Korea Reflection

As I scrunch my feet up inside my woolen socks, I can still feel grains of sand from a Korean beach rubbing and scratching the spaces between my toes.  I’m going back to Beijing.  Having only just left Korean soil ten minutes before, I glance outside at the blue day.  My eyes wander towards the papers that my seatmate is studying.  She is a pretty girl, my age (one month older than me, to be precise), who is traveling to Hong Kong for work.  We cannot communicate much, as I only have ten days of Korean language under my belt, and her English is not so good.  Still, she has kind eyes, the kind a stranger can trust.  These eyes saw first-hand the faces of Ethiopian boys and girls in hospitals as her missionary work led her to the far away African country for one year of her life.  We do the madatory airplane chitchat for some minutes, and then it occurs to me that it’s 2009.  I want to ask her about her New Year’s resolutions. 

“I want marriage,” she says with a sly smile.

My resolutions are too many.  It seems with each year, I think of more and more challenges for myself.  Most of the challenges I make are not so monumental.  I can usually see my New Year’s resoultions come to light.  Why make a challenge for myself, if it is impossible to achieve?  Marriage is not on the list of my challenges at the moment.  In 2008 I pledged not to eat at McDonald’s or KFC for a year.  This task was simple enough to accomplish.  For 2009 I decide to give up eating chocolate, drinking coke and sprite, and eating “jian bing,” a kind of Chinese pancake that I love but has absolutely no nutritional value.  I also want to improve my Chinese and Korean language skills.  And last, but not least, for a physical challenge, I’d like to have a six-pack.  I know once one hits 30 it gets harder and harder to tone those stomach muscles, so I want to go against the inertia of my slightly aging body. 

When there’s no more left to say to the airplane missionary, a silence comes between us, and I feel the sleep creeping behind my eyes, along with the sand between my toes.

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

Flashback 4 years ago to Tokyo, Japan…

I sit on the Narita Express^W high speed train going from Tokyo station to Narita aiport.  Today my girlfriend from Portland, Oregon is coming to Japan for the second time and I should meet her at the airport.  The trees pass by the window in a blur.  Neon lights give way to a quieter landscape, the kind of of no soul life that surround airport vicinities.  A girl sits beside me, and I decide to strike up a conversation with her. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Japanese,” she says to me.  It turns out that she, Kyung Hui, is from Korea.  She has only been in Japan for a few days on business.  I’m not sure exactly what it is she does, but I know it has something to do with bakeries, restaurant chains, marketing, etc.  She mentions “Baskin Robbins,” “Dunkin Donuts.”  These companies are associated with her job in some way or another.  We talk for a bit about our interests, signficant others, etc.  She is looking forward to getting back to her country.  As we exit the train, she gives me a pen as a gift.  I look at the pen and notice that it’s not just any ordinary pen.  It has a light at the end of the pen.  When I twist the end to the right, the light turns on, illuminating the words on my paper.  I’ve never seen a pen like this before.  I thank her and think to myself, “I have to visit Korea someday.”  This pen is the seed that sprouts the oak.

Today…

Before arriving in Korea I contacted selected Korean friends that I have met throughout my life’s various journeys.  One of the friends I contacted was Kyung Hui.  As soon as I arrive at my youth hostel that I booked before coming to Korea I give her a call and ask her out for dinner.  She meets me at the nearest metro station.  As we greet each other, I reach in my bag and pull out a gift that I prepared specifically for her.  It’s a special pen that has ten or so different colored inks to choose from.  Should the writer press down on the back of the pen, the ink changes color.  I give her my gift, and she laughs as the circle is complete.  We head to a Korean barbecue restaurant for dinner.  After some minutes, it comes to my attention that our waitress is from China.  After we take this fact in, the dinner conversation switches back and forth between three languages–Korean, Chinese, and English.  I’m at home again.

Chinatown Korea

Besides Kyung Hui, all of my other Korean friends I know from my time spent in China.  In an odd coincidence, they are all girls.  It’s not something that I planned.  It’s just that I know most of them from studying Chinese, and a disproportionate amount of my classmates were females.  These friends are the reason I came to Korea.  Chinese have an old saying that roughly translates to, “one more friend, one more road,” and I believe it.  What better reason to travel than to see a friend from afar?  There’s Yang Yang, Piao Si Qi, and Sunny, three classmates of mine I know from the one semester of Chinese I took at Beijing Language and Culture University^W this last Spring.  During that term while on a class excursion to the Great Wall I met another girl studying at BLCU, the lovely Kim Min Zhi (English nickname is “Pebble”).   A year and a half ago I also took a 6 week Chinese course at BLCU where I met another classmate named Kim Se Jin.  I will see all of these friends during this trip.  

In one of the many odd stories of frequent coincidences that grace my life from time to time, I met Somi.  It was a year and a half ago and my former boss from Jiangxi asked me to return to Nanchang^W to receive the Lushan^W Award for excellence in teaching.  At the time I was living in Nanjing^W where I was teaching in a private training college called “Ewings College.”  The award ceremony was to be on a weekend, so I left on a Thursday to make it an extended trip.  When I arrived at the awards banquet, I learned that I was one of many teachers from around Jiangxi Province who would be receiving an award.  At the table where I was sitting were some students from South Korea who had been invited as special guests.  One of these students was Somi.  We talked for some minutes in English and Chinese.  I can’t remember what we talked about, but I do know she was excited to be in Jiangxi.  The night went on, the words flew by, I received my award, I went back to Nanjing.  We exchanged e-mail addresses, and I told her to contact me if she ever came to Yichun^W.  I never truly expected we would meet again.  But life throws me surprises all the time.  Some weeks later I visited Shanghai for a weekend.  In the evening I was walking back to my hotel when I noticed that there, in front of another hotel, was Somi.  She was standing in front of the door staring at me with a smile of surprise on her face.  It was as if she had been waiting for and expecting me the entire time.  Neither of us knew the other would be coming to Shanghai, and yet there we both were.    She was there on a weekend with friends.  I joined her and her friends for dinner that evening and promised that if I ever went to Korea I would be sure to call her.  A year and a half later, I fulfill the promise.

The Reason

A classmate, a first impression on the Great Wall, a chance encounter in a city of more than 20 million, a pen with a light…these are the reasons I travel.  These are the reasons I go places.  I don’t want to get away from people who float by.  I want to find them…to find the face in the crowd and the story behind the face.  I want to speak her language.  I want to know his family.  I want to see where her father works.  I want to give back the gift that was given to me.  What’s it like to live in their skins and be a part of their worlds, even if only for a day?  There’s something inside of me that wants to explore people as much as places when I  travel.  That’s why, when I look back on my stay in Korea, it seems more to me that I did not visit a country on a sightseeing trip, but rather visited a family of friends for a reunion.  Even when I meet strangers who cannot speak the same language as I do, I try to do my best to make a connection.  There was the old man in front of Gyeonbok Palace^W who I took a picture with.  I quickly exhausted my Korean vocabulary and resorted to speaking the only language we both knew…a smile and a pat on the back.  He responded by giving me a piece of his Korean art and calligraphy witha message that roughly translates to, “I’ll do my best today because it’s a good day.  I’m happy with who I’m with.”  Well said, bearded old man.  Well said.

Everyday I spent in Korea I was able to share my time with friends (new and old), seeing their country through their eyes.  I stayed with Sunny’s family for one night in Daegu^W and Pebble’s family for 5 nights in Busan^W.  When someone asks me my first impression of Korea, I just say, ”it’s  like family there.”  In my experience, this is how the world can be when one travels…like one big family.  It all depends on point of view. 

While sites of historic interest do hold some fascination for me, I cannot get around the fact that places are only places, and history was made by people.  I don’t need to go to a beautiful place to have a wonderful time, and I don’t need to see beautiful scenery in order for me to be satisfied.  For me, it’s more about the company I keep, the conversations I have, and the memories I make with the company of conversations.   A magical moment can happen anytime, anywhere.   Be it at a fish market in Busan, a temple in Daegu, or at a restaurant in Seoul, magical moments are waiting behind every corner.  It’s up to me to open me eyes and find these in the faces of the stranger who is a potential friend.

Sand

Bing!

The captain turns on the seatbelt sign and I open my eyes.  With only a few more minutes left before we land I put my seat in its upright and full position, as requested.  I turn my head again to the nurse sitting by my side and inform her that next time we meet I hope she can introduce me to her husband.  She laughs.  When it’s time to exit the aircraft, she simply says, “good luck,” and I think to myself, yes, my luck certainly is good.

As I exit the plane and pass smoothly through customs without interruption, I have one destination in mind:  the diabolo^W grounds in the park.  I don’t even want to go home.  I don’t want to waste a moment of my time.  Korea will stay with me, but I’m back and China now, and it’s only 2:00pm.  If I hurry, I can get to the park before my old friends leave.  I board Beijing’s high speed airport transit system and book it back to the city, changing to metro line 10 and getting off at the exit nearest to my favorite park.  Surrounded by Beijingers again, the only sound I can hear in my head is the buzzing and whirring of the diabolo.

Whhhrrrrr…zzzzzzzz….whrrrrr…zzzzzzzz.

I exit the metro and trot at a brisk pace to the diabolo grounds.  Under the bright New Year’s Sun, the cast of characters are all there:  The Smooth Scholar, The Entertainer, Marlborough Man, many others.  They yell at me and greet me for a grand homecoming.  I reach into my bag to pull out some sweets that I bought for them while in Korea.

“Hao!  You’re back!”  The Entertainer yells.  We embrace.

They surround me for some minutes, asking me questions about Korea and Pebble (she used to accompany me to the diabolo grounds).  They are curious for some information about Korea, this country that is not so far, but ”oh so far” away.  After a while, they start to wander off with their diabolo’s.  The Smooth Scholar has pulled out a Rubik’s cube.  I pick up a spare diabolo that The Entertainer lends to me.  It spins in front of my eyes and I once again scrunch up my feet inside of my shoes, this time for warmth.  The sand still in between my toes, my toes inside my my socks, my socks encased by my shoes, my shoes on top of the dusty diabolo grounds, and me surrounded by my friends.  I think about the Korean sand in my shoes so close in proximity to the particles of Beijing earth and dust beneath my feet.  With the whirring and buzzing and laughing around my head, I know that it all fits together.  Everything is in its place.  The Earth is my home and my home has no walls.

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