Author's
correction: My apologies to Walter Cronkite, who is
very much alive and living in New York City with his
wife of 59 years. Sometimes I forget that celebrities
stop appearing on television for reasons other than
death.
* * * * * * * * * "I was dreaming when I wrote this; forgive me if it goes astray."
Prince
* * * * * * * * *
As if Mondays weren't bad enough already, there was
a grim little article in the paper a couple of weeks
ago. Stephen Hawking, the world-famous physicist, said
that he was afraid the human race would not survive
another milennium, "I am afraid the atmosphere will
get hotter and hotter until it will be like Venus with
boiling sulfuric acid". Sulfuric acid boils at 340 degrees
celsius (644 Fahrenheit), and if the heat doesn't do
you in, I'm sure the smell alone would kill the hardiest
survivor.
I'm sure there are lots of places Professor Hawking
is not able to go, yet he talks about the cosmos with
the certainty of a bus driver talking about the route
he's been driving for 58 years. His doom forecast certainly
resonated with me: I'm astonished if I merely survive
a trip across Pusan on my scooter. On my bad days, it's
easy to imagine the earth being enveloped in choking
clouds of stinky gas, because on a bad day in Ulsan
(where I lived last year) the earth actually IS enveloped
in clouds of stinky gas.
Last Monday, I was ready for Stephen Hawking. Party
poopers from Nostradamus to Ronald Reagan have long
filled my head with visions of fire from the heavens.
With Hollywood's help, I have already contemplated the
possibilty of plague (Twelve Monkeys), alien invasion
(Independence Day) and giant monsters (Godzilla). And
last week I was even more prepared for Stephen Hawking's
acid forecast, because the Monday in question had aldready
been ruined by my landlord.
The Book of Revelations too talks about the end of
the world, and how the last days would be heralded by
the coming of the Anti-Christ. I don't know what the
Anti-Christ would do exactly, but I imagine he would
really ruin my day. In the final analysis, all my dealings
with my landlord seem to serve no purpose other than
to prepare me for the end of the world. He makes boiling
sulfuric acid seem like Sunday Afternoon on La Grande
Jatte. I'm not saying he's the Anti-Christ, but there's
a good possibility he is one of the devil's own protoypes,
providing Satan with invaluable data on how to build
the ultimate Pain in the Ass.
* * * * * * * * *
A novice can ruin a Monday, but my landlord ruins days
indiscriminately, and he does it with the ease of a
virtuoso. He has the air of a natural who has been pissing
people off for a long, long time. He gets under my skin
in several ways, like waking me up at dawn to ask me
how my toilet is working.
And he's nearly deaf, so he doesn't merely ask questions,
he shouts them. And he is nearly blind, so he shouts
them in my face. And he is old, so he often launches
spittle and sometimes little gobs of phlegm.
I can hear him just fine, especially since I started
averting my face so he can spit directly into my ear.
But still we can't communicate. I speak halfway decent
Korean but always fail to understand his dialect. I
communicate well enough with his wife; she asks me all
the time "Where are you going?" and I say "Away from
here." Despite my brown hair, blue eyes, and prominent
double eyelid, my landlord seems to think I'm Korean,
and speaks to me as if I'd grown up on the docks in
Pusan.
To his credit, he does make an effort to speak English.
His approach to second language aquisition is so novel
that it may even inspire new research in linguistics
or pedagogy. It's breathtakingly simple: he has learned
one word--"Okay"--and has decided that he can make it
mean whatever he wants it to. Aside from the traditional
meaning of Okay (as in "everything's cool"), he uses
it to say hello, good bye, please come here, turn on
the light, wake up, and so on. It's a brilliant approach,
especially because it limits our conversations to about
thirty seconds, which is when I start to become nauseated.
I'm not knocking the guy just for being old. He is
rude and inconsiderate, not only waking me up before
the chickens, but sometimes insisting I get dressed
and come over to his house for yet another fruitless
chat. He has continually evaded my questions about my
electric bills, which are double what most people pay,
once even suggesting that it was somehow fair because
I use his washing machine a couple of times a month.
And he's nosy--apparently he thinks having a foreign
tenant is like having a free, round-the-clock zoo exhibit.
Despite our problems, our dealings with each other
remain essentially Confucian. Although I and everybody
else knows he is a tactless, loveless, hopeless jerk,
we all show him the respect accorded a person his age.
On good days, I like Confucianism a lot--it makes people
visit their grandparents on holidays and bow to the
tombs of their ancestors, thanking them for the gift
of life. But on my bad days, Confucianism seems to be
little more than a system designed to ensure that even
complete assholes get a little respect once in a while.
* * * * * * * * * *
After considerable hand-wringing and many hours of
lost sleep, I finally decided to move out. I told him
on a Sunday through my secretary, and on Monday morning
he was banging on my door, screaming "Okay!" at six
o'clock.
I answered the door, as I always do at 6 o'clock, half-asleep
in my underwear. Most people take this to mean they've
come at a bad time. Not my landlord; he stood there
pulling up on his belt and spastically cocking his head
toward his apartment next door, saying "Okay?"
This was a new one. The uninitiated could be forgiven
for thinking that a roving pervert was making an indecent
proposal. But after a moment I knew he was simply saying,
"Get some clothes on and come next door. I need to talk
to you."
I stared blankly for a moment while my brain yawned.
And I was surprised by this new level of inconsideration.
Eventually, I repeated a phrase that I've had a lot
of practice with in recent months, "Ajossi, I was sleeping."
He thought I hadn't understood, so he repeated his
Okay mime. This time I took it to mean, "I know you
were sleeping, but I'm a complete jackoff with a bug
up my ass, so I must insist you get dressed and come
over right this second." If there's one nice thing I
can say about the guy, it is this: He is not a procrastinator.
I knew resistance was useless, and I was already too
pissed off to fall back to sleep. I said "Okay," meaning,
"Okay, you rotten prick." Take THAT--Two can play the
Okay game.
We sat down in his apartment. The conversation mostly
went over my head, but some of it landed on my cheeks
and forehead. Finally he asked me a simple question,
"Why are you leaving?"
I rubbed my hand through my uncombed hair, struggling
for words and self-control. How to explain it to him
in a way that is both civil and intelligible? I told
him simply "It's too expensive," without telling him
exactly what it was costing me: sleep, sanity, and peace
of mind.
This answer surprised him, and it sparked another storm
of saliva and saturi. He was going on about numbers--maybe
he was justifying the bills again?--so I decided to
spell it out for him: "I'm not happy here."
The rain stopped. He looked into my red, sleep-encrusted
eyes and asked, "You're not happy?"
Normally, I would answer "no" to this question, as
in, "No, I'm not happy." But in Korea, one answers the
questions literally, as in, "Yes (That's correct, I'm
not happy)." I wanted to be perfectly understood on
this point, so I said, "Okay."
"Ahhhhh", he gargled, and there was a momentary silence.
I took that as my cue to leave. I got up and he started
gurgling again but I cut him off, "Please call my secretary."
He said "Okay" and I walked out, so he said "Okay"
again.
Outside it was shaping up to be a rainy day, but I
felt good for having given him at least a glimpse of
my thoughts. And I was already getting excited about
my imminent freedom. Despite my deep loathing for my
landlord, I had to credit him with instilling in me
the feeling that everything is and forever will be okay.
Even though I was still madder than hell, I felt ready
for anything, even boiling sulfuric acid. But first
I had to catch up on some sleep.
Author's note: I'm currently looking for an apartment.
If anyone knows of a good place, please e-mail me. The
ideal place would be within a few stops of Somyon, have
two rooms, an inside toilet, and a landlord who lives
in California.
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