strong women with fast knives and gold-toothed smiles sat emptying shells into heaping tureens.

  It was surely time to try the Korean fweh, raw fish, or ‘sliced law fish’ as they’d called it in Inchon. There had always been reasons not to try it before. One was the expense, because the cheapest plate was 20,000 won, the same price as a room for the night. Also because of those weird sea creatures writhing in tanks outside the fweh restaurants, huge squid and various mollusks, including that red thing that resembled nothing more than a human heart. How would you know what to order? People happily sat at market stalls munching away beside tanks of writhing eels and fat brown sea slugs. In three months of attempting to cross this cultural Pacific, I was barely treading water. The progress I’d made was feeble, such as eating dried squid instead of peanuts with beer.

  We screwed down our courage at the ‘Beer Mart’, a hideously decorated upstairs bar with no atmosphere whatsoever – we were back in Korea, no doubt about that. Then we returned to the fish market, prowling past outdoor stalls covered in orange tarpaulins, where couples were eating slowly with chopsticks. Unfortunately, there were no menus, and none of the dishes bore any resemblance to anything we’d eaten before.

  At last, we stopped beside a busy, lively restaurant that opened onto the street, where stews bubbled away on stoves set in the middle of each table. Two diners beckoned us to take the only empty table, giving their food two thumbs-up. So we sat and placed our order by pointing at what they were eating, a stew in red sauce, cooked in tin foil and eaten with lettuce, garlic and bean paste. This could be good.