Heart and Seoul
By Jenny Hall

“The thing about Korea is, you never know where you will end up at five o’clock.”
— Robert Fouser

I stepped off the bus into the steamy streets of Seoul.

“Can I help you?” a young guy asked me politely in English. That was it exactly — the point from which Korea was defined — outgoing without being pushy, courteous without being awkwardly shy. Somewhere between the overly curious Chinese and the ultra-reserved Japanese.

Perhaps Gyong-si was exceptional. I certainly thought so as he trudged through the streets carrying my pack and guidebook, asking policemen directions, trying to locate my (as it turned out) non-existent hotel. A 30-year-old computer engineer, he had majored in French at university and spent time abroad.

“When I went to Paris and America I had so many people help me, so I am happy to be able to help you,” he told me earnestly. The misty drizzle flecking his glasses didn’t perturb him as he asked me questions about my life and pointed out buildings of interest. Finally, after several hotels had failed to work out, I resigned myself to the next one I laid eyes on. Gyong-si left me at the check-in desk with his mobile number and my promise to call if I wanted a free tour in the next couple of days.

Later I ventured out into the drizzle for a snack. The streets of Seoul were deserted and dark. In a small, old-fashioned supermarket the customers did a double-take as they spotted the foreigner. At the register, my “gamsa hamnida” raised a smile from the cashier.

An hour later Gyong-si called my hotel room. I nervously wondered about stalkers.

“I just wanted to make sure your hotel was okay,” he said.

The following day I met him on Insadong-gil, a trendy street of shops and teahouses. He sat waiting on his motorbike — a road cruiser style — his boyish hair neatly cut, out of tune with the rugged biker stereotype. He had been waiting all morning for me to call.

“My friend is coming here too,” he told me. “She studies French at my old university.”

Jae-hwa was 23, with long dark hair, large almond eyes, and a wide sensuous mouth. Her sleeveless pink t-shirt and jeans sat comfortably over her curves. She explained that although she lived an hour and a half away by train she had been eager to meet me. Our first stop was a small backstreet noodle shop. We ordered naeng myeon. Jae-hwa picked up the cold, spicy glass noodles with her flat metal chopsticks, curled them into her spoon and devoured them neatly.

“Can you use chopsticks?” she asked me, but her lack of amazement at my affirmative reply was a departure from the usual Japanese response. “I didn’t learn to use them properly until I was a university student,” Jae-hwa admitted.

The curious restaurant owner now came over.

“She’s asking where you are from,” Gyong-si told me as the woman stood there expectantly.

After this and a few more questions, I asked Gyong-si, “Can you tell her the noodles are delicious?” The owner beamed and entreated me to come back again.

We walked to Jongmyo — the Royal Shrine. Its surrounding grounds were filled with trees, meandering paths and stone seats. Sheets of calligraphy hung on lines like laundry, waiting to be sold. Old men sat chatting and playing chess. I wondered where the old women hung out. As luck would have it, the shrine, which holds the ancestral tablets of the Yi kings, was closed, so we caught a train to Deoksugung.

Gyong-si paid for all of us to enter the 15th century palace. I was surprised, but the entrance fee was cheap, encouragement for locals to visit their heritage. Gyong-si proudly showed me around and explained. I learned that Deoksugung had only twice been the residence of the royals, first following the 1592 sacking of Seoul by Hideyoshi, and second, during the 20th century when King Gojong returned to Korea.

We followed the paths through the palace gardens. Suddenly Gyong-si scrambled into a garden. He soon came back cupping his hands, holding them close to our ears. Then he held his noisy prize up between thumb and forefinger for us to see — a cicada. After a short while the whirring stopped.

“The batteries ran out,” I joked, then had to explain what batteries were.

“You’re a funny person,” Gyong-si told me with a bemused smile.

Nearby, a display of water lilies and lotus floated in big stone vessels. We sat on the granite steps of a building, admiring the ancient eaves curving up into the sky, contrasting with the tall, glimmering glass buildings in the background. Then we wandered back through the streets.

Jae-hwa had to leave us to go and teach French lessons. But Gyong-si had something else on my tour itinerary.
“My friend lives near Gimpo Airport,” he told me. “She wants to meet you. She thought you would be flying out from there, so you could stay with her for free.”

Cruising on his motorcycle over a huge bridge that spanned the Hangang River we got stuck in traffic. I held my oversized helmet to stop it from slipping and gripped the back of the bike. A man leaned out his car window, grinned at me, and spoke to Gyong-si.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He wanted to know where you were from.”

We got moving again, and as the sky turned orange-pink and the hot wind tugged at my clothes, it hit me — here I was on the back of a young guy’s motorbike in a country I’d been in for barely two days. How on earth did I get here? Suppressing a laugh, I sat there grinning in amazement.

Gradually we crept into suburbia. Twisting into view, neat highrise blocks of flats surrounded by trees. Streets became wider. Lights came on and the sky settled into an inky, humming urban black. Gyong-si wasn’t sure how to get to his friend’s house by road so, after circling Gimpo Airport twice, we stopped to ask some policemen. Gyong-si was nervous about consulting them. He had failed the written test for his license the previous day, and was driving without one.

We made it to his friend’s apartment where he introduced me to Hyun-ju, her sister, sister’s husband and children. During dinner around the small table in their kitchen/living room, Gyong-si had his work cut out for him translating their questions. I noticed how Hyun-ju’s sister waited on her husband and the rest of us, hovering near the low table. We ate kimchee and several small dishes, accompanied by rice.

After dinner we went to the park for the kids to roller skate. I was surprised that at 10:00 p.m. the place was full of families, all enjoying the warm evening. Later Gyong-si left, and a bed was made up for me in Hyun-ju’s apartment. Before we slept she showed me some cutlery and chopsticks; she had designed their floral handles.

Breakfast included slices of chilled apple that tasted like kimchee. I thanked the family warmly and made my way back into the city. In the evening I met up with Gyong-si once more, for dinner. We sat down to barbequed squid and all at once Gyong-si became tongue-tied. My heart sank, guessing at what was coming. “I sent you an email this morning,” he told me. “You’ll get it when you get back to Japan. What do you think of cross-cultural relationships?”

“Oh I don’t believe in them,” I said offhandedly, determined to squash anything before it arose.

“Not even with me?” he countered.

“No,” I said, laughing, trying to make the situation more light-hearted. We wandered around the neon-lit streets of Jongno 2-ga — hot pink lotus flowers, sky blue strips, devil red restaurant names. It was time to say goodbye. I would find out later that his email was a proposal of marriage, on condition that I move to Korea. I was both touched and shocked. In the mere three days I’d known him he had never even attempted to hold my hand.

In Japan I emailed and gently rejected his offer but I was confused and, to be honest, slightly insulted. How could he expect me to exchange my whole life in Japan for one in Korea when I barely knew him or his country? How could he want to spend his life with me when he didn’t even know me? It hadn’t been three days of all-night philosophical discussions. We hadn’t spent hours recounting our childhoods, or sharing intimacies. There hadn't been, at least for me, that instant rapport that makes two people feel like they have known each other their whole lives. Were our ideas and expectations of relationships so different?

In sporadic future correspondence I voiced my confusion but he couldn’t give an explanation of his action and perhaps it was unfair of me to expect one. I wanted to understand where this proposal had come from, the basis of it, and was disappointed that I couldn’t. Finally he told me I could never understand because I wasn’t Korean. I couldn’t help feeling this was what was wrong with the proposal in the first place — that we simply didn’t know each other.

“We can meet at some levels, but not at others. A border will intervene without our knowledge. There are different borders, different differences which we have to learn to cope with in different situations.” – Rustom Bharucha

Jenny Hall is an Osaka-based travel writer and photographer. She is also a contributing editor for Kansai Time Out. When she's not flitting between Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka, or hiking up mountains, she's shielding herself from the advice of her obaa-chan neighbours. She's currently in search of an adventurous publisher for her manuscript about travelling the Silk Road.

All photos by Jenny Hall