thoughts on Korea itself

After living in a place for 18 months (soon to be three nonconsecutive years), you get to know it pretty well.

I'm not an authority, but I like to think I've observed the idiosyncrasies of Korean culture with a journalist's eye, and gleaned some insight therefrom.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not properly documenting those insights, though. I mean, I've posted plenty about the quirks of living in Korea. I've never actually stepped back and written a comprehensive treatise on the fundamental differences between Korea and the western world, however. After all, it's not easy to describe a country where vegetable gardens are squeezed into the meager margins between buildings and roads; where the two most beloved national heroes are remembered for inventing the Korean alphabet and whooping hell out of the Japanese Navy, respectively; where howling ambulances stop for red lights and city buses blow them; where pop songs are written and performed for the launch of new mobile phones (and frequently top the charts); where hordes of tiny schoolchildren in matching uniforms are herded about on field trips, attached at the waist by a running line; where trash bags are piled under trees on the sidewalk rather than in dumpsters or trash cans; where a tiny reading lamp costs fifty dollars; where a shop can increase its curb appeal by painting a pidgin English phrase on its front window; where the people sprinkle sugar on ham sandwiches and corn dogs; where neon swastikas are hung everywhere (being, as they originally were, Buddhist good-luck symbols); where the most popular pizza toppings are sweet potatoes and corn; where soccer and baseball are religions, not mere sports; where cans of Spam are given as luxury gift items, like flowers or wine bottles or fine chocolates; where things like limes and turkey are unheard-of exotics; and where one may find bread-flavored soda pop, aloe vera juice, canned guava, squid jerky, and red ginseng candies on any supermarket shelf.

Korea can be a weird place.

And yet it's not so different from back home. The skyscrapers look the same. The apartment buildings are a bit different than what we're used to, but they all conform to the same cookie-cutter design. People drive on the right side of the road. The stoplights and roadsigns are recognizable. One may easily find a McDonald's, Costco, Burger King, Chevrolet, Dunkin' Donuts, 7-11, Hyatt, Starbucks, Hilton, or Pizza Hut on any street corner. (There's even Taco Bell, Subway and Quizno's in places.) English is written everywhere, and spoken almost as much, particularly in the urban areas. There are toilets, running water, electricity, and so much free Wi-Fi that it makes one's head spin. Everybody, down to the last twelve-year-old child, knows who Maroon 5 is, and David Beckham, and Tom Cruise.

There are times when I can readily believe I'm living in a foreign country. Other days, it hardly seems apparent at all. Those are the days when that phrase I learned in college ("global village") hit me hard. The world truly is becoming one. That may be a good thing for international relations and cross-cultural understanding, but we may learn (too late) that it also erodes cultural boundaries. I'm sure no Korean from the 15th century would even recognize his home country these days. And for me, your humble correspondent, it hardly seems worthwhile to write florid travel articles and in-depth treatises about a place that's so highly Westernized.

I need to get out of here. Like Paul Gauguin, I feel the need to escape from "everything that is artificial and conventional." After I finish up my two years here, I'm going off the grid. I'm going someplace that's so drastically different from the U.S.A. that I won't know which way is up. The toilets will flush in the opposite direction—if indeed there are any flush toilets. I won't be able to read the alphabet; almost no part of the native tongue will owe its roots to English. The buildings and shopfronts will be strange, eldritch, alien, of unrecognizable architectural roots and filled with unknown purpose. People's clothes will be radically different, the local customs' functions almost unguessable. The food will be delicious but totally foreign. Western fast food chains and designer stores will not exist. Cars will be few and far between, and those dented and dusty. The roads will be narrow and hardly paved. Civilization will be younger, narrower, more old-fashioned, less quick, less harried, less pretentious.

I've survived life in urbanized East Asia. Now it's time for a breath of fresh air.  

Arizona by car

One evening earlier this week I was sitting in my best friend John's room at his parent's house, nursing a Blue Moon and a virulent case of cabin fever. The two of us had finished watching a few episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion and were listening to a little music on John's souped-up surround sound system. As we sat there in reflective silence, John, who'd been having some girl troubles, suddenly perked up at the corners. He asked me if I was free on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I told him I was. I had nothing on the docket except possible flying lessons, but I hadn't scheduled those yet. 

"Want to go on a road trip?" John asked, a characteristically mischievous grin on his face. 

Let's review. I had cabin fever. I spent every day sitting in my room trying to force myself to write banal travel articles that always came out like travel brochures. Apart from that I was doing little but editing a few daily pages of my nascent novel manuscript and reliving my irresponsible college days with some rediscovered video games. So of course I said yes. Hell yes. 

 John fetched some maps and atlases and, after some brief indecision about which direction to go, we settled on Arizona. It was proximal. I'd never been to the Grand Canyon, and John had only been once, when he was too young to remember. That clinched it. We'd take the scenic route to the finest geological formation in the States, and camp there. With a clear sheet of plastic laid over the Arizonan atlas page, we traced out our route with a marker. We'd take off sometime around noon and spend a few hours on the road, spending the first night in the town of Yuma, Arizona, just over the border. The second day we'd traverse the state, passing through Phoenix, Prescott, and Flagstaff, to reach the Grand Canyon before dark and set up a tent. The third day we'd break camp, scout out the canyon, and head home on Interstate 40.

View Larger Map

We held a brief reunion on Tuesday night to compare tents. My mom loaned me a little orange two-person Marmot that she'd taken along on a bicycling trip across North Dakota. It turned out to be a bit small for John's lanky, six-foot-four frame. John's family, on the other hand, had a three-person Hillary that, though it was a tad complicated to assemble, was admirably spacious. We split, packed, assembled what gear we could from our families' respective stores, and met up at my house at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, to load up and hit the road.

After a quick stop in Lucerne Valley for my half of the groceries (bagels, peanut butter, strawberry jam, cheese sticks, fruit, and some batteries), we headed southeast down old Highway 247. We got into the rhythm of the thing right away. John had a black notebook in his backpack that we rapidly came to refer to as "the log." Whenever anything noteworthy happened—say, we passed by a palm tree farm, or neared a natural landmark, or got stopped by the Border Patrol—I would enter it in the log. In this way, we recorded our passage through Yucca Valley, where we switched to California Highway 62; our subsequent traversal of Morongo Valley, and our merger with Interstate 10 East; and our eventual connection to Interstate 8, after a little meandering on State Highways 86, 78 and 111. 

During this languorous tour of the Southern Mojave, we passed the impressively vast Salton Sea (none of my pictures of which came out very well). We also drove through the tiny, grubby town of Brawley, near El Centro, where every third person's immigration status was cast into severe doubt. Here we appropriately stopped to go to the bathroom. 

Eventually we entered upon I-8 and headed east toward Arizona.

The weather was fine: 70s and 80s, with a light breeze and broken clouds. John's iPod was hooked up to his Chrysler Concorde's superb stereo, and a steady stream of country and contemporary tunes was wafting out of the speakers. Both of us had our sunglasses on and were feeling freer by the minute. Our minds had been heavy. My financial situation was deteriorating rapidly, and John was having some personal relationship problems of his own. A road trip was just what the doctor ordered. We execrated every jerk who passed us, commented on the scenery and the music we listened to, and made masculine small-talk. 

And so, after a few short hours of sand dunes, creosote bushes, scant farmland, and a nominal encounter with the Border Patrol (they asked us if we were American citizens, and then let us through), we found ourselves in Yuma, Arizona.

We signed into the nearest Motel 6, dumped off our heavier suitcases, and sallied forth once more into the gathering dusk. John had to get himself an adapter cable for his iPod. As an employee of Geek Squad, he was dumbfounded by the minuscule size of Yuma's Best Buy. It was cramped and laid out illogically, he said. He found his cable while I checked Facebook on the nearest Snow Leopard. We were also at a loss for a camping stove. My family possessed several, but during that morning's trials, all had proved to be either inoperable or undetectable. So John and I had ventured forth that morning resolving to stop at the soonest Wal-Mart or Target and purchase a stove instead. 

Serendipitously, as we exited the Best Buy, we spotted the telltale Target logo across the street. We entered just as the red sun's last dying rays lit the storefront, the voice of Taylor Swift still ringing in our ears. We located a small $28 stove and a bottle of propane, purchased both, recrossed the highway, stopped for cabbage at Wells Fargo, and finally set our minds to the problem of nourishment. 

 There happened to be a tasty-looking Mexican restaurant a few yards from our motel. This being Yuma, within shouting distance of the border, we figured we couldn't go wrong with Mexican food this night. The restaurant's name was Chretin's, after Señor Chretin, a World War II veteran who constructed the eatery in 1946. Since then, apparently, the venue has entertained some of the most famous names in America: everyone from John Wayne to Kim Basinger to George Bush the Elder has eaten there, according to the guest list hung on the wall. The food bore that litany out. Consisting of fresh vegetables and meat, accompanied by homemade tortillas and chips, the beef enchiladas were far more authentically Mexican than anything else I've sampled. John's tacos, he said, were incredible. Moreover, the service was excellent. Neither of us ever lacked for drinks.

Speaking of drinks, we adjourned to the bar after paying our bill. I had an Ultimate Margarita (mixed by the lovely new barmaid, Leah, late of Huntington Beach) and John sipped a beer. We cast occasional glances at the World Series on the TV, and I flirted a little with Leah, competing with the middle-aged, polo shirt-wearing man a couple of seats down. Leah took it all in good grace, I with a few grains of salt on the rim of my margarita glass. 

Concluding our after-dinner libations, John and I settled up and retreated to Room 245. There we watched a nameless Bruce Willis flick (in which the aging warrior faces down both a trio of petty crooks holed up in a rich man's home, and a shadowy gang of masked conspirators seeking a mysterious DVD). During the commercials, John fired up some music on his laptop and introduced me to Mathisyahu, a full-bearded, hat-wearing, card-carrying young Jew who nonetheless can reggae like a professional. He regularly performs live, and his beatboxing is nothing short of miraculous. Take that, Muhammad. 

 Then we turned in for the night.

and so, the long-awaited cabin fever sets in

It's 102 degrees outside. The Internet wasn't working until 10:30 a.m. because I went over the bandwidth limit yesterday downloading the Anniversary Edition of Ad-Aware. I'm having a homemade fruit smoothie every day. The most exciting thing I have to look forward to tomorrow is getting up at 7:00 to paint the shed, which I am actually looking forward to. I dug through at least four hundred article titles on the Demand Studios website, and I only found one that I thought I could successfully do ("Advantages of Renting a Car"). I've got a lopsided, half-deflated blister on my right heel that I desperately want to pop. I've run out of fresh reading material; what I do have are somewhat dense books like Keith Sinclair's A History of New Zealand and a load of self-help books regarding writing. My resolution to quit picking my nose, sworn in my parents' hammock under a sparkling canopy of stars late last night, lasted barely eighteen hours. And, oh yes! I've got five weeks until I find out whether I can leave for Alaska or not. I love my parents and it's nice being back in the States, but man...I've got to get out of here.