Survival

Here in Seoul, you have to learn to fend for yourself. Each day is a fight for survival. And so, I have aptly titled this post "Survival". Prepare to learn how to live. While reading, I suggest that you listen to this song, which is also called "Survival", but is really about man's great struggle against dynamics that fall below mezzo piano. Imagine me listening to this while dodging cars and motorcycles. More on that later.

First, there's food. Since the dawn of time, man has been driven by the desire to fill his stomach with delicious food. That desire continues to this day. Namely, it continues with me. Now, let me be clear that finding food in Seoul is not hard. In fact, finding delicious food is incredibly easy because everything here is delicious. Even if you don't feel like walking the twenty or so steps it takes to get to the nearest kimbap/doppoki/fried food vendor, you can always have food delivered because everything, even McDonald's, delivers. But then there comes the day when you realize that there's an emptiness inside of you, an emptiness that can only be filled with a home-cooked, American meal. Then it's time to draw upon the instincts of your ancestors and embrace the hunter-gatherer within you.

Recently, I made beef stew. Or rather, I think it was beef. It was probably pork. Then another day, I had a craving for a nice meat and tomato pasta sauce. Since Ragu is for peasants, I decided I was going to make it from scratch. I am not exaggerating when I say it took me almost two weeks to find all of the ingredients.

I had to kill a few people.

Do you see that cheese? Cheese is like gold over here. Some stores sell it in security packaging so you can't steal it. That wine? It was a gift from my company. Except I had already enjoyed my allotted portion of wine and had to buy a coworker's bottle. I could have gone to the store to buy wine, but then I would have had to suffer the embarrassment of spending 30 dollars on a bottle of Barefoot. The ground beef was the hardest. I obsessively visited local grocery stores until I found one tiny package buried at the bottom of a freezer.

Now that your stomach is filled once more, it's time to venture outside and behold the wonders that the world has to offer. Just be careful that no one kills you. I don't mean the kind of killing that involves edged weapons and laughter, by the way. Those sorts of things don't happen in Korea. I mean cars. I mean motorcycles. I mean that you need to learn to dodge them, or, even better, learn how to stare them into submission.

If traffic laws exist, I have never seen them enforced. In fact, the only time I've seen police dealing with traffic is when they set traps for drunk people. Other than that, they're usually causing traffic. The other day, I was late to work because the police had set up a barricade in Gangnam, surrounding a group that was protesting Samsung. It wouldn't have been that bad except that the number of police was triple that of the protesters, and all of the polices buses had blocked the real buses. A few days ago, a street vendor's truck got in the way of the bus I was riding. The bus driver stopped the bus in the middle of a busy intersection, and, ignoring all other traffic, jumped out of the bus and began cursing at the vendor. We sat there for about five minutes, during which time the intersection remained completely blocked. Even though this was in Itaewon, an area with a higher than average crime rate and thus a higher than average police presence, not a single cop showed up to do anything. In the end, the vendor's friends showed up, and the driver had to get back inside his bus and drive away.

Another problem is that many Korean streets do not have sidewalks or any sort of marking. Cars go up and down at will and park pretty much wherever they feel like. Even if there is a sidewalk, that won't stop motorists from using it as a spare roadway and/or parking space. Delivery guys use sidewalks as a convenient shortcut through traffic. Other guys ride up and down the sidewalks at high speeds, leaving behind a trail of advertisements about lonely, large-breasted women.

Pictured: A superior parking job.

Perhaps you are thinking that my walk to work involves death-defying deeds of daring. You are incorrect. No, my walk to work involves nothing more than a cold stare of defiance. Rather than wait for that jerk in the car to pass, I walk out in front of him, angry music blaring, and I stare him right in the eye as I walk in front of him. I don't speed up, and I don't slow down. I just walk. And I stare. I dare you to hit me, I say with my eyes. I dare you to feel the guilt for the rest of your miserable life. He doesn't stop. But he slows down to let me pass. Then I go to work, where I teach children about English and love and friendship.

The End.


Extra Bonus: Here's a picture of a real-life transformer. It's a truck that transforms into a bar. The side opens up, and they serve people on the sidewalk. Note the disco ball.

More than meets the eye.