The Sunday plan was to get garbage bags. I had 10 more days in Korea, and the need to get things done felt way more pressing than it had at 11 days. After swallowing a last spoon of mac and cheese, I high-stepped across my apartment, which had become an exhibition of openness: open boxes, an open suitcase, and an open travel backpack. For the past year, my clothes, papers, books, and technology were usually hidden and organized and belonged to certain drawers, closets, and tables, but now they belonged nowhere. They existed in a limbo, and I was there God, deciding whether they were going to Vietnam, Canada, or across South East Asia.
I put my cheese-crusted bowl in the sink then set out. It was my third attempt at getting garbage bags. The first time I went to Homeplus Express, a little brother version of the real deal where I did most of my shopping. I asked an employee about garbage bags, and he squinted his eyes and looked off to the side as if he was searching a mental inventory of every item in the store. He disappointedly told me, “Obsoyo”. The second place I checked was the mart under my apartment. I caught the owner, an old lady, at the storefront. As usual, she didn’t smile. No matter how many broccoli florets, onions and containers of kimchi I purchased, she still eyed me with suspicion whenever I entered her mart. I asked her about the garbage bags, and she didn’t need to check her mental inventory to tell me “Obsoyo”.
This time, I wasn’t messing around. I wasn’t going to any small stores—I was going to the big Homeplus at Centum City, a two level superstore with everything from baseball bats to shrimp. Walking, my neighborhood, Suyeong, felt simultaneously homey and unfamiliar. On one end, I had memorized my surroundings. I knew all the animated pigs, octopuses, and cows on restaurant signs, the noraebangs (karaoke rooms) with enlarged pictures of woman with plastic boobs, noses, and eyelids, the hostels, the hotels, and the old women who seemed as sturdy and permanent as their food carts. This was my neighborhood. I made money here. I drank and ate here. I waited at the bus stops here. On most warm mornings, I ran up a nearby mountain and worked out at the top. Heck, I even dated a girl who lived and grew up right down the street from my house. Yet, on the other end, it was never my neighborhood. Everywhere in Korea, except for a few foreign owned bars, had always felt oblique, as if the natives saw and understood things I couldn’t see. And, today, in the early afternoon of a chilly Sunday, all the people I walked by were inside themselves; nothing about their lives was made public. The absence of eye contact made me feel as if I made zero impact on any humans that crossed my path. Suyeong and Busan and Korea would be the same– with or without me.
My “woe is me” thoughts changed when I crossed a bridge over the Suyeong River. On my left side, the river sliced into the city. On the right, there was the tail of the Diamond Bridge and behind it was the Yellow Sea stretching to the smoggy horizon. The wind picked up, and my thoughts about my place in society were blown away by the shear expanse of nature. This, I noted, would be what I would miss about Busan. There was always a beach or a mountain to suck me out of my brain.
After the bridge was the area around Shinsegae Mall, the largest department store in Asia. This was the place that inspired my essay on Korean vs. Canadian malls. I walked with purpose around the glacial shopping crowds. My heart sank when I got to the crosswalk and saw metal rails in front of Homeplus. Lots of stuff was closed on Sunday in Busan. Yet again, I thought, I get spurned for not doing a quick check before leaving the house. This was one of my bad habits, and I knew it would punish me at some point on my travels.
Luckily, Google told me E-Mart was open. E-Mart was even bigger than Homeplus. It was a three level superstore that sold everything that Homeplus sold, plus electronics. E-Mart held a special place in my heart. I’ll always remember the first time I stepped onto its glossy floor. The store had meat and fruits and vegetables. There were English signs. There were familiar snacks. It was basically a cleaner version of Wal-Mart. Before arriving in Korea, I’d imagined I’d be squeezing through street markets, haggling with tough old ladies, and eating alien foods. So, the first time I walked up to the self-check-out, clicked the “ENGLISH” button, scanned my items, and got the approved sign for my Canadian debit card was the first time I believed that I would, in fact, not die in South Korea. (Later into my ex-pat life, I would occasionally feel cheated by Korean convenience. I moved across the world for adventure, and, instead, the society coddled me more than my mother.)
At one point on my walk, I spoke to an old man on a bike. He rolled by with a tennis racked poking out of his bag, turned his head back, and yelled, “Where are you from!?” Then he stopped his bike 5 meters ahead, got off, and waited for my answer. After I said, “Canada”, he announced that he had been an English teacher for 25 years. Then he started peppering me with questions like “Where do you live? Where do you work? How long have you been here? How old are you? Are you married?” He glided past all my answers except the marriage one. He said I was handsome, so, for him, it was genuinely bewildering why I wasn’t married. All my answers about being only 26, not finding the right girl, and leaving soon seemed absurd to him. My responses were received with furrowed brow and laugh. When things started to feel more like interrogation than conversation, I theorized that speaking English must pull him into a “teacher” identity. Every time I volleyed a question about his life, he laughed and gave me short responses, as if I was a student, as if this wasn’t my role in the conversation. I was thankful when we arrived at his apartment. He shook my hand, and, as he wheeled his bike away, he put up his fist and said, “Go Korea!” So I put up a fist and said, “Go Korea!”
Alone again, I realized I was walking from new to old apartment. It had been a while since I’d visited my old hood. While it was the background for some good times, I hated the location. Close to the touristy Haeundae Beach, the neighborhood serviced temporariness. Most buildings were tacky motels. They either had odd themes, like the Inca hotel, anachronistically designed as a medieval castle, or they were covered with neon promises of luxury for cheap prices. The restaurants were all overpriced. The streets were always littered with cigarette butts. And behind my apartment, there was a mini red light district. The city had placed large plants on the sidewalk to mask the transparent screen doors, pink lights, and scantily clad women from the general public. I got a close look at them and their old customers in my elevator rides.
My first week in that area was sketchy. First, I saw two women fighting outside a Baskin Robbins. One woman got her head bashed into the store glass then a van window then had two thumbs pushed into her eyes. I ran out of the store and broke it up while 7 people stood there and, almost, witnessed a blinding. The next night, I went into my building’s convenience store and, as soon as I opened the door, I saw a drunk man throw a steaming cup of instant noodles at the cashier. Luckily, he missed. While I never saw another fight, the area wasn’t designed for normal life. My lasting image of Haeundae life: finishing work, being tired, and carrying several grocery bags past patios filled with high heels, suits, and debauchery.
Ten minutes later, I made it to E-Mart. And once again, my heart sank. Google said E-Mart was open, but Korea doesn’t like sharing their information with Google. Metal bars were in front of the entrance. Because I saw lights and people inside, I walked around, hoping that another entrance was open. I found a sign with hangul and the numbers 8 and 23. Even though I knew what it would say, I slowly typed Korean in my phone until I read it was closed—in English.
Before I started punishing myself for impulsive decision-making, I framed the day as “a walk down memory lane”. And, as I headed back home without garbage bags, I was glad that I did the walk. I got myself a toast packed with cheese, eggs, vegetables, ketchup, and sugar, and ate it next to the beach. As crowds of Korean tourists, Chinese travel groups, navy dudes, and families passed behind me, I thought about how they probably saw me as a sweatpants and toque wearing, bearded, lonely traveler. Even though I’d walked the length of the beach hundreds of times, I felt no need to prove them wrong. Instead, I tried to use this energy. I tried to become the 24-year old kid that took a train from Seoul on a Saturday morning. The kid that didn’t even take off his jacket or unpack when he got into his new apartment. The kid that immediately walked to the beach and sat on a step with no plans, no friends, and no idea what he was doing for Christmas the next weekend. Two years ago, I looked out at the water, breathed in the salty air, and marveled that I had a beach in my backyard. And at that time, it was all I needed to be happy.
Eventually, I got back to Suyeong. I kicked off my shoes and slid off my backpack. While my room was messy, it was not dirty. I didn’t need garbage bags to clean up, to throw things out. I needed garbage bags to protect my clothes, books, and letters. I was sending all my winter clothes back to Canada in boxes. A couple friends had warned me that sending things home was risky business. After months of travel, the boxes would show up on their doorstep ripped, squished, or wet: the contents of their past life were moldy, faded, and ruined. As the night swallowed my 10th day in Korea, I would spend the remaining 9 making sure some pieces of this life remained intact.