All hail couchsurfing

Couchsurfing during this trip has proved to be a great experience. I have a feeling that the world is shrinking (globalisation, the internet, etc) around each one of us like cellophane, closing us off from one another in our own private bubbles. I am glad to see that it can have the opposite effect as well.

Imagine spending three solid days, including 12 hours in the car, with a guy you'd met less than a week before (and that through being his temporary roomate) and with whom you barely shared a language. We traversed most of Korea, North to South, going to Busan, mostly communicating by sharing food and music. It is a beautiful country, with 40% of the population living in Seoul and most of the rest gathered around urban centres, the majority of the country is mountainous forest, protected as natural park or simply not that useful for humans. In Busan we met with a friend of Jae Moon from his army days named Byong Sung and the guy's Canadian-Australian girlfriend. Both were huge surfers, and we got up at 5am both days we spent with them to go surfing with a few Korean guys. I am astounded again and again by how many Koreans at least understand English, even if they are too shy to speak it, but of course surfing (or, in my case, floundering-with-board) doesn't require a great deal of language. On the first day after surfing Jae Moon and I had brunch and then went out on his jet ski. Like, a real deal jet ski. Only when I complained that my legs were tired (mostly from quaking, partly from trying to keep my balance as I careened over the tiniest waves) did my friend even reveal that the thing had a fold-out seat. Turns out this guy was a competitive motorcycle racer when he was at university--makes sense. I must confess that adrenaline is not really my drug of choice (the whole risk-life-and-limb thing or something) but jet-skiing was an exhilarating new experience. We stayed around the next morning to surf again and clean the ski before starting the long journey back to Seoul. On the way we visited the grave site of the ex-president of Korea, who committed suicide late in May following corruption charges in order to save face. Jae Moon is very politically active in protests and such, and is wildly against the current president, who he sees as coming down too strongly in favour of Western attitudes (yay rich people!) and social control, to the detriment of the average Korean. The old president he viewed as almost a Princess Diana figure, a social champion who was hounded to death by the media.

I am left with a lot of jostling impressions from my trip. First, the Korean sense of hospitality. We spent a lot of time in the jet-ski garage (prime tourist place, I'm sure), and between the employees and customers there and Byong Sung, I don't I payed for a single meal the entire time we were in Busan--all food was eaten communally, and one person always "treated". There is an expectation of reciprocity with the Koreans I imagine, and as a foreigner I at least added some novelty. In such a small and insular country, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that everyone will see each other again and a new person can treat every time. I've been to a few garages with Jae Moon and at each one we are at least given drinks, if not more, with the expectation that we will stay for at least an hour and chat (or, in my case, be chatted about). And Jae Moon's hospitality especially has impressed me--from sharing his 1-room apartment to his trip and all his fancy gear. To be sure, he is taking a year off and therefore in between things and probably bored, but it still seems amazing--we treat our close relatives much worse.

In some ways, when meeting Koreans I think being twenty (22 Korean age--you are 1 when you're born and birthdays follow the lunar calendar) has its advantages, in that it makes me a non-entity. If I were Korean, I would just be finishing my military service and starting university. Childhood is extended here differently from other countries, as people are expected to live with their parents until they are married (sometime before 30), or else live communally in barracks or dorms. After Koreans ask my age they are usually fairly content that they have a decent picture of my life--in Korea, people's paths don't really begin splitting until they finish university in their mid-late twenties, so knowing that a person is 20/22 gives a decent picture of their life.

What else? I'm back with my German host (he teaches German, not English, to clarify--apparently under the Japanese occupation German was mandatory and it remains a big language here, especially as most of their legal system is based on German law), and we've got a second couchsurfer from China coming in tomorrow, which should be interesting. I finished Camus' "The Fall" and found it illuminating and disturbing in that seems to completely fulfill its project: the judge-truly, fairly, and finding fault-all of mankind, while at the same time holding true to its speaker's assertion that memoirs and confessions always seek to hide more truth than they reveal. Because it hid rather than revealing and simply ended rather than resolving I found it incredibly true and honest but unsatisfactory because of it.

I am thinking of coming back on Sunday, praying that it being Sunday will keep crowds down. I'm really looking forward to coming back to LA, even just for a month, and enjoying the end of summer. If nothing else, spending all of my time with 25-40 year olds in Korea has made me less scared of being twenty.