Writings

Background Story

Upon arriving at Narita airport the first thing I saw was a large banner with the words, “Welcome to Japan. Please follow the rules.” I smiled and thought, ‘They actually have rules here.’ My two weeks in Korea had led me to believe that there were no rules—which of course was not the case, but it took me a while to learn this. The rules were a bit stricter than I was hoping for, though, and the immigration officials were very suspicious of me when all I had to show them was a slip of paper with Kazuko’s address on it. Apparently they thought I might be trying to smuggle something into the country, and they searched me thoroughly and even pressed my stomach to see if I had swallowed anything. Fortunately the searches ended there.

With a year of Japanese under my belt, I could read and speak enough to figure out how to get to Kazuko’s neighborhood, and I boarded the right train with no problem. As the train rolled on through the night, I stared at my reflection in the window opposite me and thought about my situation. For all I knew, Kazuko might not even be home. I could very well spend the night just wandering the streets. For some reason, though, at that moment I smiled, and the reflection of my smiling face in the window made me laugh. I had found a new faith, and somehow I knew that everything was going to be OK.

I reached Kazuko’s neighborhood and eventually managed to find her house. Her mother answered the door, and all I could think to say was, “I’m a friend of your daughter’s.” A few moments later Kazuko stood in the doorway. She had never gotten the letter (it arrived a few days later) and was shocked to see me standing there. I had quite a story to tell her, and we stayed up late into the night as I told her about my experiences. For her part, she told me that the consulate wouldn’t be open the next day, as it was a national holiday. By the time I was able to get to the consulate, a typhoon had moved in, and I wasn’t able to leave Japan until a week after I had arrived. This was not a problem for me, as I spent half the time at Kazuko’s house and half the time at her boyfriend’s house (I had met him in the States as well) drinking sake as the rain lashed against the windows. Both of them tried to convince me to stay in Japan, and even told me they would put me up until I could find a job and a place of my own. As tempting as the offer was, I told them that leaving Korea now would be giving up. I guess I was just too stubborn to admit failure. So back I went.

Needless to say, my problems were not over. Dragon Lady accused me of fabricating the story about the typhoon (I pride myself on being creative, but a typhoon?) just so I could stay with my friends longer, and fired and evicted me over the phone. She even said she would send her goons over the next morning to make sure I left the house. Christina and Sara assured me that Dragon Lady was all bark and no bite, but just to be on the safe side I took a walk early the next morning. I soon found myself at the bottom of some stairs, and before I knew it I was at the top of Namsan, the South Mountain. There was a small pagoda there with some benches beneath it, so I laid down on one of the benches and stared up at the intricate woodwork of the ceiling.

I stayed there for most of the day, and I prayed for most of that time. Despite my good fortune so far, my life was in a state of turmoil, and I needed peace. I did find it, and when I came down off the mountain, I was ready to face whatever lay ahead. The Dragon Lady’s goons never came, but Christina and Sara had decided in the interim that they didn’t like living where the Dragon Lady knew where to find them. The three of us ended up moving together, and I severed all ties to the institute.

The next few months were a blur of private classes that I picked up through word-of-mouth. I think I was teaching about 20 hours a week, and I managed to make a tidy sum for that each month. With the money pouring in, I wasn’t too interested in saving, and when the well finally ran dry I had very little to show for it. After a brief trip to the States for Christmas, I came back to find that my client base was crumbling. I had entrusted my highest paying job to Sara, but she ended up blowing it off and they decided to call it quits. Everything else seemed to collapse as well, and I ended up having to start from scratch again.

I was able to build up my client base again, but I was never able to earn the same amount of money. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, since my goal in life has never been to make a lot of money. I always wanted to be happy no matter what I was doing or how much I was earning. After only a few months teaching English in Korea, though, I realized that I wasn’t happy. Although I knew a little Korean, the language barrier was still great, and it cut me off from the rest of Korean society. I decided that I needed to learn Korean.

My first attempt was what is called a “language exchange”—basically, an English speaker and a Korean get together and teach each other their respective languages. Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. In practice, it usually devolves into the two people just speaking English all the time. My situation was no different—I started a language exchange with Jinhyung, a girl from the church I had started attending. Since we were both rather moody and had plenty to complain about, our sessions consisted mostly of us griping to each other in English. It did provide a necessary emotional outlet, but I learned very little Korean.

I decided that if I really wanted to learn Korean I would have to get serious about it, so I began looking into Korean language programs at the various universities. Every major university in Seoul has one, but the program from Yonsei University seemed to be a good choice. The next quarter began in April, so I went through the application procedures and bided my time. I continued on with Jinhyung, learning a little bit of Korean along the way.

One day (it was 5 March 1996—not that I was keeping track, of course), I was waiting for Jinhyung to show up in the coffee shop where we usually met. Jinhyung was late, and just as I was beginning to get annoyed a girl I had never seen before rushed into the coffee shop and sat down across from me. My only reaction was to raise an eyebrow.

“Um... Jinhyung... busy... um,” she began, then held up a finger. “Jamgganman” (Korean for “just a moment”).

She stood up and ran off while I just sat there. A moment later she came back and told me she had called Jinhyung, and that she would be coming shortly. I still had no idea what was going on, and we just sort of stared at each other until Jinhyung showed up.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Jinhyung said when she arrived. “I won’t be able to continue our class, so I asked my friend Hyunjin if she could take over.”

“Without asking me?”

“Oh, sorry about that. But Hyunjin is a really good teacher. She’ll do a much better job than I did.”

I just sat there, listening with narrowed eyes as she went on. I had already made up my mind that I would continue on with Hyunjin only until I began studying at Yonsei University. As we began to study together, though, I found out that Hyunjin really was a good teacher, and she seemed to actually care about me learning Korean. Somewhere along the way, we also happened to fall in love. It was certainly not a love-at-first-sight scenario, but only two months after we started dating I knew that this was the woman I would spend the rest of my life with.