Fried Dog-Chpt 1-Straight Lost

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Straight Lost

Twenty-something minutes into my stay at some random Korean hotel I’ve already christened ‘the Sleeze’ and I’m neck-high in cultural confusion. All I want is to soak in warm water and wash away twenty-four hours of travel grime but I can’t figure out how to switch the shower faucet to the tub faucet. It takes a couple minutes of tugging and flipping and knocking and turning random levers and handles before I get the tub rolling on warm. Whatever happened to engineering simplicity, the rule of Roark, cut out the excess fat and debutante nonsense, just give me a Hot, a Cold, and a shower to bath handle.

Lesson One: Concepts of simplicity vary. One’s man’s short cut is another man’s scenic route.

Assuming the bathroom scene is under control- highlight the operative word ‘assuming’- I drag myself back into the bedroom and for the first time observe. Full PC on a cheap pine desk the color of a coffin, a mini fridge loaded with skunk oddity (corn tassel tea, tomato juice, Thai coffee), and a flat screen behemoth in comparison to the low-cut, cardboard tense bed. The wallpaper differs surface to surface. You’ve got the traditional Sleeze, meet your side Squeeze, Cupid cut-out Largo imprint on one side, the conservative yellow Yeomen and pinstripes appropriately across, and flat sidewalk sign blue and vineyard green on the other two walls.
I light up a Marlboro, hang out the window, and suck in the city for a while. And I’m not a smoker, I don’t even inhale, and I can’t stand the smoke cause it fries the rain jacket my eyes wear, so usually I just kind of swish-swash it around my mouth like Listerine fog, but at 2500 Won (equivalent rough: $2.50) you’d have to be a Quaker of a fool to pass up such a bargain. At least buy it for the sake and privilege of a great deal. Besides, anybody who’s read Tom Robbins, seen a Bogart flick, or read about Prometheus should honor and celebrate such heroes with a jack every once and a while.
Anyhow, the city is gold and myrrh. It’s like an aggressive version of a holiday in Vegas, neon signs on every available vertical surface including mailboxes, bus stops, and public restrooms. You’ve got every color, every shape, every imaginable cartoon whatever poising on the tops and bottoms of a million advertisements and signs leaning this way, that way, no way. But no matter all the outward irregularity, there’s no presence in design, no Carla Scarpa in feeling, it’s like the same cheese cake you eat every Christmas just with a different top layer of fruit, and there’s maybe a dozen different building blueprints for the entire city.

Lesson Two: Architectural individuality in a country directly reflects the variation in overall individuality.

And, of course, the moment I start studying the living, beating part of the city what sounds like a liquid game of craps begs an investigation of the bathroom. And what do I find. The damn tub is overflowing, every tile feels like Nineveh, and I’ve got maybe three seconds to hopscotch, kill the water, and problem solve before the mounting tide moves into the bedroom.
But low and behold, it seems the Koreans prepared for western idiocy and planted flood drains in the corner of the bathroom. I shrug, thank stereotyping, and baptize myself for a good half hour to clean-cut western grooves, the set list including live licks from the Stones and Zeppelin, studio outputs by the contemporary Damien Rice and the Dead Weather, and a finale of genius by Pink Floyd at the Ummagumma. Perhaps the failed culture biopsy maybe redeemed.
And twas.
Excluding the portrait of me answering the door after toweling off and finding what I assume is a maid in ‘Hello Kitty’ attire. She mumbles something in that yo-yo language of theirs. I try to think in charades but come out dry.
Again, this time she plays charades and stabs my wrist with an onion-colored finger. I give her the universal shoulders up, scribble smile, blown eyes, I’ve got no idea what’s going on look and hope it works.
It does.
She growls, tears the key out of my hand, tosses me another, and disappears down the hall. I’ve got no idea what sense there is in the trade and no clue as to what she’s damning or mumbling or bubbling about as she stomps off but it’s whatever. I shrug, shut the door, and hook the key.
Fifteen minutes later I pass out after a full day awake, trying on a little less than a dozen different bottles of after shave and lotion with pictures of roses, orchids, and lotus plants, figuring out why the hell the hotel gave me a vanilla flavored condom, flipping through photo albums and memories, getting pissed and scolding Ayn Rand for producing another bloated, high brow culture novel, and shuffling each and every possible scenario of what a tomorrow in Korea might be without ever coming close to the insane reality awaiting me on the other side of the oriental door.

So.

I’m going to go ahead and fast forward several days because it’s only fair to have the reader just as confused as I was on day one of officially teaching. All you’re missing is observation anyway, including me, in the back of the classroom, half-gassed from jet lag, suffering ADD, spending most of the time sketching random elephant, rock band, and word play whatevers on my notepad.
So here it goes.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Teacher, teacher she is grandmother.” That is Donald. A Korean boy about four feet tall with brown wine bags for cheeks and the giddiness of a hamster in an automatic running wheel after yoghurt treats trying to convince me that the Statue of Liberty is in fact called ‘Grandmother’.
“No, no, that’s the Statue of Liberty.” I point desperately to a map of the states, index finger somewhere east of Manhattan, my left hand struggling to chalk up a proper picture on the marker board. “And what’s she holding?”
“Me, me, me!!” Hands hit the ceiling, bottoms leave chairs, and every damn kid in the entire classroom wants to lecture me on one of the most overrated pieces of American history. And, of course, I decide to call on dear Donald.
“A glass of water!!”
The sad thing is most American students would probably cough up the same answer but with far less enthusiasm. I blame the Brit teacher I’m replacing for corrupt humor and move on. Besides, it’s the World Cup and I’d rather hack pocus over a great sport than a useless birthday present.
“Who can tell me what team Korea plays next for soccer?”
“Me, me, me!!” The barrage. I’m on Normandy beach with a dozen Korean children for MG42s.
“Yes!” I avoid Donald and call on a little girl with brushstrokes for eyebrows and Velma glasses.
“Argentina!”
“Yes, good, and who do you think will win?”
The patriotic consensus is Korea, the two or three students who are more down-to-earth in the realm of the possible and what is and what isn’t are barely audible. I, of course, make the mistake of siding with the correct minority and become another head under the guillotine.
“Really? I’m not so sure, Argentina is pretty good!”
“No teacher, no teacher, no!”
Someone throws a pencil. I’m appalled. A pencil, really? I reach to pick it up, that damn steel blue neck and queer teddy bear pattern staring up at me with a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon.
“Teacher no like Korea!”
Of course that’s Donald. Playing Robespierre, playing Samuel Adams, only at the age of six with a glass supernova in each eye and a crowd of children just as uncontrollable and willing to partake in chaos as any other group of three or more.

WHAM!! WHACK!! WHOMP!!!

That night I went home with welts the size of holes in the hay house of the idiot pig who thought a wolf with a hurricane for lungs couldn’t capsize his home.

Lesson Three: Nationalism exists everywhere.

After work, sore, hating anything and all things eastern, craving something glorious and western, I truck over to the nearest McDonald’s, point at a picture I assume is a Big Mac, salivate, and wait. What I get is a burger that’s not been tossed together by some careless stateside Mexican, French fries without the option of mayonnaise, and sweet and sour sauce instead of Mac sauce.
It’s whatever. It’s a burger. And that’s all I need for my vaccine.
A few minutes later I’m back in my apartment, an oriental fix I broke in in less than an hour, decked out with a collage of my girlfriend, classic rock posters, to-do lists I’ll probably never even get to (so western), a pregnant bookshelf of cosmos, Asimov, and postmodern literature, and everything else I lugged along to keep the me in me.
Outside of that, we’re left with the raw skin of the apartment. It’s got lily crystal tint windows, a pasty marmalade wardrobe with bamboo stripping, swathe modernist cloud wallpaper, and mustard flooring. A bathroom no bigger than a walk in closet, parted by sliding doors, a typical fridge, a typical washer, a typical sink, and a typical overhead cabinet. The only thing absent is the American dryer, the concept nonexistent in Korea, a drying rack with as many arms as a heptapus, the considered appropriate, natural substitute.
The bathroom is the only real oddity. Toilet is where it should be, sink is in the expected location, but tub or shower??? Nothing. Minus a hose and a shower head clipped into a hook above the sink. No curtain, no floor basin, no nothing. You straight hose and flow in the middle of the bathroom over a three by three drain that’s designed to suck every liquid in from every corner.
Alright.
Whatever.
I shower, watch the Simpsons in English with Korean subtitles, and chow down on the local version of shrimp-flavored ramen wrestling with my chopsticks like they’re some kind of metal wild horses. Unaware that in t-minus 8 hours I’ll be embarking on the most absurd field trip I’ve ever been on in my entire life.