I told him, “I hope this affection fix will hold me for another year!” and he smiled.  It’s 24 hrs. later and still holding, and I’m still smiling on a cellular level.

I’m smiling because random good things happen.  The conversations you want can happen.  Comfortable silence can happen.  Loving touch can happen.  A year’s stress can melt away, and two mature adults can appreciate each other and part company beaming with good will.

It was a very good Cheusok.  It was a beautiful full moon.

I won’t remember much about Gyeongju, especially not the overly hyped tourist spots we went to go see.  But I’ll remember Clara’s potato chips somehow ending up in Lenn’s back pocket, Willie’s impression of Clara eating said potato chips, Lenn wearing her adjumma hat upside down, and Clara asking Lenn if her long shower was because she was washing her unborn baby…

But mostly I’ll remember that in Gyeongju I met someone who reminded me how happy I am to be 45.  I’m happy to have lived so long and to have loved so many; to know how and when to be real and to recognize a genuine person with a great mind when I see one, and to know I have the power to make magic happen.  I’m happy to have long ago dispensed with the superficial.  I’m happy to not be looking for the unattainable.  I’m happy to recognize my limits yet still remain intrepid.  I’m happy to have no ambitions other than pure happiness.  I’m happy to seize my opportunities and enjoy them fully.

So thank you powers-that-be who made nature and science, for sending your amber eyed Croation sons to New Zealand to do post doc work in Japan, to travel to my mother country, to speak with me about hummingbirds and engineering, stacked rocks and Muslim tiles, Judaism, victimization, and entitlement, communism, capitalism and economics, pop culture, tentacles, mini skirts, and the politics of Asian sex, Heidegger and the meaning of work, identity and place when you are an exile, anthropology, colonization and indigenous peoples, alternate lives and new directions, and all the other territory we covered in so many ways in two evenings.

Right now, he is probably finishing the book he took from the hostel bookshelf.  He’s laying back also wondering about the randomness of this crossroad; this meeting of minds and bodies.  And he, too, is content with there being nothing more, because how could there be?

Just as an example of what I’m doing:

Look for crazy-quilt neighborhoods, (how long does it take to learn how NOT to get lost?)  such as the one below:

Then, I look at the terrain map:

Then I switch to street map (notice the areas with fine grain housing appear blank):

Then zoom out until the neighborhood (dong) name shows up:

Then I look for the nearest train line and locate it on the subway map:

Then google everything about that neighborhood.  Kind of fun, but also exhausting.

Unfortunately, Oksu residents are being pushed out of their homes for redevelopment right now…

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Amazingly, I have also read about some shanty towns that have become so permanent that developers have to also relocate and compensate the residents.  I would like to visit one of them, to see if they are just eccentric and organic structures, since their owners care and attention for them probably grew over time, or if they never evolved and remain slums and are now derelict.  Probably a little of both, depending on the fortune of the resident – but the article (damn – why didn’t I save it?) said most of the residents have been there for decades.  The developers, of course, don’t want to pay for relocation of squatters, but the city feels they are victims of speculation, so that’s an encouraging stance for the city government to take.

It’s also probably wise of the city, because with the growing population of homeless and shrinking coffers for social services, it makes sense to allow people to build shelters on unused property in slum areas.  But, this might have the unsavory effect of causing property owners to maintain their holdings better in the future, which would be a loss for struggling people.

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So this search for character is something I must do.  But I wouldn’t encourage others to do this, because I know that it’s more romantic than anything and most people don’t really want the reality, which is:  a long long hike to the nearest public transport, up and down hills, past potentially bad areas, possibly the smell of raw sewage, the smell of garbage, regular cleaning of the bathroom walls (and anything else molding – which happens A LOT in Korea) and no E-mart one-stop shopping.

Fortunately for me, I’m used to most of the above and it doesn’t bother me one bit. I’m the opposite of high maintenance – as long as I have internet and can blog to my family, then that’s all I care about!  My only problem, once again, is the language issue.

IF I find some place adequate, then maybe I can entertain Korean lessons again.  But really, I have no family here, no personal relationships here, and the amount I can learn in the little time I have is just too frustrating for the amount of effort and expense.  So really learning Korean means finding a Korean who loves me (beit family, surrogate family, lover, you-name-it)  but in all liklihood, it’s pointless to learn anything beyond survival Korean.  But, if I move into a place such as this, then most definitely I’ll need to learn enough to get by.

Today the high was 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  However, half of the students were wearing sweaters.  This is because in Korea, the Cheusok holiday is approaching, and that means fall is here – never mind that it’s still too warm for sweaters, it’s fall and fall = sweaters.  So here sit 40 students taking their mid-term examinations and they have on long sleeves, undershirts, AND sweater vests.  I, on the other hand, have on only a sleeveless top and a light jacket to cover up my too sexy shoulders.  And I am sweating buckets because premature menopause is telling my body it’s 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  Looking at the students in their sweaters makes me feel 10 degrees hotter…

During mid-terms I have to help proctor examinations, even though there’s nothing much I do to help.  Some teachers go so far as to let me organize and distribute the exams / others don’t trust me enough to let me do anything but stand there and watch all hour.  Mr. Lee is the only teacher who tells me to stay in the office.  I am suspicious about this, given the knowledge he provides test answers to his students ahead of time to be more popular.  I wonder if he also gives the students more time or other such favors during the actual exam…

A third of the Emart employees are wearing cheap hanbok and trying to sell customers gift sets, traditional serving dishes, and holiday food items.  In the children’s clothing section are racks upon racks of cheap hanbok for children.  They are very ornate and colorful.  I was told once, by one of the slimey language exchange guys, that these are “fake” hanboks and not traditional at all.  Hanbok, of course, evolved into what they are today and were originally some variation on Chinese costumes.  But then they were simplified, and color and material coded according to class.  But the costumes for the children are more of a fantasy creation – kind of a melding together of Shilla era aristocracy and the more traditional form.  If I find time (doubtful) I’ll try and assemble photos to show you what I mean…

Friday is the national holiday, so Thursday evening most of Seoul will head to the country to visit their family homes.  The men will eat and drink for three days, and the women will cook, clean, cook, clean, cook, clean, and cook and clean some more for three days.  I and my Migook chingus (American friends) will also head to the country and taste a bit of the real holiday madness, which is being stuck on the roads with millions of others.  Supposedly one year in recent history, the 4 hour trip south took 13 hours due to the traffic.

We will be going to visit Gyeongju for Cheusok.  The director of Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network asked if I could help make Choosuk dinner for expectant mothers living in group homes,  (It seems they can’t even show their bellies to their families) and I had to tell her I’d already made plans.  She found it very amusing the way I spelled Gyeongju and Cheusok, as she spelled it Kyungjoo and Choosuk.

There are two different standards for romanizing the sound of Hangul.  The previous standard was the McCune-Reischauer system, which (to my ear) was better at distinguishing some of the consonant sounds (like K and G)

For example, Kyungjoo – there is only one letter in Hangul for both the K and the G sounds, but when that consonant is at the beginning of a word, is has more of a K sound, and when that consonant is in the middle of the word, it has more of a G sound.

But the new standard follows the hangul more literally for direct translation and assumes the reader will know or learn which sound to make.  The new standard also seems (to my mind) to be much more consistent with the phonics of vowel sounds and combinations, so in that regard I think it’s better.  But I read that it left out the “h” sound.  Just a minor thing…

The government instituted the new standard so Korea could participate more fully in a world  of digital communication where direct translation is necessary.  But from a speaking point of view, I think the former system was much better – and like with all conventions, it’s a failure if the people don’t adopt it fully;  causing major chaos for all involved and especially confusing for those just learning Korean.

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In other news about convention, the government’s campaign to walk right has begun being implemented in the subways.  And it’s a complete and utter failure thus far.  As a good citizen and a westerner who enjoys a familiar convention, I now find myself appalled and dismayed as I am more often than before headed for collision with Koreans who ignore the signs.  And then there is the ludicrous interruption of the attempt to walk to the right by escalators permanently installed on the now wrong side…

It would have been much simpler to have just given the streets to Western imperialism, and the subways to Japanese imperialism…

Gyeongju will be interesting…My first month here I went to the National Museum with Lenn and saw their exhibit on the Shilla dynasty.  So Gyeongju is kind of the seat of that dynasty and is the repository of many cultural sites, the main one we want to see being a Buddist grotto carved into the stone.  The replica at the museum was a sensory experience and very successful in recreating the atmosphere.  I think it is special because it is domed and circular, with each carving unique, so there is a special tension inside.  I can’t wait to experience its approach and feel the cool damp of the underground moisture.  When I worked in submarines in the sonar dome, we had to shimmy on our backs through a small dark tunnel comprised of electrical cables, only to arrive in a perfectly round open space:  a secret place, maybe even a sacred space.

Then comes a week of normal classes (if you can call anything I do for a living normal) followed by accompanying Jane to the Busan (or Pusan, if you use the M-R system of romanization) International Film Festival, where we will be seeing the debut of Tammy Chu’s new documentary, Resilience.

I had an opportunity to meet the featured adoptee in the film, and he’s really personable, laid-back, and funny.  Exceptionally so.  Hope Jane and I can hook up with him and Tammy afterward.

I have a half a dozen other half-finished posts for you, but I’m still only half way through my backlog of emails and I still have a lot of research to do for implementing the TRACK website, finishing my puppets, as well as finding a new job and a more interesting place to live.  Never been very good at balance, but at least my life is full…

Some links for your reading enjoyment:

• Seoul Village Stephane Mot’s blog about what Seoul was, what it is, and what it’s becoming.
• Guest Post: Seoul Everthenomad’s guest post by Anna about hidden Seoul.