Iron chopsticks
september 2001
once i was a vegetarian.
not eating meat is a choice, but my fear for spicy food
is more of a disability. my korean landlady cooks for her
students in the morning and in the evening, and explaining
my sensitive taste buds seemed a bit easier than the story
about global meat production and grain equivalents. now i
quite enjoy the cold meat in soy sauce and the beef slices
barbecued on the table. i have rice here three times a day,
the rice cooker is never empty. there are always about seven
dishes, meat and vegetables, i just avoid the red stuff.
in the morning we have the same thing for breakfast.
last week my friend youn-ho drove me from the airport straight
to university; we checked out a couple of boarding houses,
went to the market to buy a thin matress, and i was all set.
the gate in front of my house has a tiled roof, and my room
even has sliding windows. shoes go into the cupboard next to
the entrance, and everybody shares the bathroom slippers- a
bit small for me. at 7h30 the auntie knocks the doors and
calls for breakfast. in school i see hundreds of people from
around the world, mainly japan, china and the states, so
coming to seoul to study korean is not such a strange idea
after all. however, i must admit i am not sure yet where i
am going with this.
seoul is an amazing city, skyscrapers, modern ten lane avenues,
and narrow alleys with restaurants and markets. the campus is
green, and my house just next to it, so i can walk to school
in 5 minutes. many christian churches here, on campus i was
approached by an elderly lady, professor, who invited me to
her church group and made me read her english booklet on the
spot, aloud (printed in colorado 1969)- i could only escape
after giving her my email address. youn-ho and his girlfriend
took me around the city on the weekend, tea house, barbecue
restaurant, and a very lively and colourful student street
festival of 2 competing universities- groups of first year
students singing and dancing while others try to disrupt
their choreographies with noisy raids.
i have done a lot of sleeping since i got here, probably to
recover from the hectic last days in london- what a busy
and happy life it was. or maybe my stomach is needing extra
energy to digest all that meat..
more news from the land of the morning calm soon.
Tom Tobback © 2001