Post II: The Case of The Missing Bike

I live in a section of Wonju called Usandong. Usandong is on the north side of Wonju (to get more perspective, I live in the southern inland tip of a province -Kangwon do- that borders North Korea. I'm in the northeast half of South Korea. The province I live in is literally split in half by the northern border). Usanddong has a fair amount of greenery for urban Korea, an abundance of machine shops and light industry, and is as of now kinda Wonju's ghetto. Up until either a year or two ago the bus terminal was in this bureau. Well, it moved to an area of town called Dong-ee-tech-shi and took a good amount of the business with it.

In the American mindset, poverty=higher rates of theft and burglary. This isn't quite the pattern over here, though. I suggest a good book that my girlfriend lent me, Confucius Live Next Door by journalist T.R. Reid. I could make this entire blog about the different patterns of crime between modern Confucian and modern Liberal nations, but I won't. I'll consider touching on those differences in another post or two. Point is, check out this book if you want a good intro for understanding the differences between East Asia and Western Europe/The Americas.

Anyway, I got a bike when I got here. No, that's not quite right. The teacher who lived in my apartment before me had a bike, was going to sell it to one of her friends and I instead bought that bike from said friend. A New Zealander in Yeoju.

It's a Pascal 300. I love triangles! Clearly a sign that this bike was meant for me.

But then one day I couldn't find it. Did I leave it in the stairwell? By the bakery? By that bar that has a mural with Ghandi, Jim Carrey, and Sinead O'Connor on the ceiling? My memory was hazy. I would stop and stare at bikes I'd find on the street. This made a few locals nervous, so I figured I'd just end my search.

After little deliberation, I gave into that Franco complaceny that we in Louisiana are so good at, and bought a bike from a friend.I was happy with my new bike. I figured someone stole the old one; my collegues thought that was possible given the youth of Usandong.

But then last week I decided to go down to the river by my apartment. I was passing a junkyard and -lo and behold- there it is, the Pascal 300. But we must be careful with such things. That it has a similar security lock (placed over the handle bars and not bolting it to anything) and description does not mean it is mine. My visual memory is very, very bad. So I decided to stake out the place. I'd pass by and give the bike a little smile. I'd like to think it remembered me, if I lived in some alternate world where bicycles have cognition. After three days of this, I decided to take the bike.

The bike is now back in my possession  and I'm trying to sell it. I'm going to need the key for the lock, but I left that in America. Hopefully that'll arrive soon.

In all likelihood I probably forgot the bike somewhere and some civil servant put the bike outside the junk yard. Of course, given I don't have yet have the key to confirm that this is indeed my bike, it may well be that the only bike thief in Usandong is myself.

Post 1: The Little Things

It’s the little differences between Korea and America. The many little, small details that make being in Korea being Korea. Don’t get me wrong, every now and then I’ll ride my bike by the Buddhist temple near my house or walk up and down the flashing neons of downtown and think ‘oh wow, I’m in Asia’, but the thing that solidifies living in Korea are the tiny variations that I had always taken for granted.

When I visited my family over the summer that there are so many small differences between Korea and America that I could spend all of my time talking about it (so I didn’t lest I become too boring). When I told a couple of my friends here about my observation –that it’s the little things that solidify for me the fact that I currently live in East Asia- they asked me what those little things were.  I was lost for words.

I think if I were to make a pie chart of what I’ve done with my life so far, at least 25.8% or so of that chart would be times when I look like an idiot.

I composed a list in my head. And here it is, the little things (in no particular order):

-Using scissors to cut meat and noodles (why didn’t we think of that?)

-The Yo-gi yo button (a little button at most restaurants that sits on your table that you press for service)

-Lack of Kleenex, abundance of toilet paper

-Lack of public trashcans (but the streets are still relatively clean)

-All the trucks here are small cabovers.

-Cigarettes have way less nicotine (though I’ve more or less quit smoking)

-Almost no fat people

-Almost no scrubby looking people

-the weed-whackers don’t have plastic strings as their blades, but rather large metal propellers. They could easily double as outboard motors.

-having to put used toilet paper in the trash can instead of flushing it

-fruit as a side dish for drinking beer

-generally having to order food at every place that serves beer

-heated floors

-there’s more, I just can’t think of them right now.

That’s what makes living here different, really. It would be one thing if this was just Louisiana with mountains and multi-colored pagodas, but it’s very much not. These small alterations mean there will always be a good chance of Korea surprising me. That’s part of the charm.

So there you go: my first post. Many will follow. Weekly is the plan.