It is the evening of my second full day living in Seongbuk-gu, Seoul. Since I hauled myself and my luggage through security at the Raleigh/Durham airport until now, where I’m sitting in my one room apartment on the other side of the world, I’ve been hyper sensitive to so much detail that I’m too tired to reproduce it in any way here.
I’ve been assigned to Jongam Middle School, which was built practically slammed up against a rocky cliff side. The top of the cliff side is covered with trees and bushes. It is beautiful, but the Koreans think the location means the land is cheap. I think this is fucking crazy-not simply because to my Western eye it is beautiful, but because their shame goes so far as to photoshop the damned thing out of official photographs.
My first impression is that Seoul has extreme disparities in the appearance of the city. There are areas of classic, dignified Asian beauty, if a little weather worn, and areas of grotesque trashiness that beat everything I’ve seen in the states, hands down, legs in the air, blood and guts oozing on the floor. Like woah holy shit that is tacky.
The Koreans can’t stop gawking at me, and I can’t stop gawking at their city.
It is a weird and beautiful world over here, and though in these past couple of days I haven’t always felt at ease, at least it has been intensely interesting.
