Walking home in the midday heat, I run into the man at the kimbap nara who so expertly rolls up my tuna-mayo, and whose daughter is my girlfriend's student. I bow hello, stop, and chat in rudimentary Korean. He gestures at the leafy greens poking out of my grocery bag and I pull them out for inspection. What are they? he arches his eyebrows at the unfamiliar produce. Hell, I don't know. My staple spinachey green is out of season and I'm trying new things. His expression suggests I've bought inedible weeds. I shrug and parade my more familiar goods from my bag -- olive oil, carrots, sweet potato -- fumbling the Korean name of each and letting him correct me.
Walking on I meet the old lady from the next building who collects recylables in her wheel barrow. Like many elderly Korean women she's hunched like Quasimodo and wrinkled like a grimace. We're familiar and greet each other warmly. I repeat the grocery show-and-tell. She seems equally interested in what I eat
I still remember when the local grocer, who'd always seemed a bit suspicious of me, learned my profession a while back. Work, what? he asked accusingly of me. Me being a grown man, casually fruit-shopping (a housewife's task!) in the middle of a work day. Computer, at home, I said and watched him have his aha-moment, his demeanor warming instantly. I wasn't some criminal or useless exploiter after all.
It occurred to me what a mystery I must have been to the local observers. Strange non-teacher foreigner, loafing about in his jeans and sneakers... but now I'm no longer so strange, just some dude eating my weird vegetables like everybody else. I've come a long way.
MIDI isn't dead, old Korean men took it to the mountains. Rock on!
Yes, weather has warmed up and we've taken to our neighbourhood mountain again. Of course, the visor-faces never left. Cue the John Carpenter soundtrack.
We want friends. Funny, attractive, worldly creatures who will buoy us with their charisma, drown us in laughter, pay for every meal, mend our clothes, and tell us bedtime stories. They would be around all the time, and when we leave Korea they would cry and bring a homemade cake to the airport. We would cry together into the icing.
The other day we were leaving Seoul and I asked someone getting on what time the last bus would depart. He sat in the same row on the bus and we realized that he would be getting off at the same stop as us. He lives in our neighbourhood! And he's our age! And he talked to us! The possibility of friendship made us giddy.
Getting off the bus he talked on his cellphone, greeted his cool friends, and disappeared in the opposite direction. We were crumpled paper cups.
We shuffled home, lamenting what could have been, when suddenly we were catching up to him on the sidewalk. How what? We laughed in confusion. Where do you live? We live here. You're visiting a friend? She teaches English. Your English is very good. Haha!
Then something happened. We're not quite sure. Without a word, he picked up the pace, created distance, and quickly split off on his own. We were speechless, crestfallen. Something we did? Something we said? Friendship slipped through our fingers and we walked home.
I love Korean side dishes (banchan) that accompany every meal. I discovered a new favourite recently called uwong. It is some kind of root, with a texture that reminds me of canned bamboo, lightly coated with some sweet syrup, and sprinkled with sesame.
Apparently it's good for digestion. The lady running the restaurant demonstrated this by rubbing her stomach and then making the gesture of poop being briskly expelled from ones behind. I appreciated her directness. I sense that Koreans have fewer hangups about certain bodily functions.
She also gave us an extended Korean lesson, pulling out paper and pen, and correcting sentences we had been practising. Thanks nice lady!
(The photo is not of the restaurant, but a kimchi stall at a market.)
