The Irreverent Traveller

“Have you noticed anything odd at our hostel?” David asked us. We were sipping frosty beers and eating skewered meat in one of Beijing’s many beer gardens.

I raised an eyebrow. Well, I would raise an eyebrow if I could. I have practiced for hours in front of the mirror because it seems so seductive and casual. But my muscles – much like other things in my life – do not cooperate with me to make me seem ever-so cool.

Instead, I probably scrunched my face like I was constipated. Are you happy now, readers? I can’t even sound sexy on my own blog. So fine: I crumpled my face like I needed fibre.

This is my cool face. My God. I need to find a mirror, stat, and make out with myself now.

[...]

I’m not comparing the fence around my former house to The Great Wall of China.

But the similarities are quite startling.

The Great Wall was a series of fortifications, each modified by the dynasty of the era’s paranoid ruler, to keep out those pesky Mongols and other nomadic tribes.

My fence was a chain-link barricade to keep out pesky neighbours who insisted on engaging in small talk about weather and dental appointments.

I get you, China. It’s annoying when your rights are infringed upon by roving, intrusive people who won’t leave you in peace. [...]

Not a polyglot?

Fear not when you come to China!

People can speak English!

Well, sort of.

[...]

There’s something that people don’t tell you about China.

I thought I knew everything there was before I was going in.

I was prepared.

My friends told me about their own experiences. I read articles online.

It’s loud. It’s aggressive. People will push you out of the way. It’s hot. It’s polluted. It can smell.

You will feel types of claustrophobia you have never experienced. People spit incessantly.

People will pick their noses. You will see things that will make you balk in horror.

I was ready. Bring it on, China, I thought, crushing a beer can into my head and screaming to prove I was invincible. Well, I was actually screaming because I hadn’t crushed an empty one but rather, a full one into my cranium. [...]

There’s a famous and quite poignant scene in the most internationally renowed Korean film, Oldboy. After fifteen years of being held captive without any inkling to why,  Dae-su is released. He stumbles onto the street, disoriented, and goes into a restaurant.

He orders sannakji (live octopus) and stares at it. He then suddenly rams it into his mouth, the tentacles spreading across his face like clammy hands trying to evade death.

After feeling so numb, he wants to feel alive, wants to literally taste life.

After being in Calgary for almost fifteen years, I could relate to Dae-su.  Living there would make anyone want to eat a live sea creature to feel alive again.

So, I did. [...]

I was flipping through my Korean slang book one day, trying to learn how to insult potential friends in Korean, when I stumbled upon an example of how to use the word ban-sa.

Literally meaning “reflection”, this is the Korean equivalent of the Western phrase “I am rubber; you are glue. Whatever you say, bounces off me and sticks to you”.

An example highlighted how the word ban-sa would appear in a conversation between fictitious brother Kyo-wul and sister Yeo-rum:

Yeo-rum: You’re ugly!
Kyo-wul: Ban-sa! And you’re stupid!
Yeo-rum: Double ban-sa!! Oh yeah? I can study and get smarter, but you’ll always be ugly!
Kyo-wul: Mom says I can get plastic surgery if I want!

And through a seemingly innocuous demonstration of how to use slang, we see evidence of one of South Korea’s massive cultural trends: plastic surgery.

Little Kyo-Wul is right. He can get plastic surgery. And he wouldn’t be alone. [...]

When I was a child, I dreamed of being a singer.

I would sing Disney songs over and over again until my parents hid the cassettes.

I would hit pots and pans and compose songs on the spot until my mother threatened to scald me with frying oil if I didn’t stop.

I would trill along with my father’s vinyl, jutting my hips in rhythm with such an ardent zeal that my father would tell me to calm down and go drink some sugar-free juice.

I joined the school choir and warbled with dreams in my eyes. I crooned school solos while miming passionately with my hands. I harmonized the latest pop hits with my best friends on the school bus. I took vocal lessons in high school. I went to a recording studio and belted my dreams out into the microphone.

My parents, the South Asian realists, smiled politely throughout the years I pranced around the house like a deluded canary. And made sure at every possible moment to remind me what a foolish career path singing would be. [...]

Warning: The following post contains NSFW images. That is, unless you work in Europe. Then invite your boss over to your desk. Ask your grandma to join you while you are it. Then read this while eating organic bread and discussing philosophy. 

Tucked among the plethora of Jeju’s bizarre theme parks was one that particularly caught my eye.

Welcome to Love Land, Korea’s premier erotic theme park.

In the midst of a conservative country that eschews overt sexuality in favour of lapping up the fleeting waters of a fountain of youth, Love Land is not exactly the kind of destination you would associate with Korea. [...]

When you ask Koreans what the best place to go for domestic tourism is, more likely than not, the immediate response will be Jeju-do.

An island off the southern coast of Korea, Jeju is a popular vacation spot for many Koreans. It is also famed as the ideal honeymoon spot.

Hence, the logical choice of who I should go to this renowned romantic retreat was with Annie, a girl I met and spoke to for all of five minutes in the hostel I was staying at when we discovered that we both wanted to explore Jeju for ourselves. [...]

The summer before twelfth grade, at the age of seventeen, two of my friends and I were invited to a party by boys that were out of high school. It was a rather scintillating prospect: older boys and the promise of liquor.

Which I had never touched.

Boys or booze, you wonder?

Both.

I had a pretty thriving high school dating career, as you can see.

[...]

My boyfriend Dan and I were leaving the coastal city of Busan, famed in Korea for its laidback beaches. As I hailed a taxi to take us to the train station, the motel owner’s wife came over and began speaking to Dan in Korean.

I had no idea what was being said but I was noticing some peculiar body language unfolding from both sides. I later asked Dan what had transpired.

It turns out that the kindly owner was very concerned and wanted to caution Dan that we had to take care of ourselves. The sun’s UV rays are very harmful.

She was concerned about how tanned I had gotten in what she perceived as one weekend at the beach.

Looking at Dan’s alabaster skin, she assumed I was also of the Caucasian persuasion and somehow had achieved my tawny skin by roasting slowly in sizzling solar rays. [...]