JOURNAL: A Fresh Start in the "Foreigner Ghetto"

I have just moved back to Seoul - new job, beautiful apartment, and an interesting neighborhood. I will be blogging regularly again as my new job features less hours and I will have to spend less time doing battle over lack of water/blue water/lack of electricity/ lack of Internet/etc.

I am officially finished with my year of purgatory, and I hope never to have to visit the place again. I said goodbye to the green-haired hooker, the convenience store owner, and the apartment manager (who was equally glad to get rid of me I'm sure!). I hired a bongo truck (Korean pick-up) and hauled my belongings up to Seoul and my new home in Yongsan-gu, the so-called "foreigner ghetto." Actually, I would call it more a neighborhood with "character" than a ghetto. But first, the apartment...

It took me a good two weeks to find a good apartment - I knew I wanted to live in a certain area (i.e. cheap!), and most of the good options were already taken or out of my price range. I also had a bout with a rather nasty case of the stomach flu, followed by a severe food/medical allergy which sent me to the hospital twice. This all happened while I was apartment hunting, and suddenly I found that I had three days left before losing my old apartment. Needless to say, I was in a bit of a panic!

The first day I was allowed out of bed, I called yet a third realtor. She showed me a basement apartment (good size but no natural light) and a nasty mold farm, these being the only options in my price range. I was about to give up when she suddenly remembered another place that had just opened up. Although it was way out of my price range, I agreed to see it. It was perfect.

The landlord brought the rent down significantly; it turns out that his son graduated from the university I will be teaching at! Although the rent is still a bit high, it is doable. I have a three "bedroom" (only one of them is big enough for a bed), fully-furnished apartment with partial utilities included in the rent. I have a nice sized kitchen with an oven (a rarity in Korea), a bathroom with a bathtub (ditto), a fully furnished TV room, a patio/balcony, and even a computer desk! The apartment is clean and in good condition; it has been well-maintained and looked-after. I did see one cockroach, but the place is fully roach-trapped and appears to be bug-free. I am near a wooded area, so I fully expect to see a few bugs!

The neighborhood? Well, it is singularly unique for Korea. Koreans give this area a bad rap for some reason; it may have been a bad area at one time, but I feel much safer here than I ever did in Byeongjeom. First of all, the language of commerce is English. This is for a practical reason; for one, it is just outside the 8th Army Base Wall. Another reason is that there are a multitude of ethnic groups living around here besides Westerners - there are Nigerians, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, Turks, Arabs, and a few East Indians. It is a very heterogeneous mix of peoples and culture; the common language is English.

So is it "third world"? Not really. There are some signs of moderate poverty, but there are also signs of thriving businesses, gentrification, and a neighborhood life all its own. I enjoy hearing children playing in the street, old people nodding and grumbling out in the sun, dogs barking, cars passing by; these are all sounds of a healthy neighborhood. Everyone is friendly; I don't get the hard stares I got in Byeongjeom. Instead, people look at me, smile, and nod or bow, then go on their way. I do not feel like a Martian.

I live towards the top of a hill that makes Lombardi Street in San Francisco look like the flat Midwest. It is a bit dangerous for pedestrians as cars can't really stop once they get going...There are many blind corners, and you must rely on your ears rather than eyes to know when cars are coming. It is a good fifteen-minute hike, ten of it uphill, from the subway station to my place, but I like the exercise so far. The view is nice at night; I can see Namsan Tower all lit up from the main road as I trudge up the hill. There are several thriving "ethnic" restaurants around, a sports bar that serves very good hamburgers, and am honest-to-goodness American-style coffee house (not Starbucks), complete with tatty paperbacks in the corner. They also serve an American breakfast.

I think I am going to like living here. It is not very "Korean," but it is a functional international community. Some may scoff at me for not wanting to live the "authentic" Korean life anymore; the truth, as I have learned the hard way, is that no one who was not born and raised here will ever be allowed the authentic experience because Korea still embraces a culture of exclusion. This is their struggle as they join the international community - how to integrate globalization without losing their precious sense of national pride and identity. I am educating the new generation as best I can to be more tolerant of others, and I hope to help these young adults open their minds and hearts to outsiders.