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GUEST LITERATURE – KOREA kept nodding; it was something he often told his young daughter. “I’m just saying this as a precaution,” Dolma said. She had been studying him attentively. “Mongolia’s going through a period of transition, as you know.Things are chaotic. It’s been just over ten years since it changed over to a market economy.” “There are thieves and muggers in Korea too.There are people like that no matter where you go in the world,” Chang-dae answered knowingly. Standing there by the doorway, the three of them nodded with rueful smiles on their faces. Chang-dae was growing a little resentful. The last piece of advice had been given out of kindness and goodwill, but to a traveller, especially a foreign one, it could plant preconceptions about the place he was visiting. From that moment on, the traveller would always be on guard, watching his bags anxiously, worried about his surroundings. He would limit where he went day to day and miss out on all that was out there to be experienced. It was best not to say such things to a traveller. Even if the place was a little dangerous, wasn’t it better to leave the traveller alone to experience it for himself? Chang-dae tried to forget this warning. He would erase it from his mind the moment these people shut the door behind them and disappeared. Once his kind Mongolian friends were on their way, Chang-dae looked around his apartment more carefully. No matter how much he thought about it, the place seemed perfect for his three-month stay. He whistled as he untied his luggage. He set his books on the window sill and set up his laptop on the glass table. He realized that he hadn’t asked Bat about getting an internet connection. How could he have forgotten something so important? He made a memo in his pocketbook.When he brought out his clothes, he didn’t see any good places to hang them. He didn’t see a single nail, let alone a closet. He gathered his clothing piece by piece and put them back into his bag, and wrote down “clothes hanger” in his pocketbook. He found a place in the kitchen for the food his wife had packed with such care: the roasted anchovies, beef boiled in soy sauce and toasted seaweed. Once he’d finished unpacking, he got a bottle of water for himself and flopped down on the sofa bed. It felt like he had checked into a budget hotel.This was something he’d dreamt about for a long time, to go to some strange country, find a shabby hotel room to stay in, 182 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
page 185
JEON SEONG-TAE and read, go hiking and write poetry. Now this dream was coming true. He had finally earned a sabbatical after ten long years and he would spend it perfectly. He’d become a poet at a young age. He hadn’t written a single volume of poetry while teaching literature and getting his PhD. He used his busy schedule as an excuse. He recognized fearfully that the sensitivity and longing he had possessed as a poet were slowly wearing away. The countless books and essays he’d read were not works that fed the soul. Now he wanted to recover all he had lost during this period of solitude. If possible, he wanted to start seeing other women again. He downed the water straight from the bottle.The house felt arid. The steam heater installed in the kitchen and the bedroom dried up the little humidity there was.The giant twelve-story concrete building had to be functioning as a giant sponge. The first thing he’d smelled when he got off the plane last night was the stink of cooking lamb. The smell had bothered him, much like the way the smell of garlic was said to bother foreigners who visited Korea.The smell of lamb abated quickly, but it was hard to put up with dry air. His nose and lips became desiccated. His throat had also become dry when he was lying in the hotel room. He soaked up four towels in the sink and laid them out by his bedside. Even when he woke in the morning his throat had been swollen, his voice hoarse.The towels had stiffened overnight like hung-dried fish. It all made sense: a few hours of driving from this city brought you to the Gobi Desert. He reached for the pocketbook and jotted down a reminder to pick up a humidifier. He realized during the first few days of the stay that the apartment was noisier than he’d thought.There was a lot of construction going on around the area. He hadn’t thought anything of it when he saw it with his own eyes the day he’d come to look at the place. But with all the different kinds of machinery and the shouting of the workers that went from morning to midnight, it was hard to take in a single line from his book. Chinese labourers were working at the construction site right outside his window, and they liked to sing at the top of their lungs. There was another construction site for a parking garage at the back of the apartment. A parking garage was probably necessary in this country since the winters were so long and forbiddingly cold. No matter where he went in the city, parking garages stood in rows like warehouses.Ten or so Mongolian soldiers had been dispatched to work at the construction site where the parking garage BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 183

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GUEST LITERATURE – KOREA

kept nodding; it was something he often told his young daughter.

“I’m just saying this as a precaution,” Dolma said. She had been studying him attentively. “Mongolia’s going through a period of transition, as you know.Things are chaotic. It’s been just over ten years since it changed over to a market economy.”

“There are thieves and muggers in Korea too.There are people like that no matter where you go in the world,” Chang-dae answered knowingly.

Standing there by the doorway, the three of them nodded with rueful smiles on their faces. Chang-dae was growing a little resentful. The last piece of advice had been given out of kindness and goodwill, but to a traveller, especially a foreign one, it could plant preconceptions about the place he was visiting. From that moment on, the traveller would always be on guard, watching his bags anxiously, worried about his surroundings. He would limit where he went day to day and miss out on all that was out there to be experienced. It was best not to say such things to a traveller. Even if the place was a little dangerous, wasn’t it better to leave the traveller alone to experience it for himself? Chang-dae tried to forget this warning. He would erase it from his mind the moment these people shut the door behind them and disappeared. Once his kind Mongolian friends were on their way, Chang-dae looked around his apartment more carefully. No matter how much he thought about it, the place seemed perfect for his three-month stay. He whistled as he untied his luggage. He set his books on the window sill and set up his laptop on the glass table. He realized that he hadn’t asked Bat about getting an internet connection. How could he have forgotten something so important? He made a memo in his pocketbook.When he brought out his clothes, he didn’t see any good places to hang them. He didn’t see a single nail, let alone a closet. He gathered his clothing piece by piece and put them back into his bag, and wrote down “clothes hanger” in his pocketbook. He found a place in the kitchen for the food his wife had packed with such care: the roasted anchovies, beef boiled in soy sauce and toasted seaweed. Once he’d finished unpacking, he got a bottle of water for himself and flopped down on the sofa bed. It felt like he had checked into a budget hotel.This was something he’d dreamt about for a long time, to go to some strange country, find a shabby hotel room to stay in,

182 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

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