Seoul: Neighborhood Communities

The sun set, first a pale white glow behind heavy clouds, then it began to sprinkle, then it was night which settled into a cold spring rain. Neon signs blinked, reflected on the street, poured down rivulets into the gutters. Cars slushed past, honking at people hurrying home, distant howls from an ambulance siren and laughter from inside a bar down the street washed through the city.



The next morning bleak, soggy cold sopped through blazers, rain nicked hems of pants, people hurried through the narrow neighborhood streets, neon still blinking in the dim light. Across town, through the subway slick with people and dripping umbrellas; first a shadowless crush of commuters down wet stairs, then a faceless, fluorescent mass waiting in queue. Courtney and I pushed out, into the bus terminal for tickets to a southern mountain, Maisan, and for a small trip to see something besides the city.

We bought tickets for the 12 o'clock bus to Jeon-ju, the provincial capital of Jeollabuk-do. With an hour to kill we sat in a nearby cafe, watching the rain and eating sandwiches. There were music videos on; one Courtney hadn't seen but recognized the singer. She got up and asked who it was, negotiating Korean and pointing at the tv for context.

Neither of us spoke Korean very well, she had only been in the country for a month or two. I have been here longer than a year, but what little help I would have been in that conversation was unnecessary; the two cashiers, bored by a lack of clientele and the novelty of a foreigner taking an interest in pop tunes were more than happy for a bit of charades.



Depending on what your needs are, living in the middle of a country where you can barely ask how to get to the bathroom can be tricky. Starting off with a few nouns, then trailing off... Realizing that you have no idea how to convey the rest of your request can be unbelievably frustrating. Resorting to sound-effects and hand signals is embarrassing. As you well deserve, you are treated like a helpless child. Sometimes with patience, often with patience from most people, but with scorn and annoyance, too. You get all types.

Then it was time to catch the bus.

Soon enough the rain tapered off. The rain streaked windows fogged and I had to use my sleeve to wipe the condensation away. I took out my camera and tried to snap a few pictures. Hopeless. Fog rolled through the valleys and clouds wrapped around the hills, it was too dark, too indistinct an afternoon to see anything but impressionist greens and grays. Far off, people in colorful coats and umbrellas stood on a grave mound, then were gone. Powerlines cut through a river valley, the next valley empty, the next filled with apartment complexes, the next empty. I took out my book, leaned my head into the cold, slightly condensed glass and didn't look up for a long time.



Later, the clouds rose a little and the road rolled through rice paddies then into distant mountains. There were a few farmers out in the elements, some white herons stood in the fields looking for tasty things to eat. For the most part, the rice fields looked like they were still unplanted. Square pools of flat, gray water outlined by long narrow paths stretched out to the far hills.

It took three hours to Jeon-ju. Inside the bus terminal, the pungent aroma of boiling silkworm larvae hit us. The concourse, lined with food stalls and magazine racks was doing slow business. Pots steamed with rice and chili paste dishes. Dried squid stacked a foot high, roasting chestnuts and boiling fish made the air a thick miasma. We passed the row of busses parked; drivers stood in small groups smoking, waiting for passengers and departure times.

It took another hour to get to Jinan. I opened my book and settled into the seat, pressing my knees against the seat in front of me. We finally turned into a tiny bus terminal after a half dozen stops outside of town. By that time the number of passengers was down to a handful. Jinan is a small town next to Maisan national park; the terminal is a one-story building that had a magazine rack and snack foods next to the ticket booth. Maisan is a five minute local bus ride away. Waiting, my travel-buddy and I talked with some plucky middle school girls who were waiting for another bus.

Over time, I've learned some of the more common questions and answers to being a foreigner here. Where are you from? What do you do? Where do you live? On this fairly narrow line of questioning, I can hold my own. It's precarious and it's easy to fall into the great uncharted territory of unfamiliar words. Exasperation and silence ensue all too often when the conversation gets too complicated.

With only a few words in English and a few in Korean that we shared in common, the girls were in middle school: Exuberant, bashful, embarrassed and curious punctuated by popping bubble gum. The girls said that they loved America. Was Courtney my wife? Girlfriend? Western women are so beautiful. Someday the girls want to go to America. These small things took a long time to express. The girls rolled their eyes when I screwed up my Korean. I scratched my head when the girls said something in English that had no meaning.

There's impatience, too, when you're trying to bridge worlds. There are so many things the girls wanted to say but couldn't, to us. Courtney was trying to get some idea of when the bus for Maisan would arrive. Flustered, flapping her arms and stomping her foot, a girl whirled away, annoyed. Returned, tried to get us to understand by speaking slower;
ka... na... sa... ga... yo... *Pop*
No, sorry.
sa... ga.. yo... *Pop*

The bus for Maisan arrived and the girls got on another bus to go home. We rounded a corner and rumbled up a hill, stopping in a vacant parking lot at the foot of Maisan. We walked up to the end of the lot, stopped and tried to look for a trail. Some flattened bushes and a few wet stones were our only option. Ten feet up the trail opened into a paved road, which turned into a litany of steps. The steps were made of plastic, so on a rainy day were decently treacherous. With some care, we made it up to the top, then up another narrow, muddy path to a cave between the peaks.

Maisan, apparently, has a bunch of Buddhist rock piles. There are two peaks, one of which is an hour and a half hike to the top, the other inaccessible. Somehow we took the wrong trail and ended up at a cave in the nook between the two peaks with no further to climb. It's just as well since it was getting dark, but it's weird. How on earth did we miss the other trail? No idea.

We started to walk back to Jinan, but got picked up by a couple of guys. The overcast twilight and light fog swallowed the streetlamps and sound. The two guys up front, talking quietly and chain smoking were the only sounds. We got out along the main highway and walked along a river. Grass was growing out of the cracks in the sidewalk, large cement blocks looked like they fell out of the drainage canal rested in the water. Some ducks quacked, beating their wings against the current, getting ready for bed.

Back in Jeon-ju, we taxied into downtown. Jeon-ju is South Korea's Hollywood. Last week was an international film festival, from which the town was still recovering. Road blocks around movie theaters, posters unstuck from the movie theaters were furled in the gutters. Overhead were elaborate trellises with small white lights. We scoured the streets for a restaurant Courtney had in mind from the Lonely Planet guide. After she asked for directions we found it; probably passed it once or twice before, actually, and have a really nice dinner of bean sprout soup and some kind of ginger drink.

Bus clerks, drivers, waiters, a taxi driver, the girls were all brief challenges today. It can be exhausting, if you let it get to you. So many incomplete thoughts, unfinished and unnatural sentences, hand gestures and furrowed brows follow you through your days when you can't make yourself understood.

The following day we bussed to Gunsan. There was this aura of decay that seemed to hang over this seaside port town. It was Saturday afternoon, but it felt empty, like it was on the verge of abandonment. The sheer number of shuttered shops and dark windows gave this town a gloomy weight. Signboards above businesses were streaked with dirt and had blackened from traffic pollution. The sidewalks were pitted and uneven. Between the decrepit look to the buildings, lack of people on the streets and the gray sea water awash in plastic bottles, styrofoam take-out plates and other debris it looked like death advancing on the town; swallowing old people and chasing the young away. As a tourist destination, I don't recommend it.

Then down to Buan. The idea was that the seawall highway from Gunsan would be a marvelous thing to look out from, but the bus instead took the more mundane overland highway. Which meant that there were more unplanted rice fields and white herons to look at. Arriving in Buan, which wasn't really part of the plan, since we figured we'd get out at one of the islands that the seawall intersects, the sky had cleared up and the air was warm. The Lonely Planet guide book says nothing about Buan, so if you find yourself in the area with a few hours to kill, try walking up the hill.

We did. Above the neighborhood is an archery range. We'd just been thinking, "I wish I could meet a traditional Korean archer enthusiast wearing a blue silk sash who could speak English," when lo and behold that's exactly who showed up. They were all nice guys out for an afternoon of green tea and target practice. A dog from a house over the hill had wandered onto the field with a pup, who was bounding around playfully.

Courtney and I spent about 45 minutes with the archers. They were curious about how we were planning on getting back to Seoul, because the traffic was going to be very bad. Tomorrow was Parent's Day and a lot of people were headed into the city. We'd already bought our bus tickets, but a guy offered to give us a ride if we called him by 6. Unimpeded by the language barrier, we were able to ask some questions of our own. Cities and provinces have archery teams which compete against each other every few months. Next, the Buan team were going to compete against the Seoul team. On their blue sashes, which they used to hold arrows, were flowers which denoted how good they were. Korean archers shoot much further than I'd thought realistically possible. Their targets were at least 200 yards away. In the clubhouse were trophies and old photographs of presidents and archers, a scheduling roster with chalked-in names, baskets of arrows and the archers' personal belongings in neat little piles next to a row of folding chairs.

After saying goodbye, we walked up and over the hill. There was a Buddhist temple and some grave mounds on the other side. The sunshine felt good and the shafts of light coming in through the tree canopy were lovely. Over the hill the path turned to a dirt jeep trail. We walked to the end, which was a drainage ditch that ran under the highway. We returned, passed a few kids were taking turns getting a running start and jumping, trying to hit the rim of the basketball hoop. It was a quiet afternoon.

In the bus, on the way back into Seoul, I opened my book, Three Generations by Yom Sang-seop. It's about the transition of power between a grandfather and son in Japanese-occupied Korea. The book is rich in description of Seoul neighborhoods and daily life in the early part of the 20th century. Out the window, out into the fields and valleys, passing small farm houses and at people walking the afternoon-lit paths back home; the book, the rolling hills and far-off mountains spoke a language that I'm just beginning to learn. There's so much more to understand than what I do now. The book was a wealth of slices into Korean life that I could only half-understand. There are more trips to take. More weary, wet days and sun-dappled roads to idle an afternoon down. More to learn.

What there is, here, can't all be communicated in English; that's part of what makes it infuriating, endearing and perpetually challenging. As I try to make sense of my own place, and as people I meet try to find a common ground for small talk it slowly gets easier. To spend more time here, I've got to recreate this world in English just as I learn how it exists in Korean. I'm traveling here, in a state somewhere between what is already familiar and so many things that remain foreign. I hope that the distance between the two shrinks in the years to come.