Taryn Blake - Bearing My Seoul: Tales of a Black American Girl in a Big Asian City

GOLD APPLE BOOKS

Bearing My Seoul

Copyright 2021 Taryn L. Blake

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without prior written permission, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. For permissions, please contact .

All internet links were accurate at the time of printing. If you discover an error, please let us know at .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021914631

First Edition: November 2021

Published in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-17379784-04 (paperback)

978-17379784-35 (hardcover)

978-17379784-11 (audiobook)

978-17379784-28 (ebook)

THE INTRO

!

H i friends!

Seoul, Korea, is one of the largest metropolitan areas on the planet. It consistently ranks among the Top 10. That comes with Top 10 noise, pollution, busy sidewalks, crowded trains, and teeny, tiny apartments.

Seoul is also lit.er.al.ly The City that Never Sleeps. Bars and clubs stay open as long as they have patrons (typically about 5:30 a.m. when the trains start up again). If one place closes, theres always another place within walking distance. If not a bar, a caf. If not a caf, then karaoke. If not karaoke, pull up a plastic chair outside the neighborhood convenience store and crack open a soju cuz thats how Seoul gets down.

Any place that is so perpetually busy is bound to have elements of chaosthats the bearing portion of My Seoul in the books title. But like residents of other iconic cities, I was in no rush to leave.

I love Seoul like New Yorkers love New York City. If youve never met any New Yorkers, let me sum up that NYC type of love:

Yup. That kinda love.

My one-year teaching contract turned into over five years in Seoul from August 2008 to March 2014.

For those of you who dont know mewhich is half the people reading this bookIm American of the regular black variety. Its also worth noting that Im Christian which informsamongst a myriad of other thingsmy obsession with Biblical parallels for random circumstances as well as my decision to go on a date with a particular Korean deportee and misguided emulator of hip-hop culture against my better judgement. (See: Thug Life.)

I lived in the Seoul suburbs, , and in downtown. I rode public transportation and I eventually bought a car. I met lots of people and I did lots of stuff. Thats what the stories in this book are about.

Speaking of which: Thank you for buying my book! Im so geeked that youre reading this. This book isnt fiction. Ive been telling these stories in one way or another since they happened. I wrote each essay to match what happened as closely as I remember it. Theyve been sitting on my laptop for quite some time begging me to put them out into the world. (Yay. I did it!)

And on a final personal note, while this may be obvious to most, its worth mentioning that memoir is a recording of particular moments in time. The reactions and conclusions Ive written here are just thatwritten. People and places are not fixed. They are always pulsating with change and hopefully, progress for the better. (Myself included!)

One of the most distinctive things about Korea is how lightening fast the country changes. Modern Korea is just barely over the hill. It hasnt yet settled into the steady rhythms of old age. Its still fighting over, and for, its legacy. Fighting like hell. Literally. (Do an internet search for South Korean National Assembly fights for reference.) But hey, lets hear it for democracy, their neighbors to the North are nearly as lucky.

Seoul will forever live on in my heartand by the publishing of this bookon these pages. With that in mind, I welcome you to experience snapshots of a whirlwind season of my life in a whirlwind metro of a city.

Thank you for letting me share my Seoul.

!

Sincerely,

Taryn Blake

THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS

!

K oreas Incheon Airport is massive. Few other airports compare in size, quality, and efficiency. Incheon serves as the primary airport for an entire nation of 50 million people.

Thats more people than Canadain a space the size of Kentucky.

At all times of the day and night, there are gaggles of people outside the international arrival doors. Family members, business personnel, and unauthorized taxi drivers compete for the best view and the most space.

Occasionally, security has to enforce respect for the entryways.

This was one of those days.

The bright summer sun shone down through three-story-high glass walls into a vast ground floor foyer.

As I exited the customs area, I was greeted with a sea of clamoring faces. I navigated past the waiting crowd with an increasing sense that I had no idea where I was.

Dunkin Donuts.

Paris Baguette.

Gifts.

Souvenirs.

All the shops in my line of sight were unexpectedly titled in English or French.

I pushed my luggage cart further into the looking glass

Are you a teacher?

I turned my head to identify the source of the question and saw a wall of Asian faces. Im pretty sure I was wearing my default paranoid-urbanite-being-addressed-by-a-stranger face. The girl who questioned me seemed oblivious to it. She was staring right at me, her luggage cart piled every bit as high as my own.

Yeah, I am. How did you know? I replied.

You dont look military. Did you come with S.M.O.E.?

Yeah. I now began to wonder if I was being hustled.

I did too. Were supposed to meet at Arrival Gate F, the girl assures me.

Fourteen hours stuffed onto the plane and I didnt have the sense to find out what to do after I walked through customs. I was so flustered about (this) my first international trip, that I expended what little energy I had left, after nearly three days of only three hours sleep, figuring out whether I had filled out the arrival and entry cards correctly.

This was energy poorly spent because I was now in the hands of a complete stranger, walking to a destination I knew nothing about.