Vortex

I'm let off the bus after work right in front of Marrakech Nights restaurant, across from the notoriously skanky Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon.  I usually jaywalk across the street to the way-too-popular-for-how-it-looks grocery store under the "foreigners only" branch of IBK bank (the one I endearingly call the "I-B-R*ped" for consistently crawling with wannabe promiscuous Larrys) and pick out something to cook for dinner.  Tofu and broccoli in tow, I pass the Indian man always handing out flyers for his restaurant, head left up the main street of Itaewon, past sock and sunglasses vendors, dodging tourists, foreign residents, and, these days, far too many Koreans for this neighborhood.  They seem to have forgotten how "dangerous" it is over here.  I'll keep squeezing my way through the busy sidewalk until I reach the lady grilling squid next to my crosswalk, right in front of the "OK Shopping" building.  That's its name.  I love how it's not "good," and it's not "bad," but it's just "OK."  I feel quite comfortable in this neighborhood.

I'm always happy when the crosswalk man turns green...not only because I can't wait to get home, but because grilled squid smells so sickeningly unpleasant.  While walking up my alley, I think about how normal things like that are now.  Whole squids, tentacles and all, flattened and cooked to the consistency of those pig ears they sell for dogs at pet shops, no longer call any attention to themselves.

Nothing is weird anymore.  Old ladies with osteoporosis so bad they should be in a wheelchair, walking down the street in the middle of busy traffic, slowly pulling a large cart heavily loaded with cardboard...do not warrant even a second glance.  My shower head, placed on the wall between the sink and washing machine, waters my entire bathroom floor--completely normal.  I don't even think about the laundry, always drying on a rack in the middle of my living room.

Women using sunbrellas go completely unnoticed these days.  Corn on pizza is just a fact of life.  Couples often wear matching T-shirts...that's just the way the world is!  Public restrooms have bar soap on a stick poking out from the wall...it's normal!  Cantaloupes and watermelons wrapped in big silky ribbons to be sold as gifts?  Old news, just like fancy SPAM giftsets.  The only things that make me turn my head are people with naturally red hair, or who are over 6'2" tall.  I think about these things as I walk up my hill, passing the same lady I see every day, right outside the French bakery, just beyond the chicken feet restaurant.  Back in the spring she was the pregnant lady.  Then she disappeared for a few months, and now she's back again, with a little friend.  I walk by a couple African men smoking cigarettes outside their apartment and the same little old ladies sitting on the ground outside of their dry cleaning business, always lively with conversation.  Depending on what kind of day I've had, I'll smile at them, or not.  Sometimes there's a traffic jam--one car is trying to drive up the street, and another car is going down.  There's only room for one car but it's a two-way alley.  I don't even think about this...I just weave around, sometimes walking between the two cars, which are always too expensive-looking to match my immediate surroundings, and keep trucking up the steep road.  Once a week, I do this with twelve whole liters of spring water, which I purchase at the little halfway-underground convenience store near the bottom of the hill.  It's right before the guy who sells creepy rubber Halloween masks, year-round.

I'm no longer living in some strange, faraway land.  Korea isn't distant, exotic, unfamiliar, or foreign.

America is.

I read posts on Facebook all the time from Americans.  Someone will complain about how Walgreens won't let them push the cart outside to their car, forcing them to carry their 24-pack of Coke all the way from the store to their car trunks.  Others lament about their 2 month long summer vacation being over.  Sometimes people talk about the things they've baked in an actual oven...and then there's the fact that they're saying "good morning" at night and "good night" in the morning.  Reality TV shows, downloaded from the internet, depict families parking their cars on actual grass, or bobbing for raw pigs' feet.  America is weird.  And although it's true that I can't wait to get back...I don't feel consciously homesick anymore.  I just feel...sort of...absent.  I'm just over here in the Big Brother house for a little while, playing a game.  You can watch me on TV, but I can't see you.  That's often what it feels like.

How did people do this before online video chatting?

After the things I've experienced, I'll come home like a veteran of war...nothing will be the same.  Reverse culture shock, which I've heard is much more disconcerting than the other way around, will hit me hard and I won't ever fit in with my own people again.  Either that, or everything will be the same, and I'll have just blinked my eyes and POOF!  Korea never happened.  I'll have just gone into some strange time and space vortex and returned, randomly knowing a few Korean words.

Wait...what am I talking about?  I never fit in to begin with anyways!  Vortex.

;)