Moon worship (edited)

Friday afternoon Rachel arrived in Suncheon just as my last class finished. I jumped on a bus to go and retrieve her, only to find that she was at the Suncheon Bus Terminal, not Suncheon Station. Since I didn't know how to get there by bus, I gave her directions to my apartment over the phone, and she got in a cab and met me there. We hung around the apartment, "catching up" as they say, and then had dinner with my host family---that is Mrs. Lee and Seo Young. Seo In was still at school and Seo Jin was at academy, and Mr. Lee as usual was still in Gwanju, where he works. Rachel kept them on their toes by breaking out with some of the Korean we learned during Orientation, which I've never used with them.

Later Rachel and I did indeed end up at Elvis. There were some foreigners there that we didn't recognize, but they invited us to sit with them. When one of them found out we were American he seemed excited, and struck up a conversation. I guess Americans aren't nearly as common in Suncheon as Canadians are. He was from Detroit, and from the two hours we experienced listening to him, I've constructed this rough timeline of his life:

At age 20 he entered the Elementary Education bachelor's program at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He chose the field because his Irish-Catholic family didn't have very much money, and there were scholarships available for this major. During his time in Michigan he fostered an interest in art, especially pen and ink drawing, but never studied art academically, something which he regrets. Most of his friends were in computer science, and moved to Silicon Valley. At some point he became a tattoo artist in Detroit, and did such work as touching up prision tattoos, and tattooing the names of dead men on their friends bodies. During the year after he graduated he taught many grades in a one-room school in an Iniut village in Alaska, where he was given the Inuit name "Gomgechuq," which means, "the part of the fish that is thrown away," in other words, fishbones, because he was so thin. His roommate during Orientation in Alaska was given the name "Six Toes" because of injuries due to frostbite, which also resulted in an gangrenous hole in the bottom of Six Toes' foot, which he never seemed very bothered by. He has also visited Mexico with his aunt, and viewed murals by Diego Rivera. Since the summer of 2000 our friend has been living, perhaps intermittenly, in South Korea, in different towns, teaching English. Currently he works for the province, and gets paid twice as much as we ETAs do (he seemed surprised that we make only 1.4 million won a month, and appalled that we must live with host families). He often goes hiking and rock climbing, and has seen Korean raccoons and awoken to wild pigs in his campsite. Recently he married a Korean woman. Once, his best friend, who was also the best man at his wedding, asked him a favor. This favor consisted of tattooing an alligator over the addendix scar of a Korean gangster. He has also tattooed his friends with such images as Chinese ink paintings and crows flying upwards. He now has a two month-old son (he proudly exhibited photographs of the infant a few moments after meeting us). Our friend turned 29 last month. This winter he plans to visit the States and bring his tattooing equipment with him. He offered to show my friend Rachel, a pen and ink artist, how to tattoo. He has people in Korea who have asked for tattoo work (all gangsters, since tattoos have not yet become acceptable in the mainstream in Korea), and she is welcome to observe, or use his equipment to practice on a melon.

Maybe my favorite part of the conversation was when he asked us our religions. My friend Rachel, always very genuine, said, "I worship the moon." He said, "What?" She said, "I pay a lot of attention to the moon." Without missing a beat, he said, "Well, it's hard not to."

He was surprised that we were so young. When he found out I was an English major, he asked my advice on a screenplay he was working on, and gave us plenty of advice on places to hike in Korea. He had a tattoo on his arm of a winged lion and a flag with an eight-pointed star (a Buddhist symbol). It was done by his tattoo teacher, but he was dissatisfied with it, though he wore a sleeveless shirt that exposed it. He showed us the flaws in the wings, and it seemed familiar to me--maybe I was recalling the drawing lessons I took back in Michigan when I was pretty young, which were consumed by drawing from photographs of animals. "Feathers aren't rounded at the bottom, are they?" No they are not, they're tapered, blade-like. Don't trace the wing in first and fill it in with feathers later--draw each feather individually, or, like in this tattoo, you end up with feathers squeezed in that look like they are just filling up space, in that little wedge between the vertical feathers and the wingtip.

As he reminded us a couple times, a tattoo is not like pencil, you can't erase it, and it's not like pen and ink, you can't throw it away. But the special nature of the tattoo as a work of art, with a living person as the medium, makes it an amazing experience for the artist.

When our friend left the bar a few minutes before we did, he told us that speaking to us had been like a breath of fresh air. Maybe he was happy to see new people to tell his stories to, people that had their own associations with Ann Arbor and Alaska, nonetheless, I have to admit I enjoyed listening to him.

This morning Rachel and I took a bus to Gwanju, where we met nine other ETAs that happened to be in Gwanju as well, most of them attending a baseball gave that evening. For the sake of seeing everyone, we met them for lunch at TGI Friday's, a place I've actually never been to in the States. Almost everyone got a chicken quesadilla--I guess some kind of clue to what kind of food most people are missing in Korea.

Joanne and Rachel and I had met up intending to check out the Gwanju Biennial, a large art exhibit downtown, but we ended up spending a lot of the day at a small street fair, that sort of reminded me of something called the Solano Stroll that we have in Albany. There were various booths, which appeared to be mostly non-profit or governmental organizations, and a huge stage with singing and dancing. At one point we watched a troupe of elementary or middle school girls dance in silver lame to a medly of different pop songs (including 'Toxic'). The performance was completed by a huge video screen in back, and occassionally accented by blow torches and strobe lights.

We also saw a few girls dressed up like comic book characters walking around the fair. We recognized the practice, since we'd seen photos of it before, and apparently it's fairly popular. These girls, mostly high school girls, make their own costumes and show up at events where numerous people photograph them. I had my camera with me and took a few pictures at the fair, though only one of them was of a costumed person.

Eventually we worked our way to a free event that was part of the art exhibit, located in a subway station. We saw a couple interesting/vaguely creepy modern art installments, and also a lot of paintings, and a few sculptures that appeared to be done by local artists. Then we went down to the train platform and rode the subway back to the bus terminal. Joanne headed to Jeonju, Rachel back to Jeonup, and I got on a bus to Suncheon. I got off at the University and got on the old reliable 71 that takes me straight to the apartment. After I came into the apartment, my host mother asked me if I'd had a good time and said I looked sad. I was tired and hungry, but maybe I was already missing my friends. It was nice to see people again, even if it was only for a few hours. Over all, I think my first trip outside of Suncheon since I started teaching was a success. Gwanju is a large city, with a lot to do, and so I hope to go back there again and maybe get to know it well.

Reading: I started "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck Thursday night, though I haven't read any of it since.