Going Home Part 1

Its some time in the early afternoon.  The bus pulls out of the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul.  It all feels so familiar even if I have not been to this place in so long.  I am lost for a long time in the cluster-fuck shopping center of the subway station.  I somehow over shoot my intended exit and end up in a satellite branch of the terminal. I am hot, sweating, hungover from too much soju, and late.

It all seems about right. 

This whole bus ride seems strange but also warm.  It is all reversed.  Instead of the weekend trip being Cheongju to Seoul, it is Seoul to Cheongju.  Its strange that I am escaping some place to relax in Cheongju when for so long the opposite was true and necessary.  Almost always this trip ends in me at the Tomgi Motel.  The world is all topsy turvy.  Never do I end up in the Gallery Motel near the express bus terminal in Cheongju, fighting to wake before a noon check-out.  That's where it ends this time.

Still the journey warms me.  A sense of anxiety builds as we pull onto the highway and leave the megatropolis of Seoul behind.  I catch glances of the buildings and mountains that make up that panorama of Seoul as they fade.  They are replaced with the mountains and rivers of Central Korea, a place that, even still, I am more familiar with, more at home with. 

I am nervous to return to Cheongju for a million reasons.  I am scared that my old coworkers, people I have this last year referred to more often as family than friends, will be cold to me.  I am worried at the pit of my heart that they have somehow either forgotten me or forgotten the warmness they accepted me with once.

I did leave.  I did cause a bit of a stink over money.  I did regularly show up to work hungover or half bombed. 

I am scared that the school won't be the same.  This is what worries me the most because I know that, whatever the case, it will be true.  I left.  Another foreigner took over and left.  He had to cut away the weeds and shadows that I left behind and surely his ghost remains.  I am fresh in nobodys mind.  Maybe they mourn for him.  I thought about them all a lot while I was gone living the wasted time that I did. 

Most all of the teachers are gone.  Hanbyul is in New York.  Boram is working at a restaurant in Cheongju.  Eunhyang is in Cheongju still I guess.  She is hard to keep track of but I know she doesn't teach and I don't know if I will see her.  Shaina isn't there anymore.  So Young is teaching.  Ara is in Australia.  As for the Receptionist and the Bus Driver I know nothing. 

Mostly I am nervous that I won't want to leave.  I am horrified that I will see everyone and it will awaken this whole demon of regret.  Regret of leaving Korea.  Regret of leaving that job.  Regret of going to Seoul.  Regret of ever returning at all.  I am scared the fear that I am trying to recreate a time past will be realized fully.  It is a devastating thought that scares me enough to make my heart beat a bit too fast to maintain focus on my book.

Still.  The ride is nice.  I have missed these green fields and paddies that we pass.  Rice paddies form rounded steps up a hill.  The hill leads to a green forest and the forest to a green mountain that ends in a blue sky.  It's the blue sky of the Korean countryside, not the gray one of polluted Seoul. 

We pass greenhouses that stretch forever.  I see the tiny and dirty cattle farms, the majority source of the primo-expensive beef in this place. 

I feel far from Seoul already and, truth be told, I feel more at peace, somehow.  The stress of my job and the stress of the city melts off as I sweat on the bus. People snore.  I am not free of my life as a Seoulite but at the moment it doesn't feel so important.  Gangnam is far away.  Report cards don't matter.  My head teacher doesn't exist in the minds of these people. 

The bus pulls off the highway just past a sign that reads "Cheongju" in English and in Hangul.  I am excited and nervous but also comforted.  There is a sense of relief.  A certain part of me accepts that these next moments are why I came back.  When I left I thought that I would never return to this place; that all of the "I'll visit"s and all of the "I will see you soon"s were happy lies.  As the bus pulls into the famed tunnel of trees leading to the hopping transport hub of Cheongju I feel a bit as though I have beaten some sort of odds. 

We drive around and I am in memory lane.  Amanda C and Andrew lived near here.  I see farms and restaurants around me.  They always traveled so far to Chundae for drinks.  I can still see Andrew's face imposed on the plastic ID cover on my wallet.  His wallet.  I don't really know. 

Soon we pass from rural to urban.  This swatch of Cheongju that looks lake every hub in every Korean city.  Seoul is only a Cheongju on steroids. 

Soon I see the bus station.  A place I've seen a million times before.  A place I walked to once searching out a foot long from Subway.  To my right is a bus stop that lead Larry and I to the bus garage instead of a beautiful fortress- the least drunken of our misadventures.  Larry fucking Boire.  It's been a long time since we were in this place together.  He always hated Cheongju.  Once his motorcycle broke down on our highway and he left it for days. 

Larry is to be married in two weeks and I will miss it because I am here. 

To my right, just before we pull in and I set feet on Cheongju terra-firma I see a sign advertising American Burger.  American Burger sells the worst middle school cafeteria style burgers in all of Korea.  I will not be fooled.  I am no naive passer-through.  Not in this place. 

I step out and feel the heat.  I smell diesel and while diesel smells like diesel anywhere, I feel this warmth of remembrance wash over.  I decide to take it all in as much as I can.  The past year of my life has been building up to this. 

I walk out and hang a left.  There is a group of love motels near the station.  I went there often.  Rick and Lauren from Daejeon stayed there whenever they came.  Gallery Motel.  I find it without trouble and am horrified to pay 60,000W for the night. 

It's worth it though.  I head up to a dark hallway a few flights above.  Neon lights give off a blue hue.  As always I feel like some kind of pervert in this place but I am a foreigner and alone.  It is my first love motel in a year and I remember immediately why these places are the best. 

I pop my key into the slot and am greeted by a giant room with a fake mahogany floor, a giant TV, king bed, mood lighting, a huge whirlpool, et al.  I turn on the TV and as I light a cigarette from a crumpled old pack I find in my sack I realize that the last patron never switched from the porn. 

I take a look in the mirror and fix my hair, brush my teeth, and spray a bit of cologne.  This is something that I would have never done before.  Cheongju Tom is, if not entirely dead, dormant inside me.  I had a girl then.  I didn't care how I looked, what people thought of me.  It is entirely fucking obvious in every photo from those days. 

I walk out, hail a cab and somehow manage to recite my old address.  No problems.  It is a rarity. 
We double back and I am in Gavin's old neighborhood.  I remember watching Elf with him and Robyn.  The streets are all the same but everyone is gone.  Melodramatic, I know. 

The new neighborhood is up.  We pass Home Plus and Chunbuk University and are in Gaeshin-dong.  My old home.  We drive down the main drag, turn left near Pizza Maru, another right at the Sundae joint and before I know it I am looking at the window to my old apartment.

If much of the Cheongju that I knew has changed, Han-ga-ram apartment complex is still a huge piece of shit that looks like it belongs in Chernobyl.  I stand for a while and then leave, scared that the old landlord will come out and invite me to another lunch. 

I take the long way to Kim Hak Su, now called Kim's Human English.  Cafe Pasucci took over.  I don't remember what used to be there but it makes me sad.  As I round the last corner I see that my old kimbap joint is gone.  I ate there every day.  I had hoped to have a quick meal there and see the nice woman who always gave me watermelon (as opposed to the lady who hated my guts).  It is the only thing that makes me genuinely sad. 

My heart pounds as I open the door.  I walk up the stairs and take one last deep breath before I walk in to my old school.  It is a place that remained and will remain a significant place in my heart.  I don't know quite what to do. 

I hear a squawk from the boss' office.  Mrs. Kim.  I can see her face contorted.  She always had this adorable bunny rabbit face.  I see it clearly as she bursts out of the dark room.  I smile.  It's like a roller coaster.  From this point on, I have no control and it is like the "good ol' days."

She almost knocks me down.  She hugs me and says something in Korean and squeezes my belly. 
"Ahhh, slim!"  She says. 

I hug her and tell her she looks great.  She doesn't understand me but it never mattered so much.  She shouts and a Koean guy pokes his head from the teacher's office.  A classroom door opens and closes.  It is So Young.  She looks beautiful.  She smiles.

"Tooommmm!"

We hug.  I don't remember much of what we say.  I make it a point to tell them both how much I missed them.

So-Young takes me to a classroom.  I am shaking.  It isn't quite visible but I feel it.  Too much caffeine, I think, but I know it is just a kind of happy shock.  I forget about Seoul, about Shannon, about Gangnam. 
Inside the class I am stared at like some sort of monster.  They look at me with curiosity.  Nobody knew I was coming.  I glance over the faces and for a moment I don't see her in the corner behind the teacher's podium.

"Thoma?"

I would have known her voice anywhere.  I missed her the most, I think.  She was my first class at this school.  She was there for my first teaching day and dealt with my inability to communicate better than most, despite being 8. 

Alice.  I never called her by her English name.  Oo-Rin.  I see her smiling and I rush over and hug her.  She looks the same.  She was so young then but so damned mature.  She comforted Junho when he was upset and calmed him down when he got excited, even though he was just a little younger. 

It is the second happiest moment I have in that school that day. 

The memory of my last day rushes forward.  I shook her hand goodbye and she said:

"Thoma, please, hug."

It almost broke me.  I never thought I would see her again. 

I am visibly shaking.  I can't stop it.  I feel light headed and anxious.  The class goes on even if they all stare at me and Oo-Rin explains me to her friends.  I keep looking at her and smiling.  She basically changed my mind on kids. 

I sip my coffee to try to hide my shakes, but it only makes it obvious.  I step out for a moment and try to collect myself.  I am worried that I might cry.

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Winter Intensives

The school is a lot different than it was a month ago.  For one thing, we have broken off from our parent company of Kim Hak Su.  I was aware that Albert, my boss, had been itching to do this for a while, but I didn’t expect it to happen so fast.  He had told me over beers that while the man, Kim Hak Su, was very smart and a social brother to him, he was also very selfish.  Truth be told, this hasn’t had a noticeable impact on my day to day life.  We just don’t have a school name at the moment.
Boram has been gone since Christmas.  Since then a foreign teacher at Albert’s other school bailed.  To remedy this, he brought Hae Jin to that school.  She has been replaced with a Korean girl named Ara, who has some pretty amazing English under her belt from Australia. 
The problem with Hae Jin and Boram leaving, other than it being sad to see people I’ve known my whole time in Korea leave,  is that they were the ones who really kept kids under control.  Han and I do not inspire the same level of fear of death as those two.  So, to a certain extent, a few classes have descended into anarchy. 
What makes things worse is that public schools have let out for winter break and again the kids flock to private academies.  They come earlier and they stay for a longer part of the day.  Classes have all changed and with that the general dynamic.  Kids who were subdues and peaceful before are now with their friends and they combined to become a kind of axis of evil. 
Winter Class B would be a pretty decent example.  In the class is one boy and two girls who, on their own, aren’t beyond manageable.  Individually, whenever I told one of them to stop talking they would immediately apologize.  The boy would make a heart with his arms and say “Ok, sorry Thomas, I love you ok very good.” 
Currently, I spend most of the class screaming like a lunatic at all three of them.  A week ago, the boy smacked one of the girls on the head and made her cry.  He spent the entire 45 minute class kneeling in front of the smart board.  He still wouldn’t shut up.
Then, there is the Missing Boy (who went MIA for a few hours a bunch of months ago).  I would be lying if I said that winter intensives have made any difference in his classes as he is all alone but he has definitely stepped up his game.
He is one of my first classes a few days a week.  Everyday, he comes in and we do our little dance.  It ends in two ways:
1.  Trap him in a corner, put him in a headlock or pick him up and carry him to class. 
2.  He sprints into class and tries to barricade the door. 
I win both of these scenarios.  He is a scrawny 8 or 9 year old and I outweigh him by approximately 500 lbs.  One day last week, I joined him in a pre-dance glass of orange juice.  We stood there until he took a big sip, threw his glass and ran for the door.  Ok, I thought, scenario 2.  Generally, my strategy is to get my foot into the door as he closes it and then pull the door handle off of the inside (it is broken).  He then closes the door, realizes that he is trapped inside with nothing to hold onto.  I win.
On this day the door was too far broken and wouldn’t properly close.  I thought nothing of it and reached my left arm in and tickled his side.  He responded by shotgun spitting a mouthful of orange juice into my face and all over my folders. 
The dance was over.  He won. 
The next day, after literally dragging him on the floor and into the classroom, he tried to instigate a repeat of the previous day with a mouthful of green tea.  I’m no fool so I laughed and said “no.”  He then spit his at out into my thermos of water.  I said something to the extent of “seriously” and he grabbed my papers and blitzed around me and hurled them out the window.  Kid is like a sneaky little velociraptor. 
As of today, I have been in Korea for 265 days.  I have 100 days left on my contract and I can only imagine that the time I have left will fly by.  The first thing I did upon receiving a cell phone here was set a countdown for the end of my contract.  It wasn’t so much an issue of me wanting time to go by quickly or the need to know exactly how long I have left so much that I sometimes don’t realize time is going by at all.
When I first landed here, a year might as well have been forever.  There were so many milestones that I needed to get through before I went back home: Halloween, my birthday, New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Thanksgiving.  Now: there is nothing. 
In an hour I will check my phone and see that I am down to double-digits.  I don’t know why it is so significant to me; not really.  I suppose I can remember laying in bed at my first apartment in Cheongju with no internet wondering what kind of mess I had gotten myself into.  I recall laying there wondering how I would feel when I was down to the last 100 days; whether I would be emotionally scarred from a Christmas alone. 
I guess I feel pretty much the same as I did at the half way point; which felt pretty much the same as the 4 month point.  Though I am starting to feel that urgency to start doing as much as I can in Korea; my days are numbered.
In 10 days I have a lot of work to do.  I have been mulling over how to get home for quite some time.  I don’t feel like jumping onto an airplane and being home 20 something hours later.  Somehow that seems so anticlimactic to a year abroad. 
Part of the reason I like travel writing and books about journeys (The Hobbit / LOTR) is that they acknowledge that the way home can be an adventure in itself.  I am getting a decent wad of cash when my contract is completed and I feel it would be a waste (both personally and with the whole photographer thing) to skip out on the rest of the world.  As it is, I have not so much as touched my portfolio in a year or so. 
The plan is this: Ferry from Korea to the eastern shore of Russia.  Rail from there to Moscow.  Moscow - Europe (avoiding Belarus).  Eventually I mean to make my way to Barcelona to see an old friend before I finally get on a plane head back to Boston. 
It’s a plan anyway.  A Russian Visa seems to be require a horrible amount of patience, but the embassy told me that it was possible to get while living abroad.  So, I am going to make a go of it.

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