Suwon, Republic of Korea, 1998

 

Heroes can be a flash of bright light, something that burns like striking a match, like lightning in the sky, everything is transformed and then becomes inert and much like it was before. They aren’t spectacular because they are otherworldly or different, but because they are people just like us, transformed for a moment into something bigger and better, something fantastic that recedes into the everyday. Sometimes we have a problem with our concept of heroes, we see them as eternal but they aren’t a constant. Often heroes are made in a moment, but that moment can define who they are and how they are seen, like how just one good idea can transform someone’s entire life and fortune. In some cases, in that moment of heroism, they save themselves.

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Eun-Jung Lee was my friend. We never were involved romantically, but she was the one friend I had for the whole time I lived in Korea. I taught English at a language institute in Suwon City for almost a year and a half. While others came and went, she was the constant. I’ve never met anyone like Eun-Jung and I am sad that I don’t talk to her anymore. My Korean friends kept in touch until it was plain that I’d never return. Then I stopped hearing from them.

Eun-Jung was crazy. She liked foreigners, even losers. When your friends aren’t discriminating in who they like to hang out with it can be a little bit insulting. You ask yourself, how can they be friends with you and with some ass clown at the same time? With some people this would cheapen things, but with her it didn’t bother me, because Eun-Jung was so much fun to be around.

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If you were foreign in Korea then, about a third of the people treated you like you were a celebrity, about a third couldn’t stand you, and about a third were indifferent. One cop, a rookie kid of about nineteen, would call me a monkey when I walked by his patrol on my way to the gym where I worked out. Some Koreans call all non-Asians monkeys because westerners, like monkeys, don’t have Asian eyes. I could tell he was a recruit because he only had plastic wand that he used to direct traffic and no gun or even a real visible badge, just a blue uniform with reflective tape and white letters. We’d eyeball each other each time I walked to the gym and he’d say something and I’d just stare him down. I might have been flirting with disaster, but one day his supervisor heard him taunting me and got in his face, dressing him down in front of everyone. The next time I walked past I smiled and it was the rookie who was staring me down in frustration.

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Eun-Jung had such a good attitude about that stuff. When somebody was impatient with my Korean, or rude because I was foreign, she’d say, “It’s because you are special.” When a Korean girl told me I looked like a movie star she’d say, “See, it is because you are special.” She went to Canada once and people treated her differently and she liked it, “because here in Korea,” she said, “everybody is the same.”

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I had a dream before I went to Korea about being there. In the dream I ran into people I already knew, people I went to college with, in a big grocery store. It was a vivid dream, one where places in Seattle and Indiana were all mixed up. When I got to Korea I ran into a Canadian couple, Jeff and Sabine, in a supermarket called Kim’s Club. They were in the frozen foods section, and the fluorescent lighting was like in the dream. It is surprising that it didn’t freak me out, it was so surreal, but it seemed like it was just going to happen, like sunrise, so there was no reason to feel weird. We hit it off right away and became friends. They’d been in Suwon long enough to meet a lot of Koreans. Eun-Jung was one of their friends. The first time I went to their house she was there, and we started hanging out together.

In the late 1990s, Korean women dressed very feminine, with purses that had little stuffed animals on them, shorter skirts in summer, knee length coats and high boots in the winter time. Some foreigners would complain and say Korean girls dress up too much, and the big boots make them look too provocative. Some people will complain about anything, and most of the foreign teachers in Korea were complainers. A lot of them fancied themselves worldly, but when faced with a living in a foreign culture they weren’t as open-minded as they thought, they actually hated what was different from their own. They would gather around and make a sport out of bad-mouthing Korea. So, after a while, I mostly hung out with Koreans and a small posse of foreigners. We’d eat dried squid with mayonnaise in the movie theaters. I ate at home with chopsticks, drank Pine Bud soda, and played a Korean gambling game called “Go-Stop,” kind of like their poker, but with tiny cards. You could lose your shirt if you weren’t careful because your losses could double and double again. Eun-Jung showed me how to play by taking my money.  

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The winters in Suwon were cold, like Pennsylvania, with snow and ice. One of my favorite things about Korea in that time of year was the coffees they sold in cans, already mixed with milk and sugar, from a heated machine. They warmed your hands on a cold day. She and I would buy each other canned coffees from vending machines, and sweet potato French fries from vendors on the street. She’d eat them daintily, with her pinky out, like an English lady at tea. Holding a sweet potato fry between her long fingernails she would ask me questions in Korean. Sometimes my head would hurt, looking for the right words and phrases, but it was good practice.

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One of those winter days, Eun-Jung told me how she was almost kidnapped the night before.

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She was driving alone that night and got stuck in the snow, right in town, not far from my house. A man stopped and helped her. He pushed and rocked the car while she gave it the gas in spurts until they got it back onto the road. He stood around a minute, expectantly; it seems he was going somewhere far away so she offered him a ride. They talked as she steered carefully in the snow, but it was a little awkward, something felt wrong, he was strangely nervous.

Then he pulled a knife and told her to drive out into the country.

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Korea is crowded. Out between towns, where the rice fields were frozen and covered in wind blown snow, is about the only quiet place except the few remaining forests. Her heart and mind raced.

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She had to think fast. So at a red light she bumped into the car in front of her. She used the distraction to open her door and hop out, tall black boots on the snow taking fast, slippery steps toward the car in front of her, shuffling as much as walking, calling for help, moving like a slow-motion ice skater.

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The people in front of her got out of their car, indignant. Big snowflakes landed on them, landed on her coat, on her hair, fell to the ground.

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“What the hell is wrong with you?” the driver yelled, “Pay attention when you drive.”

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“He is trying to kidnap me,” she shouted, “He has a knife!”

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The man with the knife bolted from her car, in a few seconds snowflakes and darkness overtook the outline of him running away. His tracks mingled with thousands of others on the sidewalks.

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Police cruisers arrived, skidding to a halt. The white and dirty brown of the snow brightened in flashes as the lights revolved around and around. Uniformed officers with blue baseball caps, thick blue jackets with white letters and reflective tape, were on the scene with clipboards and guns. They waved cars past with plastic light wands. The snow dampened the sounds of talking, of engines running.

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An officer nodded as she described what happened. He took notes. She was safe. One moment, one decision, one action, had probably saved her life.

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When she finished the story, I was shocked. This was a true crime story, but with a good ending.

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“Damn Eun-Jung," I said, "you’re my hero.”