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 there are spoilers and you may be missing some context.
Saturday, May 11, 2019
It was something that I had wanted to do in 1997 and in 1998, but had never found the time. And though Tanya and I had visited Seoul many times in 1997, we spent the majority of time with my old friend from Ottawa, Naomi.
Naomi Warner was an economist and financial advisor with First Canadian, an international bank, and had lived in the U.N. Village, in Hannam-Dong. She had arrived in Korea a few months after I had settled in Chŏnju: when she had learned of her posting, she contacted me to let me know that she would be arriving, and she gave me her Seoul address. On my first trip to Seoul, I sought out her upcoming residence, took some photos, and sent them to her.
Naomi had been Kristen’s best friend since university. After Kristen’s death, Naomi constantly tried reaching out to me, even though I withdrew into my grief. After the funeral, where we buried Kristen, our three-year-old daughter, Laura Elizabeth, and my dad, Naomi would come by my house a couple of times a week, bringing food, checking on my well-being, and letting me know that I had a friend who cared. But as I began drinking more and more to try and blot out my misery, I answered the door less and less. I stopped answering the phone, but Naomi always left messages. I could hear her voice as the answering machine recorded her message, until the memory space filled and stopped accepting calls.
After Siobhan and Mum had come to my rescue, to sober me up and get me moving again, Naomi was one of the first people I telephoned to thank and to let know that I was beginning my journey to move forward. She was the first of my friends to be invited back into my home, was the first friend to learn about my decision to move to Korea. Perhaps, when she was offered the bank posting in Seoul, the decision to accept the move was helped by knowing that I was already in the country.
The first time that Naomi and I saw each other in Seoul, I had brought Tanya with me. It was Tanya who told me, a short time later, that Naomi had a crush on me. I didn’t believe it, but Tanya insisted. “When you speak, she hangs on your every word, doesn’t take her eyes off of you. And she doesn’t like me. Her face changes when you say my name and she doesn’t look at me when I speak.” I don’t think I saw it because I was too in love with Tanya at the time to notice.
It wouldn’t be until my second year in Korea that I realized just how right Tanya had been.
That was then.
Today, Naomi was back in Canada, was now the chief analyst for First Canadian, working out of their headquarters in Toronto. I would often see her on streamed video, through the CBC, or hear her voice when I tuned into CBC Radio, or read quotes from her, in online news, whenever they needed to report on Canadian or world markets. She was the trusted authority on the economy.
Of course, she and I were still close friends, even though we lived on different continents. Naomi had returned to Canada after her three-year run in Seoul. She was now married to a lawyer at a top law firm in Toronto and was a doting mother to two teenage daughters. I was Naomi’s best man—she chose me instead of a bridesmaid—and I am now the godfather to her girls. We try to see each other at least once a year, with either Fiona and I making the trip to Toronto or Naomi and her family coming to Scotland, or the six of us travelling to other destinations.
Naomi never returned to Seoul. After her posting had finished, she vowed to never return. “Korean men are impossible to deal with,” she said. “They treat women as inferior and never take us seriously. It’s a wonder that I got anything done at all.” The fact that she made great strides in Seoul was a testament to her abilities.
More than twenty years later, I was determined to make it on time.
I arose with the sun from my room at ENA Suites and wandered the quiet streets. Even with a population of nearly ten-million citizens, the downtown core of Seoul sees little traffic on early Saturday mornings. I walked a couple of laps around the main streets that formed a triangle around my hotel, getting the lay of the land and scoping out a place for breakfast. The nearby Holly’s Coffee shop didn’t appear to be open, but a Paris Baguette Café that was a couple of doors down, along Sejong-daero, showed signs that it was readying its doors for opening. After my third lap of this neighbourhood, I returned to my room to shower—it was hot already and I had worked up a sweat—grab my camera gear, and head out for the day.
The breakfast sandwich at Paris Baguette Café reminded me of the kind that you find at a Starbucks, except this one had some semblance of vegetable, be it a thinly sliced tomato. Having it heated made the mystery cheese melt and partially run onto my napkin. The sauce, a spiced mayonnaise, was liberally applied and a lot of it joined the lost cheese. The coffee that I had accompanied my breakfast was extremely hot but was quite good, once it had cooled enough that I could drink it. Coffee in Korea had come a long way since 1999.
Once I was sufficiently fed, I wandered up Sejong-daero, past city hall, past the statues of General Yi and King Sejong, and up to Gyeongbokgung, the principal palace of the Chosun Dynasty. Built in 1395, it was the largest of the five palaces that were constructed in Seoul for this dynasty. In 1592, during the Japanese invasion, Gyeongbokgung was burned to the ground, and over the ensuing centuries it slowly made its way to recovery, despite subsequent fires and further Japanese occupations. To this day, restorations were ongoing.
The changing of the guard started a couple of minutes late but was the colourful performance that it promised. Musicians, which took up the tail end of the parade, played a screeching and percussive melody that made me think of bagpipes back home, but without the droning bass hum. I stood on a slight rise, facing the eastern walls of the first set of walls inside the palace grounds, and watched the performance with scores of other visitors, many who were dressed in hanbok—traditional Korean costumes—which were rented to tourists, enabling them to gain entrance to many attractions at reduced cost, or even free. Brad had told me about the rentals, which I had flat-out refused to wear.
As the guard procession made its way toward the main gates, the crowds were permitted to cross the parade grounds behind it, and I followed the throng through the next wall, further inward toward the main palace. As I wandered the grounds, I noticed that major renovations and expansions had taken place over the past twenty years. The black tiled roofs seemed newly replaced and lacked the faded grey that inevitably befalls them after prolonged exposure to the sun. Many walls were a clean grey stone, indicating that they were new. Though my memory of past visits to Gyeongbokgung was not as fresh, it seemed to take me much longer to work my way through the myriad courtyards as I headed north. After about an hour and a half, I found myself at the far northeast corner of the palace, where it ended at the Korean National Folk Museum. I exited the grounds, on Cheongwa-daero, and continued northeast to an area that I had also wanted to see, twenty years ago, but never found the time: Bukchon Hanok Village.
As I worked my way through the main thoroughfare of this tourist shopping district, Insadong-gil, memories of my last visit here, at the end of March, in 1999, came rushing back. It was an unseasonably mild day and I only had to wear a light sweater. I had just returned from a month-long trip to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, and was saying a final farewell to Korea before returning to Canada. On that day, Naomi met me for traditional tea at one of the neighbourhood’s oldest tea houses. We enjoyed a pot of green tea, served by a beautiful woman in hanbok who performed a ritual of warming the cups with hot water and ensuring that the tea had steeped to perfection. After tea, we wandered Insa-Dong until we found a small restaurant, where we ate cold noodles for lunch, and then wandered the neighbourhood, searching for souvenirs, before making our way to her Hannam-Dong home for my last night in Korea.
Brad and Wilma had described a landmark building along Insadong-gil, a brown-bricked structure with vines growing up the façade. The name of the traditional Korean pottery shop was Ssamziegil, but the two giant yellow Hangul characters for the double-S stood out. I found my friends standing outside the front of the shop, at the centre of the intersecting pedestrian streets. Though it was still technically spring, Wilma wore a floral-patterned summer dress with a matching sunhat and brown designer sunglasses. Her perfectly white Vans made for sensible but fun footwear. Brad was dressed in khaki trousers with light-brown leather shoes. His light-blue short-sleeved shirt showed a darker-blue t-shirt poking at the top of the buttons. His expedition hat, with a wide, black band, almost matched his pants. His sunglasses were gold-rimmed and were, no doubt, prescription eyewear.
“Right on time, Roland,” said Brad, though we both knew I was nearly five minutes late. I prided myself on punctuality but I had underestimated the walk from the Bukchon Hanok Village. Though the crowds had been light at the start of my day, I had found the sidewalks packed with citizens and tourists, alike. Brad was being polite at not pointing out my tardiness.
I embraced my friends and then I was led down a side street to an old restaurant, where we feasted on bulgogi, traditional Korean barbecue, and fresh vegetables. This was my first truly Korean meal since my arrival and the flavours unlocked memories of meals gone by.
Wilma asked me about my morning and Brad told me about theirs, which was occupied by a Saturday ritual of grocery shopping and laundry. Brad and Wilma had only seen the changing of the guard once in all their time back in Korea, and I was surprised to learn that neither had ever been to the Bukchon Hanok Village.
“Why didn’t you come with me today?” I asked.
“All that walking up and down hills: not for me,” said Brad. I remembered when, in 1998, we had all gone to Cheju Island, and Tanya and I wanted to climb the mountain at the centre of the island. Brad wanted no part in the trek, and he and Wilma opted for a beach on the southern shore of the island, just to the west of Seogwip’o, the town where we were staying. It wasn’t until Tanya and I reached the summit of Halla Mountain that I learned, from Tanya, that Brad and Wilma had just started dating.
Over the following years, whenever Brad, Wilma, Fiona, and I met for vacations, Brad was never keen to climb any structures that involved a lot of stairs. “I admit, even I am starting to feel all the walking I’ve done,” I said. I looked at my watch, a Samsung Gear Fit, and checked my recorded steps. “More than twenty thousand, so far.”
“No thanks,” said Brad, who expertly picked up a piece of beef with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth. “I’m happy to wander Jogyesa with you, after lunch, but then we’re taking a cab back to our place.”
Today was Buddha’s birthday, a deeply spiritual day across the country. All temples were lavishly decorated in paper lanterns and thousands upon thousands of devout worshippers flocked for prayers and songs. Food was given by the monks and spiritual leaders. In 1997 and 1998, I had made the journey to Kumsansa, one of the most-important temples near Chŏnju; today, I wanted to join in the festivities at one of Seoul’s key temples, Jogyesa, which was a short walk away, in Gyeonji-Dong.
We expected crowds and we weren’t disappointed. It was as though we were at a Pink Floyd concert, inching our way toward the stage. The overhead lanterns were pink, white, blue, yellow, and red. Tags hung from the bottom of many of the lanterns, and we could see people seated at several folding tables, writing out their names and warm wishes. Assistants in cherry pickers would carry the tag up to a vacant lantern, no doubt for a fee. Loudspeakers broadcast songs sung by a monk who was within the main temple and was accompanied by other monks who knocked on wooden blocks, all in synchronous rhythm. The front doors to the temple were opened wide, revealing three giant gold Buddha statues. Many people prayed around the five-hundred-year-old white pine in the crowded courtyard before the main structure.
Though it has gone through several names throughout its existence, Jogyesa is a principal temple for the seventeen-hundred-year-old Jogye Order of Buddhism. It has had its current name since only the mid-1950s. This was another first for me, today. Though I had walked past this temple, once, in 1998, today was my first time entering the grounds and I couldn’t think of a better time in which to visit.
The three of us drew attention from some of the older Koreans but most of the stares went to Wilma. She was as tall as Brad and had maintained her shapely figure from the time we first met. A couple of years ago, Wilma had applied blonde highlights to her light-brown hair, and this colour especially drew the attention of the dark-haired natives. The elderly women would try to reach out to touch it but Wilma was ready for this action and was able to deflect unwanted hands. Brad also played the role of bodyguard, as some hands would try to reach to places below the shoulders.
Despite the crowd, we were able to make our way throughout the courtyard and to the various structures and activities. Because we had already eaten, we declined any offers of food. And eventually, the heat from the mass of bodies convinced us that we had spent enough time paying our respects to Buddha, and we made our way to Ugeongguk-ro, where we were able to intercept a taxi as a couple emerged from the back seat, ready to join the crowds at the temple.
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