Casper the Friendly English Teacher

“It’s a lot like being a friendly ghost in someone’s house.”
-David-

That’s the best description I’ve heard yet of teaching English in Daegu. We were sitting on high backed purple felt couches that could have been lifted straight from the set of Willy Wonka, alone in an empty world music bar listening to very sedating folk songs by artists I had never heard of. David sat across, quiet and more detached than usual, Ara to my left pressed her face against the concrete wall. A couple bottles of empty Budweiser and a half consumed dry squid sat on the table before us. I slouched deep in my chair. Sinking into that exaggeration of myself incubated in the warm glow of coffee grinds or beer steins, hatched in moments of giddy excitement when I’m less afraid of the fool I know that I am.

We had spent the day roaming around Busan, Korea’s second city and the third largest seaport in the world, taking photos with our new friend, Ara, our gracious host in this bustling cosmopolis. She guided us through the buses, subways, and taxis en route to see some of the major city attractions. From Jagalchi, the famous fish market on the coast, to the enourmously popular and surprisingly beautiful Haeundae beach, to one of the very few Krispy Kreme donut shops in the country. We ate a spicy North Korean noodle dish for lunch, who’s name I have forgotten, but who’s greasy stains remained on the crotch of my pants the whole weekend in spite of my every effort to remove them.

Leaving Daegu is like waking from a dream. Exiting a cloudy netherworld into the land of the real where people have weight, their eyes have depth and their steps purpose. It was strange to make eye contact. To see the crowd seeing you and acknowledging your existence. I had nearly forgotten what that felt like. To feel that people were not afraid of you, did not judge you differently from the rest. Even enjoyed you. To feel your blood warmed by stranger’s passing smiles. Stranger’s with whom you have no bond but humanhood. Hope and fear and desire.

I wonder if Daegu is not unique in the world. A conservative hub in a conservative country. A pergatory between Seoul and the sea. A city that is not a city. A halfway house where people live, but are not alive. Existing, peacefully asleep on the tightrope separating birth and death.

I am and I am not here. A spectre between two dimensions. But the longer I stay the more safe and solid this world becomes and the more hazy and frightening does the other. For indeed, in spite of all it’s shortcomings, I am happy and contented and safe.

I’ve often wondered what sacrifices we’d be willing to make to secure the world we preach. If we could ever fully understand what is possible and what is at stake...