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THE JOELLE PEARSON

Thanks for reading as always,

Joelle

Tomorrow, I’ll be getting on a 26 hours flight home, to Texas. The satisfaction that I thought I would feel typing that sentence isn’t really there.  I’ll miss this burgeoning land of contradictions. I’ll miss the feeling of independence that it gave me.

I’ll also be closing this blog before I get on that plane. For professional reasons, mainly –  I can’t have my new employers reading about my wild nights and dirty days. Also, because it’s over.

I could write thousands of words now, detailing all the things I learned about myself and people and cultures. But why? when it can really be summarized in two sentences:

1) Everybody everywhere really just wants the same things: a family, a few good friends, and every once in a while, a good laugh.

2) Wherever you go, there you are – it’s travel, not alchemy.

And so, dear readers, till next time.

Just another stunning graphic representation a phrase I was too lazy to look up before attempting a task.

Though the days have been rife with nostalgia, I remembered all the things that I won’t miss about Korea:

1. Four Seasons.
When asked why Korea is so awesome, I’ve noticed Koreans boast about 2 main things: Public Transportation, and Four Seasons. As a Texan, I’m used to two seasons: Hot season, and not-so-hot season. Our two seasons don’t really demand many clothes or special accessories. You settle into them like a long western film.

So you’d think I’d welcome the dynamism of Korea’s distinct four seasons. Quite the contrary. I could try to muster some intelligent-sounding reason for why I don’t like four seasons, but the real reason is that I detest the idea of having to dress for them. Who the fuck ever heard of a “spring trench?” A “fall blazer?” A “winter down?” I liked the way it was in Texas: “My coat.”

wait - no - what is this?

2. Americanos.
If you don’t know what an Americano is, just think of your favorite cup of coffee, but ruined by someone dumping a bunch of water in it.

Coffee bars, while abundant, seldom serve a delicious, dense cup of brewed coffee. If you ask for coffee, it will most likely default to an Americano. If you do find drip coffee, there’s a strong chance it will be twice the price of an Americano. Why, you ask, when it’s the same ingredients, and drip coffee is cheaper to prepare? Because that’s how they roll in Daehaminkuk.

outside my apartment, an ever growing/receding trash heap.

3. Littering and Trash.
I was once walking around with an empty coffee cup looking for a garbage can, and this sweet, leathery old lady appeared out of no where.  Talking to me, she grabbed the cup from my hand and put it on the ground. I tried to pick it up, but she just patted my back, smiling, motioning me forward.

Koreans have different rationalizations for why it’s OK to litter everywhere, but in return, Seoul often looks like rural India.

I invite you sit back and imagine how the picture to the left smells, when compounded by 90 degree heat and an off-the-chart humidity index.

ugggh and all my hair in that drain and the wet floor so grooosssss

4. No shower stalls in bathrooms.

Seriously, who wants to shower in the same place they take their poops? Unless you’re just really in a hurry. I never got used to this.

I could complain about squat toilets or failure to provide toilet paper in bathrooms, but lack of shower stalls trumps.

5. Free Sizes.

Korean clothes frustrate me. You can’t try most clothing on, you can’t return most items, and most things disintegrate in 4-5 washes. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Forever21 was created by a Korean.

But more frustrating is the “free size.” The concept alone baffles me: One Size Fits All.  That size winds up looking totally stupid on most girls – mainly ones with breasts, shoulders, small torsos, butts, hips, or calve muscles. Western bodies ≠Korean bodies.

I suspect they have some sort of deal with the tailors here.

The steps of my apartment, where a man has become very comfortable in his drunk.

6. Public Intoxication.
Last night, after drinking 500 ml of vodka, my friend was barfing everywhere we walked and falling asleep on the sidewalk. I, too, was so drunk I had forgotten I’d eaten dessert, and made everyone stop so I could eat a second dessert.

Public intoxication is fairly commonplace. I was once disturbed by, and then amused by, ruddy, red-faced Koreans swaggering through the streets. I suppose I view intoxication as something you should hide, maybe because I’m American. While I’m less affronted by it these days, I suppose part of me now just feels…well, sad. It’s sad to see people that drunk.

Of course, the upside to this is hearing Koreans talk about “being drunken.”

7. Population Density.

25% of South Korea’s population live in Seoul. There are almost 500 people per square KM, ten times the global average.

This means you’re ass to elbows against Koreans, 99% of the time. Which I can deal with. But what I couldn’t deal with was there was no place to be alone.

Ever.

8. Being a teacher.
I’ve outlined that I not only disliked my job due, only, to my total lack of passion for teaching. But more, I  hated being associated with the expat community to which I belonged. Sorry, guys.

9. Not being able to speak Korean.
The anecdote above should clue you in to why speaking Korean is kind of important when you’re in Korea.

A complete idiot friend told me “don’t worry, everybody speaks English. They’ve been studying it their whole lives!”  when I asked him for advice before coming to Seoul. Maybe they can speak English, but they won’t. And while I once got angry at them, I found I was really angry at myself for not being able to talk.

I’ve spent a year pantomiming, drawing, shaking my head, and not being able to execute the simplest of tasks without help. Yeah, it’s taught me a lesson in humility, but dammit, things like finding pepper should never be that hard.

10.  Korea doesn’t have:

Who, as I now know, are the more important than this whole, funny experience ever could be.

1: Korean Babies.
No other ethnicity of children will ever achieve the cuteness of Korean babies. I never wanted to have children until I came to Korea. Seeing them manhandle noodles, milk, and ice cream, run amok through convenience stores, and try to enunciate words in English and Korean never made me irritated. It only just made me want to steal them.

2: No Tax, No Tip.
Stupid people will tell you that Korea is cheap to live in, and that’s why the minimum wage is the equivalent of $3.65 and hour. Seoul is certainly not a cheap place to live; it’s listed as one of the ten most expensive places in the world. But certain things, like the fact that tipping is considered offensive and tax is included on every price,  help you save at least a few dollars while you’re here.

PTFO

3: Sleeping Anywhere.
If the world could adapt Koreans’ ability to sleep standing up, on picnic tables, between metro stops, at the gym, on desks during working hours, on the dinner table, on boxes, on floors, without sheets,without pillows, for no specific time frame, perhaps we, too, could work 10 hours a day for 6 days a week. I now understand “Take a rest.”

What doth my senses behold?

4: Milks
If  milk is a repulsive, lukewarm memory associated with awkward childhood family dinners, come to Korea.  Here, you’ll too be chugging milk at any time of the day, in any season. The myriad flavors of milk, in their poppy packaging, will win your heart. You’ve got the basics (Strawberry, Chocolate, Regular, Soy) the less basic (Black Bean, Seasame, Blueberry, Mochachino, Grape) and the strange (“Morning Cereals”, Kiwi, Peanut Butter Soy, Lemon, Apple). All of which, I may add, are delicious. Except for Lemon.

5. Fashion
I never thought about owning more than one handbag before I came to Korea. Or more than one pair of shoes. I thought that wearing the same shirt (Red, Coors Variety) and shorts (Purple, well-cycled) was pretty ok. And it is. But, there’s nothing wrong with taking an interest in clothing. I admire Korean’s ability to unabashedly admit they are trend following, wearing it not for practicality but looks, or only going out to see and be seen. I have come to appreciate the care and detail they commit to their outfits and the discussions that revolve around them, which can only come after years of practice. In that sense, they are more honest than the Americans I knew. After all, what’s wrong with just wanting to look nice?

6: Rain.

speaks for itself around the 3:15 mark.

7: Korean High School Boys.

...just make me feel like a big pedophile

I’m pretty sure I am alone when it comes to my weird fascination with Korean High school boys. I think it has something to do with the way they shout “Waahw, bootyful” when I ride my bike past them. Uniforms certainly don’t help.

8. Weekends in  Sokcho

When the hustle and bustle of Seoul got too overwhelming, Sokcho was how I got away. The slightly sleepy ocean town, 3 hours away on a scenic bus ride, was where I made some of my best memories. For climbing hands and knees up a mountain on ice, biking though the fish markets, gorging yourself on all you can eat barbeque, nearly dying on an ill-planned hiking excursion, and sleeping in at the House Hostel owned by the ever-accommodating Mr. Yu, Sokcho remains my favorite place in Korea.

9. Not Understanding Korean.

Life is much simpler when you’re not eavesdropping, gossiping, or judging people based on what you overhear.

Sometimes, you can even know people better by just watching.

10.  Public Transportation

Just how am I supposed to go back to Texas after this and $2 taxi rides?

Dong-Yroel, badass/bastard/best friend

Part of me was sort of sad. The English coordinator, Chae-Eun, who I’ve worked with since my first day almost a year ago, expressed genuine gratitude for my work.

“We’ve heard lots of stories about foreign teachers, so we were very glad that you did not become these stories,” she said. “The children will very much miss you,” she added. “You were always so beautiful and kind.”

I felt resentful. Part of me felt like I’ve been living a lie since I got here: I had no ESL training, no pedagogy training, no teaching experience, really, at all. I had no interest in being a teacher, and no passion for facilitating ESL acquisition. I came to take a vacation from my life, and Korea was the easiest route.  I still remember sitting in the back of a class, on the first day last August, thinking, “Oh, fuck me. I really have to be a teacher now.”

But even though I never felt committed to my job, I still did it to my best capacity.

Will you fuckers please stop stealing my handupone and taking pictures?

I still smiled every day. I still played every game. I still sang, and danced, and pretended to understand what the principal was saying. I used only one sick day. If I needed to cry, I ran to the science room. If I needed to yell, or hit something out of real, caged frustration, same thing. No one at the school ever knew that I felt like a dancing bear, a neglected sock, a mute, a leech, a phony, or any of the other things that my silly job made me feel. I suppose that’s what they call learning to be professional.

And now I’m leaving.

The children don’t know I’m leaving; the school said telling them would upset them. That they’ll probably be very angry or shocked when they see a new ESL assistant in two weeks. I’ll miss those kids. While it was frustrating that the central component of my job was to be a  plaything to get them excited about English (cause OMG I am like sooooo overqualified to be doing this), how can I complain that for a year, I got paid $2,000 a month to make kids laugh and like America more. My job brought me a sense of easy delight. And I found I never dreaded it, the way I dreaded making milkshakes or proofreading newspapers.

I wouldn’t sign another contract. But if I could do it again from the beginning, I would.

There was just something satisfying about planning for hours, screaming for minutes on end for those kids to shut the fuck up, explaining the goddamned game at least 30 times with 20 different gestures, and then having some little fat kid come up to you at the end and say “EEhhhlie-sam, Jami-soso” (Whatup, Allie Teacher? I had so much fun!)

I don’t know why, exactly, but it was.

Lookin good dad...but not as good as that pooch! nomnomnom

This blog gets an oddly high amount of hits. On average, about 100 a day. Don’t be fooled –  it’s just my own personal e-cheerleader, my Dad, hitting refresh.

We’ve had a funny relationship over the years, but nothing too far removed from the atypical American dad & daughter ups and downs. I guess what’s funnier is that it took moving to South Korea for me to build a relationship with him. Even if that relationship takes place in the form of pingbacks and comments, primarily. In all honesty, it means the world to me.

I know he reads it every day. It’s sort of like being listened to. Cause mostly, all this is just emotional dribble. You sort of need that outlet when you go to another country, though. And after years of convincing myself he didn’t listen, I, once again, am proven wrong.

I can’t wait to see you, Papa.

Every day be a walk in the park.

100 days ago exactly, I was riding my bike along the Anyang to meet my friends at a food festival and zipped past the DA on his fixie. In that steamy sea of spandexed cyclists, He stood out for a number of reasons. He:

1. Had a cream-colored track back with pale pink rims, decorated just so.
2. Wore only American Apparel, from sock to cap.
3. Had a left arm swallowed in a tribal tattoo.
4. Was biking faster than 10 mph.

I knew that this was the type of Korean I wanted to meet, and damned the language barrier before I’d opened my mouth. But after 30 minutes of racing each other, I found that Jin Wook also spoke perfect English. And so, I met the greatest boy in Korea.

Who’s Jinook Choi?
Jinook is a 25-year old ex-fashion merchandiser who returned to Korea after 5 years in Canada to complete his military service. He’s got a lot of pipe dreams: Opening his own clothing store, bringing the coffeeshop/artstore/bike repair hybrid idea to Seoul, becoming a model,  being featured on The Sartorialist.  But for now, he splits his time between welding helmets in the day and biking to various chicken establishments with me at night.

How exactly did you meet?
I think he’s gay, he thinks I’m gay. We rode our bikes and discussed where the gender roles fell, and how our cultures play into this.  And then some.

What’s so great about Jinook?
There’s the little things. Before Jinook goes anywhere with me, he’ll make me try on a few pairs of shoes to make sure they match my dress. And my bag. When I complained about wanting more Korean friends, he arranged dates for me to meet his girls. When I said I wanted to say “I’m having fun” in Korean, he bought me workbooks and a dictionary.

Simply, everything he did was in an effort to show me how wonderful a culture can be, if you make a few changes with yourself and decide to let it in.

I like to tell him before we met, I was like a hamster in a ball in Korea (this analogy took a long time to breakdown before it made sense). I rolled around, I bumped into things. I saw a lot but couldn’t really get involved with much. I had questions I stopped trying to answer. I had judgements. I heard voices that were garbled and senseless. Jinook became my interpreter and guide, encouraging me to study, speak, and say yes.

Not to mention getting me a sweet deal on my fixie, who I’ve dubbed Epicurus.

It’s because of Jinook and his family that I fell so in love with the country. Through him, I saw any place can feel like home – so long as you have a family and a friend who will turn fan on after its timer shuts off, spoon you second helpings of Dog soup, and let you know that even if you’re fluent, there are some things you can never really say.

Reunion / Dissolution over Phenomenal BiBimBap

I really like TS Eliot. I’ve even memorized “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which I am happy to recite for anyone on request, though I’ve had no takers in the year that I’ve known it. But, maybe my favorite TS Eliot poem is “The Cocktail Party.”

The bulk of the poem is miraculously depressing. Eliot spends most of the time harping on about how we’re all disparate ingredients in a social soup that won’t boil. Embracing the fact that we may never “connect” with all the humans around us, even though we feel somehow entitled to it, leads to a misplaced guilt or sense of failure.

This week, I said Goodbye (or tried to) to two girls who, at different points, effected me considerably. I’d grown attached to them – or maybe just the idea of them – in my year here. Girl friends were mysterious and unobtainable to me through college, so when I finally met some I liked, the happiness they brought me almost made me burst.

For different reasons, I’ve drifted away from them (or they me?) over the months. I forget that this is sometimes the natural order of relationships. Still, the final shrugs and stiff side hugs, jilted conversations and non-attempts to stay in contact came as an unexpected blow. Like seeing an ex-boyfriend after a year of space, it’s hard for the brain to start recognizing people who were so warm as indifferent. I wondered: What did I do wrong? What should I have done differently? How can I be a better friend?

When I start looking for personal reasons to blame myself for “failed” friendships, I always think about this stanza from Eliot’s poem:

Essentially, that everyone’s life is just as intricate and complicated as my own; it is thus wonderfully unrealistic to expect that all friendships thrive, unfettered, for as long as you know a person. People are going to evolve, come hell or high water, and you either change gears with them or shift away in your own direction.

Which means sometimes, you’ll see a friend and realize they’ve become a stranger. And while this could be read as misanthropic, I have come to find it hopeful. When friends become strangers, either suddenly or over a very long spell, it’s not something to fight. Instead, the situation should be seen, in Eliot’s words, as a fresh beginning.

For them, for me, for the whole damned Earth.

I hope you’ve signed up for swing dancing classes.

The best part about going to Busan this weekend wasn’t forgetting my Nikon’s battery at home, but taking the KTX - Korea’s light rail that barrels pneumatically through the countryside at 300 km an hour. It makes a sound sort of like humming electrical wires: 

Seoul <-> Busan in 3.2 hrs, shot by a handupone.

Seeing as it’s been too long to report accurately on what went on, I’ll just summarize, which was a whole lot of not what I planned: 

• Planned on Visiting Okpo, / but went to a mazelike vintage market instead.  
• Planned on hitting the beach early / but slept in with tteok and wine and then slept on the beach at night instead.
• Planned on eating live Squid / settled on spicy fresh octopus
• Planned on Partying late at some giant DJ fest / opted for Baths, Batman 2, and Bondaeggi in Bed.

I’m sure that Busan has a lot to offer, but to the untrained eye, it looks and feels a lot like Seoul. Same food, same fashion, same chain corporations. Korea is such a comfort and a disappointment in that sense. (Except for Hyaeundae, the biggest, dirtiest, most crowded beach you will ever see in your life):   

More ramyeon discharge and cigarette butts than sand.

But, it’s hard to complain. still, this year has felt like a strange vacation.  Summer sun draped lazily over the hills and that weird restless animal that has a desire to see more of the world started flipping around on its back inside me again. 

And when I got here I was so scared and guarded and falling to pieces every other week.  And I started to try to explain it to my friend, that weird sense of self-alienation you feel when you realize how much distance is between you and  the person you used to be. Even a year ago or even 6 months ago.  

Taking the KTX home may have been the best-er part: the world moves backwards past you at the same speed, which is real disorienting, which makes you grip your traytable.  

I couldn’t stop thinking about  how fast it was all moving.  How fast it all went.