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by Aletha Rolbin-Ghanie

Last weekend I went to Suwon, a city about two hours from Bucheon. I don't know a great deal about the area, and I'm sure I only saw a tiny portion of it, but compared to Seoul, it's bleak, dirtier and slightly depressing. I'm glad I went and it was definitely interesting to see, but perhaps I wasn't in the best space this week and didn't find as much good as I might potentially have.

Last weekend was Seolnal, or Lunar New Year Throughout Asia, families pile into cars and drive for hours in order to make visits to their relatives. According to my students, they visit their fathers’ parents on the first day of the Lunar New Year and their mothers' on the second. I guess it's usually a big deal, where lots of money is spent, people wear traditional clothes, and believers make offerings to the various Gods. The students, in any case, are glad to have Monday off from school.

Near Suwon station, where we got out, there really wasn't much of anything, or if there was, it was really spread out. There were many fast food and ‘fusion’ restaurants. We stopped in one and got a rather unappealing fried chicken salad, as it was the only potentially edible item on the menu. "Juice?" we asked the waitress. "Soju," the waitress replied. "Tea?" we tried again. "Beer," she replied, confusedly. In the end, to compliment our cold salad on this freezing day as we sat in the apparently unheated section of the restaurant, she brought ice water with tea bags seeping very slowly, as well as some more water, regular.

Afterwards, we walked around looking for objects of interest, but in the end, came to the conclusion that we were probably in the red-light district, which would explain the lack of stores or cafes with any sort of appeal to foreign people: most signs were in Korean, and everything seemed pretty utilitarian. Anyway, wandering randomly, we turned a corner where we saw an empty window furnished simply with a chair and a heater in front of it. Before the question was out of my mouth, I knew the answer: "What's that for….Oh!" We walked about four blocks in extreme discomfort, hoping the next street would bring an end to the seamlessly endless supply of window prostitutes. They were all dressed similarly, in white, pink or blue jogging suits that looked like pyjamas, with bared bellies and loose hair. Because there were so many of them, and since it was still pretty early in the evening, for the most part, they just looked bored. The only other people on the streets were rough-looking men. I wanted to disappear. A few of the girls gave me curious or amused looks. I held my breath and kept my eyes to the ground.
I've heard a lot about prostitution in this country, of course. I've seen the double barber poles outside bars aptly dubbed "bikini" or "sexy," a subtle code that everyone understands.I've seen the many flyers under the windshield wipers of parked cars, as well as little, wallet-sized photos of pretty girls littering the sidewalks and gutters along with cigarette butts, soaking up the moisture from rain, garbage and alcohol. I've even seen little vans stop to let girls out that are clearly dressed to ‘party’—high boots, short skirts, and bright jewelry. They walk, chatting together on the way to wherever it is they go. Abysmal things hold such an appeal for me. I don't understand how some people manage to pass by, even appearing cheerful, whereas I, experiencing even slight discomfort, am generally more than prepared to wallow in defeat, utterly ruined, distressed beyond repair. I am not melodramatic, just un-resilient, I think.
We walked around, adjusting to the sunlight, trying to figure out what to do. I wasn't feeling well. I'd woken up with a pounding headache and still felt tired. We suddenly saw the bus bound for Korean Folk Village, so we squeezed on, right in the front, standing crouched (head space was limited) in front of an elderly couple who kept exclaiming how pretty I was: eepoyo. Another woman in the aisle leaned over and touched my face. I felt very uncomfortable, but I pretended that my neck that was in an awkward position and not just me, in my entirety.

The night before, we'd come across a man sitting in the street by a heater trying to sell baby rabbits;I think he called them "tokki-tokki." They were adorable and tiny and wore little sweaters. He put one in my hand and I played with it while the man went on and on about my round eyes, closing his thumb and forefinger to make a circle shape, and putting it up against my face. Perhaps Suwon doesn't have as many foreigners as Seoul does. It seemed a little strange to me that the people in this region of Korea don't look entirely Korean,as I've come to know them in Seoul. They are generally darker; many look Indian and even Middle Eastern to me. On the subway, on the way home, a group of guys who'd been staring at me asked where I was from. I wasn't really in the mood for conversation; thankfully mine was the next stop. They told me they were from Sri Lanka. I smiled, and nodded and stepped out the door.

Anyway, my point is that in Suwon, I could feel more people than usual staring at me, and I generally felt uncomfortable most of the time I was there.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, I feel extremely paranoid and panicked, like every laugh is aimed at me, like people are well aware that I am unable to really understand Hangeul and so are using it to their advantage. Today, walking around SaveZone before work, slightly frantic, I abandoned what I'd come for on a random shelf and nearly ran out into the crisp, bright February afternoon. I breathed in deeply and returned home through alleys rather than using the main street. Sometimes, when people start to recognize me, like the vendors I pass by everyday who sometimes nod at me, I feel strange. I don't like it very much. Sometimes I think I'd rather remain inconspicuous, able to slink around entirely unnoticed. Familiarity does in fact breed contempt.

Last night I had just finished work and was walking home when this tall white guy, who, from a distance looked vaguely familiar , stopped short in front of me. I looked up quickly and strained to place him among all the foreigners I've met since I got here. He asked me if I knew him and then it clicked—he had been one of my TESOL trainers in Ottawa after having spent five years here. Apparently, Canada had been a disappointment, so he felt it necessary to return to teaching. I was caught extremely off-guard. It's a little hard to lose yourself on the other side of the world when people you used to bump into now and then at Ottawa's Byward Market are lurking about. Paranoia had mounted by this point and as I type his, I'm looking out the window suspicious of nothing in particular but everything at once.

I take my pill religiously now. Before I leave for work everyday, the last thing I do is dig into a giant bottle that never quite seems to empty,deposit a gel cap in my mouth, and swallow, in one robotic, fluid movement. I don't think it's doing me much good. I'm often tempted to measure the passing days by counting as I take my pills—like someone trapped in a mental institution without the convenience of a wall calendar…thumbtacks are too much of a risk, you see…Instead, I use my purple marker and ‘X’ off each completed workday. Over and done. It's not that I'm counting the days—don't get the wrong impression; it's just that sometimes it's really hard for me to believe that I'm on the other side of the world. I don't see my family or ‘friends’ any less than before; I still have all the same habits and hobbies. I'm just working a different, better paying job in some alternate universe where I wish I had a Babel fish. That's all…really.

Anyway, last weekend we went to Korean Folk Village in Suwon, a massive traditional theme-park, for lack of anything better to call it. All the buildings are essentially thatched huts, complete with urine buckets (vendors sell mini reproductions of said urine buckets, of course) andtraditional tools for farming, potting and kimchi making. Not only the employees, but nearly everyone there, is wearing traditional outfits—those colourful silky hanboks which are basically long, decorative tunics cinched at the waist and worn over loose silky pants. Sometimes they wear tassels, or pointed, or straw shoes, as well as a pointed, woven bamboo hat. It's pretty cool to see so many people dressed up. I doubt such enthusiasm could be mustered anywhere in Canada. There were people parading and playing traditional drums, like we heard on January 1st, though with somewhat less enthusiasm, as well as an open area where adults and children alike practiced jumping rope and balancing on seesaws. Skipping is a very big thing here. My students often show me how well they can do it and both boys and girls really are very impressive.

There was a Buddhist temple with fruit and various kinds of rice--mostly those long, thick, glutinous strands that expand in soup, like tofu--placed upon an altar. I assumed it was an offering. There was a woman chanting something in a distant, tinny, sing-songy voice. Later, we speculated that it might have been a traditional Korean exorcism (or preventive exorcising, as is more likely the case) as suggested by a map we'd grabbed on our way in. Yesterday, one of my students told me that every Lunar New Year, families perform rites for the dead in their family. I think the performance we witnessed probably had something to do with this.

We saw a an impressive equestrian show where the riders did some daredevil tricks with their horses: handstands in full gallop, keeping pace running alongside, retrieving a dropped handkerchief before it hit the ground. The crowd "oohed" and "ahhed." The riders ate it up. They were all pretty young and made these incredible feats of strength and skill look seamless.

I had heard about something called "seesaw ladies" on a Discovery Channel program a few months back, so I was excited to get a chance to see some in real life. Essentially, there's a low totheground, spring-loaded teetertotter. One girl stands on each end and the initially elevated girl starts the performance by jumping. The other girl, back straight as an arrow, shoots straight up into the air. They do this back and forth for quite some time and I'm sure they must exceed twenty feet. They do flips, tricks with hula-hoops, colourful streamers, etc. It's mesmerizing. None of them look older than twenty. Earlier, we'd seen them playing hacky sack while the crowd waited for them to begin.

Right after this, we saw a tightrope walker. He was a rather old man, maybe in his late fifties, with what looked like bound feet—they were short and wide, wrapped in a thick, white sort of sock. He was perfect on the rope, at first waving a fan around for balance he pretended he needed to gain, then literally bouncing across the rope on his knees, crotch, heels and everything else.He spoke to the crowd and was quite the showman.They laughed, so he must have been entertaining.

We ate soybean paste soup and rice in a really crowded eating area. It was okay, but the overwhelmingly sour smell of people and meat was making me sicker than I already was. We walked across the river on stepping-stones after checking out a very mildly ‘haunted’ house and walking through a fairground complete with an old-fashioned carousel, a little Ferris wheel and a large roller coaster (not in use). The lines were long; the children squealed, bouncing their novelty helium balloons and wheeling their toy noisemakers around the muddy grounds, just like at any other amusement park. I thought it was kind of a weird thing to have in a traditional folk village.
We passed a massive food court where highly unsanitary, open-air food (un-refrigerated meat, etc.) was being served up and gulped down. By this point I was frozen. We walked quickly through a sculpture park, bypassed climbing a massive hill to check out the little dormant volcano field, and briefly stopped to watch kids having fun, tobogganing on a hill full of artificial snow;it hasn't really snowed here this winter. . It looked like fun, but I was shivering and entirely unable to breathe through my nose.

Finally, we came upon something called World Folk Museum, a bunch of buildings housing the folk customs (food, dress, art, etc.) of all the ‘major’ countries. Canada wasn't represented of course, though at least they found some Native American art and clothing to represent America. Thankfully, McDonald's wasn't mentioned as an American folk tradition, though I was a little disappointed. It would have made a funny picture. Overall, I thought the African, South American and Mongolian rooms were the most beautiful, but I didn't pay as much attention as I might have, had I been at all well.

Before leaving, we went for tea. The ordering process was confusing. I decided to go home that night instead of staying an extra day. But first, I had a chance to briefly see what a U.S. Military base looks like. I was mildly freaked out. I'm not used to seeing so many non-Asian, English speaking people anymore. It was weird, mostly because even though I didn't particularly stand out there, I felt even more alien among military personnel than I do among average, everyday Korean people. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I don't really like the concept of militarism (sorry) and I certainly don't enjoy the snarky pseudo-authority that guys feel they have when they're holding a big gun.

On the weekends, we see undeniably military people: crew cuts, high and tights, drunk as hell or with Korean ‘girlfriends’ who can't speak a word of English. Friends have told me what certain military guys get up to in their seemingly ample time, and I generally have difficulty respecting the lifestyle--though I know the majority are probably good, decent people, so I don't want to generalize.

A while back there was an incident in Hong Dae--the main bar area where foreign teachers usually go on weekends-- a woman in her sixties was repeatedly raped to the point of blindness by some drunk, crazy military guy. I hope he gets sentenced in Korea. Anyway, no military people are allowed in Hong Dae after 8 or 9 pm, which I think sucks for those who don't go on violent rampages, but "army of one," I suppose. I'm sure that lots of young Korean men would be more than willing to throw a few fists at some U.S soldiers caught off guard.

I had Monday off, so this week has gone by quickly , though I've been pretty robotic. I've been relying on sleeping medication to put me out and coffee to keep me going. I feel very tired and a bit nostalgic. I've been contacting old friends online and I guess it is fun to reminisce but too easy to get caught up in it.I hate that my actions and my thoughts contradict each other; I actively seek out familiarity when the ‘familiar’ is across the ocean, tucked away neatly in the West, but when I contemplate it, day to day, I become thoroughly anxious and unwell.