Such bombings were esteemed acts of patriotism during the Japanese occupation of 1910-45. This particular martyr died in the blast, but the Japanese general survived with the loss of a leg. Our American tour guide actually knows the General’s daughter in Japan. He said he had to be careful not to make some insensitive remark the next time he saw her, something like:
“Hey, I just visited the shrine of the guy who blew off your dad’s leg!”
I hitch along with some new PC trainees to visit the Pan Moon Jom truce site at the DMZ. A sad and tense place swarming with military personnel – American, South Korean, North Korean. The granite-faced North Koreans look pretty grim in their old style uniforms, voluminous hats, and jack boots – like extras in a demented comic opera. One of them throws a rock at our bus.
An American guard shows us the conference room with its microphone wire dividing the table and delineating the international border.
“If you step this way, you can enter North Korea,” he says. “Get your thrill for the day.”
We do so, not very thrilling.
I stay as busy as possible evenings so as to avoid the booze / bar girl trap of E Tae Won. Mostly I go to the movies. Korean cinematic fare consists either of romantic dramas or martial arts flicks. My inability to follow most of the dialog seems an advantage.
American retreads are also available. I see the Vietnam war classic The Green Berets starring John Wayne as a tough Special Forces colonel. I’ve never seen him braver – a ferocious battle for a jungle outpost, a daring kidnapping behind enemy lines. For a guy who avoided military service in World War II, he’s sure come a long way.
All shows in Korean theaters begin with propaganda blurbs for President Pak and his cronies – guys like Kim Chong Pil, the secret police boss, or Kim Jong Shik (a.k.a. Kim Jong Shit) who is the prime minister or something.
And always President Pak officiating at yet another ribbon-cutting ceremony. He has a crass, sunken face that radiates ignorance and brutality. He is a buta parast, dumb peasant, as my Grandfather Alois would say.
I nickname these propaganda featurettes ‘The Loathsome Cowboy Show.’ Sitting in the darkened theater, tuning out the drone of Korean language from the loudspeakers, I can almost imagine myself in Fascist Spain where I’d spent a summer during college. Seoul and Madrid have a lot in common. They both have an authoritarian ambiance.
Carl, one of my college pals, spent a year studying in Spain. Periodically he sent cassette tapes back with his impressions. Carl was a very conservative guy much given toward seeing the best in right-wing regimes. In one tape he referred to General Franco as a ‘benevolent dictator.’
Carl and some Spanish student buddies were socializing at the university café after hours one evening. The authorities apparently suspected that a leftist student meeting was going on because a police squad burst in and starting clubbing everybody. Carl was brutally struck in the head before he could shout, “I’m an American!”
Subsequent tapes did not mention the benevolent dictator.
Plenty of such occurrences in South Korea – arrests of regime opponents, political kidnappings, torture, censorship. As a foreigner, I am insulated from these events, but I can detect the terrible vibe. At least in Fascist Spain thousands of American soldiers don’t have to risk their lives protecting the regime.
At the French Culture Center I see a movie about an embittered French paratrooper suspected of murdering his unfaithful wife with a quick snap of her neck.
“These days even the village idiot is a judoka,” the suspicious, though empathetic police inspector tells the paratrooper. “And anybody can crack a victim’s neck!”
Attractive Korean coeds attended these French movies, and I would have liked to meet them. I am too burned out to make the effort, though.
The heavy rains of the July Chong Ma Chol rainy season arrive. I purchase flimsy bamboo and blue plastic umbrellas from street vendors at 50 won each. The newspapers report entire hamlets disappearing under mudslides with great loss of life.
Drunk, partying Americans and / or Koreans come to the Nam Goong some nights. As my room is tucked into a far corner, the racket usually isn’t too bad. I see no more rats, though I do hear them scurrying inside the walls now and then. Late nights I spend reading – books, heavily censored American magazines, newspapers. I even read Too Bombed to Bargain. Enough said about that.
This prolonged decompression is better than the abrupt exit I had initially planned. It resembles my departure from college. I’d screwed off a bit at school, not as bad as Victor for sure, but enough so that I did not have sufficient credits to graduate on time. I’d had to go an extra term.
Then, also, I’d read away the late nights, mainly plays for my Shakespeare class. I met Julie, an unbelievably cute freshman, and she’d been hot for me. I was too foot loose and hormone driven to want anything serious, though. I wanted to see the world, and here I am.
I see nothing of Bob West and almost forget about our sketchy plans. It seems as if I might drift right through the summer and end up back at the middle school come September. I really don’t want to leave, but I don’t want to stay under the circumstances, either. Bob is right, I do love it here. Although often I hate it, too.
At night sometimes, memories of Jon Glass bubble up to disturb me. I can almost feel his iron grip on my arm again and see his terrifying figure on the TV screen. But then erotic fantasies arise in my mind, and thoughts of Jon fly out the window. These concepts seem linked, somehow – tangled together yet hostile to each other at the same time.
These sensual imaginings usually involve Kathy Funk. I’ve learned that she’ll be teaching at the Kangnung workshop. We’d undergone training the previous summer in Choon Chun with the rest of our PCV group. We’d spent some time together – talking, relaxing in the rare air-conditioned tabang, nothing spectacular. But I’d always wondered if things might have clicked under better circumstances.
The weather was horrific that whole summer, the cool Chong Ma Chol had never arrived, and the humid mid 90’s temperatures oppressed us. Our yogwans and class rooms were sweat boxes. A quarter of the training group quit.
Then I’d met Yun Hee and had forgotten about Kathy.
But maybe things will be different this summer now that I am available again. Now that the weather is more moderate and twenty other PCV guys won’t be vying for Kathy’s attention. Maybe I will stay the second year – if things work out.
So, I leave for Kangnung without having turned in my resignation.
10: Misfortunate Sojourn
“People sometimes go in quest of one thing and meet with another.” – Sancho Panza
Kangnung, a small city by the scenic northeast coast, is an excellent location for our English language workshop. For two weeks we PCVs will provide intensive instruction to the Korean middle school English teachers who attend. The Koreans have a good knowledge of written English but lack verbal skills. They get plenty of speaking practice from us.
Classes during the day, forays to restaurants and drinking joints at night, a weekend trip to the beach. Fortunately, Mr. Jong from Choon Chun is not in attendance.
Kathy has gotten in tight with some of the female Korean teachers. They stick together, leaving scant opening for me to approach. So, I just keep an eye on Kathy and wait for my chance. Both eyes, actually, since there is plenty to see.
One day, between classes, I catch her alone in the teachers’ lounge. I mention conversationally that I am planning to sojourn up the coast after the workshop and visit Sorak San national park.
“Really?” she says. “I’d like to go there sometime. The scenery is supposed to be fabulous.”
“Well, why don’t you come along, then?” I say.
She hesitates, and my heart virtually stops beating.
“Okay, Tyler,” she finally says. “That sounds like fun.”
We clasp pinkie fingers, Korean style, so as to formalize the yaksok, promise. I’ve ha
ndled this casually, but inside, my emotions are raging. The touch of Kathy’s finger jacks up my lust meter several notches.
Travel in Korea can be difficult for unaccompanied Western women, so we guys often take PCV girls with us on trips. Usually we go in groups, sometimes just two of us posing as a couple. In this manner the girls can avoid being harassed. We even room together at the yogwans. Usually this is a familial arrangement.
Not to say there isn’t any fooling around between male and female volunteers, but the women PCVs usually seem more like sisters to us than potential girl friends. Besides, we are all drooling after the Korean girls.
At heart I know I am being an idiot and that the chances for a romantic liaison with Kathy are pretty slim. I can always hope, though, can’t I?
On the final day of the workshop, everyone poses in front of the school for a group photograph. We Americans sit on chairs in the front row alongside the most senior Korean teachers. The younger Korean instructors stand on the four levels of stairway behind us. About seventy people altogether. The whole arrangement is very Confucian in its recognition of status and seniority.
The Koreans look typically solemn and dignified, while an occasional American cracks a smile. Above us hang large slogan-bearing placards:
ANTI COMMUNISM
SECURITY THROUGH STRENGTH
UNIFICATION THROUGH THE DESTRUCTION OF COMMUNISM
After the photo shoot and closing ceremonies, everybody clears out. Since it is already mid afternoon, Kathy and I decide to stay in Kangnung until the next day and get an early start for Sorak San. She is staying with a Korean family in town and they are happy to have her remain a bit longer.
Everybody likes having Kathy around.
I return to my lonely yogwan room and dream about the coming trip. People are screwing noisily in the next room, which heightens my sense of frustrated anticipation.
***
The next morning we meet at a tabang. Thank God Kathy is alone! My greatest fear was that she’d show up with a girlfriend who is just dying to see Sorak San, and wouldn’t it be nice if we all went together? I drink my morning coffee and quail egg with profound satisfaction.
Then we head toward the bus station. People watch us, and I feel the ‘on stage’ sensation I so often experience in Korea. Kathy walks easy and relaxed, as if she is on some American university campus. I move along beside her, fantasizing that she is my girl.
I’ve grown accustomed to Asian standards of beauty, and Kathy is quite a change with her light hair, blue eyes and faint freckles playing about her nose – she is taller than the typical Korean girl, too. I can definitely get used to these differences, however.
Her demeanor presents a subtle combination of mixed signals. She draws you along in her wake, paying polite attention, while letting you know at the same time that you are not in her league – unless she chooses to let you in. Unlike many PCV girls, she wears make up, very tastefully, and her cologne wafts like a rare incense.
We enter a small kagae to get munchies. I buy some mandarin oranges and shredded squid. Kathy purchases a bunch of grapes which the store owner rinses under a hose. As we sit on a bench waiting for the bus, Kathy begins eating the grapes, shoving each one into her mouth whole.
“You should pop those out of the skins,” I say.
“Why? They’ve been washed,” Kathy says.
“The skins might still contain pesticide or something,” I say. “They probably spray all kinds of stuff on them here that’s banned in the States.”
She shoots me an exasperated look. “Get something straight right now, Tyler. Don’t ever try to tell me what to do. Okay?”
“Okay, sorry.”
I say nothing further, thus observing a universal law: The better looking the girl, the more crap she can give you.
I decline to eat any grapes, fearing that she might get annoyed watching me remove the skins. So, she continues eating the whole bunch by herself. I light a cigarette, making sure the smoke drifts away from her. I feel as awkward as some junior high kid on a first date.
It is unusual to meet single American women overseas who are as attractive as Kathy. Gazing into my tobacco fumes, I theorize that the reason for this is that the more beautiful a woman is, the more romantic options she has. With so many men interested in her, somebody in Kathy’s league would get snapped up quickly – sexual entanglements, early marriage, etc.
Years afterwards would come the laments: “I wish I’d waited to get married / have children ... I wish I’d traveled like I’d wanted to, etc. etc.”
I’ve heard such moaning commentary before. This smacks up against Rule Number One of my core beliefs: People generally do whatever they want and then like to complain about it later.
The bus finally arrives and we get on.
En route, Kathy becomes violently ill, and we have to stop at Yangyang, miles short of our destination. I check in at the first available yogwan while Kathy dashes for the WC.
“Your wife is sick?” the adjumoni in the yogwan office asks.
“Uh ... yes,” I say, “something she ate.”
The adjumoni nods gravely and hands me a tiny bottle of yak, some patent medicine type concoction.
“Thanks,” I say.
I sit alone in our room waiting anxiously for Kathy to return. With each passing minute my fears grow worse until I can barely contain them. I spread the yo and ibul out on the floor for her when she comes back – if she comes back. If she hasn’t already passed out on the WC floor.
My God, I think, what if she needs to be hospitalized?
I open my wallet and fumble out the blue card listing U.S. Army medical facilities. We PCVs are strongly advised to seek emergency care at American military bases. Horror stories circulate about hapless Americans who have blundered into Korean hospitals.
The nearest Army clinic is in Choon Chun, according to the card.
I spread out my new tourist map. The goddam thing has all the place names written in Chinese characters! I locate what seems to be Yangyang and Choon Chun and measure the distance between them. Not too far as the crow flies, but the two towns are separated by some of the roughest terrain in South Korea, with only secondary roads traversing it.
In my distress, I unconsciously open the yak bottle and drain it. The taste is unspeakable, like pineapple-flavored battery acid. Again I feel the rubber club strike the back of my head. The door slides open and Kathy enters, trembling and pale. I take her arm.
“You should see a doctor,” I say.
She crosses the few steps to the bedding and flops down. “Just leave me alone, please.”
***
I hover around her like a mother hen during the next hours – peeking in, bringing insam tea, buying aspirin at the nearby drug store.
Last winter, during a retraining session in Taegu, a PCV friend got food poisoned from a hard-boiled egg he purchased from a street vendor. He actually turned green. Two of us held him up while a third guy hailed a taxi. We rushed him to the nearby American military base for treatment.
Yangyang is much more isolated than Taegu, though. We are above the 38th parallel here; this whole area used to be in North Korea before the war shifted the border. I fiddle with my radio. Hell, I can’t even pull in the American Armed Forces network!
But Kathy seems to be getting better on her own, thank God. Her color improves, and except for an occasional foray to the WC, she sleeps away the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon. Late in the day she sits up, rubs her eyes, and glances about our room.
“Christ, what a dump,” she says. “Can’t we move someplace else?”
I know she is feeling better.
While Kathy washes up at the public bath house, I find us a better yogwan. Then we go out to dinner and get a private little side room at the restaurant. I am famished and dig into the full meal spread on the low table. Kathy delicately consumes mandu soup and a bowl of hot, steamy rice.
This is an offici
al conservation day during which restaurants are not permitted to serve rice. But one look at Kathy and the owner decides to bend the rules. I am served a bowl of coarse barley.
As we eat, an angry comment hovers unspoken in the air: “I told you not to eat those goddam grape skins!”
But I say nothing about Kathy’s foolishness; moreover, she expects dutiful silence. The matter is definitely not a topic for discussion. She consumes her light fare slowly, a little smile playing about her lips occasionally, as if she is enjoying some private joke. Man, if that smile was intended for me, I’d throw myself onto the floor and grovel. Instead, I order an O.B. mekchu, then another, until I have my first alcohol buzz in weeks.
At the new yogwan, our room has been prepared for us with a large yo and ibul spread out in the middle of the floor. The little gomah comes in with a kettle of hot barely ‘tea’ and some metal cups. He places these items in the corner and begins to leave.
Kathy gives me a sharp look. “Well?”
“What?” I ask innocently.
“Aren’t you going to ask him for another yo and ibul?”
I’ve long since given up any idea of a sexual tryst, but I am feeling frisky. The devil is in me, having poured himself in with the beer. I spread myself luxuriously on the quilted bedding.
“Why not share these?” I say. “They take up most of the floor space anyway.”
“You get others right now!” Kathy splutters. “I’m not going to sleep with you, Tyler. It isn’t ... it wouldn’t be ... NO!”
Not much to misunderstand there. I obtain a second set of bedding and wrap myself in it, nestling against the wall for comfort.
11: A Walk in the Park
“The sensitive are always with us, and sometimes a curious streak of fancy invades an obscure corner of the very hardest head.” – H. P. Lovecraft
I am up early. Kathy remains sleeping in the midst of her vast yo and ibul, however, and I dare not disturb her. Alone, I venture out into the yogwan courtyard.
A glorious summer day sparkles there. Soft, warm air transports floral aromas. Bright sunshine, moderated exactly right by clouds, bathes the world. I feel a deep yearning for freedom and consider jumping on the first bus to anywhere, abandoning Kathy.