. . . and on, and on . . .

Day 197

Flashback to Christmas Eve: I'm sitting at a table with kimchi pancakes, moccoli (traditional rice wine) I don't need to drink, and a co-worker, and a friend. We've already had more soju than I anticipated and I'm not too excited about the moccoli. I excuse myself to go stand outside for fresh air, and when I come back, there is a red-faced man in a shiny pin-striped suit, smiling, nodding, smelling strongly of cologne, and pouring moccoli into my bowl.
"I saw you and, you know, I just want to speak Eng-uh-lish with you, you know? Is that okay, I blah will blah not blah take blah a blah hint..."
Young Mi and I exchange "who the hell is this guy??" looks, and simultaneously raise eyebrows at Ted, who has invited him to sit down, assuming that the man knew Young Mi. He stays with us for quite a while. I think of him as "Bluster Man"

Flash forward three months: shiny pin-striped suit man Bluster Man is sitting at the desk across from me. He is the new teacher at the Hagwon. Now we will be talking alllll the time.


Day 200

After Korean class in Daegu, I invite my friend to the Kitty Cafe. With a fennec fox in the window, grown cats lazing about, and siamese kittens playing 'round our feet, we sip banana shakes and eat lunch.

Follow this with hunting for strange parks filled with cherry blossoms, wandering the herbal medicine market on a slow day to find stuffed fanged deer cousins in windows near an albino mongoose fighting an albino snake, and there's my day, basically.





Plus the fox thing in glasses...


and a very convincing rice-cake octopus.


In the evening, another friend serves as my guide on the bus to the University district. We meander the campus amid blossoming trees of varying sorts, and sit at a park bench. It's amazing how familiar the smell of the Student Union cafeteria is. We finally complete a full circle of the campus. The final building we pass is called "Useful Building". It is spelled in a brick pattern on the side.

Day 201

I spend much of the afternoon harvesting wild mugwort from the bank of a lake outside of town. The sun is out, and a kind breeze keeps us insect-free. There aren't many, but I've noticed that they're coming. Oh, they're coming.

This week's reading has been (in order of appearance): The Red Dragon, The Exorcist, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Not my first choices. In fact, I've been avoiding reading the first two all year, but my options in English literature are severely limited. Donations of the published kind are happily accepted.

Like a Thundering Herd

Day 196

5 military helicopters in a low fly-by wrest my attention from Cidade de Deus.
Cherry trees are blossoming, I'm keeping to myself.
I teach at the Hagwon.
Things are okay.

One Hour Later

The shadows of four more helicopters pass over my persimmon tree. Did you know that persimmon trees produce magnolia-like flowers? The helicopters sound like giant swarms of bees.

Whiling the Time

Days 162-173

There is a consistent feeling of waking from one dream into another; one surreality into the next. On top of that, actual dreams are more vivid and memorable than ever. Why, just last night I held my favorite giant purple chicken, with glowing mink fur in lieu of feathers, on my lap in our old neighbor's climbing tree. We talked for hours while friends dressed as characters from Robin Hood gathered at a party hosted by my grandparents.

On my third day back to Korea, I am released from work after two hours. With my unexpected afternoon, a trip to the city seems in order.

Upon reaching the train station, I am nearly an hour early for the local train to Daegu. I buy my ticket and wait outside in the sun, watching a throng of older men take turns tossing four sticks, one side rounded, the other flat. Occasionally they argue, and pass around W1,000 bills. At one point the argument gets so heated that one man turns in a huff, takes his bike and walks away. After cajoling and jeering, he heads back to the circle to place his W1,000 bet once more.

The time to leave arrives and I become lost in thought on the way to Daegu. I vaguely recall a mental note on something about a sub-commentary to self on internal monologue. Something about experiencing life as a constant narration. Who knows? Whether I'm narrating to myself or to others, narration is happening, right? Within us all, right? What? OH. I'm in Daegu already. Time to meander.

These seem to be the days where one may say "...and she lived her life quietly and contentedly among the foreign world of which she was now a part," or some such drivel. The once healthy drive to write even a sentence for every day has diminished markedly. There are many possible reasons for this.

I have a renewed interest in NPR and pancakes. My Sunday home activity is: waking early to make pancakes and brown sugar simple syrup, and some coffee, while listening to NPR. My weekend away, well, that is something different altogether, but there seems to be a Westernized theme.

Saturday morning, I wake early to head for Daegu once again. This time with a purpose other than aimless wandering: Korean lessons with other foreigners at the YMCA. That's right. The YMCA has outreach even in Daegu, South Korea. 91 years of it, to be exact.

I struggle to pronounce 만나사 반가우ㅓ요 (mahn-ah-saw ban-ga-wuh-yo (i.e., nice to meet you)), while my classmate struggles to unwrap a triangle gimbap.



Afterward, I meet familiar Gumi-ites for a stroll around town with a stop at a virtual roller coaster and an introduction to a restaurant with genuine Western breakfast at 2pm and an un-sugared Bloody Mary.

Sunday, post-pancake, I go to Gumi, a nearby city, to deliver a keyboard and see a movie. The Watchmen,

"An adaptation of Alan Moore's landmark comic book series, Watchmen is a story set in an alternative 1985, where the world is ticking closer to the brink of nuclear war, and a plot to eliminate a band of ex-crimefighters is instigated, but why? and by whom?..."

turns out to be just under three hours long. An uncommon opportunity for Scrabble presents itself post-movie, and I spend two more hours in good company, involved in movie discussion, swapping jokes, and racking up a pretty high losing score at my favorite board game. Ween knew gnu knew no new pundits for pun times. Oh, Scrabble!

Day 174

Finally, the 백만 Won that the bank lost in transfer shows up in the right place. Whew! A sigh of relief for that one! A new week begins today.

Back to Reality

Day 158

Nona drops me off at the NOLA airport at 5am for my 7am flight. We hug and a taxi driver grumbles past us, muttering in Spanish. We laugh at the oddness of the moment and hug again. She drives away in the Econoline, I go inside. I check in and have a painless airport experience; no search at security.

I buy orange juice from a vending machine and watch other groggy passengers make their way into the waiting area. My seatmate on the plane from NOLA to Atlanta tells me to invest in gold. The other tells me that I, too, can own land one day. They both wish me luck.

I eat cough drops and nyquil capsules once I board the plane going from Atlanta to Seoul. Not that they help much with my sleeping in transit problem.

Day 159

The plane lands at Incheon Int'l Airport at 4:51pm. After going through customs and collecting my baggage, I buy a ticket for the Airport Limousine 6:40 bus to Gumi. With an hour to spare, I decide to try the triangle gimbap Young Mi's told me about time and again.

The bus arrives in Gumi after 10pm and I am able to catch an 11:19 train to Gimcheon. The taxi drops me off at my locked door and I break into my apartment at midnight. I haven't paid my apartment fee for February. This is my punishment. I make buckwheat tea and get to bed.

Day 160

I wake up at 8am, make some tea, and decide that it wouldn't hurt to sleep another couple hours. The alarm is set for noon. That'll give me plenty of time to get ready for work.

The clock says 10:30. It is dark. I have slept through the day.

I text an apology to my boss, she replies by telling me I do not have to teach tomorrow. Great! I may as well go back to bed.

Day 161

I wake and sleep and wake and sleep from 4am until 9am, when I finally decide that yes, I can get up now. Again, with the puttering around the house, not accomplishing much... kind of putting away suitcase-wrinkled clothing. I call a high school friend I haven't talked to in years. It's a nice morning.

I shower and boil some water. Tuna and rice are all I have in the house, so I make a variation of tuna and noodles...you can guess the variable. I gather my overdue bills and a packet to mail my mother, and out of the house I go. I'm heading to Prime Hagwon, despite my boss's assurance that I do not need to work today. I want to go in and collect my mail, say hello to my coworkers.

When my face appears in the doorway, "Angie" squeals.
"CANDIDA!!! HI! Candida I miss You! Long time no see." She is delightful, and I have missed her as well. Alas, she informs me that she and another teacher will be leaving at the end of the month, and yet another at the end of March.
"Candida," she whispers, "Prime go. Seoul come," and nods her head emphatically. She hands me a stack of mail and goes off to clean the Hagwon before others arrive.

I greet the other teachers as they come in, and finally my boss. I give her the Americana Chocolate Tin, which holds 13 pieces of chocolate molded in moments of America...a last minute pick-up at the duty-free shop in the Atlanta airport, as I remembered that I was going back to Korea empty handed. A piece of chocolate each and a commemorative tin will have to suffice, until the package of Mardi Gras beads shows up. With this thought, I realize that it is Mardi Gras.

I leave to run some errands and stop by the grocery store before I come home to my first responsibility-free day back in Korea.

Where In the World is Carmen San..I mean..Candida Pagan???

Well, to answer that question, I am in The Bywater, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The past week has been spent here and there running errands, making phone calls, sending messages. Previously, I was in the suburbs: family emergency time. A pretty wild time.

DAY I CAME INTO THE CITY

Sitting with "The Nose Knows (TNK)" girls at a meeting spot in the Treme, we order beer and each receive a free styrofoam box of crawdads with a corn cob and a turkey neck. While attempting to unlock the mystery of "the mudbug", I try to:
1.) figure out an order of protocol for errands I must do tomorrow
2.) absorb this new atmosphere

By the time I finish, the ladies of TNK have finished their pages for the weekly zine. It is good fun. Good fun, indeed. For a copy of TNK, email nasalknowledge@gmail.com or write
The Nose Knows, PO Box 19483, New Orleans LA 70179

So many things are different than they have been over the first week in Louisiana. First of all, my general environment feels secure and caring rather than intimidating or threatening. That's a plus. My father's close friends are back in Texas and I took my mother to the airport this morning. I was very sad to see them go, but I am among other friends now. I also have clean clothes again. I have been so busy and under so much stress, that I adopted the "cycle the dirty clothes you're wearing, and no one will notice" policy. Of course, that's not totally true. People notice. Even I notice, but let's just pretend, shall we? I did laundry today, anyway. Those days are over now. AND, no more rental car, which may be a good thing, as I did slightly damage the car I had. Slightly. It's back to a bicycle and a borrowed truck, for me.

DAY I WRITE THIS POST

"Candida! What is going on?!? Why do you have so many errands?? Why are you being so cryptic??"
Well, sweet readers, if I seem more cryptic and less accessible than usual, it is because a very painful event has happened. I encourage you all to make advance directives, make a legal will, and although it may seem morbid or uncomfortable, share these wishes* with your loved ones.

Soon I shall return to Korea to resume teaching my loose-toothed students, and making my special tea, and climbing my mountain. In the meantime, I am here, running into friends I haven't seen for years and waiting for the mail. Attempting to navigate the weird world of those who survive their loved ones... blocks from the Mardi Gras Zone.




*The 5-Wishes Booklet is a simple living will document that you can fill out at home and with signatures of two witnesses, is legally valid in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Just so you know.

Return of the Numbered Days

Day 125
After waiting over the weekend, I go see Bruce, the Traditional Medicine doctor at the clinic near my home. Unsure of a diagnosis, he sends me downstairs to someone who specializes in Physical Therapy and stroke patient rehabilitation. This someone speaks English well and has wanted to meet me. According to Bruce, this is good for me, good for him.

Day 126
Nothing special, really.

Day 127
Morning tea follows a stroll on the mountain. I am inspired to wake early.
i n s p i r e d
Cloud-cover in the sky looks as if it could be the top of an ocean; the city below, on the bottom of the sea.

Day 128
"Accupuncture? No? No accpuncture, okay. Then what? I don't want to take pills if I don't know what they are." Bruce the Traditional Medicine doctor puts me on the phone with several of his 'specialist' friends. I'm not sure what they specialize in, but it doesn't really matter. Bruce has already referred me to someone who told me to take medication for a (possibly) pulled muscle.
"I think he likes you. hmmmmm...I think you are a very smart person to not take pills." Bruce told me when I showed him his friend's recommendation.

Regardless, Bruce has turned me over to someone else's care. He doesn't seem to feel comfortable taking charge of that care again. But he cannot bring himself to treat me unless I try at least one dose of the medication. He cannot undermine his colleague. "Maybe you eat the pills once and you will be better. I think that is it."

He invites me to lunch without telling me that lunch will also be with the dentist downstairs and another doctor from Seoul. I get another "Pills are okay, eat them," speech from Dr. Seoul and the dentist is so shy about his English that he can't bring himself to look at me....until he discovers we are the same age.

By the end of lunch, Bruce has convinced me to set the dentist up on a blind date with a teacher at the Hagwon. At the Hagwon, it is business as usual; I set up a blind date, I teach some English, I accept my DongWong Tuna Seollal gift pack, I catch the bus. I come home at the end of the day to a surprising email.

Day 129

I spend an absurd amount of time in front of the computer wearing a madonna mic. I am alternately moving the microphone away from my mouth so I can make exclamations and adjusting the mic so the listener can hear my probably-too-soft voice. Pink plug-in Green Plug-in Microphone Headphone. In the morning, I am transferred from one office to another as an attempt is made to purchase a plane ticket online. The mission is finally accomplished and I steel myself to face a day of Pre-Teens on Friday.

In the evening I find myself pacing the apartment, sitting down, standing up, pacing some more, putting the mic on to make a skype-call, forgetting to take the mic off after the call is finished, realizing that the mic is still in front of my face as I absentmindedly twirl my hair. In a non-linear turn of events, I will be taking advantage of the National Holiday time coming up in order to visit the USA. The visit will last longer than the holiday, and the circumstances are quite the opposite of joyful, however, my answer to the question "What are your plans for Soellal?" is no longer a shrug of the shoulders to accompany "Mo lai yo".

Un-defeatable Plan for Jet Lag Defeat
No sleep for "before flight" night: stay awake! Write. Clean. Shower. Pack. Write.
The goal is to sleep over the Pacific and wake up over California to be wide awake upon landing. I can't really sleep, anyway, so I may as well pretend it's intentional.
Defeat Being Beat!

This is my self-cheer. Koreans have a special kind of cheer. It is this: They clench a fist, and do a 1/4 fist pump in the air and at the same time say "insert name here, fighting!" It can be considered appropriate for nearly any situation. Spirit Lifter. Class running wild? "Lindsey, fighting!" Feeling blue? "Jane, fighting!" Coach put you on the bench? "Anna, fighting!" Kind of great, right?

Day 130

1. Car to Gumi
2. Airport Limousine" Bus to Incheon
3. Airplane to USA: The Rocky Horror Picture Show will be singing "Time Warp" in my head as I fly for 19 hours through 11 time zones. Maybe I'll get lucky and that will be the in-flight Entertainment.

CONTINUED...

...Hiro notices people starting to climb the stairs and line up at the bell pagoda. He looks at Hideki and I before giggling again and skipping away to sprint up the stairs. We follow shortly...
We climb the stairs and watch the stage-crowd for a while. We are freezing. As part of two (soon to be three) shivering rows of people, we are surrounded by a unified chanting. Midnight is drawing near. For maybe five to ten minutes, the chanting continues and then the countdown begins. Stage lights flash a new color every second as we count down from "SHIP" to "GONG!!!"

Fireworks flash!!! CONFETTI!!! STREAMERS!!! Simultaneously, the huge bell is struck with a log swung by important monks and local politicians (they take turns giving the bell 13 strikes), AND a serious loudspeaker system blasts a triumphal symphony, to announce the New Year's arrival. We are all one year older.

As quickly as the burst of energy erupts, it is dispersed into the fresh New Year air. The die-hards among the crowd are atop the stairs and I find myself being hearded with them toward the entrance to the bell's housing. Military men are barking at the crowd and push/pulling them through the roped-off entrance eight at a time.

I feel a particularly sharp elbow from one side and hear a faint continued chant on the other. I look behind me to see a group of 4 feet tall grannies chatting trying to make their way to the gate. I attempt to shield them from the elbows and shoving as we are pushed ever-closer to the Seokguram Bell. It occurs to me at this point that I have lost sight of Hiro and Hideki.

As I am realizing this, I also realize that I am at the front. The grannies shove past me and are through the entrance. Hideki is shrugging at me as he walks out, and the soldier herding the crowd looks at me and says "OKAY?? YOU UNDERSTAND???" I nod and follow the women to the mini-battering-ram which serves as a bell striker. Together we strike the bell , now singing without symphonic accompaniment and are rushed away. Bewildered, I scan the crowd for my scarf, and finding it, weave my way out of the crowd.

The three of us seek the shelter of Seokguram Grotto. In order to reach it, we must follow the lantern-lit path. Snow and the dusty path are underfoot and muffled, cheerful groups make their way up the mountainside.
Reaching the top, I cross paths with the grannies again. One performing her bows while another prepares to do so. She is caught in her backpack and I help her out of the tangle. Seokguram, I must say, is magnificent. Wholly beautiful. We stay inside the statue's housing for a time, then head out into the dark. I want to stay. I want to descent to a warm tent and stay until sunrise.

My resolve to do so is strong. Then I look over at Hiro. Shoulders hunched, he hops from loafer to loafer, his bare hands shoved deep into his pockets. He looks back at me and grins. Hideki cocks his head to one side and asks "Are you going to stay until sunrise?" I smile and nod. He and Hiro exchange a quick, surprised, pained look. "Really?" I understand then that they consider it their duty to stay as well. I suggest going to the warming tents. Walking in to one automatically puts us in line for warm bowls of ddukguuk which we accept and eat standing near as possible to the heater. Another 20 minutes later, we head down the mountain and return to the Hostel.

Library Time
Two days later I am in the Gimcheon Library for a 5 hour study session. I discover that that is the thing to do in Gimcheon. There are rooms, previously unknown to me, filled to capacity with studious youth.

At Gimcheon Mac-chang
An orange vendor, an ommuk/fish bread man, and a foreigner walk into a Hof.
The orange vendor says something and the forigner hears: "waeoirjawe;lajsdf;lkdseyo?"
the foreigner nods and says something and the orange vendor hears: "asl;kerja;oiewjr ;kasdflkjdsa?" The ommuk/fish bread man nods and glances up to make sure the crowd at his cart is putting money in his "be right back" box before he pours a healthy round of soju.

Soon the three are laughing with the owner and his wife. Everyone hears "sal;kja;oihedf; seyo? ANNEEYO! eego eego aljdsf;jas;a!!!" and they all laugh again and again. The orange vendor finally puts down his glass and looks at the foreigner's bike to ask if it will be ridden home. The forigner shakes her head emphatically. "nowaeflkasfwalkdafjofjbikeaskdfjjajang!!"

She tilts her head from side to side and lightly stomps her feet to let them know she'll be walking. This brings another round of laughter and "walaslkjhas; anneyonhigesayo anneyonheegaseyo!!!" Goodnight goodnight and I hope your headache tomorrow isn't too terrible.