Anglo-Saxon Plaything
I’m walking home from work tonight, wishing I had brought something warmer to wear. It’s the coldest day I’ve experienced since arriving here more than six months ago. I’m toying with the idea of stopping at a Korean barbecue joint for dinner. I should make a greater effort to meet people, make new friends. I think these things, but also know that I will simply continue walking the most direct route to my apartment and eat a tuna salad sandwich on toast when I get there. Waiting at the elevator in my building, a man approaches me from behind while talking loudly on his cell phone. He’s drunk, and I know this even before he places his hand on my shoulder in order to keep from falling on his face. He doesn’t speak a lick of English, but this doesn’t prevent him from striking up a conversation with me once his call is finished; it almost never does. He’s a friendly, jostling bag of animated smiles and handshakes, and I’ve become somewhat used to this treatment, so when he grabs my hand in his and holds it lovingly on the ride up, I successfully resist the urge to elbow him in the back of the head. I’ve mentioned before that it is perfectly normal and appropriate for two drunken, heterosexual Korean men to behave in this manner. It is expected, in fact. So not wanting to offend my new friend, I grudgingly let it happen. Besides, when he presses the button for the ninth floor, I realize that he’ll be getting off five floors before me anyway. Or so I believe.
When the elevator stops on his floor, he tucks my hand firmly under his arm and begins to pull me off with him. I make an attempt at polite protest but this is quickly pushed aside as if I’m not truly in my right mind, as if I have no idea what it is I truly want from the night … which may not necessarily be untrue. I recall a moment here where I realize that I either allow myself to be the new Anglo-Saxon plaything to this retriever’s tenacious grip on me, or become far more forceful in my refusal to be further detained from my tuna salad sandwich. I can defend myself adequately enough, I reason, but we haven’t quite reached that point just yet. So again, I let it happen. And to be honest, this was the only way that I was making any friends tonight.
He tugs me into what I assumed was his apartment, but soon learn is actually his mother’s place. Apparently, it was she who I was intended to meet all along. There is some excited dialogue between the two of them which I can only guess at. Mom, holy shit! You’ll never guess what I saw downstairs while I was waiting for the elevator. A real, live white guy! Yeah. No, I’m not shitting you. He’s right here. I brought him here so you could see for yourself. Can you fucking believe this? No, I have no idea what he’s saying. I’m sure it’s English, though. Look at this guy, damn, this is our lucky day. Here, you talk to him or something while I get some mayonnaise and playing cards.
She is sitting cross-legged on the floor–of what I guess must be her bedroom–hunched and brooding over two stainless steel bowls. She is cutting a yellowish root of some kind into smaller pieces and placing some of the pieces into one bowl, some into the other. I try to discern the priority of their placement. Is it completely arbitrary, or does she have a system? I quickly abandon the riddle when I notice multiple flecks of the stuff stuck to her face. She’s got it in her hair and clinging to the wrinkled skin of her jowls. This is not the work of an organized mind. Her son brings a low table in from another room and motions for me to sit. He then begins to offer me juice, beer, milk, and yogurt. Would I like some of the yellow root that his mother is wearing? Do I need a blanket? Some beef jerky, a cigarette, honey mustard, lettuce? Would I care for some chewing gum or tap water? A baseball cap or mittens, perhaps?
Koreans under the influence of alcohol, I have noticed, will attempt to unload any–and sometimes all–of their possessions onto you. I can attest to this being the case with foreigners. I can’t say for sure if they do this with one another: an absurd and endless game of trading goods back and forth between households.
Throughout all this, they are both barraging me with unintelligible Korean. It’s always curious to me in these situations that people continue speaking in their own respective languages long after speech has proved resoundingly pointless and futile. You’d think we would just stop making noises, but we don’t. Not even to the deaf.
The son eventually begins making phone calls to every English-speaking person he knows. He then hands the phone over to me in the hope that some line of communication might be drawn between us. At some point I’m speaking to whom I understand to be his brother.
“Is he drunk?” he asks me.
“Oh yeah, he’s drunk alright.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he says chuckling.
“No worries,” I assure him, “he’s being very hospitable and generous.”
“What is your religion?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you go to church? You should go to our church. It’s very close. You should leave your number and we’ll call.” It soon becomes clear that I have far more in common with the shitfaced brother who speaks another language.
“Hey, listen, can you tell your brother that I really appreciate the bean sprouts and pancake syrup, but I’m just comin’ home from work and I really need to take a shower so …” I awkwardly hand the phone back to my enthusiastic host.
He shortly ends the call and gestures that I am free to continue on my way, but not before he presents to me a few parting gifts: a turnip or gourd of some sort, I can’t be sure, and a tube of toothpaste.
Tell Your Story Walking 