the Jung-dong Market expedition

On Saturday (the 24th of March), I did something worth mentioning. After some unexpected snow flurries in the early afternoon, I put on my hat and coat and went looking for something.

According to the Bucheon teachers' group (on Facebook), there was a street market on the other side of Jungang Park, four or five blocks south of my apartment building. It was practically mythical, its exact location shrouded in mystery. With nothing more to go on than a white arrow clumsily indicating a vague tangle of side-streets two blocks south of the park, I bundled up and went looking for it. 

...and returned 40 minutes later, realizing that I had forgotten my camera. I wanted it because the light was falling beautifully across the apartment blocks and skeletal trees downtown. And I had noticed. 

I almost turned back again when I figured out that I didn't have any money. In retrospect, however, it was a good thing that I went to a street market sans cash. I didn't want to blow it all on twigim (Korean tempura) or something frivolous like that. Moreover, I wanted to be able to look the barkers in the eye as I projected the customary broke-ass aura I employ in the vicinity of pushy salesmen.

That having been said, I started my second trip to the Jung-dong Market in high spirits. The sun was a little lower than I would have liked, and a bitter wind was blowing from the northwest, but I still got some nice shots of Jungang (Central) Park:

Those innocent pictures caused quite a stir. Not long after I had snapped that picture of myself (camera propped on the public stage used for summer concerts), a gaggle of Korean children sprinted up to me and stopped me in my tracks. One of the more athletic boys caught up to me first. He screeched to a halt, gaped for a moment, and then yelled back at his companions: "Weguk imnida!" ("He's a foreigner!") Then the rest of the girls and another boy caught up. They were quite animated (and winded). After some hand signals, gestures, fumbling for cell phones (and the digital dictionaries therein), plus a lot of pidgin English, they managed to convey to me what they wanted. They had seen me darting back and forth in front of the stage (as I set the timer on my camera and then scrambled into position). They hadn't seen the camera, however. Naturally, they assumed that I was stealing their stuff. I had noticed an assortment of coats and bags strewn haphazardly about the stage and the girders on its inner walls; now I knew who they belonged to. After assuring them that I had taken nothing but photographs, even showing them the one I had taken of myself as proof, they pronounced themselves satisfied. They laughed in embarrassment, apologized profusely (one of the politer boys bowed from the waist, his head level with my knees) and returned to whatever game they'd been playing before they accosted me.

Caught somewhere between amusement and indignity, I moved on, out of the park and into the maze of high-rise apartments and low-rise shops which characterize Jung-dong's streets.

I found myself thinking, as I moved through the urban jungle (earning the stares, curious looks and bemusement of the natives), about something Miss H had recently told me. She had stated, bluntly, that she would give a considerable sum of money to move away from that godawful backwater desert hellhole and go somewhere new. She would change her name, take up a new profession, move to a city where no one knew her name or her story. She would metamorphose into someone entirely different and begin her life anew.

I found myself strangely fascinated by the idea as I wandered about Jung-dong. I was only a half-mile from my apartment block, where by now every shopkeeper and street vendor undoubtedly knew my face. But here, on this side of Central Park, I was a total stranger. I wore my Stetson and my aviator shades. My bulky coat obscured much of my body. I carried no bag, and my camera was stowed away in a big pocket somewhere. Nobody could tell who I was. I might've been a secretive tourist, a cocky expat teacher, an off-duty oil worker, a diplomat gone incognito. I theorized that I had done two-thirds of what Miss H had wished she could do. I had moved to a new city and taken up a new profession. In name only was I still the same person. The idea excited and invigorated me. At any moment I expected to be drawn into some intrigue, and impress all involved with my biting wit and knowledge of diverse subjects.

After a few thrilling street-crossings and a bit of ducking and weaving through uneven, winding side-streets, I found the market. I felt like an explorer approaching the intimidating gate of some long-lost city in the midst of a hostile wilderness. The impression was only enhanced by the entrance to the market, with its imposing façade and alien script:

But once inside, I felt as though a gigantic weight had lifted from my shoulders. It was impossible to say what that weight was, exactly. Culture shock? No. It was more of the opposite. Two and a half years of limbo, thirty months spent grinding my teeth in the high desert of California, working minimum-wage jobs and watching my future slip further and further away, had suddenly evaporated instantaneously. At the sight of this Korean market, the old adventurous feeling awoke in me again. I realized that I was back in South Korea. I was overseas. I was an expatriate. I was roaming again, exploring, breathing, expanding, living the dream once more. And it felt righteous, my friends. It felt righteous.

The market went on for what seemed like miles. In reality it was less than one, but my feet were aching by the end of it. My head was up in the clouds, though. I saw all manner of fish and seafood, delectable meats, the freshest fruits and vegetables, and the most savory street food I had yet encountered outside central Seoul. I was again gladdened by the fact that I hadn't brought any money; it would surely have wound up in the traders' pockets. I marked all I saw with a practiced eye, memorizing the location of each noteworthy booth, stall and kiosk, resolving to make a second visit at some viable point in the future.

Then I strolled home. I arrived back at my apartment footsore and half-frozen, but nonetheless exhilarated. I'd walked for miles and was near to blistering my soles, but my soul was soaring. (There seems to be an inverse proportion in adventuring; the worse your body feels, the better condition your spirits are in, if you do it right.)

I'd achieved my goal. I'd found the market. And I'd snapped some fine pictures on the way. Mission accomplished. I collapsed into my chair and had a relaxing evening, with homemade mushroom soup and a nip of Ballantine's whisky to see me through.

And that was my weekend. How was yours (he asked smugly)?