Christmas 2008

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

For a decade now I found this trite, sentimental claptrap . Just part of the over-capitalized bullshit that mutilated my pristine memories of the classic childhood Christmas. At best it earned a scoff but mostly it played unacknowledged. Part of the soundtrack to something puerile. Something to be endured for three months than thrown aside to be picked up by a lonely garbage man still walking the beat while the rest of the world stays warm. A bland aesthetic experience shoved into a month of bland experiences, appearance makings, and super-structure demanded activities. Yet here I am, freshly twenty-four years old, humming this song under my breath and holding back tears as I speed walk to teach the disconnected children of the South Korean elite.

Cheers, reader, to my first Christmas away from home.

I sit here with my rattling cough. I am not the first of my DNA do spend Christmas in this nation. I had a great-uncle who was here sixty-some years ago. But he was a lot further north. And I'm sure he'd love to trade Christmases with me. Clutching an M1 in a ditch probably isn't as fun as moping on a laptop.

I believe the technical term for it is “taken for granted.” After such reliability those relationships that were so important to me became important for me. Like the mountains around me in this growing nation, I thought they'd be there to mark who I am forever. Sure, telling my Godmother I wanted to be Jewish because I'm old school was fun, but I didn't know that it got me through the year. I didn't know the astounding growth spurts of my younger cousins made for such gripping information. I didn't know Christmas actually meant something.

And here comes the reflection.

What will I come home to? A year is a long time, especially now. As my friends grow older and gain more direction they will scatter across the country. Some will stay but more will realize the Nebraskan dream of leaving home. Entering this wide world and roaming for a while. Who will go where and will they remember me? And if they do will they want to see me? As usual the future remains hazy.

But more importantly, what did I leave behind? So many friends, I tried my best to see them all.

As a form of therapy I hop onto interlink. They have live webcams there that update every fifteen seconds. Home looks beautiful. The snow covers everything. The cameras aren't wonderful but it looks like Christmas. Like I could reach out and touch it. The life I made for myself. Google Lincoln, Ne and put something as a background. There's a one for 27th and South. I can see a corner of the gas station I spent so many hours at.

If they miss me now it won't last.

Korean Wal Mart

The soul of this culture is here. It lurks in subtle gestures and back alleys but it is here.

When I first arrived in Korea everything carried the mark of the “Modern” (American) era. High rise apartments, cell phone stores, taxi cabs and grocery stores abound in this nation. At the clothing store the underwear models are white. The mannequins have Asian eyes with blue pupils. Brittney Spears and Jay-Z play in public squares. A few of my kids wear NASCAR shirts.

I can't assign blame to the leaders of this country for embracing the West. For the past sixty years it's been a small nation surrounded by hostile forces while waving the flag of someone else's democracy. Seeking shelter under the world's most powerful nation is only logical in a country still technically in a state of war.

What gets me is the fury, the unwavering force South Korea embraces Western culture. HomeEver, the Korean version of Wal Mart, was my most recent stop in my acclimation tour of 2009. In full force I witnessed the decadence which I comically scorned in my more Marxist moments. Children grabbing for Power Ranger's masks. Mothers on iphones (the sound of nagging is universal) and teenagers slacking by the McDonald's. I flew half way across the world to watch people degrade themselves for cheap crap and status symbols. 'Tis the season, I guess.

But there was an upside in all this. In my futile attempt to find a Starbucks (all the other coffee in town sucks) I found a narrow and unassuming alley. I would have passed it over except it didn't look like anything else around. I followed its cobblestone street and misshapen stone walls. I turned and there it was. What I've been looking for.

I stood in a different part of the city and a different part of history. Before Harry Truman. Before the DMZ. Before the thirty-eighth parallel. The houses were small but proud in this courtyard housed under the shadow of Westernization Incarnate. The slanted roofs and stucco walls of the pre-war generation.

Bonzi trees grew in ornamented pots. There was a small statue of the Buddha in the center. We did not touch this haven. This active museum of a life soon to be nothing but a tourist trap.

God, how I hate the twenty-first century.

Weekend

Jostled. Jarred. My experience in this country so far is nothing but a series of plane rides, bus rides, car rides and waiting.

Sitting in an IHOP at five in the morning. Warm inside. Safe from the cold. She smiled. But it wasn't for her. She couldn't be selfish if she tried. The warmth surrounded me. Surrounded us. Her hand slowly gaining feeling as I rubbed it for her. We looked at the Christmas tree. Her head on my shoulder.

I try to sleep, quite a feat in economy class. The lack of leg room leads to contortions normally reserved for the circus. I still haven't slept. I nod off. I wake up when the plane changes direction of altitude or bumps. The stern resolve to die with dignity before the information is processed.

"This is the most EuroCentric International List of Crepes I've ever seen." She laughed. A genuine laugh. For just a moment she forgot why we're here: breakfast before I'm gone for a year. In that one, gossimer moment we are together for ever in this spot. This is the epiphany Keates spoke so highly of. To live in this one moment. Forever. Truely that would be heaven.

I'd rather go to hell than purgatory. At least hell is honest. It's cold on the plane. It's freezing in the bathrooms. My breath freezes. My foot aches with the pain normally reserved for full days of hiking over rough terrain. My I nod off, my leg falls asleep. I wake up. I watch Pineapple Express for the third time. I don't understand the plot, i just want something somewhat familiar. I nod off. Repeat.

We are intertwined now. She puts her four foot long legs across my lap. I pretend to kiss her but tell her a secret instead.
"I love you."
And her eyes radiate like a thousand suns and we are even warmer than we were. This is the last time I will be warm for a year. Will she still provide it when I return? These questions are drowned in the elegance of the moment and the only thing is us when she whispers her secret.
"I love you, too."
Our food arrives.

I'm on a bus now. The heat is broken. I wear my trenchcoat like a blanket. This is the last bus out of Seoul tonight. Had I stopped to use the bathroom I would be sleeping in the airport. Everywhere around me there is neon. Lights, colors, clothes. This is an optical assault without at least an hour of sleep. We bounce and jumble down the highway and I hope to the god I don't believe in that someone, anyone can take me to a bed.

I wake up dizzy. I always do. She is holding me from behind. She's been asleep for sometime. There is a wet spot near my shoulders, where he face was at one point. I missed the session but I know the evidence. I roll over to kiss her in the warmth and softness of her bed and our bodies.
"Are you okay, sweetheart?"
"I will be."