Home in Korea
Sunday, October 26th, 2008My mind had been filled with best case and worst case scenarios as the train chugged into Taejon Station. Would my new home have a spacious view like the one I never tired of in Israel? Or would it have the charm of my 100-year-old home in an anachronistic remnant of a Chinese village on a small island connected to Macau? Perhaps it would have the roominess of my three-room apartment in Taiwan. Or, might there be the same leaden air around it where black soot from burning trash fell on my balcony in Taiwan? Would it be one tall building looking into the bedrooms of even taller buildings as was happening in Macau? Would it be as cold as my room in China where my sweet students lugged several thermos bottles at night so I could “bathe?” I had no hope it would share any resemblance to my one large room in Bali in a renovated Dutch building set amidst a garden with a sweeping panorama of mountains, valleys, and ocean.
I had been told I would have a two-room apartment in the dormitory on campus. But that plan had changed with the large number of foreign teachers coming. “It’s very small,” the department chairwoman began. “Does it have a view?” was my first concern. “No,” she answered frankly. But perhaps I could choose which new apartment I wanted among those being prepared for the teachers who were due to arrive next week.
Relieved to see the pretty hillside at the edge of the city where the university nestles, I could choose among six almost ready apartments. “Oh, good,” the chairwoman exclaimed, “some of the furniture has come.” What indeed filled my view was an enormous (at least it looked so in the tiny room) double bed with footboard, sideboards, and a huge headboard. The room itself would be considered small under any conditions, but a huge closet (not built-in), the double bed, and a table with four chairs (two of which sat on top of the table for lack of space) filled it quite full.
Korean-style living is floor-oriented because the floor has water pipes running underneath for heat. What covers one wall of the small balcony is a multi-pipe gadget with pipes extending under the floor and a long exhaust jutting outside the building like a rifle. I would much prefer to have no bed and use the Korean system of sleeping on pads on the floor. “There’s no place to store the bed,” the chairwoman responded rather sympathetically.
I picked the room with what I considered the best view. At the moment I saw it, some sunlight was nicely illuminating a portion of the table. The light and sun seemed adequate, and I liked looking out upon a field in front of the apartment where plastic greenhouses were erected for growing something or other. It reminded me fondly of the plastic tents housing strawberries I had looked over from my window in Kfar Saba, Israel.
Light and air is a puzzling aspect of Korean homes. My little efficiency has no less than 20 windows and doors. What amazes me is that, with all these, I can see only a miniscule portion of outdoors. I will try to explain. The balcony has four opaque windows. Only two of them can be open at one time. There are two sets of sliding glass doors from the balcony into the room. One set is transparent glass. The other set in front of them is opaque. Again, only one side can be seen through at any given time, thus halving the view at all times. Between the room and kitchen, there is another opaque set of sliding doors.
The bathroom is off the kitchen. It has a door, shower, toilet, no sink, and a small double set of windows, which gives half a view into the corridor outside the apartment door. The kitchen window is also a double set that allows a sliver of a view when the corridor’s windows to outside are also open. In the warm weather, I hope to be able to open the front door to let in more view and light and a cross breeze.
I went to bed that first night snuggled in a borrowed blanket of what I figured were Bambi and her mother and mentally reconfigured the room. When I had figured out how to dismantle the bed, store the boards on the balcony, and put the bookcase/headboard on the balcony to hold plants, I fell asleep.
I awoke to a sunny day and immediately opened up my balcony windows. The concerned landlady downstairs motioned to me to close them, saying “munzi, munzi” which, from her pantomime must have meant “dusty.” I reluctantly closed the windows on the outdoors and mumbled, “I’m a flower, not a mushroom.” Having shocked her the first day by carrying my heavy suitcase into the room without first taking off my shoes, I didn’t want to get another well-meaning lecture on “how to live properly in a Korean home.”
I went out and bought a plant, which always means “home” to me. That day, and the next few days, I returned to find my little room shrinking. Still working on the assumption that westerners require certain items, the university did not skimp on providing us with a quite large refrigerator on top of which I’ve placed the thankfully small tv, an efficient, but bulky vacuum cleaner to clean up the small amount of exposed floor space, and a large washing machine adequate for a big family. The promised microwave hasn’t arrived yet.
I did fairly well re-adjusting to each additional cramping of my space. But the part that truly tested my adjustability was the addition of a large air conditioner over the bed with big pipes extending out the balcony and around the walls, which are connected to a humongous exhaust fan mounted on a metal shelf right at the window level, thus reducing my already pitiful view. This fan also totally eliminated any hope of putting the headboard on the balcony.
Daunted and disappointed, I worked on the idea, “If you can’t make it roomy, then make it womby.” So, I added more plants to give the look and comfort of a greenhouse in the portion of the balcony not taken up by the pipes, exhaust fan and shelf, and the washing machine. These plants will test my light-green thumb to the maximum.
Comparisons with Alice in Wonderland who grew and shrank in her environment have come to mind. Edward Albee’s play of movers bringing furniture into an apartment until the owner disappears also took on new meaning. And then there is the touching story, A Patch of Blue, which seems to be what I must be content to see. But the most appropriate comparison is what it must be like to live in a dollhouse. Everything is easily at hand. Any speck of dirt can be seen and immediately picked up (which really gets annoying).
My little home is neat and clean, albeit crowded. This will definitely cut down on any natural propensity to accumulate “stuff.” The warehouse/factory touch has advantages. For example, the white pipe going through the room conveying gas to the stove is convenient for hanging up clothes that are almost dry, or to air them out. The light from the bed can be easily moved over to the table when needed. My parents gave me a cheerful blue and yellow bird that activates when jiggled to let out a cheery chirp. He sits on my uneven table that easily wiggles and sets off his chirp.
It’s always interesting to compare one’s reactions to others. Upon seeing the tiny room, another teacher and her husband, both good-sized Americans, were pleased as punch not to have to share a kitchen and bathroom with others as they had been doing in their last job. Another couple thinks of it as “camping out” for a year. One teacher plans to put up many shelves for storage, and I can think only of minimal decorating and lots of plants.
Through perhaps a quirk of fate, or a performance in the theatre of the absurd, one teacher has been given a dormitory apartment. It is enormous — and well furnished. We scratch our heads and wonder how it was decided to house us in shoeboxes over those spacious apartments.
My philosophy in going to other cultures to live has been to enjoy what is new and different instead of yearning for what “isn’t” and what’s “missing.” And so I can enjoy the usual quietness of living in an alley with few cars, the short walk to the “downtown” of our neighborhood, bargaining in the marketplace, and taking the healthy 20-minute walk on a small path through the waving rice up the hill to the university. Soon there will be my new students to enjoy teaching.
P.S. Later, I was able to get the bed removed, so I now sleep on the floor. This has opened up the room somewhat, making me more comfortable. However, just today they came and put a screen and bars (in this basically crime-free country) on my little kitchen window to the outside corridor. Alas, this final touch adds a prison look to my tiny view.
This is a excerpt from 1997 in my book, Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird, published in 2006.