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August 19th, 2024

Seongeup Village, Jeju Island, South Korea

“My favorite thing about Korean food is that you can’t really eat it alone,” I remarked as I huddled, along with the other members of the bus tour I took around Jeju Island’s eastern coast today, around a sizzling share-platter of black pork belly, perched atop a live gas burner in the center of our dining table at the corner of an otherwise-empty restaurant in Seongeup Village.  “You just gotta share it with the homies!”  Our heap of meat was guarded on all sides by small plates of kimchi, bean sprouts, dried anchovies, chili cucumbers, steamed leafy greens, and doenjang.  Our arms were so flailingly criss-crossed in our unsynchronized determination to grip each tasty dish between our chopstick tips that you’d have thought we were playing Twister.  

Everything on the table was communal, inviting equally-inclusive conversation to spray in all directions above the food’s wafting aroma.  I sat next to Naomi from Sydney, a twenty-one year old currently on vacation from her university in Osaka, Japan.  “I know,” she grumbled.  “I have a love-hate relationship with Korean food for that exact reason.  I honestly love eating alone.  I have no embarrassment sitting down at a restaurant by myself.  But, yeah, that’s really hard in Korea because the cuisine is designed to share!” 

I inquired, “Is Japan like that, too?”

“God, no!  A lot of restaurants even block off private booths for solo diners.  It’s awesome.  Just me and my bowl of ramen!”

Incidentally, I was so ravenous, and infatuated with our meal, that I could have probably wiped every plate clean myself.  Not a grain of rice remained on the table by the end of our feast.  

After a brief fart walk back to the restaurant parking lot, my group and I boarded our sprinter van.  

I dozed off immediately, waking up only an hour later upon our arrival at Seongsan Ilchulbong, a gargantuan volcano on Jeju’s easternmost tip.  Named a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site, the peak is a stunning anomaly.  Its dormant crater has been infiltrated by a lush carpet of greenery, and the majority of its conic slope has been submerged undersea, giving this igneous formation the appearance of a green, concave button jutting up from the ocean’s surface.  Baked by the midday sun, we huffed, puffed, and panted as we languidly strode up steep rock stairways to the crater’s mouth, where we were rewarded by cooling sea breeze and uplifting views of black basalt, green shrubbery, and blue waves.  Sweat beads stung my eyes as I peered through the summit binoculars at faraway rocks, leaves, and boats.  The heat was so extreme that the volcano might as well have been actively bubbling molten magma! 

We then scurried down to sea level, where we witnessed a miraculous staple of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Jeju’s Haenyeo, a lineage of elderly female freediving fishers, treated us to a display of their idiosyncratic skills.  Their performance began with a synchronized dance that featured dazzling fishing net choreography; I later learned that the ritual functions as a prayer to Jamsugut, their goddess of the sea, manifesting safe and abundant dives.  The women then plunged into the water, donning goggles and flippers but no oxygen tanks!   Their hunt was so focused and tenacious that it outlasted the attention span of every tourist spectator.  When the last onlookers turned their backs, the Haenyeo were still fluttering their feet and casting their nets.  

I have no doubt that these women credit their diving practice, which combines breath retention, physical exercise, and immersion in nature, for their immaculate health’s persistence.  Well into their eighties, they aren’t breaking a sweat!  But, unfortunately, in this age of globalization and abundant accessibility of goods, we’re outgrowing the need for such indigenous hunting practices.  Ironically, the scarcity that inspired such athletic traditions might be healthier for us than this infinite access to food!  

August 22nd, 2024

Sanbangsan, Jeju Island, South Korea

Typhoons linger over Jeju.  I’ve spent the past few days sheltered from their intermittent aggression at Tottott guest house, a quaint dormitory in a rural area along the west side of the island’s southern coast.  I wake up to the sounds of crashing waves, pouding rain pellets, and singing gusts of wind.  My guitar and watercolor set keep me entertained.  When the storms momentarily relent, I emerge to admire the mountains, rivers, trees, and beaches surrounding my accommodation.  

My shared room is populated exclusively by Korean men who’ve fled their busy mainland lives for therapeutic island slowness.  Some are in their twenties, some are in their thirties, and some are in their forties.  They’re all quite bashful and introverted, except for Adam; his was the first face I saw when my taxi crossed Tottott’s gates late on Monday night.  A thirty-two year old ex-military Seoulite who’s spent years living in Australia, his English was far more confident and competent than the rest of our bunkmates’.  He welcomed me with gregariously slurred small talk that made me feel safe and seen, drooling over my guitar case and commending my yoga journey.  At first, I mistook his alcoholism for drowsy fatigue, given the time of day.  I didn’t think twice about it.  Exhausted by my commute from Jeju City, I crashed, shortly after my arrival, upon Tottott’s crisp white sheets, the most addictive bedding I’ve slept on in years.  

Adam was already halfway through his first soju bottle of the day by the time I woke up the next morning.  When he saw me exit our bedroom, facing the whirl of a damp windstorm, he garbled, “You come to my country, I have to treat you well.  I have to show you all the wonders of Jeju.  We’ll go swim with dolphins!  But, first, are you hungry?  You must be hungry.  Let’s go get some food!”  

I went along with his hospitality.  

As we made our way down Tottott’s road towards Adam’s chosen restaurant, trudging through angry gales of sea air, my companion hopelessly struggled against the might of the ferocious oceanic draft to light a damp cigarette.  “There’s a rock wall over there,” I suggested to him.  “If you crouch behind it, you can get your lighter to stay lit.”  His pride dismissed the suggestion.  He continued flicking his lighter in the middle of the road to no avail.

We were the only diners in the seaside lunch shack that certainly deserved all the hype Adam showed it.  Our meal, containing grilled tilefish, raw sashimi bowls, several kimchi options, roasted eggplants, steamed seaweed, and scallion pancakes, was incredible.  “I used to work in a restaurant, you know,” Adam boasted.  “Watch this.”  Commanding extra spices and seasonings directly from the kitchen, he expertly mixed all of the components on the table before us into an eclectic rice bowl of immaculate flavor.  I couldn’t help but stare, amazed and awestruck, as Adam admirably savored his jumbled culinary creation between taking shots of undiluted soju from a frozen glass.  I ate most of the food on our table, while Adam treated the edible solids as mere supporting characters on his quest towards the bottom of his chilled liquor bottle.  He didn’t leave a drop.  

Drizzles moistened the surging winds that challenged our walk back to Tottott.  On the way, we stopped at Seven Eleven.  Adam bought two more soju bottles.  I bought two onigiri.  After paying and closing the shop door behind us, Adam fumed, “Did you see how that cashier looked at me?  People in Jeju are so rude!  He didn’t even say thank you back to me.  I hate him.  When I went into his store yesterday, with all the old guys in our room, he was so nice to them!  All smiley and kind.  But now that it’s just me, he wants to give me an attitude?  I want to punch him!”  Adam’s impassioned monologue was interrupted by one of his bottles slipping from his veiny grip and crashing onto the pavement, breaking into sharp shards of glass.  

Once we were back in the common room of Tottott, heavy rains resumed.  Adam strummed my guitar, mumbling Korean songs I’d never heard, while I applied methodical brushstrokes to a watercolor portrait of my wasted friend.  His audible croons attracted two of our bunkmates, one aged twenty-six and one aged forty-three.   Once they joined us in the lounge, we sang Oasis covers at the top of our lungs for hours.  It was already dark outside when, curious about the source of our hollers, Vincent, a Dutch traveler who’d just checked into a private room upstairs, came to join us.  He tip-toed around Adam’s arrangement of empty soju bottles and sat down beside me.  Our introductory small talk led to passionate discussions of cinema, which broadened our dialogue into open discourse that my other bunkmates joined while Adam continued singing to himself.  After so much debating about our favorite movies, the four of us itched to screen a film on the lounge’s projector, knowing it would make the perfect rainy-night pastime.  Adam protested, begging us to keep singing songs with him instead.  Our majority did nothing to dissuade his complaints.  When we discovered that the projector was broken, I was disappointed, but also relieved that the coincidence diffused Adam’s drunk fire before anyone got burned.   

After that first day at Tottott, I chose to protect myself by keeping a bit more distance from Adam.  I only shared one other meal with him, at a spot he insisted on showing me for its affordable eel-over-rice.  The restaurant, a family-run business that we trekked fifteen minutes for, deeply inspired me: every day, they only make fifty bowls of their inexpensive signature dish, closing their shop, usually around noon, immediately once their fiftieth bowl sells.  Upon my first bite of their only available menu option, I tasted focus, passion, generosity, and mastery.  I commend the proprietors for upholding moderation and relaxation in protest of greed and workaholism.  Savoring every bite of the rare and exclusive bowl distracted me from the rapidfire soju shots that Adam took across the table.  He was stumbling as we walked back home from lunch.  

I left him to drink alone in the Tottott lounge while I borrowed our host’s bike for a solo adventure.  The typhoon had abated just enough for me to safely plunge into Jeju’s southern shore.  Swimming in its mineral warmth as the sun set over my right shoulder conjured unbridled euphoria.  I couldn’t stop talking to myself, expressing how grateful and lucky I felt to be traveling indefinitely, essentially existing outside of time.  It feels so joyous to lose track of the days of the week!  It’s such a privilege to wake up at any time I want!  My explosive monologue endured as I frolicked through black basalt sand and eventually biked back down the road.  

Somebody yelled my name as, pedaling tranquilly, I turned the corner into Tottott’s driveway.  I expected the voice to come from inside the dormitory, but, whipping my gaze around towards the path from which I came, I spotted Vincent running towards me.  “Hi, Vincent!”  I smiled, “How’s your day been so far?”

“Oh, man,” he chuckled half-heartedly.  “I’m just happy to see you.  I was hoping we could go on a little walk and talk down the beach?”

“Of course!  I’m always down,” I assured him as I parked my bike.  We started strolling towards the boardwalk.  “What’s up?”

“Man, I’ve just had a hard, hard day.  I was hoping I would run into you so we could talk about it a little.  I know you love yoga, so you must be good at this stuff… plus you just seem like a nice, understanding guy.”

“Bro, it would be my pleasure!  How can I help?  What’s been going on?”

“Well… my story is a funny one.  I lost my dad when I was one and a half years old.  And… until four years ago, I never cried about him once.  I never cried at all, actually.  And then, when I turned twenty-four, things just started coming up and they wouldn’t stop.  And now, I can’t seem to ever stop crying,” Vincent confessed as he heaved chortled tears of self-aware despair.  “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been hearing people say, you better be the man of the house, you better take care of your mom and sister, you better be strong!  And that is so hard to hear.  You, of all people, must know what that does to a man.  You know the kind of man that our society molds.”

“The strong, silent type,” I agreed.  The comment made my friend break down even more.  Embracing Vincent in a bear hug, I let him cry on my shoulder.  Merciless winds threatened to topple our bodies, but we stood firm.  After a few moments, he pulled away quickly, as if snapping out of a spell.   I probed, “How’s your relationship with your mom and your sister?”

“Oh, it couldn’t be better.  They’re beautiful people.  They’re very gentle and patient with me, but I can’t stand the fact that I keep bringing them all my shit!  Clearly, I’m here doing this with you, so I’ll babble to anybody who will listen, but my mom feels the weight of my sadness most of all.  I just wish I could control my emotions.  I just wish I wasn’t this sad all the time.  She deserves better.  I know I gotta meditate more, but instead I just smoke weed all day back home.  Now that I’m here in Korea, obviously I just gotta sit with this pain, sober.”

We must have walked for ninety minutes.  I listened and offered parcels of compassion.  He thanked me for my advice and validation.  The last thing I said to him before we walked back into Tottott was, “Vincent, you are already perfect.  There is nothing that you have to change about yourself, but I invite you to simply accept yourself.  You are so brave for opening up to me and letting your anguished energy freely flow.  I feel lucky to call you a friend.”  

Admittedly, I worried for him as I drifted off to sleep.  In my dorm room, I was surrounded by friendly and accommodating Koreans, while Vincent was alone upstairs in his big private suite.  

But, this morning he seemed to be in good spirits when he walked into the lounge to find Adam confronting me.  He quickly turned around, exiting, to give us some space.  

Sat on the lounge’s carpeted floor, I breathed calmly, smiling politely, as Adam murmured, “Etai, are you mad at me?  You don’t want to hang out with me anymore!  I just don’t want my friends to hate me.  I didn’t even get to show you the dolphins!”

“Adam, I don’t hate you,” I reassured my already-drunk friend.  “But, if I’m being honest, I needed to take some space away from you to protect myself.  Your excessive drinking habit is destructive, and I encourage you to take better care of yourself.  Please understand that I love you, but it’s hard for me to watch you abuse your body and mind.”

“I understand.  You’re disappointed.”  Adam sank into his seat.  “You know, I used to be a boss.  I had a very successful business.  Then it all went to shit during covid.  I have to sell my two BMWs when I get home.  That hurts so bad!  But that’s nothing.  I lost my father five years ago.  Traveling and drinking is the only way I can stop the pain.  I miss him so much and I can’t shake the feeling that his life would have gone differently if I was around to support him.”

I countered, “Adam, you can’t carry that guilt.  You’re not responsible for his death,” but Adam’s monologue burned on, devolving into unintelligible mumbling.  He was talking only to himself.  

A few hours have passed since then.  Adam hasn’t moved, but his soliloquy cross-faded into a calm conversation with Vincent once the Dutchman re-entered the lounge.  As I write this, wearing my noise-canceling headphones, I see them sitting next to each other out of the corner of my eye.  Based on their body language, it’s clear to me that they’re not unpacking their paternal trauma.  They’re giggling, passing my guitar back and forth.  Whatever they’re talking about, I know they’ll look back fondly on this moment forever.  

August 25th, 2024

Seogwipo, Jeju Island, South Korea

K-Pop is inescapable.  Its vibration permeates every seductively air-conditioned Jeju tourist shop that beckons me inside.  It oozes out the speakers of every taxi I crawl into.  Even I, a mere visitor, constantly hum its melodies unconsciously.  South Korea’s most profitable export is woven into the finest threads of its society.  

The widespread circulation and acclaim of this artform is no ditzy fluke.  Its ubiquity is wholly by design.  

Each K-Pop production summons an expensively robust crew, fit for a Hollywood blockbuster film.  The country’s finest songwriters, producers, choreographers, directors, stylists, makeup artists, and business folk flock to contribute tiny brushstrokes to colossal masterpieces of the medium.  The photogenic “idols” that front these massive projects are idealist projections of inspiring perfection.  Beauty, poise, talent, equanimity, and media training gets drilled into them at K-Pop “Academies”; these demandingly cutthroat schools are the price of admission for each aspiring star.  No blemishes survive this machine’s bleaching process.  

The resulting creations are massive, bulletproof.  Every note of every song, every frame of every video, every stitch of every costume, every step of every dance is scrutinized under microscope by committees of uncompromising eyes, dead-set on curating the greatest art that money can buy.  Reaching ever-outward from these multi-media epics are equally-meticulous limbs of social media presence, influencer marketing, public appearances, and world tours, blurring the audience’s distinction between human creation and natural reality.  K-Pop, therefore, is as big as life itself.  It’s not just music.  It’s a way of being, upheld by the industry’s elite and feverishly pursued by consumers.  A superfan may long to embody their favorite idol, but even infinite monetary expense could not bring them to resemble the supernaturally spotless illusion that K-Pop perpetuates.  

As in fine-dining, the kitchen of K-Pop is hidden from us.  We only see the gorgeous dishes we’re being fed.  No mere mortal knows what their pop culture role models do once the cameras that project their godly image turn off for the night.  Thereby, they remain gods.  

But, in South Korea and everywhere else, there’s another breed of artists, surviving on vulnerability, introspection, and honesty.  We are strumming our guitars in solitude, snapping frame after frame of precious 35mm film, writing private notes-app poetry, digging through discounted thrift-store bins, and bleaching our hair in porcelain bathtubs, all for cheap dopamine hits.  We’re dreaming of a world where such innocently free self-expression harmonizes with commerce, rather than rubbing against it.  We lament giving up our art to pay our bills, but we find solace in our intricate web of creator communities.  We aren’t as wealthy, beautiful, or acclaimed as K-Pop stars, but we maintain our freedom to fuck up.  

K-Pop is infectious, impressive, and spectacular, but it isn’t ours.  Our music may be cracked, mediocre, or undervalued, but it’s a healing force, both in creation and consumption.  It’s the difference between the talent show that my middle school held in its auditorium and the Broadway-musical field trip it took me on.  Each pole has its place.  They don’t have to threaten each other.  In fact, they balance each other.  When we measure our scraggly demo-tracks against the number one song in the world, we allow ourselves to dream.  In a hypothetical world only containing commercial music, art becomes unattainable.  In a world of only amateurs, it becomes mundane.  Thankfully, we have both.  Standing between these two extremes, we frolic through the spectrum, zig zagging back and forth, spinning until our dizziness gets us high. 

Love,

Etai