The following is a draft excerpt from my novel, Gyeosunim. If you haven't read my previous novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, be warned that while there are no spoilers, you may be missing some context.
Sunday, May 12, 2019
It was exactly where I expected it to be.
Standing on Gyeonggijeon-gil, on the side of the road where the high school looked just as it had, more than twenty years earlier, I looked to the opposite side of the road, to where a dilapidated, traditional house once stood, to see a box-like building with modern signage. It was the old kalguk-su restaurant where I had my first meal in Korea, in March, 1997.
Walking through the sliding glass doors, I saw an open kitchen immediately to my right. To my left, four small tables lined the exterior wall. Two more tables were on the opposite wall, and an open doorway led to what looked like additional tables and possibly a washroom. Two young Korean women were standing by the kitchen, removing stainless steel bowls from a dishwasher and organizing cutlery. They were fully engaged in conversation and when they saw that I was a westerner, they almost seemed surprised.
“Annyong-haseyo,” I greeted them.
One of the women turned to me. “Han saram?” she asked.
“Nae,” I acknowledged that I was alone. She seated me in the back corner to this vacant area and I sat with my back to the wall, facing toward the kitchen and entrance. Once seated, I said, “Kalguk-su, hannah, chuseyo,” ordering my meal straight away.
She nodded and said, “Nae, chil cheon-obaek won, chuseyo.” She wanted me to pay up-front. This was new to me, as I had always paid the bill at the end of my meal, much as I have done around the world. I reached into my pocket and had the exact amount of seven-thousand, five-hundred won. “Nae, gomap-subnida,” she said and went off to the kitchen.
I was surprised to find the restaurant devoid of customers. In past visits, when the restaurant was a dilapidated house, every table was packed. You had to remove your shoes before entering and always had to wade through myriad pairs just to cross over the threshold. I didn’t have to remove my shoes this time and the tables were not low to the floor, as they used to be. Instead of sitting on a pillow, on the floor, I sat in a wooden chair. And the price of the kalguk-su, a spicy noodle soup, was now more than three times the cost from 1998. With all of these changes, I feared that the recipe would also be different.
I was not disappointed. The soup came with the spices piled in the centre of the bowl, and I used chopsticks to mix it in. My server also placed two other small dishes in front of me: one was an unidentified root vegetable in a red paste, like kimchi. The other dish held yellow medallions of pickled turnips. As soon as I had the first spoonful of kalguk-su in my mouth, the memories of my first visit, with Jason, a former teacher at my hagwon, came back. It was as though it had only been yesterday since my last visit to this restaurant.
As I finished my meal, more patrons entered the restaurant and I realized that I had simply beat the dinner crowd. By the time I was done, almost every table on this side of the restaurant was occupied and other customers were being ushered into the back room. As soon as I was done, I got up, thanked the server, who was near the kitchen, and made my way back onto the streets of the Hanok Village.
I felt as though I was in a theme park. Many of the buildings had been vastly renovated or rebuilt, and they were clean and uniform. The main streets had a relatively fresh layer of asphalt, with nary a crack or pothole to be found. Pedestrian crosswalks were tiled with different coloured bricks, and side streets were cobblestoned. It seemed artificial. Many of the shops catered to tourists, with plenty of hanbok rentals and photography studios, where you could wear traditional clothing or outfits that belonged in early twentieth-century America. Other stores offered Korean-styled fast food: spiced meat on sticks and cool treats. There were convenience stores and even a Poong-nyun Bakery, now abbreviated in English to PNB, in a traditional structure.
The people who wandered these streets were young, mostly in their twenties. I remembered these streets from 1997 and 1998, where the population of this neighbourhood seemed as ancient as the buildings. From my memory, I remembered walking along the main road of the Hanok Village and seeing many older adults, the ajumahs and ajuhshees—aunts and uncles—or older still, the hal-abeojis and halmeonis—grandpas and grandmas. They would be going about their business, shopping for groceries or simply strolling around the neighbourhood in which they grew up, having survived the Korean War or possibly, even, the last Japanese occupation. Now, it was kids, dressed in rented hanbok or wearing t-shirts with nonsensical expressions, in English, such as Something Lucky or That’s COOL—where the Os were replaced with red hearts—or How About You? They all looked like tourists or visitors from other parts of Chŏnju. Occasionally, I would see an older person, but they would walk past the bright new shops with solemn faces, as though they had lost something that had once been genuine.
On one side street, a moving brook meandered along a sidewalk, at one point running under the sidewalk, which was raised like a bridge, and ended at an ornate fountain. It seemed so contrived that the neighbourhood had lost its old-world charm.
I came to an intersection that felt familiar, even though it looked different, and I turned down a side street. A short distance later, I saw a wooden staircase that led up a forested hillside, and I knew exactly where I was. I climbed the stairs and followed a path that led me upwards, over the neighbourhood. A large, wooden balcony jutted out from the path and I could look northwestward, past Hanok Village, toward the city centre as the sun, semi-obstructed by a haze, fell toward the horizon, casting a warm peach glow. This view had changed very little over the past two decades. I could make out a tall black office tower and knew it was not far from the city hall building, though I couldn’t see that one. Looking westward, I could see the spire of Jeondong Cathedral and beyond that, parts of P’ungnammun, the thousand-year-old gate. Beyond the old city gate, beyond the five-hills park that was partially obscured by late-day haze, towers loomed large in the distance. It was a newer, modern Chŏnju, a part of the city I had yet to see. It appeared as a modern backdrop to an ancient city, straight out of a sci-fi film.
I climbed another set of stairs and reached the top of the hill, where Omok-dae Park also remained unchanged. The large pavilion, which offered visitors shelter from both sun and rain, had received a fresh coat of paint some years ago but had faded to a shade that I remembered from 1998. It was a daytime retreat for those who wanted to get away from the bustle of the city without leaving it entirely. I could see only a couple of people relaxing within the pavilion; earlier in the day, this spot would have been crowded but the sky had become overcast and rain threatened to soak the grassless, well-worn grounds that revealed a tan earth. I wandered the grounds, taking photographs with the digital camera that was slung over my shoulder.
At the opposite end of the park, the wooden path led downward. I could see the south end of the city and Namgosan, the small hill on which I had spent many hours, where a small temple and the remains of a fortress wall used to show a commanding view of Chŏnju. Only now, this hill was obscured by towering apartment complexes. I wanted to take some time, during this visit, to return to the temple on Namgosan, but I suspected that the view would be very different now.
Back in Hanok Village, I wandered the streets a bit longer, looking at the neon lights and listening to the K-pop tunes that played from hidden speakers. This once-quaint, thousand-year-old neighbourhood was now a theme park, for sure. All that was missing were the thrill rides and arcade games. There were more young people than the aged residents that I remembered wandering the streets. Where they would have stopped and gawked at a western foreigner like me, the teens and young adults didn’t even bat an eye. While I didn’t miss the attention that I used to draw by the Chŏnju citizens, it was somewhat disturbing to be treated as though I was invisible.
Now that the sun had finally lowered itself behind distant hills and towering buildings, street lamps came on and the Hanok Village began to embrace the coming night. I wandered some of the streets that were away from the crowds of the main roads, and I eventually made my way back to my HanokStay room. My host, Choon-ju, was nowhere to be found but I could hear faint classical music playing from a radio deep within her living space, and a warm light came through a small, frosted-glass window. The fountains in the garden were still moving water in a soft babble and some of the ornamental lamps glowed faintly. Getting to my room, I realized that I had forgotten to put the chain and lock through the door, but there was nothing to fear: everything was where I had left it. I wondered if I should lock myself in for the night but decided that that, too, was unnecessary.
I made a video call to Fiona and to Siobhan, to let them know where I was and that I was safe, but that the jet lag, mixed with the travel from Seoul to Chŏnju was catching up to me and I bade them a goodnight before getting ready for bed.
I had yet to decide whether to contact Su-ah tomorrow or to wait a bit. I wanted to re-familiarize myself with Chŏnju, wanted to visit my old university, curious to see if any teachers remained. Brian and John had taught at Jeonju Dae for many years before I had come along and seemed determined to make South Korea their home. Would they still be teaching? Would Chul-won be running the department?
What about other people who had lived in Chŏnju? Where were my private students? Where was Mr. Lee? Were they still living in this city or had they moved on?
Thinking about these people from the past, I faded into a deep sleep.
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