Springtime Blahs?

There’s vomit on the streets and yellow dust in the air. It’s springtime in Korea.

This is a whiny article. I’ll just warn you.

Both Paul and I have the privilege to walk by vomit puddles on a regular basis. Public drunkenness (and alcoholism) are both big problems in Korea that few people seem to talk about. We’ve passed groups of men fighting in the streets and men passed out in the streets – before 10pm. And then there’s the vomit puddles that never get cleaned up – they just fade away.

Springtime in Korea feels much more like a time for plodding than plotting and planning. Every spring, yellow dust from the Gobi desert in China blows down into Korea. The phenomenon has been recorded for several hundred years, but in the recent past the effects have been much worse: the sand brings more pollutants with it. Fortunately, in our neighborhood, people have taken to burning their fields, manure, and garbage piles, so that we can enjoy this experience even more.

We took a trip to Costco last Saturday. This may not seem like much of an event, but it’s a two-hour ride there, maneuvering through the store, and a two-hour trip home. (Usually, the bus ride is a little shorter, but the traffic was bad this weekend.) The process of shopping at Costco is unique: it feels like big-Asian-market-meets-American-wholesale-club. There are people and carts everywhere you turn. In Korea, there is a power of wills (or of age); no one moves carts or bodies out of the way, so the experience can be rather frustrating. If you do happen to be in the way, someone will push you to get by. This is done with no subtlety in a classic pushing move: put hand on other body and shove. I’ve taken to saying out loud how much I dislike Korea when this happens; though, on my first trip to Costco I sobbed uncontrollably in the middle of the store.

This particular trip was noteworthy because of our bus ride home. Because we were the last people on the bus, we stood for the drive home - in the front of the bus. I was right beside the driver, and watched as he checked his phone for messages, opened the window, closed the window, looked through his bags, opened a drink - all while driving a bus full of passengers at 125 km/hr. I spent the ride thinking of what to do in case of an accident. But I also spent the ride knowing that I would likely get home safe, with a story to tell. And really, that's how I feel about a lot of the things we experience here - from bus rides to vomit puddles. Every once in a while we look at each other and say, "our kids will never believe that we were this cool."