IV.Home Boy
“I’m on holidays for a couple of weeks so I’m visiting Dublin for a few days,” Jae Yeong tells the hotel clerk. It is a lie.
Jae Yeong has escaped a volunteer posting in a home for the disabled in a village and is hiding in Dublin. It is a violation of his temporary work visa to leave a job and stay as a tourist in this country. He knows they will be looking for him.
“Well, now then. Welcome to Dublin. Make the best of it. There’s some information for tourists over there on the table,” replies the clerk pointing to an array of pamphlets in the lobby.
“Thank you.”
Jae Yeong takes the card key and ignores the pamphlets as he crosses the lobby to climb the creaking stairway to the third floor. The room is tiny and dark but clean and adequate. He sits down heavily upon the narrow bed.
He needs to clear his head. About 30 hours ago in the middle of the night, he had slipped away from the visiting personnel’s dormitory beside the big old farmhouse. He had walked the 12 kilometers to a village where he waited to ask someone about buses, explaining falsely that he had an important appointment in Dublin. He had been lucky to catch a lift in a delivery van early in the morning before anyone at the house knew and could sound the alarm. Now he is able to lose himself in the big city.
However, he has to come up with a plan quickly. He is aware that there may be police or immigration officers looking out for him at the airport. He could hurry to catch the earliest possible plane before the word has spread. Or, he could take his chances, linger in Dublin and enjoy it for a few days before departing for his homeland, South Korea. Then the notion strikes him that nobody could object if he wanted to go home, really. They would just take the visa and send him off. He is free to choose.
He knows that leaving early will disappoint his parents. They had approved of this trip and funded the travel expenses in the interest of having him become fluent in English, to which nearly all Korean parents aspired. He has the return air ticket and just needs to change it.
Then he wonders whether he could just have the visa file adjusted were he to find some other volunteer position here in Dublin. Maybe that would work. That might keep his parents happy.
To be sure, the Irish authorities would probably not welcome him back to work, after quitting his post like this, at least for awhile. That does not matter to Jae Yeong, however, because he has had a bad experience working in Ireland during the three months since his arrival in January and does not wish to return to Ireland soon.
He had found the overseas volunteer opportunity through an internet search. There was a nonprofit organization looking for volunteers from abroad who wanted a working holiday for six months to a year. They provide lodgings and meals in addition to a living allowance in return for 25 hours of assistance in the care of the disabled residents in the home. There were pictures of beautiful green farmland and a large old-fashioned house that looked very appealing. Furthermore, the webpage stated that one would not get very lonely because there would be a team of foreign volunteers and enough to keep him busy in the house.
It had sounded like easy work. He had estimated that there would be plenty of time to see the country on his time off, a good opportunity to travel and practice English as well. Also, He had thought that he might be able to relate to Ireland, considering that, like Korea, Ireland too had been colonized by a brutal neighbouring people across the water. He had wished to tell people in Ireland about Korea.
Therefore, Jae Yeong had written a couple of enquiries and sent them using email. Satisfied with the replies, he had completed the online application form and prepared the documentation for a visa. The prospect had been exhilarating. Secretly, he so had wanted to get away from his home town, his family and his studies. He had longed for an exciting adventures and a new identity. He had wanted to learn and experience a lot in life.
Three months later, he had arrived in Ireland. It had been and was still delightfully beautiful and exotic to his eyes. He loved the sound of the Irish voices and their mix of quaint and modern ways.
He had begun his work at the home for the disabled with great enthusiasm. The other foreigners had been interesting and the director had seemed kind. But he assigned everyone household chores, which he had not mentioned before the volunteers had come (though it would have been logical to have anticipated that there would be housekeeping tasks). Then a conflict between a couple of the volunteers had developed and soon one of them had left, creating an extra burden on those who remained. The workload thereby increased.
Anyway, he had started to like the work less and less. Many of the residents could not communicate very well and he had not had as much time to speak English as he liked. A couple of the patients were actually mentally ill and had caused a lot of disturbances wetting themselves, screaming, vomiting, hallucinating and such at all hours. When he could communicate, people often had gotten impatient with him. A few had mocked or said bad things about foreigners in Ireland.
What was more, the night work had increased as well. The volunteers had agreed to work one night a week. However, the real needs and demands of the disabled residents had caused frequent midnight disruptions when they could not sleep or wanted to go to the bathroom during the night. One of the remaining volunteers would never take a turn at extra night work and he eventually had run away.
There had been no replacements available and the director had had to make extra efforts at soliciting help. It would have taken awhile to find more volunteer staff. There had been no money for salaried staff, of course, although, of course, paid professional staff would have had more commitment and expertise. The organization had been forced to make do with volunteers ever since the government had begun to withhold funding 10 years before.
In his effort to manage the needs and demands of the residents, the director had turned to the use of coercion to make the volunteers cooperate. He had threatened to reduce the allowance should volunteers not cooperate as he liked. And, he had reduced the volunteer staff’s free time. He had assigned each to three nightshifts a week. These changes had only worsened the atmosphere. Soon, the volunteers had begun to feel that remaining there in the house was not worth the opportunity to see the country. There was actually little opportunity to explore Ireland here in this remote countryside location, and the reduction in allowances and free time drastically restrained the opportunities to ramble on weekends. The local pub and restaurant had not been enough to keep the visiting residents entertained and satisfied.
Sadly, three of the volunteers had made their moves and bolted last night, each heading in different directions. One had planned to catch a boat to go home Spain, another had wanted to see if she could spend some time in London before returning.
Jae Yeong wonders what the other truants are doing now and where they ended up today. He wishes he could talk to them.
He wants to talk to somebody and he contemplates calling his parents, or at least a friend back home. As he is not yet ready to speak to his parents, he decides to call a friend. Finally he is able to spill his emotions and explain his situation to somebody.
The friend listens sympathetically and patiently to the torrent of bottled up Korean. He remarks that any venture is a gamble, and that problems inevitably arise when traveling or embarking upon any project or program. He does not say it but he suspects that Jae Yeong is exaggerating.
Then the friend on the phone reminds Jae Yeong that he will have to decide whether he wants to register for summer session courses right away or apply for re-admission for the fall term since he had suspended his studies in economics and English at the end of the fall term. He also says that he knows about a couple of summer jobs and passes on the information about them to his wayward friend.
“I don’t want to squander this trip. It is so far from home. So I want to spend a bit of time to learn more about Ireland before I go home,” explains Jae Yeong.
“Well, yeah, sure. Get online, regardless and do what you have to do so you don’t squander your time when you get back and find yourself in trouble here.”
It is wise advice, of course. As always, the necessities of life take precedent.
“I think I’ll try to spend a couple of weeks in Dublin and relax before I go home. It will be late in April when I go back to Korea, if I do that. Anyway, I should give Ireland a chance. Who knows? Maybe something else will come up for me here.”
Jae Yeong thinks he can trust his friend to be discrete. They have been exchanging favours for three years, helping each other with assignments, introducing one another to foreigners and women. There is a bond of loyalty he can count on.
He wanders around the city for a few days, tasting its food and other pleasures and talking with a variety of its people. He listens to the colourful and hearty stories and music but he is distracted. No new opportunity invites him in Dublin.
He therefore calls the airline and gets the ticket changed for a fee. The expenditures by his parents’ credit card are piling up. A month from now, if not sooner, his parents will be angry and have a lot of questions. The credit card is in his possession for emergencies, however, and this situation is an emergency. Jae Yeong feels that his parents and other family authorities will calm down and understand once they hear the details of his predicament.
He also contacts the employers that have been referred to him and sends them his resume. He opts to apply for readmission in the upcoming fall term. He hopes that the job prospects are decent for he would rather work and earn a salary than go back to student life.
Jae Yeong is tired of student life and day-by-day existence. The dorms having been too disruptive, he had found refuge sleeping in the back of a store amid the boxes and bugs for free, preferring not to take up residence in the crowded family household with his nagging and bickering family again, even though it is located in the metro area where the university is.
The parents are never satisfied it seems. It is their right to direct his life and give recommendations to him, the eldest son. Consequently, they are always looking over his shoulder asking about his assignments, grades and daily activities. It is hard to have an adult personal life like that.
He enjoys being with his family on special occasions such as chessa and Chuseok. He is proud of his family for there is nothing to be ashamed of, although his father has a middle class professional job in a bank while some of his classmates and rivals have rich parents living lives of privilege.
He longs to excel for his family’s sake and to impress his rivals. He wants to succeed, although he has not been sure that the Korean way is best.
Now, however, he desires to sink back into Korean life and forget the temptations of life abroad. He longs for Korean tastes and smells. He longs to speak his mother tongue day in and day out. He is a Korean boy wanting to return to his home town. Now, he cannot wait to go back to familiar scenes and familiar ways.
Jae Yeong hangs around the Irish capital for over a week and tries to make the most of it. He is too restless, though, and the bad experience has spoiled his visit. He opts to go to the airport a few days early and attempt to change the ticket again. He succeeds and soon is on a plane heading home.
He gets an interview for a bilingual administrative job at a manufacturing company in the free trade zone on the edge of his home town. As soon as he arrives he prepares, avoiding talking to anyone. Especially, and contrary to his past habit, he does not want to talk with foreigners.
However, circumstances oblige him to live with his parents most of the time. When his friends go to Seoul, he begs them to let him stay at their places. Sometimes, they comply.
He passes the interview by covering up the crisis at the home for the disabled and instead reports that he had volunteered in a school. He emphasizes his good grades in third year economics studies. He boasts about all his foreign contacts and experience helping foreigners with various problems and translating for them. Two days later, someone calls to say that the job is his.
He is happy with this turn of events. Usually, young men must wait until graduation and completion of the mandatory two-years military service before they get such freedom. Eighty percent of Korean youth go to college nowadays and this is the pattern form most of the young men. Jae Young can put off his military experience, and actually taking a corporate job now could increase his chances of doing civil service support for three years in lieu of direct military work for two years.
The young women often took jobs, though, and endured separation from their sweethearts going away for military service, studies or career opportunities. However, the young women are becoming more and more financially independent and therefore independent minded. They are now aspiring to upward mobility and looking for interesting lives abroad or in privileged, fashionable and secure positions in Korean society. Some of them are not even interested in boyfriends and marriage as they dream of a career and perhaps life abroad. Some of them search for a Westerner to marry and bring them more freedom and opportunity.
Although they are concerned about his abandoning the last year of his degree program, his parents are ecstatic that he has landed a good promising job with a prestigious manufacturer. He promises his parents that he will finish his degree by taking part-time courses but he is not serious and has no intention of doing it. Though they urge him to save money, his parents allow Jae Yeong to move out following the probationary employment period and Jae Yeong takes up residence in a small one-bedroom apartment with a student friend. The housing deposit money has been paid, and Jae Yeong need only pay his portion of the monthly rental fee. His starting salary is a bit low for the kind of work he does but that is to be expected in the context of the ongoing financial crisis. He knows there will be bonuses once in awhile and a raise upon the anniversary of his employment. He wants to buy a car but he refrains from doing so for the time being. He buckles down to prove himself on the job and maximize the bonuses and save some money.
Now that he has free time and a little cash, he finds a girlfriend. He is only 23 years old and he has not devoted much time to girls before. He used to like playing soccer and hanging out with the circle of friends connected to the soccer team. Having been introduced to several young women and gone on a few blind dates, he now finds someone with beautiful looks, forward thinking and a sparkling personality who can speak English. This is who he wants to have on his arm in public. It is a nice complement to the job.
In the old days, Jae Yeong had always wanted to have a sweetheart one day when the right moment came. He was not one to visit the prostitutes on the weekend romps with his fellow students. Also, he was not one to rush relationships. Call him old-fashioned, but he had always preferred to spend time to get to know a woman and find friendship, and excitement and true love. He recalls the many times on his outings with Westerners when the foreign guys talked and bragged about “getting laid.” Of course, he knows that Korean business and military guys also talk like this during their bachelorhood and often after.
Still today he avoids the bars full of hookers. They are often controlled by organized crime and he keeps his distance. While he realizes that Korean women look exotic to foreign men and that foreign men do not know the scene well enough, he does not understand why some men are so easily lured into such traps and throw money away on the easy tricks when they are in the know and when a real relationship offered so much more.
But the relationship does not last. Jae Yeong has hardened and become focused on work. His kindness has been worn down and his patience blunted. There remains a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He lets some sarcastic remarks slip out now and then and they cost him. He is late and he cancels dates too often and with the flimsiest of reasons. He shows little sign of acknowledging the relationship although he is consistently courteous and affectionate. He participated in the 100 day celebration but balked at buying matching T-shirts as is the custom after 100 days.
Some nights, he just wishes to drink himself blind. Some days he prefers to go out with the people from the office, or his soccer pals without having the girlfriend chained to him. Some days, he wants to be alone. What is more, he finds it hard to trust others. He therefore alienates his girlfriend, and some of his other friends, within a few months.
This change in his life does not hurt his job situation. Now he talks to foreign clients in person or over the phone on a regular basis. This role raises his status and forges pride. He becomes bolder and more confident. He warms up to the idea of building a career in international business. That had been at the back of his mind when he had entered the economics program after all, yet it had until now seemed unattainable in real life.
Free of the girlfriend, Jae Yeong seeks a variety of social activities. Soccer is in full swing. He invites a couple of “native English speakers” to join the club because they have experience playing at the varsity level. They become closer friends through this experience and he is invited to bar crawls and dinners at restaurants and parties at the homes of foreign teachers.
He prefers to meet Korean women, but one day he is again tempted by the seduction of the West. She is a popular person with shiny brown hair and a voluptuous yet lean body beneath the short low-cut dresses. An outgoing personality, she is quite flirtatious and a drinker. The word is that she has dated three guys since she came to Korea, all white Canadians or Americans. She seems to be unable to decide who she is and what she wants, according to the grapevine.
Jae Yeong is introduced to her, Jocelynne, over a sam gyep sal barbecue at a restaurant around a table. The mood is festive for it is Friday night. Dinner has started late because the teachers just got off work and it is payday. Plenty of soju flows. Everyone is loudly exchanging humourous stories, making wild assertions and laughing.
For his part, Jae Yeong adopts his usual tactic of staying quiet to observe and listen intently as he drinks and eats. He smiles and replies briefly when addressed, revealing little. The truth is that he is not sure how to act among foreigners and careful of exposing himself too much to Koreans.
Jae Yeong is a somewhat tall and lean slim man with the glistening brown skin and ebony hair so common in the southern region where the people are handsome and robust. His straight teeth appear brilliant framed by ruby red lips when he smiles. He has lost the local dialect for the purpose of academic and business life, as is the norm. His manner is quiet and reserved compared to the often boisterous and verbose behavior typical of his southern people.
He knows he is attractive to women. He knows his reputation has been preserved and he is perceived as a high achiever who is going places. He is fit and speaks English. There is no reason not to be confident.
He says little. He says nothing about his family’s past on the farmlands. He says nothing of their past hardships and conflicts. Mostly, he wants to forget about all that. He can forget and try being someone different when he is with foreigners.
At first, Jocelynne is just part of the spectacle enhanced by liquor. He asks her a few questions to be friendly and listens. She does not ask him anything at first. She flits among the crowd at the table, and to and from the restroom, and outside and in again, walking smartly and swaying her hips to accentuate her curves and tilting her chin up as she tosses her hair one way and the other. She enquires about the unfamiliar men at the table.
Of Jae Yeong, she learns that, as well as being available, he is well known and respected among her compatriots and other English teachers for his generosity of spirit whenever enlisted to assist with translations or accessing services. His kindness and goodwill have made their mark. “He’s a good man,” it is said, “And nobody should try to jerk him around. He’s a good soul and nobody should try to take advantage.”
To Jocelynne, this sounds like a challenge.
The gang finishes eating and it takes a while to sort out the messy bill and decide how much each owes since they are “going Dutch.” As is usually the case in such situations, contributions are taken, the money submitted, and the amount submitted comes up a bit short. After a check, the oversight is found and the group leaves the restaurant and heads to a popular bar close by.
The bar is the novel ice mug establishment. There are games for prizes. The prizes are bottles of whiskey.
Everyone groans once they discover that it is necessary to order food along with the pitchers of beer. At the bar, Jocelynne quite obviously worms her way to his side. She acts coquettishly alternating with feigned sadness at this or that little shortcoming or mishaps that she recounts of the recent days of her life and exuberant reactions at her little triumphs and fortunes. Individuals around them toss out amusing interjections and make distracting gestures and wild statements, to which she responds with the same melodrama—gaping mouth here, guffaw there, shaking head here and screwed face there. It is all very amusing to Jae Yeong.
They all switch bars, some individuals dropping out and others dropping in. Parading along the street in the cool air, Jae Yeong feels Jocelynne grasp his elbow as she teeters on her high heels along the pavement.
Eventually, they wind up at a norebang and get a room with a karaoke machine to bleat, moan and yell out popular songs in English and Korean. Later, those who remain arrive at someone’s apartment, having picked up some wine at a convenience store.
They continue singing, bragging, relaying anecdotes and sharing gossip through the night. They go out into the street to greet the rising sun. Well after sunrise, they disperse to let the host sleep.
Jae Yeong hears himself offer to escort Jocelynne to her place by taxi. “Don’t you have a car?” she asked petulantly.
“No, I don’t. I wouldn’t drive after drinking all night, anyway. Taxis are best.”
Before they separated, they exchange contact information through the window of the taxi. One week later, she calls him. They date for several weeks. Finally, she makes a move and takes him to his bed.
The affair continues for six months.
It is a thrilling time for Jae Yeong. He delights in the sensual pleasures and all her attention.
The anniversary of his employment passes and he gets enough of a raise to purchase a car. They roam the countryside, just the two of them sometimes, other times with a pack of companions. They buy each other gifts. They celebrate the 100 days of dating. She is not demanding in the way that Korean women are and she does not fight to have them buy matching shirts.
After six months of fun-filled escapades and passionate love-making, though, Jae Yeong feels that he cannot get to know her further. There is a barrier. He realizes that the barrier is made up of cultural difference but only party. Partly, she maintains her own wall of defense.
He is not aware that he is just as closed. Jocelynne resorts to pranks and fussing in order to sustain his interest. She tries to break him down.
Meanwhile, Jae Yeong’s responsibilities at work have multiplied. He has always had to stay at work long past 6:00 p.m. on many work days and now he is supposed to stand by during teleconferences with international clients and contact them late in the day so as to catch them during their normal business hours. Sometimes the accents of all speaking English as a third language, and even some native speakers, stymie him. More often, he is given additional work on the weekends. Furthermore, he is given difficult technical translations in unfamiliar jargon.
Jocelynne complains whenever she cannot see him on demand. He is tired from overwork and tired of her complaining. He begins to perceive her as being needy and spoiled. Her coquetry, which used to amuse him, now irritates him. Her frequent flirtations with other men anger him. He begins to despise her constant need for attention. Hypocritically, he criticizes her over-drinking and the loud laughing and swearing it produces in her.
He leaves her. A year later, he quits his job and resumes his studie