Worst Christmas Ever

We thought that the Christmas of 2020 was the worst one. We were well into the second, great wave of the coronavirus and nonessential travel was restricted. Governments and healthcare experts were urging us to limit gatherings to the people with whom you resided.

Lots of people, sadly, ignored these warnings, driving the number of positive COVID-19 test results through the roof. People who heeded the warnings and kept to themselves lamented that Christmas Day was the worst in living memory. People who didn't heed the warning lamented that spreading their germs, possibly killing loved ones, made Christmas 2020 the worst, ever.

For me, Christmas 2020 was disappointing. Our family tradition is to have our extended family members visit us for a lavish brunch of potato and bacon pie, spiral ham, cheesy scrambled eggs, orange and spinach salad, and Christmas stollen. In 2020, no one was invited over.

Instead, DW and I still baked the pie, and DW made her delicious stollen. Instead of roasting a ham, we bought a smaller ham and cut cold, thin slices. We packaged individual servings of each of these and I delivered these helpings to my parents and my sister, both who live nearby.

For those of you who feel that Christmas 2020 was the worst ever, hold my beer.

I was 25, was of an age where the Christmas break was a time to get together with friends, to socialize from house to house, from pub to pub. I was still living with my parents because I was attending university but had my own car and was enjoying my young independence. My girlfriend was going to be away for the holiday, would be with her parents, visiting with extended family in another part of the country, but I could look forward to her return in time to ring in the new year.

But this Christmas wasn't going to be the same for me, was not going to give me the independence that a young adult craves.

Photo: CTV News Ottawa

From my mid to late teens, I had a degenerative condition with the bones in my feet. Diagnosed as Köhler's Disease, I was referred to a surgeon who was renowned for his treatment for this potentially debilitating disease. Surgery, I was told, was my only option for dealing with Köhler's.

A date was scheduled, and I was told that I would be spending a week in the hospital and several months on crutches, afterwards. Unfortunately, the date of the surgery was not appealing. It was December 22, with my check-in to be the afternoon before. If all went well, I'd be out of the hospital and back at home on the twenty-ninth.

I had to get my Christmas celebrations out of the way by the twentieth. And there was a chance that I wouldn't be partying on New Year's Eve. Only time would tell.

I have very few memories of the surgery. I remember waking up early in the morning, feeling hungry, because I wasn't allowed to eat for the 12 hours before the operation and had only a sip of water before midnight, before going to sleep.

A gurney had been brought into my room and I was asked to make myself comfortable before I was rolled through the halls, into an elevator, and to the operating room. My surgeon and a handful of assistants were awaiting me, and a mask was placed over my face, from which I was given anesthetic gas. The previous day, the anesthesiologist offered to freeze me from the waist down and set up mirrors, so that I could watch the procedure.

"No thanks," I said, "knock me right out."

With the mask secured, I was told to count down from 10. Only 10?

At about 7, I heard someone say "oops."

"What do you mean, oops?" I said, but I was out before I could hear an answer.

In the recovery room, my memories are more like dreams. I remember lifting the oxygen mask from my face, only to have a nurse put it back in place. Again, I removed the mask, and again the nurse put it back on me. On the third time that I lifted the mask, the nurse didn't respond. But after a few seconds, I found myself putting the mask back on, myself, and drifting back to sleep.

My next memory was finding myself back in my hospital room, where a doctor, nurse, and a couple of orderlies were transferring me from the gurney to my bed. I remember seeing a plaster cast, smeared with a bit of dried blood.

As soon as I was in bed, the orderlies helped shift sheets and get me comfortable, but at one point they sat me up. The pain was so intense that I vomited and passed out. I didn't wake up again, to my knowledge, until the next morning, when breakfast was brought to me.

It was December 23. My girlfriend, who was leaving later that day for the airport, came by after breakfast for a short visit and to drop off a Christmas gift. A Calvin and Hobbes anthology.

I loved Calvin and Hobbes. Though my girlfriend and I had been dating for less than two years, I told her that I would love to have a kid like Calvin. I'm surprised that, upon hearing that, stayed with me. That girlfriend is now DW.

I was in a room that had three beds but was only occupied by me and an elderly gentleman, who had slipped on ice and had broken his hip. He was a friendly and talkative man, originally from Newfoundland, and we had enjoyed each other's company and conversation on the day before my surgery and on the days afterward. But as much as we enjoyed chatting, we also respected each other's privacy and would give each other a break, when I would turn to the comic book.

Perhaps Calvin and Hobbes wasn't the best gift for someone recovering from surgery. In his work on my foot, the surgeon had removed bone from my hip to graft onto the bones in the foot. My hip was incredibly sensitive—it's what made me pass out when I was sat up. And in reading the comics, I would burst out laughing one moment, burst into tears the next and yelping out in pain.

In laughing, my shaking would cause me jolts of pain that radiated from my hip and ravaged my body. Pleasure, meet pain!

On Christmas Eve, I had few visitors. My parents dropped by in the morning, but because they were hosting Christmas dinner, they had some errands to run and my mother had lots of cooking, baking, and cleaning to do. In the afternoon, my roommate was given permission to leave the hospital, so that he could enjoy the holiday with his family. I was alone from mid-afternoon until after dinner.

With my Calvin and Hobbes anthology finished, I turned to the magazines that my folks dropped off. But I was bored, already missed the conversation of my roommate, and my skin under my cast was itchy. A pretty nurse came to my room and asked me if I'd like a sponge bath, and I happily accepted.

Sadly, she brought in a middle-aged intern, a man, to attend to me.

Just before I was about to turn off my light and go to sleep, my girlfriend's best friend, Catheleen, drop by to check on me. With her, she brought some Christmas baking and a present—a 12-piece Sesame Street puzzle. We put it together in less than a minute, took it apart, and built it again.

Catheleen and I knew each other before I knew DW. As the younger sister to a friend of mine in high school, I often saw her wandering the halls, between classes, and we would always say hello. Years later, when I was dating DW, I learned that my future wife was often with Catheleen, but I never paid her any attention (they were minor niners when I was in grade 12).

In the first summer that DW and I dated, she went to Europe with another friend and Catheleen invited me to go with her to Cancun, Mexico. Catheleen was like a sister to me.

With visiting hours over, Catheleen wished me a Merry Christmas and I was alone once again.

I awoke on Christmas morning with a new gift. A patient, in the bed next to mine, had a leg suspended, several rods running through it, holding broken bones together. He was not in the mood to talk, as he had endured a bad skiing accident and was upset that he had to spend Christmas in the hospital, next to a stranger. Ski season had just begun and it was already over for him.

All of my reading material was read before lunch. In the afternoon, with visitors for my neighbour piling into the room, I asked a nurse to draw my blinds closed and I immersed myself in my Sony Walkman, with the stack of cassettes and mixed music.

I didn't get any visitors until mid-afternoon and it was brief. My parents came to wish me a Merry Christmas, but they had to get back home to receive guests for dinner. I had no more visits that day.

I was stuck in the hospital for a full week, finally able to return home, where my folks helped take care of me until DW returned.

So if you think Christmas of 2020 sucked, I can beat that.

Let's hope that Christmas 2021 is much better.

Alone

It was a day I had built in my head for months. In my mind, I retraced steps through the halls, of the students gathered outside of classrooms or scurrying to get to another building. I could see my secretary in the Korean teacher's office: a teacher on break, reading a newspaper, another catching a nap between classes.

Across the hall, a much bigger room, for the foreign teachers. A lounge area, with sofas and a television, which almost always was tuned to either CNN or Star TV. We either captured news or a British drama. During FIFA World Cup 1998, the TV showed every game, or at least the highlights.

Beyond the teachers lounge, occupying the remaining two-thirds of this room, was the teachers' office. We each had our own desk, and rows of lockers held our supplies and personal belongings.

When we weren't teaching, this was our sanctuary.

I took the bus on Paltal-ro, two blocks from my Hanok Village Airbnb, just north of Jeondong Catholic Church and the south gate, Pungnammun. According to Google Maps, the trip would take 33 minutes but in truth, took less time than that.

As we got further from the old part of the city, which has barely changed in the past 20 years (save for the revamped old village), I could see that some development had gone on in neighbourhoods near where I lived when I worked at Jeonju University, but only slightly. The ice rink in Hyoja-dong, which used to house a Dairy Queen, was gone, replaced a new towering apartment complex that dwarfed its neighbouring apartment buildings, where my former student, Mr. Lee, lived.

Or used to live. I don't know. I haven't been able to reach out to anyone.

In 1998, where the southern fork of the Chŏnju river flowed, a field of rice patties stretched for kilometres, interrupted only by the hills that lifted up and were home to a high school and Jeonju University. Today, there is no evidence of those fields. A new neighbourhood, Morning City, houses skyscrapers and European-design-influenced houses. As I wrote a few months ago, the main entrance to Jeonju University has been relocated. Had I not studied it on Google Maps before coming, I may not have found it.

This is what I had been looking forward to. To returning to the last place I taught in Korea. I had no illusions about finding any foreign teachers, though two of the people I worked with had been at the university for 10 years before I arrived and at the time, they had no intention of leaving. Korea was now their home.

I worked with a Korean, who also taught English and shared the same office space. Chung Chul-hwan, who also acted as liaison for the foreign teachers, translating for us when needed.

I needed him, badly, one week, but that's another story.

As I walked up the main road on campus, I saw a new building that seemed to dwarf all other buildings on campus. I didn't have my bearings, but knew that if I followed this road, I would surely find a building that I recognized.

It didn't take long. Beyond the massive building was a long, sleek building that was only five stories tall. A name was placed on its end and, while it wasn't there 20 years ago, all of the teachers knew the name of our foreign languages building.

Truth Building.

Though I was recording my walk with my 360-degree camera, I now turned it off. I didn't want to seem intrusive, didn't want to risk capturing any student's face.

So much had changed on campus. Was this still the foreign languages building? I saw a group of students heading to the central doors, and I approached them: "Excuse me," I said in Hangul, "do you speak English?"

One young man turned to me and said, "No, not much," in English. He turned to one of his friends and introduced me. His friend was more fluent.

I asked if this was the foreign languages department. "Ah," he said, "English Education?"

"English languages," was my response.

"This is Education building," he said. "Are you looking for English Education?"

I pointed to the central doors and then indicated a left turn. "At the end of that hall?"

"Yes, education administration," he said.

"Are you free? Can you show me?"

He and his companions conversed quickly in Hangul. I got the sense that some had to go to class, and as we entered the building, my hunch was correct as half the group split off and went upstairs. The English-speaking student and a young woman escorted me down the hall with which I was familiar. The hallway hadn't changed. I had taught two classes in rooms between the middle foyer and the far end, where my old office lay. We passed one open door, and the partitioned desks remained. I had gone back in time.

But that feeling ended when we came to two doors: in '98, the one on the left was a small study room, in which students could use equipment to play audio recordings in various languages. The door on the right, which was once solid but now had a window, led into the area of the teachers' office, where our desks were. In my time, that door was always locked because we preferred to have students enter our space through the lounge area, where a door was opposite the Korean teacher's lounge.

Looking through the door, I could see several Korean students, socializing or checking their smartphones.

"That used to be my office," I told my escorts.

"That is now student lounge," the English-speaking student said.

We went through the door on the left. Inside, a vast space extended into where the Korean teachers' lounge had been. A long counter ran the length, behind which sat several Korean women who were answering phones, working at computer terminals (in 1998, we had two computers in our office, which were shared among all of the English teachers), or talking to one another. Over their heads, small signs hung to indicate the disciplines for which they were experts: Engineering Education, Teaching Education, Culinary Education, English Education.

My English-speaking friend approached the counter in front of the English Education sign and explained, in Korean, what I was looking for. I pulled my old employee card from my pocket, and showed it to her as I heard what I understood was that I used to teach here.

"Yes, I can help," the receptionist said in perfect English. My escorts bowed to me, I thanked them, and they left.

"I'm looking for where the English teachers are situated," I said.

"English Education?"

"No, English Language."

"This is the Education department."

"Yes, I understand," I replied. "Does the university teach English-language classes? Do you have foreigners teaching here?"

"I'm not sure."

"You don't teach students how to speak English?" I thought of the students who I had approached. There had been six of them and only one spoke some English. In 1998, the opposite would have been said: maybe only one student in the group wouldn't have spoken English. In all disciplines that the university offered, English was a mandatory course for nearly all of them. Most of my classes were a mix of disciplines.

Chul-hwan taught English grammar in our department. He was only a couple of years older than me: if he still taught here, he would likely be well-known.

I gave his name. The woman shook her head. "No, sorry. Twenty years is a long time."

"It is, I admit." How many jobs have I had in the past 20 years? Nothing is forever, these days. Not even in Chonju.

The woman was still holding my ID card and looked at it again, paying closer attention. "Wow," she said, "you were handsome."

Were. Ouch.

"I used to also teach in the library building," I said, pointing in its direction, "up on the hill."

"That's not a library anymore," she said. "Our new library is that way." She indicated the opposite direction, toward the giant building that I passed on my way in from the entrance.

"Aye go," I said, the Korean equivalent to oh my gosh.

"What is it you would like to do?" she asked.

"I was hoping to explore the campus, to see the places where I used to teach."

"You can go in the library building," she said.

"I think I will. Thanks." I gestured across the hall. "That room used to be the foreign teachers' office."

"It's now the students' lounge."

"I know. Thank you for your help."

She handed back my ID card and I bowed, bidding her a good day.

I didn't need to see the rest of the Truth Building. My office was gone, and a classroom is a classroom. I have memories of particular students and of a couple of lessons, but I didn't need to see the actual rooms. There was a stairwell beyond my former office and a doorway out of the building. I would always exit this way to get to the library building.

The road climbed upwards from the Truth Building until it got to the base of another hill upon which the former library building stood. The roadway up to the top was incredibly steep and on this hot, sunny day, I was panting as I reached the top.

I dreaded ascending it even back then, though I didn't break the same sweat.

The building, a massive slab of concrete shaped like an ancient Greek structure, with towering columns and a peaked roof, hadn't changed a bit from the outside. But inside, the foyer seemed brighter, with glass walls that opened it up. Large video screens added to the illumination.

I walked through the foyer and climbed the set of stairs at the back. The large windows in the stairwell still showed the rest of the hill as it continued to climb. I made it to the second floor, where there is another foyer that leads out to where the columns start and where open, concrete balconies give a commanding view of the campus and the city in the distance.

The cityscape, with the skyscrapers that are closer, is not the view that I remember.

I left the building and made my way off the campus, taking the route that used to be the old main entrance. Apart for more campus buildings and a modern gate over the entrance, the roadway hadn't changed.

I caught a bus that would take me to the Gaeksa, the ancient guest house, and later to the off-campus area of Chŏnbuk National University.

Again, buildings had changed, roads had been widened, and when I looked for all of my old ex-pat haunts, nothing remained.

The building that housed Urban Bar was still there, but was now called Have a Good Table.

The sloped windows of the former Urban Bar.

I made my way to Kim's Hair, which looked the same from the outside and little-changed on the inside. But the staff was completely new and I felt awkward walking in, looking around, apologizing for the interruption, and walking out.

It was at this moment that I realized I was alone. Not just by myself, but on my own, a person in Chŏnju from another time. A time that is gone.

I realized that I hadn't seen any other foreigners in the entire time that I have been in this city. Where were all the other waeguks? I felt as though I didn't belong here anymore. And, for an hour or so, I felt incredibly sad.

But, in fact, that was a good thing. I thought about my main character, Roland, and how he must have felt when he returned to this city for a second year of teaching. He was coming back to a city where he knew the streets, knew where he could find a good meal. But the people that he knew in the first year were gone. He was back to square one.

Throughout my past time in Chŏnju, I had DW. I was never alone. Roland was. And now, having experienced this city, alone, I can now get into his headspace as he begins teaching at the university.

My mission in South Korea is accomplished.

Photo Friday: My Loneliest Place

In May of 1988, I boarded a train in Glasgow, Scotland, and headed to Berlin, Germany. It was the first time that I had travelled abroad, my first time in Europe.

And I travelled alone.

I was doing research work for a story I was writing about Roland Axam, and for that I spent some time in Edinburgh, in North Berwick, and finally, East and West Berlin.

Because I spoke no German at the time, and I found that not many of the locals spoke English, I spent most of my three days in that Cold War-torn country without speaking more than a couple of words. To eat, I pointed to pictures of food on menus. I knew how to say "ein bier, bitte" and "danke," but otherwise kept my mouth shut.

I stayed in a pension off the Kurfurstendamm, the Kima, and spoke to no one. Not the hotel staff, not to the other guests. When I cleared my breakfast dishes from the table in the dining room, I received laughs from everyone for my efforts.

My only solace was that I wandered the greater part of the city, on foot, taking hundreds of photographs. I made lots of notes on being an outsider, on your own, in a city divided by a tall wall and landmines.

My favourite place to sit and collect my thoughts was Europacenter, with its shopping centre and memorial to WWII, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. This large plaza was a common meeting place for all walks of life. It was the one place where I didn't feel lonely.

For the rest of the city, for me, seemed the loneliest place on Earth.