Thirty minutes later, she utters a triumphant “Bae dwaeyo!” (“Okay, it can go by surface mail.”) – sorry, my friend in the Netherlands, but air mail is no longer in my budget.
I wonder what she thinks about me whenever I send a package someplace that isn’t America.
Note: photo above has been altered to prevent your jealousy.
Some months previously:
Her: “…모…리…셔…스…”
Me: “Ne. Moh-ree-shuss-eu.”
Her: *despair*
Actually, the despair is all on the inside. Minjung (name changed) is a paragon of the Korean can-do, will-do attitude. Every letter, envelope, and parcel gets no more than half a second’s “FML” glance before she jumps right in to tackle the job. But that half-a-second says it all: the struggle is real. Woe be the Korean postal worker who lives in a neighborhood with a foreigner.
Side note: I have yet to receive confirmation that the letter ever made it to Mauritius. Well, we tried, Minjung. We tried. Sometimes it feels as though the entire world stands against us.
I’ll admit that what is now our close relationship was strained at first, thanks to the language barrier. But we pushed through it. Now she knows to ask if I want to send it “by boat” rather than “by surface mail.” She’s great that way. It’s the little things that let me know this relationship can last.
I knew at first sight that I wanted Minjung to be my postal worker for the whole year. Saying goodbye will be tremendously difficult.
When winter arrived, I was unaware that the post office would close at five, not six. Yet when I wandered in at 4:50, she still took my package.
I came back with a thank-you coffee for her the next week.
There was another man in the office. behind the counter. Her boss, perhaps. Oh well.
You tried to warn me, I know. But either the words were too difficult, or else I deliberately persuaded myself to pretend otherwise. You said, quite clearly, that it wouldn’t matter what I wrote on the line marked “In case of non-delivery, redirect to address below.” You said that no matter what I wrote, the US post office wouldn’t consider it valid without further payment.
I thought you were jealous to read a female name with that address. I thought you should have guessed: it was just my sister.
A surface-mail package arrived last week in America. You are always true, dear Minjung. I shouldn’t have judged you. I know now that you only had my best interest in heart.
The prospect of my imminent departure from the rough streets of Bongmyeong-dong leaves me weak with heartache. Who shall comfort me? Shakespeare: Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Surely no, for this is Korea. Manhae:
Parting creates beauty. There is no beauty of parting in the ephemeral gold of the morning; nor in the seamless black silk of the night; nor in the eternal life which admits no death; nor in the gorgeous celestial flower that never fades. O love, if there is no parting, I cannot come back to life in laughter after tearful death. O parting! Parting creates beauty.
My Korean isn’t all that great – maybe a 3 on the standard scale (1-6). This means that my conversation are rife with misunderstandings. But sometimes this happens:
Korean friend: Chris, did you see the Miryang news?
Me: Miryang, where is that?
KF: Gyeongsang Province. So you didn’t see the news? With the little old grannie?
Me: No, sorry, I didn’t. What happened?
KF: She went up to the electric tower, got naked, and threw a fit.
Me: I’m sorry, can you say that again?
KF: Um.. the grannie climbed up to the tower, got naked, and went crazy.
Me: Okay. It sounds like you’re saying that a Korean grannie took her clothes off and started screaming… I’m sorry; I really can’t understand what you’re trying to say. My listening skills aren’t here today.
KF: Yes! She changed her clothes and went like this [gesticulating wildly].
Me: Oh. So there actually was a crazy naked grannie in this story. I see. Huh. Why did she do that?
…and because the next person who describes me as a “bro” gets a sack of quickdraws to the face.
The sport of climbing has a long history of people asking why and an unfortunate lack of articulation in response. The three most famous words in climbing make us sound like children, which we are:
“Because it’s there!”
Thank you, Mallory, you have cursed us forever:
That’s it? Because it’s there? You know what else “is there”? McDonald’s. McDonald’s is there. Let’s all come down out the mountains and eat some french fries. Definitely the easier option, if also the more dangerous option.
And of course there are those who claim to be in the sport for the fringe benefits: the community vibe, the chance to engage with the outdoors, the unparalleled heaps of gratuitous skin that you’ll be seeing whether your eyes want to or not.
Not that those reasons narrow it down all that much. Why not just go to Coachella? You’ll get way more mileage out of any Coachella photos that you can post on your social media outlets. Seriously, people will love your first climbing photo set, but unless you’re Alex Honnold they will get bored with you pretty quickly. But Coachella has some cachet, man! Milk it! Milk it for all it’s worth, because everyone knows it wasn’t a real experience until it’s garnered a hundred likes on Facebook.
I would argue that for most people who fall sideways into climbing and end up sticking with the sport, there’s something more at work. Yes, yes, the sport is notorious for its Climbing Narcs, such humans of the uber-competitive, bro-ey (regardless of gender), vacuous, semi-naked masses whose climbing involves testosterone-fueled comps and desperate ploys for sex that are doomed to failure. Seriously, put a shirt on. [Sidenote: has their ever been a climbing article that didn’t knock other climbers in some way or other?]
Look, it’s simple. Good friends and exposed landscapes and flawless bodies aside, isn’t climbing kind of… you know… objectively boring? It’s sort of like sudoku: surely fun and addicting at first, but one can only handle so many permutations of the exact same puzzle. So what keeps us coming back?
Put the q aside for now.
I was living in Ireland when I first learned what ATC stood for. Those of you smarter than me (more or less all of you, except my twin, as I will be dead before I am caught making such an assertion) have probably already put two and two together as follows: Ireland = rain = wet rock = gym climbing. You got it! Plastic wrangling for me. While this isn’t something I have ever regretted, it did mean that by the time I was given a rope and sent up a real rock, my climbing intuition wasn’t worth half a damn. Put me on a featureless friction slab, and I would have had no clue what to do. I needed holds! Fun, forgiving, acrobatic plastic with infinite room for error – not some merciless, blank bulge devoid of foot or hand placements. Actually, I still hate slab, though I’ve gotten over the cluelessness thing. With friction climbing, I will never trust how my feet manage to hold on with just a swear. how come it work? no can tell. so mystery. wow
Which is why I was frankly a little envious that my friend’s first lead was going to be on real rock. The only complaint I’ve heard from people who first lead outdoors and then move to artificial walls is that it sometimes leaves them overzealously focused on not falling – and is that such a bad thing? Starting with real rock is an opportunity to dial in your lead climbing intuition. With more and more climbers joining the sport each day, the ratio of us gym climbers is ever rising, so any prospect for leveling up on real rock is a nice chance for those involved to check-in and re-assess: the most important discussion any climber has with herself is about intention.
Core climbers – those who form the aesthetic core that defines what this sport is – are engaged in an entirely different sport from those previously described, whose efforts are hardly distinguishable from a particularly fancy form of pull-up practice. The difference, then, is that at its core, climbing is a mental sport in which rocks and ropes and ATCs are but ancillary, the mere background for the main event: a battle with mind games and narratives and intentions. Climbing is a contrivance; it’s a sport whose physical risk serves to rupture the narratives that define a climber’s self-curated world. Daily life has a lot of baggage – hope you can let it go before it pulls you off the wall!
Not me. Sorry.
So let’s play some mind games:
20 points: anyone leads who has never lead before
-5 points: any woman leads with the attitude of for-some-reason-it-is-important-to-represent-all-women-right-now-so-I-must-succeed-or-feminism-might-lose, with male spectators in tow
-5 points: male gaze. Another five points off for straight male gaze. What a failure we will be if we make a mis-step in front of some other gendered person!
5 points: anyone leads who has not used her lead head in months
-10 points: anyone leads with the attitude of coming-off-the-couch or uses same as an excuse
10 points: the first lead of the day goes to a non-male, against the vibe of a cisgender man.
-5 points: someone in the group cracks a rape joke and everyone else lets it fly. How interesting to think that one of them, as belayer, will be responsible for keeping you alive! I hope you can bring yourself to trust them somehow.
-5 points: male gaze again! Male gaze is basically like a weak tractor beam; it will definitely hinder your progress upwards.
-5 points: frack, what was the rule about which way to face the quickdraws? Away from the rope’s running direction… which is… left? Right? I have no idea. I am incompetent and everyone will know.
-5 points: the approach was long and arduous; aren’t you tired? I think you’re tired. Seriously, there’s like no way you can climb an entire route right now.
-10 points: You’ve never led a climb before. What. Are. You. Thinking.
-10 points: Okay, I know I can do this. I have to do this. They already think I suck because I’m stalling. I can do this and I will show them. It’s too late now, I will never live it down.
-10 points: seriously, just stop putting all this pressure on yourself. Nobody else in the group even said anything to you! This is all of your own making.
-20 points: I. Am. Going. To. Die. I am going to fall and I am going to die why did I do this why why why
And that’s just a little baby taster set. Everyone has their own crap that follows them around all day. All of the above are things I have either thought myself or have witnessed/heard from others (male gaze doesn’t really get me down in the same way, sorry. Mischief: #checkedmyprivilegeanditsdoingjustfine #thatguyisawful). The last bullet point above is actually from a climber who was top-roping a “climb” that I’m pretty sure was technically a scramble. Everyone starts where they are, mentally speaking, and everyone has their own baggage. These narratives, work stress, family matters, everything that sits in the back of your brain will sense that you are vulnerable and will come out to play.
So the true secret of climbing is that it’s all just some big contrivance. It is not so much “escape” as “spring cleaning,” a washing away of your mental grime. The rock will show you to yourself if you vibe it (or even if you don’t vibe it, the rock does not care); it will reveal your bumpiest edges in an unavoidable mind game. By contriving physical risk, your challenge becomes one of Letting Go. Facing yourself, saying hi, and letting go. Because if you step onto the rock with poor intentions, the back of your mind will know, and you will fall. If you are stubborn and set out to prove yourself to someone else, say goodbye to your focus and good luck sticking that deadpoint. If you bring your mental weight along with you, you might as well just bring physical weights and tie them to yourself. These people from Game of Thrones know what it feels like:
Putting your baggage to rest is an unending challenge; you know what they say:
煩悩無尽誓願断
bon no mu jin sei gan dan
(The Second Vow: Delusions are endless; I vow to cut through them all)
Okay, so yeah I’m being more than a little facetious here. If there was ever a group of people who do not take themselves all that seriously, it would be the climbers. Mostly we just go out and climb, and it’s nice, and that’s pretty much the whole story. Still, there definitely comes a point, or many points, when any climber runs into these mind games and questions why she’s bothering with climbing at all.
For those who are weak like me, well… let’s be honest: we stick with it because of buyer’s regret and the stubborn need to make use of all this fancy expensive equipment we bought. But I’ve also climbed with a great number of people, and I can say with confidence that there are more climbers who stick with it for the taste of clarity that comes from stepping on the wall and seeing all your baggage fall away, effortlessly.
– every time I opened my mouth while biking by the river in the spring and summer. #bugs #snacktime #protein
– the blonde hair thing. WHY DID NOBODY SAY ANYTHING. Half my photos are caustic to my eyes. I look like a short-haired Viserys Targaryen (+5 to anyone who understands this). One may think that dyeing your hair is something to be tried at least once in one’s life, but no, trust me, it is not for everyone. Luckily, I had the sense not to “fix” the mistake by doing something worse, like shaving it all off. Because who would rather be Varys than Viserys, amirite?
– not trying harder to establish some sort of relationship with my landlord. Mostly this is because he lives with his mother (as most unmarried Koreans do), but her dialect is utterly unintelligible to me; therefore she terrifies me. Consequently I mostly avoid them, except on one memorable occasion when my electronic door lock ran out of batteries and locked me out of the apartment on Christmas Day. The struggle is real, I tell you!
– Korean burritos. Kimchi and gochujang do not a happy taste of Mexican cuisine make.
– that time when I sprained my wrist and told myself, hey, forget about the hospital; your left hand might be completely, painfully immobile right now, but surely it will be fine when you wake up! Yeah, that was just plain dumb.
– bell peppers in Korea. Flavorless, overpriced, undersized vegetables composed of 5% color and 95% disappointment.
– every time I tried making instant coffee with cold water instead of hot water. And no, not the specific “ice coffee” mixes – I mean those instant coffee brands that taste rancid when you use cold water instead of hot water. I’m looking at you, Cantata and Kanu! Why must it be this way?? I bought you in bulk, thinking I could enjoy you all year long. But alas, without hot water you are a cool cup of nasty, and it is only my stubbornness that makes me suffer through the misery of drinking you. Like I said, dear reader, the struggle is real.
– the entire month of February. Or should I say, the entire month of Let It Go! I strongly regret being one with the wind and sky, because the wind and sky of Asia are grossly polluted.
– the entire English nation. If one more English person living in Korea tells me that Americans are “too happy” according to their morose English sensitivities, I will happily give said English person a reason to complain about exactly how unhappy Americans can get. Also, monarchy and colonialism and [#neverforget] the War of 1812. In the meantime, I regret the entire English nation.
– Skype. If I wanted to stay in constant contact with you, I would not have moved halfway around the world. I do not wish to Skype. Stop oppressing me with your love. Basically I’m a cat, and your Skype call is one pet-stroke away from earning you a claw to the face.*
*just kidding, I do love catching up with everyone, and I do un-sarcastically regret that Skyping isn’t easy to do. It’s a time zone thing. One of us will have to sacrifice some sleep. Neither of us wants or deserves that.
– not starting off the fall semester the way I did the spring semester: by trolling my students. My sixth graders earned the easiest troll. I told them they had to buy a three-ring binder; when they asked how much it would cost, I said, well, probably around $300 each. Because this is Korea, not a single student questioned it. #reallyguys? But that was over three months ago, and now they troll me right back. It’s great. For the record, the fourth graders have the best handle on sarcasm of any of my grade levels.
– paying for a introductory paragliding lesson, in which my lightweight friend ended up getting blown backwards over our practice hill, landing through a tree in the middle of a forest of thorn-bushes. Good thing I have this incident on video, at least up to the point where she disappears behind the hill. Actually, I don’t regret this, it was hysterical. I do regret that it took us three whole hours to cut her out.
And now, for the biggest regret of all:
– half of the Korean pizzas that I’ve eaten. Mr. Pizza, you in particular are guilty. The mashed potato pizza you offer – does it actually have a crust, or just potatoes? My friends and I could not tell. And that other time when you tempted my friend and me with your crab soup pizza, only to tell us it was out that day, leaving us with a choice of mashed potato pizza or – gulp – broccoli pizza… yeah… that was terrible. And don’t even get me started on the time my friend and I ordered a pizza at a local restaurant, only to receive a “pizza” that had no crust. NO CRUST. Dear Korea, you greatly misunderstood the meaning of the phrase “pan pizza.” Get your act together, please.
That’s right, folks, you heard it here first: democracy is officially too annoying to be a trend. We’ve known this for years in the states, where people pay for their silly decisions to move to places like Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Colorado with an insurmountable onslaught of campaigning. Korea, too, is coming around to its own form of obnoxious electioneering, though the country is only on its sixth – 6th! – democratic-ish presidential administration. Korea has one of the most polarized electorates in the democratic world; the east votes conservative to the tune of three-fourths, while the southwest votes liberal to the tune of nine-tenths.
I live in one of the swing districts, where local races (Mayoralty, Education Ministry, and City Council seats mostly) were up for the vote on Wednesday.
It was quite something for a full month beforehand.
These billboards were the first sign of the election. Nearly all the candidates’ billboards were identical to the one above, which is special to me because it is the first time I’ve seen an official Korean portrait that wasn’t significantly air-brushed.* For my own official school portrait, I was airbrushed to the point that you might be forgiven for thinking that I was twelve years old. Anyways, the point here is that the city was plastered in these enormous ads with their distant eyes staring blankly forward, the thick canvas and vinyl smothering the cries of forlorn workers trapped in skyscrapers with building-wide signs hung where once were open windows.
*You will, however, note that this picture is very washed-out, not only because of the billboard’s lights but also because of the original lighting in the shot. In real life, this candidate is much less pale – but don’t tell the voters! Paleness is next to godliness. Or something like that.
After the billboards come the trucks. In the horrendous photo above, you can see my new boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss (approximately) as he campaigns from his campaign truck. You can’t make it out, but on top of his truck there is a large LCD TV, which surely is the Korean equivalent to American candidates worrying about how they can showcase their “youthful vitality” to the voters (obviously I watched The West Wing growing up).
Of course, you can have all the billboards and trucks and TVs that you want, but it won’t make a difference if you can’t corral an army of ajummas. Everything in this country runs on ajummas. It’s a phenomenon I call the AJUMMAFIA. See for yourself:
But wait, you say, those are not ajummas! No, astute reader, they are not. But of course one of the great privileges of the ajumma is to make her daughter and daughter-in-law do as she orders. Hence one’s army of ajummas turns into an army of young women commanded by ajummas.
Is your ajumma just a little too pushy? Too much devil’s eye, or she made you stand on the side of the group nearest to the foreigner? Obviously this is the time to go hide behind the campaign truck. On that note, I fully expect the ladies whom I caught hiding, chilling on the grass behind the truck, to pay me back someday for not tattling on them to their ajummas.
Above, we can see the campaign army’s protocol in action. Each group has a leader who calls out or whistles to cue the team in a synchronized bow directed at oncoming traffic.
The turning point in my appreciation for Korean democracy came when I found the man above. See, not everyone can have a fancy truck with a fancy TV and fancy horde of ajumma-led ladies, but even the little guy can make himself a nice campaign dress and wear it proudly, if alone and dangerously close to Korea’s unforgiving traffic.
But lest ye develop an unwarranted romantic fondness for the adorable-ness of Korean electioneering, well, let’s just remind ourselves that these are local ones, and I only showed you the nice side. With the internet as your friend, you will surely find better people than me to explain all the reasons that no, Korean politics are not cleaner than American politics, regardless of how high you rank on the zero-to-Rush Limbaugh school of Obama-hating.
Without having a direct stake myself in Korean politics, it’s hard for me to know or say exactly how odd it is to live in a “democracy” where the incumbent’s intelligence agencies, um, “dabble” in presidential electioneering. A place where a ferry full of high schooler sinks with most still on board, and when the distraught families go to catch a bus to Seoul to complain to the administration, they are met not with a listening ear but with… wait for it… a hundred policemen blocking them. So then they tried to take the train, starting a ten click walk to the station… only to be shut down by even more policemen.
Lost in the ferry headlines that day was another big hit for incumbency: three hundred protestors went to Central City terminal to board buses, demanding accommodations for PWD (In Korea the nominative Differently Abled is the general self-curated label for PWD). They also were met by police. With tear gas. Tear gas. For f* sake, Korea.
Sleepy in Cheongju 
