True Rosaschi ll

An honest life of
Straight talk, brash and keen;
He was True in death as well.

Eileen

Though death takes you now,
Your indelible smile
We will ever hold.

Catherine Wheel

She knows not her mind;

Her thoughts a catherine wheel

Of sparkling chaos.

1A: Little Freaking Zen Masters

My first class of the day is a group of three first graders. I’ve dubbed this class “1A” because I had to call it something. The system this academy uses to distinguish one class from the next is to simply call the class by the name of one of the students. This is fine and well for those classes wherein no student leaves the academy or transfers to another class; but students do migrate, and many students share the same name, so I needed a system to identify my classes. The 1 stands for first grade, the A for the fact that they are my first, first grade class.

I don’t normally like teaching kids this young, as they tend to have minimal English skills and a maximum quotient of innocent disrespect for their teachers. They’re first graders after all, full of energy and joy and a desire to play and generally goof off. But the kids that comprise this class are unique. All of them speak English quite well, and while they are all predisposed to defying my suggestions and orders, they nevertheless can –  with a strong dose of patience and perseverance on my behalf – be corralled into a semblance of order and focused education. They’re also sweet and amusing, so I like them, and feel fortunate that my days start out with them.

The three kids are Kai, Connor and Sally. They are all eight years old by Korean reckoning, which means come January 1st, 2010, they will all be nine, since all Koreans get one year older on the first of the year. In Western parlance, they are six going on seven.

Kai is the most unruly of the bunch, but he’s also an endearing fellow, in a taxing sort of way. Despite my repeated requests against such things, he keeps bringing food into the classroom, and tops and Pokeman cards and other childhood detritus. He’s not much for studying. He’d much rather spin a top on the Formica table or puts stars on the board next to his name so that they’ll cancel out the “X”es I always give him for “bad” behavior. (Three exes and you go out of the room, holding your hands above your head for three minutes) But he does it in a playful, “I can’t help myself” sort of way that is generally accompanied by a sheepish smile when he gets caught –  which is always. He’s a pain in the ass, truth be told, but when he zeros in on you – or his work, forsooth! – he’s a really beautiful kid. And that smile he’s got is just ridiculous.

Connor’s the smartest of the bunch, at least on paper, which is to say his homework is almost always spot on and his capacity for learning is quite high. He’s got an impressive vocabulary on account of his ability to remember words well – if not for the fact that he studies all the time, and even goes to a second English academy. On the other hand, he’s a total goof ball. He loves tongue twisters, tangents and jokes as much as he likes chocolate; and he can converse ad infinitum if I allow him to, which I don’t of course, being an egalitarian teacher and all. He is also prone to fits of dancing, and I gotta say he’s quite good at it. We sometimes sing songs in class and he often has a hard time keeping his eyes on the page for wont of swinging his hips about and doing a hula thing with his hands. He can also juke, bob and jut his head in all kinds of crazy ways, as if his neck were a slinky spring. He’s fun to watch and makes us all laugh, but I want him to focus on the text while we’re singing so he can practice his pronunciation. Of course, I really want to just let him spread his joy about the classroom too, so I do my best to strike a balance. I’m sure his parents want him to be a doctor or lawyer or some such thing, which is probably what he’ll be. It’s too bad though, as he would certainly make a top notch entertainer if he chose that route.

Of course most Korean kids don’t have such choices at their disposal. I’m not even sure they have the awareness of choice at their disposal. In the States we get to at least dream of being astronauts and rock stars, race car drivers and zoo keepers. In Korea you dream realistically and conventionally, of being a scientist or engineer, a teacher perchance. Many kids say they want to be dentists. Ask them why and they’ll tell you it’s because they’ll make “much money”. When I ask them if having their noses in someone’s mouth all day, causing them great pain, would be a fun way to make money, they look at me like I’m a Martian. Dentist equals wealth. Nuff said.

I don’t know what Sally wants to be because Sally doesn’t know yet what she wants to be. But then maybe that’s one of the reasons why I like her. Most kids already have a notion come first grade what professional direction they’re likely to take. Sally’s too confused by the world to commit just yet, even if the commitment doesn’t amount to much. I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for her because she seems to be a kid for whom happiness proves a bit illusive. It’s sad because she’s a great kid – cuter than three buttons and smarter than a whip – and she’s got an edge to her that I figure is going to serve her well later in life, if it doesn’t already do so.

Being in a class with two strong-willed boys and no other girl to team up with puts her at a bit of a disadvantage. She demurs a lot to the boys, and on the surface you’d think she was the lesser student in comparison with the self-styled genius known as Connor. But I have had the good fortune of teaching her one on one a couple of times on account of the boys not being in class those days. It surprised me to find that her English, and her intelligence in general, was in fact a fair deal higher than both the boys. She doesn’t show it when they are around, which is a bit surprising given the competitive nature of Korean children. On the other hand, she is the only girl in a class of boys, and that’s unusual. I only have one other class with that demographic. The girl, Elie, is clearly smarter than the two boys, but she’s so quiet and so demure it’s almost as if she isn’t there. She speaks with the bravado of a mouse, so I need absolute silence in the class to hear her (not an easy thing to achieve). Even with relative silence I need to lean closer to her to hear her, which means the boys don’t hear her at all.

Sally, on the other hand, participates equally in class unless she’s in a bad mood. Kai can bring that mood on her in a hurry. He’s got a knack for getting under your skin, winning smile notwithstanding. He usually sits next to me, at a close proximity right angle. Sally sometimes likes to sit closer to me, and if she gets to class first the chair’s hers. But Kai has unceremoniously lifted her bag off the chair, placed it on her usual chair and kicked her out of “his” seat on a few occasions. It’s a punk-ass thing to do and I let him know as much, while relegating him to the other side of the room for punishment. But he can be defiant, and such defiance has rankled Sally on several occasions.

On one such occasion I was able to witness, in the span of a few minutes, her eyes shift from glorious sunrise to pool of tears to venomous death-stare. Kai’s a bit oblivious to this kind of rancor. Having a pretty deep edge of his own, he’s usually willing to fight to the end to achieve whatever means he is after. It’s as if that smile of his is a shield against life’s galling winds. It’s interesting to watch Sally deal with this stonewalling of his. I’m sure if I let them they could stare each other down until the cows came home. Too bad class is only thirty minutes long and I’ve got material to cover. It’d be interesting to see who’d  flinch first.

I’ve seen this stare-down phenomenon several times in various classes. It seems to be a cultural thing wherein a kid, instead of calling out her counterpart on the playground, simply stares him down in class. I have tried to break this spell several times only to realize that it’s something that needs to run its course. Sometimes a kid is just trying to remind his counterpart who is older, and therefore, who is right – regardless of facts, subtleties or circumstance. Other times it’s a younger kid saying, “I don’t care who’s older, you bitch, you don’t fuck with me like that.” It’s interesting watching the loser slowly turn to mush. There’s a look in the eyes that unmistakably conveys their acquiescence. Sometimes it’s a subtle downcast glint of apologetic guilt. Other times it’s a confused look that says, “What – what did I do?” Sometimes it’s a slow swelling of tears. Once I saw a second grade boy give an older girl the death stare while tears were dripping steadily from his lashes. Though the girl still felt she was in the right, her remorse was evident.

Unlike most kids at this school, Sally seems to have an unsatisfactory home life. Her parents both work and, if what she tells me is true, don’t seem to pay a lot of attention to her. You meet this kid and you’d think it would be hard not to want to be engaged with her. But I suppose there is no shortage of cool kids that don’t get the kind of attention from their folks that they’d like. Of course, it’s totally common that Korean children don’t get to see much of their dads, as they work a lot, and are generally not responsible for the raising of the kids. The mothers are in charge of all things domestic, including – if not especially – education. Sally’s father apparently doesn’t have a good job in a high paying field like most of the kids at this school, so her mother has to work as a piano teacher, and according to Sally, doesn’t much care for it. Could there be some resentment that the father doesn’t make enough to provide for the family? In any case, she’s got an underdog quality to her that I relate to. Can’t help but to want the best for her when I see her.

Connor’s dad is a boiler mechanic. And while this is not exactly the kind of job that the kids at this school would consider highly respectable, I love the way Connor announces his father’s occupation –  without shame or regard for status or money and all the rest of it. His mother’s a housewife and that’s always a comforting thought here in Korea. This is not a culture well suited for two working parents. With all the studying these kids do, and all the lack of play, having a stable and supportive environment at home is a very necessary thing. Kids here are like little education robots. Unlike in the States, where kids are shuttled from soccer practice to play dates to environmental awareness pow wows, kids here are shuttled, if they don’t walk, from one academy to another. Connor is no exception, but it seems that he is well cared for nonetheless, which makes him a joyful and exuberant kid who’s fun to be around.

Kai’s dad is apparently a heart surgeon. I am not sure of this as Kai tried to explain what he does by pounding his heart a few times. I know his dad’s a doctor (and his mother a housewife) but the heart surgeon thing is an inference, as Kai doesn’t know how to say “heart surgeon” in English, if Korean. Kai has a sister who’s a year or so older than he is and I teach her as well. She’s a soft spoken kid as sweet as a field of flowers in the spring (except she’s like that year round). So whatever’s going on at Kai’s home, it’s a good thing, cuz it shows up in the kids.

I have a Monday ritual in which I ask all my students how their weekend was. It’s just a way to get them to talk more, while I talk less, but it is also provides me with some insight into Korean culture. They don’t usually report a fascinating or fun filled weekend, though on occasion some kid will tell me about a trip to Everland, which is a huge amusement park in Seoul, or perhaps a ski trip. Sometimes it’s just a trip to Grandma’s house to make kim chi, or a day trip to Chung-ju, the nearby tourist trap. Maybe they went to a movie. Usually they at least get to watch a little TV or play some video games; on occasion they’ll actual play soccer and get a little exercise.

Sally, however, never seems to have anything to report at all. When I ask her what she did over the weekend, she just replies with a resigned and matter of fact tone, “Nothing.” I used to try to press her on the subject, figuring that she must have done something other than study, but she seems not to want to talk about it. It doesn’t help that Connor’s dad makes sure to do something cool with his only son just about every weekend. I suspect in hearing his tales, Sally gets a little jealous, though she’ll never let on. Not to the other students at least.

It kind of makes me want to kidnap her on a Sunday and take her to the playground. But, of course, I’m just a teacher and as such must treat all my students with equanimity. It’s not just that we are not supposed to have favorites (though of course we all do), we are also supposed to give our attention, compassion, good will and discipline to all the students equally, even the ones we can’t stand. It’s a good thing to keep in mind and a good practice for a teacher to have. Secretly my heart bends a bit deeper toward the students I like more, but just as a student will keep her necessary secrets to herself, so must I show that I care equally for all my students. The interesting thing about this practice is that, in effect, I do exactly that.

So, perhaps the coolest thing about being a teacher is that by practicing oneness, you live oneness. The kids are all equal and by extension, through my relationship with them, I am equal too. Over time the kids seem to get this and embody it. The relationship between the students and the teacher becomes a little less formal and a little more real. As a result they come to trust you, allowing themselves to be their affectionate, joyful, frustrated, sullen, vibrant selves. They come, they engage; they go, they disengage – like little freaking Zen masters, they’ve got a helluva lot more to teach adults than most adults care to countenance. So the more my relationships to these kids develop, the more I realize how much I like kids. There’s something immediate and real about them. You don’t have to spend any time trying to figure out what they are about, because what they are about, for better or for worse, is right there on their sleeves. Given the difficulty I’ve had trying to figure out Korean adults, it’s no wonder I enjoy – or at least appreciate – the time I get to spend with my students.

Holiday Greetings

Happy Holidays!

May there be mirth, joy and peace

For all those you love.

Book 2 ~ Entry 23

I’m sitting at the park across from Reggie’s housing complex. He’s supposed to meet me here with a quarter ounce of pot. I busted up my piggy bank (I’m a little old for a piggy bank anyway) and even snatched five bucks from Grannie’s purse so I would have enough. She just got paid, so I don’t think she’ll miss it, unless Garret goes for some too. Of course she’s senile so we can just remind her that she gave money to those religious freaks that are always coming to our door – even though she didn’t of course.

Granny’s getting battier every day. Usually she only talks to Jesus when she’s in her room, looking at the painting on her closet door. But lately she has been talking to him all the time, no matter where she is. It’s usually about how bad her grandchildren are and why he stuck her with such hoodlums. She’ll pause for an answer while looking up in the sky, then nod her head. Then she’ll turn and glare at us, as if Jesus just gave her a great and terrible idea for punishment. Just the other day she snuck into Garret’s room while he was asleep and busted a wooden spoon over his head. He had it coming of course. After shooting her in the leg with the staple gun he’s lucky she didn’t staple his mouth closed. Good thing she doesn’t know how to use a staple gun.

Reggie was over the other day and he farted right in front of her. He’s always farting of course. It’s all those refried beans he eats, so he can’t help it. But he was standing right next to her in the kitchen when he let out a long, juicy ripper. She looked at him aghast, wagged her finger at him and said, “There’s a time and place for that young man!” Poor Reggie had no idea what she was talking about. He hadn’t learned yet that in our house, if you have to fart, you go to the bathroom. At least that’s how Granny wants it. Garret and I usually pass silent ones if we’re near her. That way she can’t know who did it. We can even say it was her, which really gets her riled up.

Reggie wanted to get revenge, so two days ago he brought a whoopie cushion to the house. He blew it up and put it under the sofa cushion, right where Granny always sits. We were sitting in the living room while Granny was boiling apples, then she came and sat down on the sofa and the whoopie cushion went, “bluuuuuup!” We all turned and looked at her in unison, with fake surprise on our faces. Poor Granny had this confused look on her face like she just shat her pants, but it couldn’t be possible since she didn’t recall shitting. Garret then wagged his finger at her and said, “Granny! There’s a time and place for that.” She waddled off to the toilet to check her panties, I guess. We laughed our heads off, and we weren’t even high.

I did get high with Reggie again yesterday. It was totally cool. We went to the beach and watched the sunlight reflect off the water, and watched the spray of the waves shoot into the sky. The sandpipers play chicken with the waves. Garret wasn’t around, which meant that we didn’t have to listen to his know-it-all talking all the time. We just sat in silence, or walked along the beach pointing and ooohing and laughing. Man, the world is so much more interesting on pot.

Dad’s coming home tomorrow from his business trip. I’m going to have to find a safe place to hide my weed. That is if Reggie ever shows up. I already gave him my money. Now I am wondering if he just made off with it. He’s pretty cool for a Mexican, but some of his friends don’t like me. Maybe they just took my money and told Reggie to quit hanging out with Gringos. They don’t like Gringos in general, I think. The other day down by the Thrifty, that big scary dude with the permanently bloodshot eyes, Pedro, beat the shit out of Chris LeCour just because. Man, I could beat the shit out of Chris LeCour, not that I ever would. But it goes to show you how mean some of these dudes can be.

I’ve been waiting here for half an hour now. I’m starting to get paranoid. Maybe the pigs have caught Reggie. They’re always going after the Mexicans. Reggie’s brother, Raul, is in jail. I don’t know what for because Reggie won’t say. He just says he’s innocent and the cops have it in for the wet backs, even thought they aren’t wet backs. I always thought Raul was a cool guy. Kinda weird thinking about him in jail.

Oh, here comes Reggie. I hope he scored.

Vacant Lots

Little brown dead weeds

In fields of trash and stone ~

Spring’s dormant splendor.

stay in your home!!!

I thought I would share this bit of transcript from Bill Moyers’ piece with Steve Meacham, a community organizer in Boston who is helping people who have been foreclosed on stay in their houses. Remember that many people who are going through foreclosure purchased houses at the peak of the bubble, and signed loans that the lenders knew weren’t safe. Also recall that many of these houses are now worth a helluva lot less than they were when people bought them.

It’s an inspiring piece that shows what some good folks are doing in the face of this absurd madness. You can watch it here:    Bill Moyer’s Journal

STEVE MEACHAM: One of the unheralded things about this crisis right now is that there’s an awful lot of owners who come to us who cannot afford their home at the inflated value, at the adjustable rate mortgage price. But they have plenty of income to afford their home at the real value at a 30-year fixed. And so why not just give them the property back at that amount? If they’re foreclosed on, the best the bank that can do is sell the property at the real value. By definition, that is the absolute best.

If Deutsche Bank forecloses on Joe Schmoe, the best they can do is to sell that property at real value. So if Joe Schmoe can afford the property at real value, why not sell it back to him? But the only reason the banks aren’t doing that is because of what they call moral hazard. They say basically that homeowners should be punished because they signed these loan documents.

These are the same guys who have run our entire economy into the ground and who have been rewarded with billions in taxpayer bailouts and have used billions of that money to give bonuses to the very executives that drove their companies and the whole economy into the ground. And they are citing moral hazard as the reason why they can’t resell that property to the existing homeowners at the real value. That is disgusting and hypocritical and in the extreme.

****

Kind of makes you wonder whether the banks really give a shit about moral hazard or whether this is just a plan to further erode the middle class. It’s just mind numbing to me how this whole financial crisis has panned out, and still the culprits are making off with billions. I guess it will keep on going until there is a movement that demands a stop to it.

As far as I can tell, Obama’s presidency hasn’t done squat to change the culture of Wall Street or Washington. Not that I believed it would, particularly after I saw all the Wall Street and Washington homies he put on his cabinet, but a lot of folks put a lot of faith in him. He sure sold himself as a charismatic and effective leader, but I haven’t seen anything but the contrary from him. It’s a sad state when the best we can say — and I hear many people say it — at least he’s not Bush.

As usual, it’s business as usual.

Book 2 ~ Entry 16

Reggie came over today to hang out with me and Garret. We were sitting in the living room just hanging out when he said he had some pot and asked if we wanted to get high with him. I didn’t even get a chance to say no because Garret got all excited that Reggie had pot, or “herb” as he called it. I didn’t even know that my brother smoked dope, so I was kind of surprised. They went to the garage but I didn’t follow. Garret asked me why I wasn’t coming and I told him that I wasn’t a pothead. He called me a pussy, trying to goad me into going, which just made me feel less like doing it. But Reggie said that pot was really fun, and besides, the first time it rarely works anyway. I don’t know why I said yes. Maybe it’s because I think my brother is such a dick and I wanted to do it just to spite him, or maybe I thought that nothing would happen, as Reggie made it seem. Anyway, I went with them into the garage and we shared a joint. I only had two drags because I was coughing so much. Garret called me a wimp, but then he started coughing too, only as usual he had an excuse: he took too big a hit, whereas (he said) I barely inhaled. Reggie sucked the smoke down into his shoes and held it for about thirty seconds. Total pro.

Nothing happened for about ten minutes, but I noticed that Reggie and Garret were acting really weird, so I went to my room to read a book. After one page I couldn’t focus anymore. It was like the world was shrinking in on me or something. And then expanding back out. I was reading Jaws and looking at the picture of the shark with its black eyes looking like two holes into nowhere. There was something funny about those eyes, like they were black holes and everything in the universe was going to fall into them and never return. I looked at the teeth next maybe because I was worried about falling into the black holes. The teeth were silly instead of scary, so I started laughing. Then I looked at my Farrah Fawcett poster on the wall. She looked so ridiculous in that shiny swimsuit and all that carefully messed up hair. I started bursting out laughing. Reggie and my brother came in the room and asked me what was so funny. I just pointed at Farrah and doubled over laughing. They started laughing really hard too.

I don’t know how long we laughed about that and many other things too. For a while I guess. Then we went into Grannie’s room to see if we could steal some money from her purse. She keeps it in the corner behind some shoe boxes. I never steal money from Granny. That’s Garret’s thing. I told him it was stupid to steal from an old lady on social security, but he doesn’t care. Being high I didn’t really care either. Besides, Reggie said he had the munchies (that’s what pot heads say when they are hungry, which is always when they are high). He said he wanted some Ding Dongs and pretty soon the only thing I could think of was Ding Dongs, though every time any of us said the word, I just burst out laughing.

Granny keeps that velvet painting of Jesus on her closet door. I never really looked at it before. It just seemed to stupid to look at, and besides she talks to the damned thing which makes me feel that Jesus has got to be pretty stupid to talk to Granny. Anyway, as soon as I saw the Jesus painting I just stopped and stared. Garret tried to open the door but I stopped him. “Look,” I said. “Check this dude out!” I looked at him really close and I think Garret was kind of freaked out, like because I was high I might get Jesus like Granny got him, but instead I just started laughing again, this time so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes and my gut was so tight it felt like someone stuffed a bowling ball in there. He seemed like some kind of cartoon figure to me. I imagined him talking to me, moving his mouth the way Fred Flintstone does. It still makes me laugh even though I am not high anymore.

Anyway, Garret pushed me out of the way so he could get into the closet, but right then we heard the front door open. Thinking it was Granny coming back from wherever it is she goes on Tuesdays, we bolted out of the room. Turned out there was no one at the door. We were just hearing things. Reggie said we were being paranoid, but then pot is supposed to do that to you. He wanted to go back into Grannie’s room to get the money. He still had Ding Dong’s on the brain. But Garret was real paranoid and I didn’t care anymore about Ding Dongs so I went to the kitchen and got an orange and some Triscuts. It was weird sitting on the couch looking at the orange like I had never seen one before. When I peeled it I saw all the moisture from the peel shoot out into space as if it was exploding energy and each little speck of moisture was like a universe all to itself. The Triscut was even weirder. The texture of the cracker was like some alien desert world. The closer I looked into it the more mathematical the thing seemed. I tried to explain to Garret what I was seeing but he just said I was being loopy, as usual. I showed him the cracker by putting it close to his eyes saying, “See, check it out. It’s like a . . .” But then the universal cracker crumbled into a million pieces when Garret took it in his hand, crushed it and threw it in my face. Even high, my brother is a total asshole.

Anicha

Everything changes:

What’s tobacco one moment,

Smoke the next ~ then air.

George Carlin’s Faith

If there is a god,

And I’m certain there is not,

May he strike you dead.

Tommy

Motor-mouthed, squirmy,
Incorrigible hell-boy:
And still I like you.

QUIET

The past two mornings I have woken to something special, something rare, something as welcome as a new friend, a new lover, a winning lottery ticket:

Silence.

And this silence, so beautiful and so complete, was so strange to me I almost couldn’t identify it, almost couldn’t orient myself to the difference. I just lay there in bewildered expectation, like a child with britches down who awaits the promised lashings across his back side, only to find to his surprise, relief – and dare he feel it – glee, that the lashings aren’t forthcoming. It was almost eerie to awake to no sound, as if the world had ended and left only me behind. But even if the world had ended and left me as its sole survivor, I would gladly take it, and at least for a few days – until such time as I was driven mad by abject solitude instead of incessant noise –  I would luxuriate in this rare treat and smile upon waking, instead of ranting at the maddening inconsideration that allows in the first place for a rock quarry to be operated in the middle of a well-to-do neighborhood . . .

It’s Chusok today, Korean thanksgiving, a holiday in which virtually all Koreans travel to see their parents and grandparents, to pay homage to their ancestors and to eat lots of yummy food. Ulsan is a very new city, so very few people are from here. Therefore, the city empties out leaving behind a stillness reminiscent of Christmas morning in the States, when all are at home opening presents and sighing off the stress of the holiday season.

I’m glad I have nothing to do this weekend. Aside from having a cold and needing to lay low anyway, I am absolutely giddy about this silence. For two days, and one more to come, I can let go of the fear that I might be driven mad by the metallic pounding that wakes me at seven and continues in adagio fashion throughout the day, sounding for all the world as if some kid were outside my apartment practicing his baseball swing on a concrete telephone pole with an aluminum bat.

If there is one among the many things I don’t like about Korea, it’s the noise and perhaps the fact that, in a society bent on progress and the acquisition of economic power, there is little if any room for consideration of others – their peace, their rest, their sanity. Of course, I am bringing my own U.S. country boy baggage with me, and I knew better than to expect much quietude. But when I moved from Mugeodong to Gooyoung I expected to deal with less noise, not more.

My old apartment was located in a densely populated neighborhood. It came with some of the usual sounds: spouses fighting, horns honking, students practicing musical instruments, the drone of television, a dog (apparently abused) yelping, the white noise and the chatter of humans, the occasional scream, gleeful and otherwise. It came with unusual sounds also, like the mechanical whine whose source I could never locate, that droned throughout the night like a symphony of turbines needing grease. And the loudspeakers that come standard with every apartment, through which various announcements are made on a daily basis, often early in the morning, Sundays not excepted: Someone is double-parked, it’s recycling day; we are going to come and spray you crib with bug juice . . . These speakers are loud and you never know when they are going to go off. Even if I could understand Korean, I couldn’t imagine any reason why not to disconnect the thing, so I did. But you can still hear the muffled announcements through the walls, or through the vent in the bathroom that is shared with the adjacent apartment.

So you can imagine my excitement when I learned that I was going to be able to move back to Gooyoung-lee after all. I looked forward to the relative peace, the suburban if not country feel of the place. You can also therefore imagine my dismay when I learned of the consequences of living in an apartment that was located smack dab in between the “rock quarry” and the elementary school.

Let me first say that the rock quarry is not really a quarry, though it functions like one. There’s a hilly lot several acres in size directly across from me that, over the past year or so, some workers using heavy machinery have been leveling and terracing. The soil in Korea is very rocky, so if you want to flatten a hill you have to bust up a lot of rock, which is precisely what they are doing. But instead of using dynamite to break up the rock, they use a backhoe that has a long, hydraulically operated spike on the end of it. It’s like a gigantic jack hammer at the end of a long, iron arm. At a steady rate of about 76 beats a minute the hammer slowly chips away at the rock until at last a large chunk of it breaks off. The arm moves a few feet and begins to pound away at the next section of rock. This arcane form of earth moving continues from morning call until lunch break, resumes after lunch till about five or six p.m. . . . seven . . . days . . . a . . . week!

The sound pelts my apartment directly, but it also reverberates off the elementary school on the other side of my apartment, effectively encasing me in a constant, resounding, metallic pounding. It’s like sonic water boarding.  And when I say it drives me mad I am only being slightly hyperbolic. When I say I can’t wait for this madness to end, I mean I can’t wait for this MADNESS to end. And since I have been teased into thinking it might end soon, I am going to continue to throw whatever hope I can into this projection.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago my friend read a notice on the entry door of my apartment building that said that the noise was going to cease at the end of the week. The company responsible for the racket apologized for the inconvenience and I suppose, hoped for forgiveness.

Not.

But the racket never stopped . . . not until yesterday, the first day of the Chusok holiday. Now, when I look at the site with its massive piles of broken up rock, I also see that it is possible that they might actually be nearly finished with that phase of the project. I hope so, but I also wonder what comes next. With my luck, the next round of construction will be even louder and more obnoxious, if that’s possible.

But even if the next phase is relatively quiet, I am still going to have to put up with a lot of noise. My move to Gooyoung has been a serious upgrade in aesthetics – why with my swank digs and views and proximity to nature – but my access to quietude while at home remains illusive. With the school across the street I have various sounds to cope with. There’s the morning call, which is a long, synthesizer-spouted, muzak-esque tune that drones on for minutes as if calling a bunch of Hello-Kitty Hobbits to a pillow dance at Romper Room. That their class bell, which rings every half hour or so, is a carbon copy of the fucking ice cream truck isn’t  much fun either. The children’s playful chatter and joyful screams over a well kicked ball or an ousted dodge ball opponent are all fine and well, and in a way provide for a nice background, reminding me that all is not business and toil in Korea. Of course, there are the cuckoo birds in the evening and at night, the crickets with their calming song. Even the clumsy melodies of “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” issuing from the music academy across the way aren’t so bad. Not as bad as the screaming kids who gather at the “Pong-pong” (a half a dozen trampolines linked together with protective padding all around, all of which is bounded by a chain-link fence and a vinyl canopy) till ten a.m., bouncing up and down and pushing each other over, throwing balls at each other all while dancing to the same set of pop tunes night in and night out.

But none of this is really as bad as the domestic disputes, which – despite their lesser frequency and duration relative to the other noises – are nevertheless extremely nerve racking. Despite having only a smattering of neighbors here in Gooyoung, these outbursts are as frequent as they were in Mugeodong, if not a bit more intense. One night last week the husband in the building adjacent to mine was so out of control and so violent, that I nearly called the cops on him – this despite the fact that I couldn’t register my fears nor my complaints given my inability to speak the language. It was two a.m. and not only was he screaming at his wife at the top of his quaking lungs, he was also destroying his apartment. The shrill sounds of shattering glass and the loud, repeated, bludgeoning thuds made me wonder if it was a person he was busting up, or just stuff. Later, after the squall had died down, I saw him, appropriately enough, leaning out the window in his wife-beaters, calming himself with nicotine, one cigarette after another. He looked no different than he normally does when he smokes out his window. Just another day at the office . . . just another night at home.

No more than an hour ago another couple was spending their Chusok going at each others’ throats, giving me a respite from my holiday quietude and announcing to whatever neighbors that haven’t yet high-hoed off to grandmother’s house, just how much they hated each other – at least for the moment. It all makes me wonder if this is just a normal sort of way for spouses to blow off steam, as a couple of my Korean acquaintances have suggested. One woman I know would be quite prone to these episodes if it weren’t the case that her husband is a taciturn type who prefers a violent ejaculation or two, a slammed then locked door, and a sullen retreat into his darkened, alcoholic psyche. Another friend of mine says that Koreans are like Italians in that they let their minds be known, even if in order to do so a good deal of screaming, and perhaps an overturned table or two, are necessary. If this likening is true it still makes me sad, because Italians are wont to erupt and express their feelings not just because they live in close quarters with one another, but because they are passionate people – while Koreans are most certainly not; in fact, these marital martial arts notwithstanding, they are the opposite: reserved, polite and deferential – at least, that is, until they have had enough.

Perhaps one day I too will have had enough, and will release my compressed and latent frustrations through some dramatic and volcanic eruption worthy of my hosts. Perhaps there is something to be said for this kind of venting. Who knows, it might do me well. Then again, it’s a beautiful autumn day, the sun is warm and gentle and in its afternoon descent it is saturating the rice patties with its almost phosphorescent glow. The still river bends behind the bamboo field, glistening in peace. All is calm and all is quiet and all is well. The only thing left for me to do is decide whether to take a walk in the forest, or to relish the absence of noise and luxuriate in the rare opportunity to take a peaceful, soundless, stress-reducing nap.

Night Train

Train whistle nocturne
Soars through the evening air, a
Distant lullaby.

Consideration

Standing on the bus,
Squirming babe in arms, she stares
At the seated man.