It's All English To Me

A few weeks after the St. Patty's Day incident... or what we might be ironically forced to now refer to as my own very recent and personal ‘March Madness’ (ask me about one the scars by my left eye!), things have been pretty chilled for me the past few weeks here in the ‘Land of Morning Madness’! NCAA basketball ended all of my early April activities and both of my universities’ basketball teams did okay, but didn’t quite finish number one (but you can’t always win! Yeah right!).  So I’ve had pretty much nothing to excite me or to look forward to lately. And as we all know, when I am lacking drama, I tend to go out and make some!

Any who, with the advent of the annual dust storms from China clogging my lungs and making heavy drinking almost a distant dream, I’ve been confined to either home or the gym (of all places), waiting for something interesting to come along. No dice.  But, I’ve been trying to make my work more exciting; yes teaching elementary school students the mystical and mind-numbing ways of the English language!

 

The Science pond freezes over, so we cut class and go play!

 I want to tell you a bit about my students. I know, it is still a shocker for many people to imagine someone of my rebellious nature to be in charge and the sole protector of thirty innocent souls, even if only for forty minutes each day, but I manage.

I teach at a pretty well-established elementary school (with a reputation spanning over 100 years), located at the original center of ancient Seoul, in Jongno-gu (district). This place is a typical elementary school, first to sixth grades, roughly averaging thirty students per class. I teach English as a foreign language, not Language Arts!  We do English, just like mostly everyone reading this did French, Spanish, Italian, German or Latin (even though it’s not even a ‘language’ anymore, in my opinion).  Whatever twisted language you chose to ‘study’ in order to meet graduation requirements and get the hell out of high school!  The constant study of how to make English grammar or rules of speech that tend to have more exceptions than constants make life very exciting for me, on occasion!

Hyoje Elementary School, Field Day 2005 (Awesome!)

Like I said, life has been pretty mundane recently and I tend to look to my students for enjoyment. A point to be made about them and the educational system here is that Sesame Street never fully grasped hold of Korean society, probably why a “Sesame Street Korea” goes unnoticed (if it ever existed to begin with!).   

There is no way you could put some of my ‘characters’ (aka… students) on TV and expect anything to go according to script!  Not that they are malfunctioned or faulty, they just don’t roll like that! I could see it, Big Bird introducing the letter ‘F’ and my students screaming in response, “Big Bird, (explicative) you!”  Then, our tall, bright friend becoming noticeably annoyed and confused, saying “Don’t say that!” and my little future CEOs of Samsung or Hyundai Corporations ripping off strings of ‘f-words’ or the notorious ‘s-word’ to shame old-school Della Reese and half the comedians on Def Comedy Jam!

Or, what do you do as a cast member of Sesame Street, when a snot-nosed first grader walks up to you and starts wailing in some language yet to be discovered by linguists and when you don’t respond (because you have no Earthly clue as to what the little hell raiser is spitting out his mouth), he goes in for an up close and personal embrace to tell you ‘face to face’ so you can hear him ‘that much better’ and understand the archaic moans and groans ejaculating from his mouth.  How could I ever forget my on very special case where a first grader who was schedule to attend ‘Tory English Time’ the next semester and probably had no idea this ‘not yellow’ guy walking around her school was, asked me every day if I were Korean.  

Leading morning exercises at the Jung-Bu District Winter English Camp.

 After a couple of weeks she figured it out that I was not a son of Han, yet then proceeded to ask if I were Chinese.  A few more weeks passed and our little ritual exchange moved from Chinese to Japanese (it should be noted that this was all in Korea and although I had actually been going to my $400 a month Korean classes, she was only six years old; if I couldn’t figure here speaking out, then I really would have no happy of understanding any foreign languages!).  Finally, sometime near Christmas, she asked if I were American!  I was so happy that she’d finally figured it out that I went across the street to the candy store and got her a box of Ppeppero (a very stale, sickening cookie shaped like a thin stick… have to tell you all about Ppeppero Day, a teacher’s stomach’s worst nightmare!).  Guessing she got hip to the ways of global migration in the 21^st century or simply, finally, asked her class teacher or mommy or daddy where black people who taught English in Korea came from!

Us fourth grade hall teachers on the Winter Teachers' Retreat!

One of my all-time favorite ‘amuse yourself’ activities is assessing the fashion fads these children love to wear. I bet you never saw a kid on one of those shoddy 70′s reruns of Sesame Street, roll up on set wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Je suis un idiot.’ (‘I’m an idiot.’ for you people who chose Spanish), ‘Legalize: Smoke weed’, or ‘Wanna _____?’ (fill in the blank…. all accompanied by a generic smiling face).  And there is, of course, the granddaddy of them all, a sixth grader wearing a hoodie that defied all mental logic I could muster to try to understand what in the world the person who designed it was thinking: ‘D-Squared, Chip Chip Motherfucker’!

Hell no!  Bert would ‘make ddong in his panties’ (ddong = poo) if he saw a ten-year old child wearing this type of fashion terror anywhere near a classroom.  There are also the more vocal students, who cannot answer the simple question, “What is your name?” in English, yet have mastered the use of curses and swears to a point that makes me want to ask if they have an American cousin or ‘a friend of mama who looks like me’ living with them. One of these linguistic savants, after going to sit in his chair, completely missed the seat and hit the floor, exclaiming so loudly that almost every teacher on the fourth grade hall rushed to my classroom to ‘help’, yelping at the top of his lungs, “I pain in ass, I pain in ass!”  “Damn right you are…” I reply quietly to myself as I turn my head to hide my snickering.

The constant drama of my day gets so freaky and Twilight Zone-esque, that I often walk into my class, look at the day’s mission impossible on the faces of those little angels and always, without control, eke out a defeated “Shit!” Yet, none of this mental chaos draws my mind away from the wafting ‘sweetness’ of the smell of a garlic infused, traditional kimchi breakfast in the morning, of which I have grown to love, especially when I can smell it on my own breath (or the aroma drifting up from my pores)!

Now with that said, I guess I should get back to work, planning a lesson in an alien language that will only be understood by myself… and I already know how to conjugate ‘to be’; or, at least, I used to be able to! 

(If extraterrestrials do exist, NASA please broadcast this message for me: SEND TELEPATHY PLEASE, SEND TELEPATHY, ASAP!)

- Seoul, Korea (April 2006)

The Great Farce of American Thanksgiving

I really think I am starting to get a bit annoyed with Thanksgiving.  Mind you, I am thankful for many things and for the life that I have (although my expression of this thanks seemed to be lost with the family this year…. we do a ‘round robin’ of what you are thankful for;  I stated I was thankful for being able to still run a 5K under 30 minutes…. no one understand why that was important… guess being a stallion having had cancer and still performing as such amongst a family of mules doesn’t make sense to the mules… or they’re just jealous!).

But, I’m annoyed with Thanksgiving because people say they are thankful for many things, but they don’t really mean it.  I mean, like I said, I am thankful for my running abilities.  After over 72 sessions of mid -high dose chemo I should not be able to theoretically walk a mile without stress, let alone run 3.1 faster than most ‘healthy’ people, but I can!  People never acknowledge the things in life that they really need!  My family mostly said they were thankful for family, but not many of them take the time throughout the year to appreciate family.

By that, I mean, how many phone calls are made to 2nd cousins, or grand aunts just to say ‘hi’?  How many visits are made to relatives ‘too far to drive to’? My first bout of cancer in Korea I had one extreme phone call from an aunt (who reached me in a very non-English speaking Korean hospital) and a visit from my mother.  But how many people sucked up the phone charges to call and ask ‘how are you’? (another aunt did call, but after receiving a $50 + phone bill, I told her to stick to email!)

My main point is that Thanksgiving has become yet another phase of American life; celebrate the holiday because that’s what you’re supposed to do.  This year I went to my hometown feeling like absolute crap, having been so bed sick a couple of days earlier I couldn’t go see my youngest brother on a day trip.  Yet, I sucked it up to go do the holiday and see the majority of my family to show them that I was thankful for them.  Not to sit in a circle and say ‘I’m thankful for you’ (which I am, but saying I was thankful for my running was, what I thought was implied, as saying I’m thankful that after all that chemo my body is strong enough to do something superficial as run, which means it is also strong enough to make a way to be with family and that I am thankful for the physical ability to do what ever for them… guess nuance is another weak point with my lineage).

I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I do mean to challenge them to step up and reevaluate their understanding of Thanksgiving and why we all spend energy, money and time to convene in Fayetteville or Gastonia or Chesapeake once a year to do this ritual that has seemingly become so damn trivial.

Just once I want my family to speak, honestly and tell the world what they REALLY are thankful for, without fear of thinking someone will judge what they have to say;  “I’m thankful for my brand new car” (because my new car shows that I am healthy and strong and successful in my career and am making a future for my family) or “I’m thankful for my college scholarship” (because the scholarship I have now means my mother & father will be able to save more money for a fruitful & relaxing retirement and we will all have much more meaningful years together as a family in the future).

Spare me the shallow crap show… almost 10 years of chemo treatments and recurring worries make me a little impatient for Thanksgiving show…

Lord, Abide With Me

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me,
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,
You anoint my heal with oil,
my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

- Psalms 23

Man On Fire

Have you ever felt that you were on fire on a crowded street, yelling and screaming for someone to help put it out, yet no one noticed?  No one looks in your direction; no one offers water, a blanket to put out the flames, not even a spit to help your suffering.  No matter how much you yell, no matter how high the flames rise, no one notices and you just want the pain of burning to go away, yet are too set on living to lie down and sleep, to resilient to let the fire burn out your will to keep going.  Perhaps, you get a few drops of rain to put out some of the raging inferno engulfing your soon to be corpse, making the entire experience a little bit more bearable, but then the clouds dissipate, the sun soon begins to shine and your burning, unrelenting pain continues.  You plead with those who pass you by to help, to do anything, yet they continue to just walk on by.  You beg God for a hurricane, even a fleeting yet torrential downpour to put out the flames and let you go on living, go on going where ever you were going before the fire started.  But nothing happens.  You burn and you cry and you hope for some miracle to release you, not wanting to lose consciousness and slip into an eternal abyss, but just for the fire to go away.  Yet it burns.  You scream.  People ignore you and walk on by.  You exist only as a man on fire; at least in your own mind... because you’re burning and your pain doesn't exist to the other people on the street.  So, you continue to burn, continue to pray for rain and continue to hope that all will be better soon.  You ever felt like that?

No, I Am Not A Machine!

I rarely acknowledge the comments or criticisms of anyone, let alone those of my relatives.  However, once there was a comment made about my life and 'professional achievements' that really rubbed me the wrong way!  A male relative, in speaking of the dangers of following an academic major in college that might not result in a job grossing thousands of dollars every year, related to one of his children that they should avoid certain scholarly areas of study, for fear of ending up like me.  He told that child that if they followed their heart and academic attractions for study, and supposed job/career choice, they would end up hanging around like me, working a menial part-time job, with no hope or possibility of professional or even personal growth or success in the future.

I found this assessment of my life quite hilarious because I had just only completed high-dose chemotherapy (for the second time) and undergone a bone marrow transplant just 14 months before hand and was, at the time, receiving interferon treatments for a related condition.  According to most of the doctors and medical professionals treating me, I was leading an amazingly successful life, in spite of my condition.  Also, I always found it quite pleasing that many people I met were impressed by the fact that I'd undergone cancer treatment in a foreign country, alone, while working and finding remarkable success as a teacher in a foreign country and all the while completing several academic and professional training courses and obtained a few professional and amateur distinctions in linguistic abilities and knowledge in three foreign languages.

But, I wasn't living up the status quo of those who couldn't obtain an eighth of what I already had by the time I was 28 because I didn't have a job with a 401K plan and was only limited to 10 annually cumulative days of vacation time (yet another criticism made by yet another relative, who after me completing a successful semester teaching on the post-graduate level at a college in one of the many places the average American couldn't imagine visiting, let alone working and living in, had returned home for a 4-week vacation).

So, let those detractors detract and label me as a failure and the ever-present example of so many things not to be when their children grow up.  I like the fact that I could run 5K a few weeks after completing high-dose chemotherapy when they have never even come close to finishing a K.  Thanks for all the inspirational hate, y'all!

"Kubla Khan" (Samuel T. Coleridge)

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

- "Kubla Khan" by Samuel T. Coleridge... by far the greatest piece of poetry ever written!  Somehow it fits my experiences across Arabia and East Asia to a rather mysterious point.

Who Am I?

Who am I?  Why is that such a ridiculous question at first, "Who are you?”   I say (if and when asked) that I'd reply, in my ever-so sarcastic yet charming manner, "Why, I'm Tory Cook (duh?)".  Then you have to think, just exactly who the hell are you?  What makes you you and what makes him him or her her or it it?  I then think, I'm an amateur anthropologist, an empty daydreamer, a half-assed musician, a Southerner, a free spirit, a survivor, a man.  Too many things to think of in an instance!  Of course, you have to think, "what made me who I am?”  A lot that's what!  A lot of crap and joy and mistakes and fuck ups, a lot of hoorays and right-ons, that's what.  Either way, to quote a recent influence in life, I'll carry on, either way.  I have a lot to say, and no one to say it to or no one I think wants to listen.  But people do listen to what I say, even when I'm saying it in a smart ass way to make fun of them, or taunt their curiosity, or even many times just to hear my own voice!

So, who am I?  I was born on October 3rd, 1978, in a hospital in Laurinburg, NC, on a Tuesday at 4:19pm (a time that has run its ironic course in my life thus far, just close enough to the fabled 4:20, but not quite).  My mother was a young woman on the verge of experiencing the life as a mother of a first born son and a father who was well, just not ready for it all!  I'm not sure what she’d expected of that kid to become, but her choice to give birth to a child with a name like mine in a hospital in Scotland County definitely was a precursor for whom I was to be.  As I hear it told, I was quite a spoiled child, considering I was not only her first, but also the first grandchild on my maternal side.  Counter that with being born to the second born in that family of seven and I was meant to receive way too much attention (Did I also mention that was the first great-grandchild to her mother’s mother too?).  I guess that bit of indulgence might have made somewhat of an intolerable child, but to my relief (and I'm sure to her dismay), two quite rowdy brothers followed shortly along!  So we became 3 of the 4 "Cook Boys" of Raeford, NC (the fourth being my cousin the same as one of my brothers). 

I like that I was born in Laurinburg, Scotland County (it is a real place, full of golf courses, a kilt clad, bagpipe blowing high school marching band and a whole lot of folks named McLean, McLaughlin, Mc…), a black American boy from the country named Toriano Chakar.  I have just recently started to wonder what goes through the minds of people awaiting my arrival, at a job interview or to greet me for some function.  What is their TRUE reaction when they meet me and not some suave Italian or Spanish guy with a switch in his walk and an oh-so Mediterranean manner about him?  I hated that name for so long, partially because of the inability of many of my teachers to pronounce it (especially the English teachers… you’d think phonetics would be something someone teaching a language in any capacity would have an inkling of knowledge about!).  However, now I enjoy the prospect of surprising those awaiting my presence and presenting to them a young black man from Southeastern NC named Toriano.  It's a big task to keep up such a unique personality to correspond to a name like that!  I think of mama and thank her in my mind for that little gift every time.  My name is so much me now that from time to time, especially in situation where I meet someone I perceive might be impressed by ‘Toriano’ (hipsters mostly), I shy from presenting myself as "Tory", my nickname turned common alias for quite some time.  Although she may realize it, her singular decision of choosing that name put me on a road to becoming the worldly freak I now am now.  "Toriano Chakar Cook."  Rings like some prolific character in history, or at least as what I see myself as being one day.  I should have been a model.  And now introducing... "Toriano"! I think it rivals Donatella or Twiggy as a title for glamour on the runway any day (too bad I didn't get the looks or fashion sense to go with the name). 

I also grew up feeling a little weird by my middle name, Chakar.  It was primarily because of pronunciation gaffes, usually with the person reading the word on a page and struggling to figure it out in their heads, saying it (always incorrectly) under their breath, typically hitting the ‘r’ too hard or dropping it completely.  Most would just give up and say it wrong, I didn’t care to correct them (they’d soon forget it and I think I’d already become a little elitist back then so I didn’t really give a damn anyway!).   There we the few, though, who would finally give in and ask, "is that Chakar, as in chalk or Chakar as in sha?” 

Another problem that I noticed growing up surrounding my name was the general acceptance of it.  ‘Tory’ ultimately was simple to say and wasn’t ‘so foreign’, so I think most of people I interacted with in school preferred it.  I was usually one of the few non-white kids in my classes (even though the schools were pretty proportionate in terms of the ethnic diversity one might find in a small Southern town in the Eighties and Nineties.  Bane of being one of the smart kids!).  My classmates all had the name staples of Southern American life; George, Susan, Katie, Richard, James, Elizabeth; then there I was "Toriano Chakar".   Being a rather shy kid, having some teacher make a show of saying your name and draw much unwanted attention to myself and my huge glasses wasn’t exactly thrilling.  I think all would have been okay if they only had trouble with Chakar, but from my earliest memories, you would have thought someone had given people a Sudoku puzzle of tongue twisters!  

I think it is quite ironic that every country, every region of every country, I've ever visited, no one has had troubles with pronouncing this linguistically syllable basic name, except those from my home!  If my silly 'English superiority complex' computer could type in East Asian languages (like Windows XP support says it can), I could type this name in Chinese, Korean and Japanese flawlessly!  They get it! 

Then, as if fate has always meant to put me back on the ground where I belong, I get the exotic and awe-inspiring family name, ‘Cook’.  It's like seeing the most beautiful impressionistic mural ever painted, with colors never conceptualized by a human artist, to only read in the corner "Created by Wal-Mart".  Damn!  Okay, so I am a Cook, whether I feel some transcendental connection to all the folks of the world and the human cause or not.  It is one undeniable part of me that connects to who I really am.  Cook is my grandfather, my mother's father's name.  His family, as far back as we know before getting to the whole ‘long trip on a boat’ incident, is from North Carolina.  I hope an explanation of how we descendants of African-descended slaves ended up with an English name is not needed!  So, I am forever tied to the geography of my African American heritage.  My mother's mother (Grandma Cook!) is a Washington.  She pretty much grew up in New Jersey, although her family is from South Carolina.  So we, as Black Americans, are to be known, for now and forever, as Cooks and Washingtons (ain't that some shit!). 

Probably one of the most culturally saddening, yet hilarious times in my life was as an English teacher in Korea, hearing a Korean co-teacher state "Wow, you're family's name is Washington, so you have lineage to the great president George Washington!”  If I could only have had the appropriate Korean language skills and patience to explain how true that statement might really be!  My father's family name is Judd and if you know Country music, then you can see the jokes that tend to follow when I announce that little tidbit of my family history (that and the fact that I have a grandmother named ‘Minnie Pearl’).   His family, comprised of the Judds and the Manuels, are from North Carolina as well (again I state, as much as a displaced population like us Black American folks can be from anywhere outside of Africa, sarcasm very much intended on that one). 

Sometimes I feel a little jealousy towards people with African family names.  At least if they don't know where they are from, really from, they can follow their names.  I could try for a thousand years to trace my history through my names, Judd, Manuel, Cook or Washington, and would still end up somewhere in Western Europe!  Although I might have some milk in this chocolate, I seriously doubt my people were the descendants of pitifully ‘lost Moors’, just hangin' out north of the border. 

Sad really, when trying to answer the question, "Who are you?", but guess that's what lets you know exactly who you are.  I like that part about being American, especially considering that my family has a history in this country of at least one hundred and sixty years, while there are some other Americans whose families’ entrance can be traced back to Angel or Ellis Islands less than one-hundred years ago, yet they don’t know jack about their Old World roots either!  If you can formulate some definition of "thyself" from the information you got, well, then you will always know who you are.  So, who am I..., I'm Toriano Chakar Cook!

Gastonia, NC (Spring, 2008)

Pentaport Rock

Oh well boys and girls, I return on the scene to report one of the greatest weekends
I’ve put on record here in Korea, of course at the last (really) stint of my time
here. So, this weekend (July 28-30) was the Pentaport Rock Festival in Incheon,
Korea. And what a time I have to report!

To start, this was the mother of all music festivals, especially for little Korea,
who might just be an up and coming rival to the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan (of
which I’ve never been (~.~). All the big bangers of the Emo, hipster, ‘I’m too cool for school’ scene were there: The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Placebo, Snow Patrol, Kula Shaker (seemingly out of retirement), Jason Mraz, Dragon Ash (boss Japanese group if you don’t know), and a gaggle of other ‘hip rockers’ (and a few really cool Korean groups; I missed Jaeulim… but Super Kidd and Ghettobombs, rocked!)

But oh! My little festival drama (and you know I had bunches) had my weekend finish at about 11:00pm Friday night… the first night of a 3 day festival! So my partner in fun crime, the Canuck with the most and I headed out to Incheon (a metro city on the Western beach about 2 hours from Seoul on the subway) the day before to set up our tent site (“Viva Juarez!” We had a Mexico theme to the area, code named what I like to call: Santa Ana’s Revenge East) and to prepare provisions (Bacardi, Bailey’s, bootleg Kahlua, the usual!) But, if you know Asian summer climates, the summer monsoon had been goin’ on and on… and on! So of course we got rain logged!
 

Any who, the next day, we woke full of expectation and energized for all the great bands we were going to see: Let’s see~ We opened with the Korean bands: Super Kidd and Ghettobombs on the “baby” stage, before socializing with a really cool Italian couple working in Beijing we met the day before. Then it was on! Got to see the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs (did you know that one of Karen Oh’s parents is Korean?) The show was nice! (A little tame for that girl’s rockin’ abilities, but you gotta remember Korea is even more conservative than  Japan!). After that, hung out at the beer tent, out of the rain, socializin’ the Pentaportway we do best! Caught some long shot views of some okay Korean bands, then it was time for Snow Patrol. I wasn’t a big fan before, but the singer is awesome and there was some “je ne sais quoi” about the bass player that spelled a good time (bass players make the world spin right round, baby round round!).

After a wailin’ good show, settled back in that killer beer tent, got a hot dog to
keep the energy up and took a short trip over to the M something or another tent (sponsored by some Korean music network… not MTV!) to check out Jason Mraz.  Okay show, but had to jet early to go stake out a spot for the Strokes. Got back to the main stage, drank one too many beers, got a fucking amazing spot out on the “floor of death” (will be explained later) and started hangin’ out and talkin’ shit with some other foreigners who drank too much like I did, but were also in heaven to see the world-renown Strokes in Korea of all places.

Now, I should have had the right of mind to realize the Strokes playing in Korea was a queer occurrence that should have set off alarm bells; this is where things started to get bad. Ten minutes before the Strokes kicked off I had to pee (see, too much beer really does ruin everything!). So, I scuttled off to the bathroom and rushed back, just in time to be ready for the opening song, only about 30 feet back from my dream spot. Here are some interesting factoids about the scene; it had been raining all over Korea for about 4 days, so everything was wet and muddy, hence why I thought it’d be good idea to take off the slippers I’d been dancin’ in and losing in the mud all day and be a real Chapel Hill dirt dobblin’ hippie. As well, the crowd was pretty excited and just as drunk as I was, so what was the harm in some stereotypical, clichéd festival behavior?

And then they started to play. I’d heard the Strokes put on a damn good live show, but this was too much! As soon as the music started 3 guys standing about 2 feet in front of me took off as if running a 100-yard dash and were instantly 15 feet in front of me! So, I jumped in! This was the mother of all pits, probably topping at about 6,000 people all wet, drunk and hyped up! I don’t even remember the song that they were playing, but it was like a dirty dream set through music, beautiful! All the time, my main goal was to get back to my crew who were still a few feet away.  Halfway through this song, as I was jumping up and surfing the crowd off of high fives and mild, yet suggestive slaps on the ass, I found my buddy of the Great North and the mass of folks we’d recently made temporary family. The slip up: as soon as I got to her I grabbed her arm and started dancing like a National Geographic video from West Africa during some seasonal holiday ceremony and then, 1..2..3 stomps and WHAM!!!!

The pain shot through my right leg like hell, the devil and all the demons possible had thought it a spiritual highway! Then I felt something sticking in my foot, so I lift my foot, feel something hard and solid to the touch, but the shape of a stiletto heel and go to slap it loose of my foot. No dice! So I rabidly pull this
thing OUT OF MY FOOT! I’m alert to the severity of the situation but still feeling
the music and just dance to make me think it all was just imagined or not really as bad as I knew it was! My friend gets winded by the psychos slammin’ into us, since I can’t fend people off cause I’m in some sort of shock and so we get the hell out of there!

A few minutes after sitting down and looking at the hole in the sole of my foot
wondering what I had stepped on (all the while fighting the strong possibility that it might have been a piece of Korean War shrapnel, since this whole concert was on a beach that had been the sight of General MacArthur’s storming of Incheon and all!), I call a truce with myself and go to the Health and Safety tent, where the oh so responsible and dutiful first responders of Incheon City wrap a bandage around the wound and tell me to go to the hospital (mind you no one calls an ambulance, just tells me to walk the 3/4 of a mile to the nearest road and somehow conjure up a taxi to get me to a hospital, somewhere in this city I don’t know!).

I stumble back to the tent and listen to the last few songs ‘live’ from the Strokes
(just as good as being in the pit by this point). My friend comes back after the
show is over and we both realize I should be going to the hospital (that from the
fact that I start going into mild SHOCK!) Lots of stupid language miscommunication and basic lack of compassion from some lazy bitch slut organizers and then I’m in the back of an ambulance, with a 2-inch puncture in my right foot, a very bad infection and mild shock (luckily I knew how to redress the wound and what to do for shock or else I would’ve really been a mess).  

Needless to say, I missed the rest of the weekend and all those other bands (oh yeah, the Black Eyed Peas played on Saturday. Why were they at a rock fest? No real loss to me in the end… probably a blessing in disguise!). As I sat at home back in Seoul, I enjoyed receiving emails from my crew still at the festival and watching old action movies on TV under a veil of very delirious eyes and dementia of some damn good ‘scrips (Korea and strong medication, um um um…).

If I’m ever back on this side of the rock this time during the summer, I will be
back (with strong soled shoes on!) Even though I only got one day in, I did see the Yeah, Yeahs, Snow Patrol and a very dramatic Strokes! I will one day finally see Franz and Dragon Ash live and as for Snow Patrol and the Strokes, well they were so nice, I will be seeing them twice!

Incheon, Korea (July, 2006)

General Hospital Never Had a Doctor Feelgood

So so so… My life is TOO interesting and I mean that in the most honest tone I can vocally present! Now, I know several people who have lived in various nations around the world and their stories and tales are fascinating. But, they don’t involve any epic levels of tragedy, chaos and misfortune like mine! 

Why you may ask, why Tory Cook, are your experience in Korea on such a unique and utterly monumental scale. Why are your tribulations on a scale that would make the filming of ‘Troy’ or ‘Gone With The Wind’ look like low-budget grade school productions of long dead Broadway musicals? ‘Perhaps you seek psychotic scenarios and schizophrenic situations. Or maybe it’s your infatuation with the dysfunctional that leads to these mishaps?’

Chance has to stick to certain perimeters, you think? Why, then why am I constantly in and out of the hospital!?! I do nothing to get there, really (well… most of the time.), yet I have frequented most of the major hospitals and medical centers in the Seoul Metro area and more to come! Let me run down these twisted situations and I’ll let you decide. Am I being shat on by fate? Did dear old Daddy do something malicious to someone when he was here back in the 1980′s and now they’re working some dark magic to pay HIM back, yet I’m catching the brunt of their wrath?

AT SOME DENTIST IN CHUNGSAN VILLAGE, ILSAN-GU, GOYANG CITY, KOREA

In a failed attempt to find out why I had a freakin’ lump on my neck, I made a trip to hang out with a ‘sadist with a dental degree’. Recalling upon an earlier experience in my childhood, where I refused to have a rotten molar removed, hence causing the tooth to abscess and my entire neck and half my face to swell, I thought to myself, ‘Hey, this chipped molar in the back of my mouth now might be the cause of more neck swelling now!’ (Oh boy, how little did I know about medicine!)?

So, following the referral and advice of our school’s lovely ‘somo-nim’, I let some ‘dentist’ have a whack at fixing my dental woes. He gave me a very liberal drop of Novocain and preceded to pull that fucking tooth with what I swear was a pair of grandpa’s rusty pliers from the ‘shed out back’, in turn crushing the tooth (while still ‘in root’). I don’t think there have been movies or hidden surveillance cameras filming an actual murder to produce the mind blowing cries I let out that day!…… and no one in the office or on the dental staff blinked an eye.

That unforgettable experience left laid up in bed for about a week, with a swollen noggin for about just as long. Naturally, the bloody bump on my neck remained, leaving me relieved to have taken care of the tooth, but still nervous as to what was going on with my body. Had I only know what kinds of inhumane pain and
suffering was to come, all at the hands of people working in what some people call ‘medicine’, I think I would have been on the first jet out of Asia. But then, that would’ve been logical….

YONSEI UNIVERSITY SEVERANCE HOSPITAL

It was here where I underwent almost $500.00 (out of my pocket) worth of testing to find out what the hell was going on with my neck. My journey to this seemingly civilized educational medical facility actually began at my local doctor (whose son I was teaching at the time and I have to say (sorry doc), was the fattest doctor’s child I personally have ever seen in my life!) She spoke no English, which is probably good because I had no idea what information she’d gathered from the ultrasound she took of my neck. So soon after would I get to place the missing piece to that sinister puzzle. Through several notes and translators, she referred me to the ‘International Clinic’ at Yonsei University Severance Hospital, which was supposed to be the best in Korea.

So, I went to this center and had my neck twisted, prodded, extracted and mutilated by a bunch of medical residents, carrying only about $100 US in my pocket (hey, Korea is cheap, I only paid $20 to have my tooth ripped from my skeleton!). Well, with no comprehensive health insurance because I was working in a babysitting slavery circle under the cover of a private English academy and the amazing procedure of hospitals to not disclose cost until after they’ve raped you with needles and plastic gloves, I realized I was short of cash… really short!

After a marathon of phone calls and short of signing my soul over to some jerk American doctor who thought he was the bee’s knees because he got his MD from Yonsei University (sorry Korea but Yonsei Med School doesn’t strike much in my mind for international prestige!). My head teacher finally came through with a credit card call; of course, that loan would later blossom into serious debt, a confrontation with an old man probably decomposing at the bottom of the Han River now and accusations of being a heroin addict (Couldn’t make it all up if I really tried and made three wishes on a star!).

Two weeks later some 미친연 calling herself a doctor answers the phone after about ten phone calls made by yours truly to try and figure out what all those tests had proven and tells me, ‘You need to make plans to go back to the US. I could provide you with some professionals here in Seoul to take on your medical case, but you probably can’t afford it, so why should I bother.’ (AKA: ‘get the fuck out of my country you dirty American scum, we ain’t givin’ no financial aid this year, see you next time if you live that long, 씨발놈아!’). Two hours of chaotic anxiety and confusion would follow before I finally realized just exactly what Hodgkin’s’ Disease was and what I would need to do to get rid of it!

THE NATIONAL MEDICAL CENTER
After lots of discomfort in this long journey to figure out what was wrong with me and how to get rid of the lump in my neck; I had gotten my answer… AND BOY WAS I PISSED!!!! See, I immediately started to think of all the late night partying and various methods of cellular destruction I’d participated in during college and all I could say was, ‘You reap what you sow’. But I can honestly say I don’t think I sowed this one! Damn genetics played the trick of a lifetime on me and there was nothing I could do to stop it from coming to fruition. I made plans to return home to the US that same day, but the penny pincher of a boss of mine decided that I was too big an investment to just let me fly off and never return (for whatever reason). How was I to know that I’d be back teaching five weeks later!

As gruesome and challenging going through cancer diagnostic treatment was, my three weeks in that hospital, the National Medical Center, were and will always be some of the most amazing times I’ve ever had. This place was a damn mess to start. First built as a US Army hospital during the Korean War, the Korean government took over operations after the cease fire (mind you the Korean War has never ended. They are still technically still at war!). Only problem with that was that they never bothered to renovate, rebuild or update anything in the building since! Oh the imagery here! Think of the show ‘MASH’; mid-July heat, no air conditioning, one fan in a ward with eight beds (seven of them filled with Korean men, 45 years of age and older and then me, a 24 year American black guy!).

My neighbor for about two weeks was this awesome old dude, Mr. Kwan, who took it upon himself to be my personal translator, ethnographic guide and he even once took me to Catholic Mass (only God knows how he knew just what I was saying since he never once spoke a word of English to me and I had never known what to do with those damn ‘eggs in the shell’ at breakfast time without him; a few months in Korea had not acclimated me to eating everyday Korean food, especially everyday Korean hospital food!). One thing about Mr. Kwan that I had to dig thought was that when he would come back to the room from his smoke break in the stairwell, he smelled strongly of the Mean Green, the wacky tobaccy, mountain trees…. He never offered or shared.

My nurses were very nice and very understanding of my rather awkward place. One was actually a very cute nursing student who couldn’t speak much English, but had amazing handwriting and made it a point to bring a dry erase board for us to communicate. The Head Ward nurse spoke amazing English and although she was said she was Korean spoke with a very strong Filipino accent. And how could I forget the lovely ‘natural redhead’ who caught me sneaking back into my bed one night after I snuck out of the hospital to go see a DJ in Itaewon and proceeded to give me a tongue lashing on the severity of my situation, as she made me kneel and hold my head down in shame (typical Korean way to say, ‘I’m sorry.’).

It was in that hotbox of hell hospital that I had two drills put into my back and bone marrow pulled out of my pelvic bone. This was the most pain I have ever felt in my life and I could imagine one of the worst pains humans could feel… especially when the local anesthetic wears off before the needles even go in! I clinched my teeth and damned the soul of the nurse who was holding out on me with the drugs as she turned her head when I growled and cut my eyes back at her in disdain. It was in this place that I was not allowed to properly bathe for seven days due to the gigantic, gaping wounds on my back and hence produced a bodily stench that I WILL NOT smell again (I’ll cut my own nose off).

Ahh, I sound rather negative, but I did learn a lot of Korean language, finished some good books and got a month and eight days a month for the next six months paid leave off of work! That reminds me of my chemo nurse; I affectionately called her ‘Tweety’ (she had a cute resemblance to Tweety the cartoon character). Why this chick was assigned my chemo a nurse who knows, she couldn’t speak, read, write or understand any variation of English (and many of the medicine labels were printed in English). But, she was serious trooper and we somehow made it work (and she put up with a lot more than most dealing with me!).

Our first ‘shit show’ session was my third treatment, the second with Tweety (our first went quite well, even though I threw up all over the backseats of two different taxis on the way home). Taking the advice of my nutritionist (who also spoke no English), I made the mistake of eating a Kimbab roll (what you may know as a California roll) for breakfast before the session. Bad biz. After about 2 hours of the scheduled 5-hour ‘Drip of Death’, I threw up. Everywhere! There was so much rice and stomach ‘stuff’ all over the bed, floor, walls, sink, that I hated the sight of it for several months after.

I’m not one to recount my vomits, no matter how grand and gushing they might be, but this was a true exception. As I spewed chunks all over this badly furnished, yet clean clinical office and consequently covered Tweety’s left leg, this chick, petrified and seemingly at a loss for how to make the situation right, starts to yell, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! What the hell am I supposed to do now?’… all with a perfect American accent!

ILSAN HOSPITAL AND THE SHINGLES SCARE OF 2004

All passed well at the Medical Center with my treatments and eight months later I had a new job teaching at a public high school, with sick days, medical leave and full Ministry of Education sponsored health insurance (my best friend!). But oh no, life would be too easy if things like health insurance were just there for, I don’t
know, peace of mind! Silly boy I am!

May 2004: I wake up to a burning pain behind my left ear and an itch I was able to relieve by intense scratching that drew blood! Two days later, the rash, pain and itching has quickly spread down my left arm, across the left side of my upper back and chest. Did I forget the almost immediate onset of nausea, dementia and migraine headaches? Can’t forget those! At school on Monday, I tell my mentor teacher that I’ve been through this craziness of weird bumps and rashes once, ‘You and I are going to the closest hospital, now!’

He cancels all my classes for the day and we frantically zoom the quarter mile to the Ilsan Hospital. I explain to the intake nurse what’s happening, he translates. I am swiftly taken into the emergency area. Lots of blood is taken, several tests are done (none, I might add, as painful as those I experienced before, thank God!) None of the medical residents know what Hodgkin’s’ Disease is I give them my medical history (translations can really be lazy; in Korean, Hodgkin’s’ Disease is pronounced ‘had-juh-keens dee-jee-zuh’, get it?). They figure since they don’t know what the condition is, it probably isn’t important and we move on with the tests.

I meet with the Head Dermatologist (a women who most likely attended medical school in the US, probably wanted to stay there but her parents dragged her home and knew she was too good a doctor to be working in that hospital.), and she in perfect, understandable English told me it was Herpes Zoster, or in the colloquial, SHINGLES! What the #@^! Did I do in a past life that would deem it necessary that a 25 year old man have to deal with having Shingles? Neither of my grandparents or anyone else I knew 65 years of age or older had been diagnosed with such! The doctor, however, was swift and efficient in explaining how I’d possibly acquired such a strange condition, as she was truly a good doctor who knew her craft.

Shingles is a disease of the nervous system associated with the Chicken Pox virus that tends to become active when your immune system has been somehow extensively compromised (like the side effects of 6 months of chemotherapy!). It can kill you pretty fast if you don’t catch it because it spreads and eventually causes brain death. Lucky for me, I was in Korea! Although she was professionally very cosmopolitan and worldly, she was still Korean. With that known, she gave me a typical Korean response to how to remedy my situation (which I’m sure you’ll like):

               Normally, we hospitalize Shingles patients for several days 

               as we administer the medicines, but you’re a young man. 

               You’re strong. Don’t worry about it. Just take these pills 

               and you can start back at work in a day.’

To hell with that! I took the week off, with 119 on speed dial (911 in Korea). I’d made a dignified plea (alright, I kind of begged) to be admitted in the hospital for the week, partially because the hospital was brand new and had ‘hotel comparable amenities’, but school and the doctor didn’t feel it ‘necessary’.

So, in an attempt to save my life, the chemo ended up gave me shingles, which also almost took my life (and only God knows what else I got from the National Medical Center!). Modern medicine really is inhumane; it nearly killed me, twice (for second occurrence, see BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT AT WAKE FOREST BAPTIST HOSPITAL)!

PLASTIC SURGERY AND THE SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

Well, this leads me to the most eventful St. Patrick’s Day I have ever had (and the one Korean medical trauma I think I am solely responsible for!). Now, with my knowledge of hospitals, that night I was prepared to receive the best service and treatment without the pain and bullshit from before and I was going to get it!

It was St. Patty’s Day, 2006. The crew and I were watching a crappy expat band play at a crappy club and I was not impressed (It should be noted though, that the cover was $20, all you can drink, all night… even Jack Daniel’s!). A friend known for complicating the most docile of situations starts hitting on some butt ugly chick dancing by herself. Her boyfriend shows up, gets pissed off and starts yelling at the crew because we’re responsible for my friend and his stupidity… somehow! We have a standoff between wanna be Ken and Barbie and myself and three of the craziest Korean guys I’ve ever met (the ‘crew’). The situation calms, partially because we’ve all drank so much that we forget why we’re yelling and four of the seven participants finish their drinks and naturally need a refill.

After I get my refill of Jack on the rocks with a splash of Chilsung cider, I go to the bathroom. I don’t remember using the bathroom, but I do remember opening the bathroom door, taking a step and then… blank! I “wake up” standing outside the club on the street holding my face as blood drips endlessly from my hand. I bend over as to not get any on the new Emerald green shirt I’d just bought the day before. My friends, the ‘crew’ ask, ‘who?’ I respond, ‘who what?’ After much confusion and everyone’s realization that I’d just been sucker punched by someone too afraid to go head to head with a drunk traveling with a posse of even drunker socio-paths, we hop in a cab and make our way to Seoul National University Hospital.

Like I said, I wanted the best treatment and service possible at 3am in the morning (It was only one block from my apartment, they had some of the best facilities in East Asia and a 24-hour on-call plastic surgeon). I may have been drunk and delirious, yes! But illogical and irrational… never! I wish we had a video camera that night because I would easily win a best actor award for how I behaved in that hospital! I walked in throwing commands in English and Korean (the poor nurse didn’t know if to listen to me or attending doctor!). My crowning moment, of course, occurred with the realization that I must have been hit with something sharp, like a ring or jagged metal, because that’s when I started to demand for the plastic surgeon.

‘I have the fucking money! You get the best person in this damn city on my face now! My face! My face! What the fuck did some fucker do to my face! One of you bastards are gonna die if I have another damn scar on my fucking face!’ (All amidst a deluge of tears and 80-proof drool running from the corners of my mouth)

Okay… maybe sometimes my intoxicated melodrama is too much, sometimes. They finally get me stitched up and the hell out of their hospital, reminding me that I have to go back to get the stitches taken out on the next Friday, but if I want I can go to another hospital and they can take them out too. I stand by my demands for medical excellence and decide I’ll go back next Friday. Besides, they won’t recognize me (to many Koreans, all Americans, black, white, Latino, native American, look the same… go figure).

Once at home, I rant and rave for another hour to the crew about having another scar, explaining the bandage across half my face to school (I’m now teaching elementary school, happy happy fun fun!) and trying to convince them to go back to the club, find someone with a bloody ring and ‘bring them back to me’!)

I returned to the hospital and had the stitches removed. Upon leaving, I stopped by the cashier and submitted my insurance, to be reimbursed the $300 I paid that night and had a very nice conversation in Korean with the cashier about how much better life in the countryside is compared to living in a large city. At least this medical visit was somewhat normal.

There was one more trip to the hospital in Korea, another physical injury, another situation I really didn’t have much control over (kind of). But, I think I already told you about that one and since my foot starts to hurt when I talk about that experience, you’ll have to reread it if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about (see PENTAPORT ROCK for medical experiences in the city of Incheon, Korea!).

So, what’s next? No more hospitals, I hope. If you came up with an answer to my little dilemma with hospitals and fucking Korea, let me know, please! I got about $20,000 worth of procedures, treatments and medication tied up somewhere between my ears and my anus! At least I can say it was money well spent, right?

Seoul, Korea (Summer, 2006)