Pusanweb Writing Contest 2002 - Fiction
 
Jungang-Dong
  by Albert Puido
December 10, 2002

Near Nampo-dong there were a bunch of foreigners, maybe Russian, that called themselves the Lundgren Monks. They were dressed in visors and multi-colored jumpsuits and Richard said they must have been Russian because, “Russians,” he sneered, “are the worst dressers.” Twenty-eight years ago his parents met in Russia when his dad was part of the Army Corps of Engineers and along with a samovar and fedoras, he said they brought to the US a terrible fashion sense.

On Saturdays Richard and I trekked near the International Ferry Terminal and drank near where the Lundgren Monk roosted. As we poured Bek-seju and exhausted conversation about how this is a financial district. Jungang-dong reminded me of New York, students, and other teachers. I thought of those guys with their slouch and embroidered jumpsuits.

Richard rested on his forearm with his eyes staring past me. We were in a Western bar, which meant Indian Chiefs with beer taps, lassos for ashtrays, and seared wood tables. Since Richard was quitting cigarettes as cheap as they were, a cough developed that usually ended with his mucus somewhere below. That day it was in our ashtray.

I made a face and he smiled with a laugh that came in high-pitched sputters. His whole body shook.

"We should talk to the Monks. We basically know them," I said, waving my seju.

He rubbed a straw in his mucus, "No."

I imagined one of the monks throwing down a cigarette and bumming one off a passerby, the embroidered letters Lundgren Monks shining in red thread across his chest. I said, "You like Dolph right? I must breck you.” He didn’t laugh. I said, “Maybe they could us get us imported stuff."

He touched his chin and said, "Like red and green jump suits? Come on. I can't think of worse things to do than talk to badly dressed, ugly," and he buried his eyes in mine, "and they probably don't even speak English."

"Fine." Actually I think I was afraid of the monks, but Dolph Lundgren was just an actor so they couldn't be so bad. I twirled the seju in my cup, humming the theme to Beverly Hills Cop.

"You're thinking about them. Have more soju." Richard called every Korean alcohol soju. He shook the last drops of the Bek-seju into my little bowl cup and holding his own half full cup, he said, "One, Two, Three." It was 10pm and we decided to leave.

We decided to go to a foreigner bar in Seomyeon called Foreigner Bar in Seomyeon. It was windy and between the subway and bar we walked quickly. The streets were filled with people in wool coats and big buttons, locked arm in arm. Neon lights beat us from above, below, right, left, and noise stung our brains when we closed our eyes. Once Richard and I held hands like the guys there, but we felt real stupid and I still remember how wet his hands were in the cold. Near Taewha, a fight broke out and a swarm of excited faces grew. We lost sight of the two men circling as our elevator closed, packed to capacity. The elevator was quiet except for everyone's coats. On the sixth floor we got a glass table with a view of the dance floor and outside. We put our jackets down. A slim waiter with big orange acne put coasters, a menu, and water on our table.

Bek-Seju han-byeong juseyo.” Richard said.

“And to eat?”

“Do you have fried… Tak Huried-u. Chicken Huried-u.” I said.

“Yeah, Fried Chicken and Bek-Seju,” the waiter said, and he walked to another table.

So Richard’s cousin in New York just had a baby and it happened on his birthday, which he was happy about as if his cousin did it in his honor. It was a cosmic coincidence and we drank to it. He was upset about how he couldn’t get a turkey for Thanksgiving or how he couldn’t get any good pizza. It annoyed me too, but we weren’t in New Jersey. The waiter hurriedly put our food and drinks on our table and left. We didn't recognize anyone.

"Geom-bae," Richard said, and in one shot I bottomed-up and let my eyes drift. A dancer with an exposed belly danced with awkward guys in loose jeans and white sneakers. Were their hands in the air or at their sides? The girl danced and she sometimes looked at the guys, sometimes looked at herself in the wall mirrors. The booths were filled with foreigners and Koreans chatting and drinking, trying to do funny things. Every so often a foreigner would stand up and kiss a woman's hand or speak Korean to the oohs and aahs of his company.

Richard said, "Are you looking at that girl?"

I nodded as the belly dancer began to grind a 40 year old with a BUSAN: DAE-HAN-MIN-GUK: KOREA T-shirt tucked in his pants. After a few gyrations, and Richard’s frustrated comment that "She has no tits," Richard upped and cut in.

My water soaked rings into my coaster. An empty bottle with four shadows stood on my table. My huried-u chicken soaked grease into the napkins it was served on. Richard had his eyes closed and pressed his hips into the girl, as red-faced people all around the bar slapped their thighs. I drank my seju looking on the street and at a group of men punching a punching machine and backing away to shake pain from their hands. I thought about Rocky IV with the Monks. Maybe they quoted Dolph lines in their daily speak: We come in peace and you go to pieces.

A guy hurt his hand bad on the punching machine when there was a knock on my table. A girl said, “Excuse me can I talk to you?”

A thin girl in no make-up smiled down at me. She had short hair and as she was hesitating I said, “Sure, please.”

She took off her scarf and asked if I was a student. “No actually I’m a English teacher… Ajashi! Uh, cup-u juseyo?

The waiter turned towards the girl and she cleared everything up. I wanted a cup for her and she ordered us beer, “You like beer, right?”

She said, “So I thought you were a student because you looked so young."

"People say I look eighteen, but I’m twenty-four or twenty-five. Twenty-four US and in Korean I'm not sure. ”

“When were you born?”

“1978.”

“So Twenty-four,” but she wasn't sure and the waiter came with five pints. In surprise I looked at Richard, who gave me a thumbs up and googly drunken eyes and who also had his girl whispering in his ear.

I nodded toward Richard and said, “That guy out there, his name is Richard. Sometimes he's my friend and sometimes he's not."

She was in Australia for eighteen months and promised herself that when she went back to Busan she would talk to every foreigner she saw because she knew how lonely traveling could be. I thanked her. I toasted to that and she wanted to know what I thought of Busan: the pushing, the shoving, the public baths, the music. She told me that while she was in Melbourne one of her roommates, a Singaporean, had to make her kimchi because she didn't know how. "I'm not a good Korean," she said.

Round three, four, five. Richard and the girl were leaving and I introduced him to, "Oh, what's your name?"

"Myeong Sun." Myeong Sun said.

Seju bottle one and two came and it was near three o'clock when she said she'd passed her curfew. I told her about the monks near Nampo-dong. She started touching my leg. She brought up how she was unemployed and single and how at her age to be both was a bad thing. I said she'd find someone. Her eyes shot side-to-side, down at the table, at her glass. She said, "Yeah, I'll find someone."

But she meant me, I think, and when I was home, pissing my beer, bek-seju, and friend chicken into my toilet, I thought it would have been funny if she was there watching Rocky IV with us and feeling so uncomfortable. I shook my head, flushed the toilet, brushed my teeth, and as I walked to my room a set of loud snores came from Richard's room. Good for him.

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