South Korea

I left my family on a quiet Sunday morning early February. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world; I am for the most part an adult (at least on paper). But it had an odd bitter sweet taste too it. My family includes my parents and other relatives, as well as my good friends, and a comfortable city which I had grown to appreciate and enjoy. My dreams of learning a new language where finally about to be thrust into the forefront of my priorities however, and how eager I was for that to happen. As a young kid I would sit in the library listening to the German tape our middle school had, trying to grab a sense of the gibberish being spoken. I once “borrowed” a book from my father about learning Latin. But now, at the age of twenty, I was finally making a decision to become serious about learning languages, and gathering an understanding of the world outside my little valley.

      But first, I was to first journey reunite with a recently travelled family member: my brother. The flight to Chicago was routine. The international terminal security was so speedy and efficient that I was not at all frustrated by the time I had to nearly undress and walk through the X-Ray machine bare naked three times. Upon entering the plane and checking the rows, I found out I would be sitting in the middle seat of the middle row. As I approached my number, I saw a rather large man sitting on the aisle seat of the middle row. Rather large is a wee bit of a nicety. I did a quick little prayer to the airplane seat gods in desperation. They seem to have been busy that morning though, and grudgingly I took my cramped seat next to him.

        The fourteen hour plane ride proved not to be terrible. Both of my partners in uncomfortabelness were nice, and small talk was easy to come by. The free wine made also made it more bearable.  The plane descended and soon I was in my first foreign country: South Korea. It was dark, and I was not able to see much. I did however manage to acquire a ticket in very broken English to Gwangju in the south. I had two seconds to spare before the bus left, and was not able to tell anyway where I was or tell my brother when I would be at the bus station. This was solved at the pit stop two hour later (yes a fourteen hour plane ride then a four hour bus ride). After yelling frustratingly at the complicated payphones, I finally figured out through my jet lagged fog how to use one of them. Two hours later my brother picked me up, and we went to his place. Midnight now, I passed out.

This is all an abbreviated version of what happen, and I hope my China posts are a little bit less formal and stiff. I have not had time to sit down and write in some weeks, due to the excitement of everything. My first day in Korea was very enjoyable however. Gwangju was what Logan and I called “a big little city” Not extremely busy, the hustle and bustle of other major cities seemed absent. What were not absent were shops. More specifically, bra, shoe, and coffee shops. Never have I seen such a great number of bras and shoes in a small area. I mean they were E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. There could not be even that many girls to buy all that, it was insane. And the coffee shops were so populous they made orange on a UT football game day seem rare. I did find one I liked, and studied there while my brother was at work.

   Seeing Logan was definitely a great way to start my adventure. It had nearly been a year and was thoroughly happy to stay with him. We had never been particularly close until I went to college. But now our interests and age had grown closer, and we (well I at least) were able to enjoy my week there. My favorite memory of Korea was walking through a completely silent Gwangju at one in the morning with Logan. Snow had fallen for the past two days, and was still continuing to at that time.  All was silent save our footsteps in the snow, crunching our way back home. The lights illuminated the drifting snow, and no cars broke the scene. It was a serenity I had never seen nor felt before.

For my birthday, Logan had booked tickets to tour the DMZ between North and South Korea. I knew virtually little about the history between the two, but was greatly educated by the tour. I learned all about how Korea was only a pawn for the USSR/US cold war. And now, one side has no trees and we worry about even today, and the other is a flourishing society. We learned all about the hope for unification so one day families could be reunited. By far however, seeing the actual guards at the border and being able to step into North Korea was an amazing experience. It was by no means truly dangerous, and even though it was only a few feet, it made me realize that it was still only a few feet. It amazes me what humanity will do to protect a few yards or so, just because. WE squabble over this tiny Earth, and even though I know some alliances cannot be made, and some damages repaired, I wish we have the foresight to prevent such horrible atrocities such as massive wars all because of a mineral or resource. Some would say (and I would probably agree) that that is too naïve or innocent, but it is a wish nonetheless.

 Sunday afternoon I hugged my brother goodbye, and hopped onto a plane taking me to my true destination: the ever changing world of Beijing, China.