Gone to North Korea...Sort of

"What a badass. What a pimp. A modern day motherfuckin Magellan. Kim Jong Il, I ain't scurred, I ain't never scurred... Shit, even if I get detained or something crazy, I'll just spend a year in a labor camp and then get to meet Bill Clinton. That'd be tight...."

I wish I could say that my thoughts were much more sophisticated and developed than that as I lay in bed the night before my "big adventure" to North Korea, but, alas, they were not. Apparently, I'm still a narcissistic thirteen year-old boy at heart who thinks predominantly in rap syntax. Pimp rap syntax...

**By the way, I was in Seoul last week cuz I had to leave Taiwan due to visa issues. It probably would have made more sense to do one post summarizing the trip to Seoul first, but I prefer to tell long stories anyway, so, now you know.

Earlier in the week, I met a Canuck named Erik in the hostel, among other people. After much deliberation- mostly over money- he and I finally decided to book the tour. We also decided to do the whole nine yards and book the tour that takes you all the way to the border, and even across it, at the site of the Joint Security Area (JSA), where occasional yet unproductive discussions between the North and South still take place in buildings that straddle the Military Demarcation Line (a fancy name for the border, which you can actually see as the horizontal, concrete dividing line in the picture below of the JSA). The other tour just takes you to the very fringe of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and shows you a couple of buildings with the highlight being a quick view of the "Third Tunnel of Aggression" (gotta love these militarized names), which is basically one of many tunnels that the crafty North Koreans dug underneath the DMZ as an intended military invasion route. Anyway, while the tunnel might have been cool, the rest of the DMZ tour looked like pussy shit, or "absolute pants," as described by my British friend, Tim, from the hostel- love that expression.

So, we booked the riskier, ballsier, twice as expensive, yet actually goes to North Korea tour and waited for the big day. We had the dude who ran the hostel, Min, help us book the tour, and after making the necessary arrangements his advice to us was: "Good luck," and "survive." Oooooh, how cool are we?


When the big day finally rolled around, it started off pretty shitty, all thanks to this guy *two thumbs pointing to my chest. Since Erik didn't have an alarm clock, waking up at 7:30 became my responsibility, and since I got drunk on Soju- Korea's liquor of choice, a 20%+ alcohol that tastes like Propel- the night before, I failed pretty hard at that. Setting the alarm on my iPod Touch, I failed to remember that it was still on Austin time, just a minor 13 hour difference. Thanks to the earth-shattering construction that was going on the entire time I was there, however, I was woken up at 7:55. I then got Erik up, we threw some clothes on and rushed out the door desperate to make what was certain to be the highlight of the trip.

We then got in a cab and struggled to communicate to the cabby where we wanted to go. Since neither of us knew more than a few words in Korean, we had to resort to the caveman-like communication of pointing (at a map) and grunting. Moreover, as anyone who has been to Asia before can corroborate, this cabby, like all the others, could not read at all, which cost us another few precious minutes to our already late start. It's not that they can't read because they are illiterate or uneducated, but rather simply because their eyesight is so shitty they can't see anything even with coke bottle glasses. After struggling with the map, turning it over and around and upside down, and putting it like 3 inches from his face, he finally figured out where we were headed. This moment of discovery for him was absolutely priceless because while I could not understand a word that he said afterward, I nonetheless knew exactly what he was saying as I had experienced this exact same scenario countless times in Beijing and elsewhere. "Ohhhhh, you want to go to Lotte Hotel. Well, why the hell didn't you just say so?!?" Despite the fact that we were desperately short of time and with no one to blame but myself, I couldn't help but appreciate the moment.

So, we finally make it to the hotel with about 5 minutes to spare and then realize that we have no idea where we are supposed to go once inside. The hotel is massive and the bus we are expecting to be out front waiting for us is not there. After asking around, some dude tells us to go to floor six. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but we were out of options, so we went to floor six. Exiting the elevator, we see a bunch of travel agencies and go into the first one with a JSA/DMZ sign. In retrospect, I'm almost positive that we missed whatever tour we had reserved and then stumbled into some random agency who just threw us on to their next scheduled tour for the same price as had been quoted to us by the other company. Well, whatever, either way we went. Now, as for the tour itself:

The tour began with a long bus ride from Seoul to the border, probably a little more than an hour one way. The bus was also segregated (for logical, not racist purposes) with Japanese in the front and Whites in the back. So, we quickly learned and would not forget that there were two tour groups together that day with two tour guides speaking different languages. Although at times they took turns speaking, more often than not they spoke at the same time. It turns out that the combination of Japanese and a Korean speaking broken English is not the best cure for a hangover.

I am also very hesitant to criticize our tour guide's English as I am a language student myself struggling with Chinese, but then I remember that her job is entirely dependent on her ability to speak English. It is not a means to an end, it is an end, and she does it quite poorly. This perhaps also explains her uncanny ability to repeat herself on even the most inconsequential of subjects. She told us no less than 6 times that a group of four people were getting off at one point to continue on with another tour. Not sure why I even needed to hear that once. My take on it goes something like this: 1.) she speaks shitty English; 2.) therefore, no one wants to listen to her; 3.) she realizes no one is listening, so she is more inclined to repeat herself; 4.) add the incessant repetition factor and we are even less inclined to listen; and then it just becomes a vicious cycle from there, spiraling out of control.

There were a few cool things along the bus ride, however, that built up the anticipation. At one point, we passed by a long procession of soldier-filled military vehicles towing artillery (see the video below). We also drove beside a seemingly endless fence topped with barbed wire and guarded by watch towers stationed every couple of hundred meters or so. Both of these visuals seemed to reiterate quite clearly that we were on a highway to the danger zone, Top Gun/Kenny Loggins style, but...

As for the actual tour itself once we finally arrived... eh. Can I say that? Apparently not, according to all the people at the hostel who anxiously waited for our description of the tour only to be terribly disappointed by our confession of its mediocrity. Erik's trite description was probably the best when he summed up the tour as "legitimately ok." I was actually quite amused by the reaction of the others in the hostel because it was as if they either didn't believe our assessment, or felt that we were too shallow to appreciate the gravity of the experience. Of course, they hadn't been on the tour, so how the hell would they know. Yet, I still understand their position because it was exactly how Erik and I felt before we experienced the tour for ourselves. I mean, it's motherfuckin North Korea. It's our generation's Berlin wall, one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. You expect the tension to be palpable and for the experience to be completely humbling, but then it's just sort of... bleh.

Believe me, I wish I could sit here and write that it was amazing and mind-blowing and that I felt like Indiana Jones to validate the experience in a way, but it just wasn't. In the end the tour felt more like a tourist's fools gold and a big ol' cash cow for the tourism industry and not a whole lot more. Everything we did was so rushed: seriously, the longest stop on the trip besides lunch was the 20 minutes spent at the gift shop. I mean, how scary, exhilarating, dangerous, *insert whatever adjective that you, or I, or anyone else would expect it to be* can a place be if it has a fucking gift shop? Yea, I guess you could argue the brevity of the tour was necessary for security reasons, but I'm not so sure especially considering how lax the vibe was and also the fact that we were flanked by multiple other tour groups the whole time.

Ultimately, if I had the choice to do it all over again for the first time, would I still do it? Of course, because otherwise I would have left Korea not knowing if I had missed out on an experience of a lifetime. And, yes, I can still say that I've stepped foot in North Korea for about 30 seconds, and just long enough to take a sweet photo or two, which, for what it's worth, is still pretty cool (the photo to the left is of two North Korean soldiers and you can see the Demarcation Line showing that I am technically in North Korea at this point, as I am as well in the first picture with the South Korean soldier). But, ultimately, that's what traveling is. Your expectations are always either vastly exceeded, or greatly overblown and never quite met.

Laundry Fail ---> An Evangelical Nightmare

Yea, the title might be a bit misleading, but that is not a misprint. Just hear me out.

So, a few weeks ago I was trying to do some laundry. No, that wasn't the first time I've done laundry since I've been to Taiwan, but I am afraid to admit it has been the last (excluding one laundry load in the hostel in Seoul. Yes, I brought a shit load of stinky, dirty clothes to Seoul to do laundry...). Before this fateful day I had always done my laundry at my student's apartment. Brought the clothes over in the morning, ran the load, finished class, took laundry home. Easy enough. But since my student, Jeff, returned to the States for his Senior year, I have not wanted to bother his family simply to do my laundry. When I first arrived his mom also mentioned that it would be fine to use the laundry machine on the first floor of the three-floor Triplex/townhouse-thingy in which I live. The first two floors are both lived in by Jeff's aunts with me on the top. She also specified that it would be best to do it during the week when she, the old aunt, was not there so as not to bother her. Again, easy enough. Or so I thought.

So, like Monday afternoon or whatever I stroll downstairs, and the old auntie is gone, so I throw some laundry in the washer and go to lunch. I come back to find her returned and with a friend as well. Oh god, the friend.... So I knock to see if it's okay for me to grab my laundry and then end up in this like 25 minute conversation with "the friend," who turns out to be a Christian Missionary working in China named Rae Yuan, back for a brief visit. It turns out that the auntie, whom I now just refer to as Pastor Chen (before she was Auntie Chen), is as you may have deduced, a Pastor.

Turns out there was a huge miscommunication regarding my laundry privileges. Pastor Chen was not informed that I might perhaps do some laundry there at some point. Seeing as how its the only fucking laundry machine in the place, I'm not sure why she was so "surprised," but surprised she was. Apparently so surprised, embarrassed and uncomfortable (all words that Rae used) that she was in the other room for the entire time that Rae Yuan was explaining the extent of this discomfort I had just caused. Its just some fucking laundry. Whatever, I just lost my laundry privileges and don't know where a laundromat is, but more unfortunately for me was that that was not the end of the story. Hence the second half of this post's title. Now on to the much less enjoyable evangelical nightmare.

So, amidst this laundry fuck-up, Rae Yuan starts talking about Christianity as well, like, a lot. Asking me whether I'm Christian, among other things, and just really beating a dead horse about this shit. But, she also appeared to be really nice and took a keen interest in wanting to help me find another job (at this point, I had just become jobless as my students had all returned to the States for classes). So, she invited me out to her church on Sunday where I was supposed to meet all her friends with a bizillion potential job opportunities. We were also supposed to go out to breakfast before church (god, old people wake up fucking early) for more supposed job opportunities. So, I accepted.

Then that early-ass morning rolled around and I rolled my sleepy-ass self to breakfast at this Western-style diner where I was surprised to see 8 old-ass ladies there to greet me. Okay, job prospects I think to myself. Plus, they all flattered me at the beginning by telling me how handsome I was. Not too shabby, even if it is early and they're fucking old. But then the purpose of the breakfast commenced. It was not a meet and greet, but rather a church cell group. Basically, for those who don't know that term (I didn't before this) a cell group is like a smaller group of people within a larger church who meet frequently because they don't have enough church related things in their life. So much church... The first 20 minutes was "the friend" Rae Yuan going on and on about her missionary work in Dalian, China and about the horrendous multitude of non-believers and how to convert them and a bunch of shit along these lines. Pretty extreme verb choices at times, but nothing too alarming. She just appeared particularly zealous about her "mission." When she finished, however, they passed out some kind of morning cell-group program guide, which included the passages we were going to read, and the fucking songs we were gunna sing. Oh, the songs.

So, they began singing during which time Rae Yuan kept beckoning me or slapping my shoulder to encourage me to sing with them. First of all, the fucking pamphlet was in Chinese, so I couldn't read that fast even if I wanted to, but more importantly, I reaaaally didn't want to. Singing is also not an appropriate verb. A better description would be melodic shouting. I mean this shit was straight out of Jesus Camp. They were fucking rattling the chandeliers with their words, all the while clapping and swaying with the occasional outstretched arms to the sky, tears dripping, limbs flailing, eardrums ringing. Remember, we are not in a fucking church, we are in a restaurant which happened to be full at the time. Those who were finished with their meals quickly left. I wish I joined them...

After the melodic shouting came prayer. Which was followed by full body convulsions and speaking in tongues. I've never been so freaked out in my life. I thought they were going to offer a non-believer sacrifice up at that point and fucking rip my heart out and eat it or some shit. Still at a restaurant, by the way.

Then we went to some mega-church (I was too much of a pussy and too startled to excuse myself) in which there was more roaring, convulsing and speaking in tongues. Then after church everybody wanted to meet the only foreigner in the fucking room of 800, so I had like a half an hour meet and greet with these people, "welcoming" me to their church. Please...

Yea, so you all get the picture. Rae Yuan made me her missionary project of the week it seemed and would not leave me alone until she returned to Dalian, calling me all the time, all under the continued guise of "job prospect," though there certainly appeared to be some very obvious ulterior motives.

No more laundry, but also, no more evangelism. That's a trade I'm willing to make.

First Post- Holy Shit

I did it.... I fucking made a blog and every mother ever is gunna read it because I'm awesome. I know, I know, I've heard it all: "it's about time; Louise did it by like day 2; well, who gives a shit now, it's month two and we've more or less forgotten that you're gone; and, finally, why don't you make a blog in Chinese?" So sue me already for two months of silence, or as I like to call it, two months of creative fermentation. I've been, like, busy and shit.

So, here it is in all its glory. If it took me two months to write my first post, I'm certainly not going to commit myself to some sort of specified weekly post schedule yet, but if you check it once a week or bi-weekly, let's just say you're not adding too much material to your already paltry reading list. So, that's it folks. Oh and by the way, keep me updated on your lives as well. Just because I'm the one who's far away doesn't mean I suddenly don't give a shit about your lives. No more of this, "Dude, Ry-bro, shit's good over here. Tell me everything ever about Taiwan." Give a little, get a little. With that said, I still hope "shit's good."