Lollipops and Cigarettes in South Korea
Journal entry from sometime in the fall of 2015
I woke up from a booze heavy nap in one of the many courtyards of the National Museum in Chuncheon, South Korea feeling like someone had taken a bat to every major muscle group on my body. My head was pounding from the series of Soju shots I had choked down earlier in the afternoon after taking a wrong turn into a watering hole I had come to understand, after it had been explained to me by my friend who was living in the area at the time, was one of the many in the city known for encouraging and often times acting as a front for, semi-organized illegal activity. I was drawn in by the glowing red light and hum of a tattoo machine that emanated from the below-sidewalk-level bar. I stayed because a small yet imposing old man kept putting shots in front of me and insisting I listen to him rant about things I will never understand, ever, because I don’t speak Korean, and the only thing he said in English that I understood was “Ace Ventura.”
The only way I could deduce I had ended up falling asleep here, on a public bench at the museum, was that it was the only place I could reliably point myself in the direction of after stumbling out of the bar. I couldn’t recall exactly how long I had been asleep. All I knew was that the security guard was less than enthused about my being there, and even less enthused about my near inability to hold myself up under my own power. The crust in the corners of my eyes was thick and troubling. The sweat on my back was slick and finding its way past my waistband to the void just below it. I hadn't shaved my face for at least two weeks. My jeans were lightly stained with drunken dribbles of urine and what I could have only guessed was hot mustard or errant kimchi barf. I had consumed each earlier in the day and the foulness in my mouth reassured me that it had come back up to make a second appearance. Taking all of this into consideration, I knew in that moment that I had to leave. Immediately. The language barrier between the guard and I was heavy, but not heavy enough for me to misunderstand that his chubby, flailing hands were telling me that it was well beyond time for me to vacate the premises.
Once I had my feet under me I started fumbling for my sunglasses and a nonexistent pack of cigarettes. In my drunkenness I had forgotten that I had quit smoking just before this trip, again. For the third, or ninth, time. Little did I know that I was still more than a decade away from realistically climbing my mountain of nicotine addiction. To my despair, I was without the cigarettes I was habitually patting myself down for and instead found a pocket full of Dum-Dum lollipops. The only reasonable answer I could settle upon to help alleviate the insatiable hand-to-mouth action I had become so accustomed to over my still short career as a chain smoker. I figured cavities would suit me much better than lung cancer and possible impotence, which was the real reason I wanted to quit smoking. Not cancer, impotence. I heard it would make you soft, and at an already less-than-fresh-faced twenty-something, I wanted nothing to do with that. It’s funny how when confronted with multiple possibly catastrophic outcomes the human male will almost always choose to identify exclusively with the one that relates directly to his penis over anything else. Slow and painful death coupled with constant oxygen starvation? Meh. Lose the inability to get hard? I’ve suddenly discovered God. So yeah, lollipops. I hated the bulge of the candies in my pocket and every time I started unwrapping one I would curse my decision to quit smoking. Luckily the cigarettes in South Korea all tasted like they were dipped in industrial toilet bowl cleaner, to me. A flavor my friend teaching English in South Korea described as “Little Bits of Chernobyl.” So, begrudgingly, I had admitted to myself that the lollipops were the better option.
Even though I hated those fucking lollipops.
I can't say what time it was as I walked away from my concrete bench and afternoon resting spot. Only that the sun was high and hot. My new security guard friend shadowed me as I drearily shambled my way back to the gates of the museum. The sun felt good on my shoulders and I was happy under my weathered Mariners cap, hiding behind my second-hand aviator shades. The wire rims were bent and the lenses were scratched to hell, but it felt right to be hiding behind them. I looked down at my feet, had stepped in dog shit at some point during the day and my battered Chuck Taylors had held on to the stench. What a fucking mess. I was the guy my parents had pointed to in childhood cautionary tales. No wonder the giant behind me wanted me off the grounds. It didn't help that I was wearing an old hand-me-down army issue button up shirt. I looked and was acting the part of an American G.I. man out on some sort of rest and relaxation bender. Only I'm no army man. The fact that I was almost as far from it as they come didn't matter. I had heard the rumors of pimple-faced junior military men from the United States and Russia getting wasted and beating or raping their way from one town to the next all over South Korea. Whether I was one of them or not, I was wearing the colors and was therefore lumped in with those evil bastards. I was absolutely a drunk, but I was no rapist. The shirt was a very poor choice on my part. I kept thinking to myself, stand up straight, eyes front, don’t be an asshole, be polite, don’t be the stereotypical drunk American. Knowing I had already failed all of that by passing out drunk in the middle of the day on a bench somewhere on the grounds of the Chuncheon National Museum.
Eventually I reached the ramp leading to the entrance of the main building and my chaperone left me on my own to float back towards the busy road below. My walk had gotten the blood flowing but I was now embarrassingly aware of my hazy drunkenness. I felt a powerful urge to re-calibrate. Just as I was thinking about dipping back into the first poorly lit bar I could find on the way back to my friend’s apartment, a group of school children turned from the street and started heading up the ramp in my direction. None of them stood over three and a half feet tall and all of them were wearing basically the same thing; navy blue sleeveless pullover sweater with red piping at the shoulders, collar and waist, starched white short-sleeved dress shirt, red tie, and blue pressed pleated skirts on the girls and blue pressed shorts on the boys. Each of them had on spit-shined, high-gloss, black plastic dress shoes. A few of the young boys were sporting bright yellow baseball hats. I couldn't help but laugh to myself. They were adorable. They made me forget about the events of the day that led up to being kicked off of museum property. Each one chattering away at the other. None of them seemed to be listening or caring about what the other was going on about. I watched the kids and started chomping on one of the dreadful, stupid, not cigarettes I was carrying in my pocket. As I was standing there, watching these children, smiling to myself, twirling the candy in my mouth, rolling the paper stick between my fingers, one of the tiny humans strode over to me with disarming kid-confidence. He seemed equal parts fearless and clueless. The way distracted children without a care in the world often do. He looked me up and down, took in his subject, and stuck his hand out, palm up. I instantly liked this kid. His peers had stopped talking or moving at all and were huddled together watching our interaction the way only scheming children do. Silent and obvious in their anticipation. Oblivious to their surroundings, not doubting what their friend was doing, but also not completely comfortable with it. It seemed to me that he had pulled the shortest straw. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small handful of Dum-Dums, holding all of them by their cardboard sticks like a bouquet of shitty disappointing little flowers. The once brave young man who had only seconds earlier demanded that I produce the treats suddenly retracted his hand and dropped his chin to his chest and appeared to be inspecting something near his feet. Without any words, I held the bouquet in the boy’s line-of-sight and waved them back and forth. He raised his head and I could see the sugar junkie's glint in his eyes as he leaned in to weigh his options. He moved swiftly from one motion to the next as he grabbed his choice and turned to his friends, hand extended triumphantly to the sky, displaying his trophy for this afternoon's bravery. His grin stretched the physical limits of his face. The chattering started back up again and soon I was surrounded by the rest of the children, all of them jockeying for the next grab. One by one they unburdened me of my disappointing replacements for cigarettes until there were none left. Each one of them clearly enjoying them more than I had. Good for you, kids. Remember, cavities are better than the prospect of an adulthood being tethered to an oxygen tank and possibly never fucking.
The moment ended almost exactly as it had started. The kids ran off chattering at and bouncing off of one another and I kept on down the ramp to the street below. They were no doubt going to some enriching after school program at the National Museum and I was back to being a lost, sleepy-drunk tourist. I stopped at a 7-11 across the street to pick up a pack of smokes. Timeless Time they were called. I pulled half of them from the pack, put them in my chest pocket, and set the remainder on a window ledge nearby for someone else to enjoy. I closed my eyes as I lit one of the cigarettes before crossing the street to make my way to the first of the many dimly lit bars I would pop into for a quick shot and smoke on the way back to my friend’s apartment. It was my first trip out of The States on my own. I had just started to scratch the surface of my twenties. I was a baby in the world. And it was then and there, having just been kicked off of national property in the middle of the day, with the sweat running down my back and collecting below my waistband, the dog shit on my shoe, the mystery stain on my jeans, with the general unpleasant-ness that was my whole presence on that sidewalk in South Korea, that I knew I could happily spend the rest of my life never going home.
