i can feel it about to rain. is this the korean monsoon season? its really not as bad as that one seoulite from school described it. i thought the train stations would be flooding and walking would be battling through unrelenting sheets of water. i thought grey clouds would relax open and only close to breathe for a few hours in the mid morning and night. but so far, i’ve only enjoyed sprinkles in the early afternoon. 

the night before i left for watson i smoked in the park and let the wet air cling to my j ruining its burn. my skin always tells me its about to thunderstorm by the electricity padding the air. my eyes tell me its about to thunderstorm since everything looks clear against the grey. the greens pop and my irises outline 100 blades of grass before the first drop hits me square in my forehead. the storm opened with a clap and built to a wailing tantrum that styled my hair into a sopping twisted mop and slicked the sticky off my skin. when its breathing slowed to rest, the aftermath of its cathartics is a hyperreal stillness. it’s halfway pregnant halfway acid trip and i stumbled through debris that catches my laughter on its fallen branches.

the rain here is not like that rain. i feel it crawl slowly through the air saturating each molecule with more humidity until it can’t help but leak tears. a rain drop materializes beyond my nose and falls 5 feet down. does this mean i’m walking through the cloud? the air bends with the weight of its water by the time i reach her gate. is it the pollution or humidity that makes breathing feel like i’m underwater. she wears all white–a linen buttoned vest and matching loose shorts–waiting to greet me. she scans us inside and takes us up the elevator.

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her home is like mommy’s. she says she lives with her mother, but she won’t be home until night. i take off my shoes, put them in the shin-height cubby next to me, and slip on the pair of slippers waiting for me. spotless floors and plants line the window. there is a small table top garbage can for food waste and a drying rack next to the sink. just like home.

i sit down in the rocking chair near the window while she prepares tea. she takes out a rubber-banded tin of fermented black leaves and starts to shave off pieces with a ceramic knife. this tea is older than both of us combined. she sets a wooden tray holding a clear spouted cup with a blue filter hanging on its rim on one side and a matching blue ceramic cup with a loose plate-like-top sitting just inside its mouth. she places the tea in the blue cup under the plate and pours water over it. the upside down plate overflows and trickles underneath. she seals the leaves inside and pours the water over the filter into the clear jar and dumps that into the sink. we don’t drink this, i’m just washing it. are you washing the cups or the tea? both. 

i sit across from her with a cup of water and an empty shot-sized cup reflecting her same set of cups over the wooden tray. she lights a candle in the corner and walks backward to the table protecting the fragile flame, but it goes out when she sets it down inevitably in the path of the rotating fan. that’s alright, no candle! she makes the tea and serves me first and i ask if there is a way i should drink it. she says no, the only people that care are in the most secluded buddhist temples or japan. in korea, that level of instruction is seen as a form of rigidity. she waits for me to take a sip before indulging herself.

i don’t look korean, i start. she pauses her sip and puts it down looking at me. she becomes so still as if all her energy is saved for parsing my words. people stare and i catch their slippery glances. did something happen? she almost interrupts clipping the period of my sentence in half. no. she relaxes and picks up her cup, well no one here dresses like that! she chuckles at her own joke and we let the conversation wander…

is there a place i can get vaseline here? yes we have some! i tried to find some at olive young… olive young? i hate olive young there’s nothing to buy there! well where do you get your skincare then? she pauses and rolls her lips inside her mouth calculating a response. my mom gets a lot of gifts during christmas since she’s a well connected ceo, so i usually just take some of those products. i say nothing so she fills the expanding silence with ‘i guess i’m pretty lucky.’ i still don’t know where to get vaseline but i let the conversation continue to flow…

i see many old men on the train in work uniforms with their nose touching their screen. yes seeing that always makes me so so sad. have you seen those men selling low quality bracelets or trinkets? i think about the children selling candy in new york, seattle, chicago, la, dc,,, honestly everywhere i sat in a park or train in america, and say yes. oh it just makes me too sad she muses. i don’t pity them, i respond, they are doing what they need to do like the rest of us. oh i don’t pity them! it just makes me so sad, you know? yes i do. 

i ask if she ever gets scared of those men on the train. have you seen those unstable men? in high school i used to piss them off on purpose, but i wouldn’t recommend it. pride and shame twirl off her tongue with those words. i let my judgement take the back seat: why did you have to bother them? as she tells me how once one told her “virgin you should get married.” i pause to calculate and respond: sometimes men blame women for all their problems.

yes, there are more and more violent crimes against women. there was a woman who was stabbed in the countryside the other day for no reason.  are you scared, there is cctv everywhere right? yes, but these men don’t care about consequence. and cctv is just a bunch of old guys checking the cameras, its not like the cops or anything. (i wonder if cops means something different in korea than america. i’m sure it does, and i’m sure cops means something different if your rich than if your poor, but i am only a foreigner so what do i know? ) do you care about cctv? she let’s her head sway back and forth her chin cocking a little more with each turn. it is a big problem, she starts slowly, but it keeps crime down so i don’t mind. and it’s not like they are using ai or anything. they are, but i don’t feel like getting into it preferring to listen. cctv doesn’t effect her; i wonder who it does effect. constant surveillance always comes at a cost that is never distributed evenly amongst the people subjected to it. i ask her if there’s anywhere dangerous i should avoid, more so to see her response than for my own edification. …just don’t go down dark alleyways with bars and motels at night, but everywhere else should be fine! also when your at a cafe its common for people to leave their phones and laptops out without anyone watching them. i wonder if people don’t steal because of cctv or because of the “collective” aspect of society, or because they simply don’t need to.

i’m starving and i know she doesn’t eat much. i ask if we could get food, and she looks outside at the slow drops leaking out of the air before suggesting we make 된장찌개 at home. have you heard of it? yes, of course. we’d order extra for my sister to eat with rice when she wouldn’t touch anything else as a toddler. mainland koreans rarely understand diasporic experiences, as i don’t understand mainland korean experiences, and she often asks if i need korean things clarified. i choose to appreciate it, but it can be exhausting. still, its easier to let things slide than explain. i know it comes from a kindness that she defines and i do not correct. i let myself be offended by her assumptions only once some months ago at college when i played some traditional korean music on my speaker and she immediately asked the other mainland korean walking with us (who has terrible taylor swift-esque music taste) about the song. the other korean said she never heard of it and turned to me. i practiced traditional korean dance and drums as a child, i added to try to curb my obvious annoyance.

i do not let myself act from annoyance here, like i did then, since i’m too hungry to let anything prolong the wait before our meal. instead, i get up and we start preparing food. i chop the vegetables while she boils broth. ‘do you have a speaker?’ ‘my grandparents gave me money for an ipad, but i hate ipad so i got a speaker of the same price instead. its in my bedroom.’ i can tell her dislike of ipads is a point of pride. i find it on the floor and greet the wooden snake curled on her pillow. i play tezeta (ethiopian jazz), los indios tabares (brazilian guitar duo), elizabeth cotton (1930s ragtime guitar player), and bad bunny. she takes the 된장 out of the fridge and pours boiling water over the jar’s lid to sanitize it before adding some into our soup. i set the table with kimchi and a fried root. she places a fork and spoon over her napkin and i ask for chopsticks and a spoon for mine. i watch her eyelids fall and hands clasp for a moment before looking back up at me. i eat first and she follows. i get seconds, and when she declines another portion i finish the pot. i must eat at least 3 times as much, and i could eat more but i am not hungry anymore and began a plot to get some sustenance from 7/11 on the way home.

we ate listening to my music, and clean talking over hers. she plays “korean indie rock” which i can listen to politely without enjoying myself. i’m very sensitive to music, and often leave a place if i forget my headphones since bad music makes my stomach hurt. she invites me to her friend’s “korean indie rock” concert later, and i agree since i have nothing better to do.

we begin talking about her mom and her dad. her mom has 10000 people in her phone that she all knows directly. its not her first time being ceo of a company and she lists a lot of other accolades that i can’t bother to remember. by the way, i talked to her and she’ ok with you coming by whenever you like to sleep in the guest room or cook in the kitchen or just to have somewhere nice to rest if things at the hotel aren’t working out. i’m touched by her gesture and smile broadly. thank you, that’s very very kind. i’m sure i’ll be back to make myself at home, i accept.

she pauses and i can tell she’s opening apart of her she is unsure of. ‘sometimes i feel guilty for making art, since many of my friends don’t have time to since they have to work…’ she continues to ramble on the topic and i train my eyes to hers so they don’t roll up. ‘we aren’t rich though,’ she finishes. all of a sudden i feel very tired.

if you can’t say you are poor in good conscience, you are rich. if you never had to work, if you can afford this gated room in mapo, if you can receive a higher education without working, you are rich. if you receive (ipad level) money from your grandparents instead of sending money to them, you are rich. what is it about koreans these days being so unconscious of class? being so embarrassed of their wealth they hide it instead of extending it to those actually suffering from the lack of it. she is not the first mainland korean i met with an attitude like this. most of the world westernized world operates on this class unconsciousness justified by shame. but being frozen in the shame of having privilege is more disgusting to me than being unaware of it. 

i tell her i need to rest, but i’ll meet her at the concert tonight. i turn off the speaker, unplug it, and put it back in her room. i pet the snake goodbye. do you mind taking this down with me? i look at the pile of recycling by the door. of course not. she hands me a flowered umbrella to borrow and takes a clouded one for herself. we sort the recycling in the drizzling rain and she scans her key to let me out of the gate. i’ve never seen a building that you need to scan to leave, but i assume its to trap any intruder if they make it this far. the gate serves not just to keep them out, but to trap them in (to face punishment) if they breach the barrier.

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i hop out of the shower an hour after the show started. i know she is very punctual, and i check my phone to 5 separate texts with location and time updates sent over the evening. i shoot her a quick text saying i will be late and not to wait up. i decide to splurge on the train and save 20 minutes.

i’m the only one looking up at the train station. everyone else hunches over their phone if they are single, and their partners phone if they are coupled. the only other person without a screen in their hand is the elderly lady pushing the cleaning cart through the station. she moves so slow and her back is so hunched her torso is parallel to the floor. her arms outstretch above her head meeting the cart’s handle bar that sits right above her outstretched hands. does anyone else see her?

i hear a cane clank and whip my head around in time to see an ajussi fall down the second to last stair. his right hip smacks the corner of the last step. i instinctively take a step towards him then stop–i’m a foreigner and might end up doing more harm than good. people are too plugged in to notice and maintain their smooth zig zagged necks craning to meet their phones at their waist, except for the lady next to me (who is not wearing airpods). she looks up startled and frozen. he tries getting up and fails three times as the echos of heels running down the stairs stops next to him. the heeled-lady helps him up and they exchange a few words as they disappear around the corner. 

i turn back towards the train doors and watch myself among everyone in the every-long reflection. i see a different history when i look in the mirror. 

i miss my people too. the people who look like me are in north korea. 

i’ve realized it before, passively. my grandma told me exactly once how she escaped from the north when they drew the line. it’s one of my clearest memories and it’s not even mine. when i was 6 mommy checked my two french braids she wove through my hair every morning. sometimes she put them in princess leah buns. after this breakfast, she stopped patting my baby hairs and i let my eyes chase hers chasing the memories in my features. you have daddy’s strong features, she says. and returns to the kitchen before putting in butterfly clips like she always does. when i smoked with this girl (who’s now gang) for the first time she looked at me and said north korea genes off jump. i just smiled and ask where she grew up. no ones clocked me in that way a while and if i cared to let the words seep under my scalp maybe i couldn’t have moved on so fast…

i never felt how fucked it is there is a line through korea, until now standing amongst koreans that do not look like me. i never felt it as my own grief, but something outside me to empathize with. it’s something i placed unwavering belief in, but it was never mine to know inside. the dprk is completely shut off from the rest of the world, and the people who look like me are living on the other side. i don’t know why i care so much that they look like me, but maybe its because it means that our ancestors were the same. and that means we are family. my grandma who isn’t dead told me she doesn’t have a lot of family so we have to stick together. i wonder if what she meant was that we left them all behind.

when i went to the butterfly garden with my grandma in texas, we saw the butterfly exhibit. she scuttled her walker a half mile on concrete and up the spiraled stone. butterflies swirled about. orange and black and blue and lucid white. look. they only fly with the same, she points to a black spotted white winged pair circling each other up and down. i watch a sharp winged blue pair float about a flower melting off its dying stem. i wonder how they know they are the same. mirrors don’t grow on trees. they must just feel it as right.

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the venue is easy to find. it’s named “plex lounge” on navier (a popular korean map app) but “flex lounge” in person. outside the building there are random neon signs with english words like “chill” and “swag.” when i give the boys at the door my name they wave me through.

i wait on the balcony and crane my neck left to see the stage. it’s a small venue with a stage taking a third of the pit. chairs line the rest of the floor and people sit politely in the 8 rows of 8 chairs. they just finished their song and group members rush on and off stage switching instruments, mics, and people to prepare for their next number. everyone here looks about 18-24, and i get the feeling they are all rich. a bad mood starts taking root in my stomach and i try not to make it her problem by staying up on the balcony. i keep seeing her head swivel about before finding me leaning against the rails above. i keep my face trained to the commotion onstage. i feel my phone ding in my back pocket from text saying to let her know when i’m here since she saved a seat on the floor. i walk down the stairs and take my seat next to her. i instinctively pull the hood of my sleeveless, faded “dare” hoodie up. are you cold? no.

i take in more of my venue as the show continues. everyone speaks korean, but i catch the dms of some audience members phones holding english conversations. the flier they gave me says it is a korean indie rock show. i skim the card. almost half the songs are american, and i recognize coldplay and the red hot chilli peppers. do they sing them in english too? the set continues and i find out they do sing in english. and the songs in korean sound just like the indie rock at home. it’s not different enough for me to comfortably say it’s korean indie-rock, but koreans playing american indie rock and writing songs in their own language. perhaps this is a harsh assesment and i should be supportive of my peers exploring musical expression. perhaps i cannot appreciate their reclamation of this foreign genre since i do not know the lyrics. but i can tell they are all rich, which dampers my sympathy, and i can tell this music is more american than korean in the sound and chords, if its even possible to separate korea from america at this point.

i know i’m harsh, but my stomach is starting to hurt and my mouth sweats. is this what the seoul youth music scene is doing? white people songs? i need to get away from here. i need to find my own people. i tell her i’m tired and leave early. when i step outside, i check the map amongst a gaggle of boys smoking menthols poorly. i think they should stop now since i can tell they don’t need it by the way they inhale shallowly so the smoke stays in their mouth more than their lungs. an hour walk home isn’t bad, and i’d rather save the money than disassociate on the fluorescent lined train. i memorize the route and turn my phone off to save it’s 6% for emergency. 

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i still can’t shake the feeling i’m in america. i try ignoring it as my bias, my ignorance, my inability to see beyond the american incubator i’ve grown in. but i let my eyes blur and it looks like lower east side, if i don’t look up to meet untouched skies instead of sky scrapers. and when i unblur my eyes i see english words on korean people’s shirts with varying degrees of spelling errors and starbucks and burger king and english letters naming cafes and stores. i see an mlb store selling yankees merch and a club named hip hop. 

I let my legs follow my eyes down steep smoke coated alleyway’s and flashing neon signs. I look down at a crossroads “hongdae night market” printed in white paint. turning left down this car-less red lit noisy market sends me north when i should be going east and a little south, but i have to confirm something i’ve predicted since stepping into seoul…

my ears shuffle through megan the stallian then drake then armageddon sound bites as I pass each store fronts’ speaker. they all sell junk–albeit very cute junk– and the gaggles of foreigner friends (i.e. white people with maybe a token latino or black person) and young couples fawn over the key chains and mass-produced tiny tops. it feels like a repackaged american dream: buying cute junk.

korea bent the knee. and seoul remains sedated and seduced by the indulgent american lifestyle the breeds numb apathy and a hyptnotic devotion to screens, sex, clout, and consumerism. i would know, i grew up at the areola of the empire 20minutes south of the nations capital, washington dc. seoul feels like the rich-white districts of american cities. korea modernized so fast and so recently at the hands of invisible us economic interests and it pisses me off because the america they’re emulating isn’t even the good part, it’s the white part. down to white american’s obsession with black culture while whole heartedly disregarding black people. (i’ll write about this more tomorrow.) it’s hongdae, and i am not surprised. i know i’ll be back and i restart my treck to mapo. 

oblivious groups of second-wave ABGs* pass between two ajussis doing a carpentry job for an empty storefront. i let one pass in front of me as he struggles to move the wooden board the length of his wingspan and twice his height across the sidewalk to his partner cutting them into slats. there are 5 more boards of the same size. all the blue-collared workers i’ve seen are elderly who have survived the desecration of war and the decay that follows. when i say they are too old to work, i mean they shouldn’t have to anymore. two empty cigarette cases lay splayed open next to his partner’s working boots. they stare at me and i stare back and then we continue our nights in sync.

* I say second-wave ABG because ABG originally stood for Asian Baby Gangster and was a term originally coined by South Asian communities in America. They had their big three done and matching pink glocks and rode for their families as immigrant communities have to do in order to survive. Then the east asians stole the term and made it palatable by co-opting it with boba and blonde hair and raves.

i feel my eyes getting red as fuck from the gummy i forgot i popped running out the door. i feel a pang of paranoia after the carpenters stared at me and dip into the store across the street to find some sunglasses. 

i love shopping. and i have money to spend since i scammed delta out of $700 after the whole crowdstrike fiasco. maybe its the hongdae air infecting my psyche, but i start feeling good about spending some money. at my college, i was close with the dining hall crew. one guy who worked in tower took me to the movies at the mall once. he told me the mall is a nice place to spend some money and forget about life. 

i don’t speak korean, and the shop owner doesn’t speak english. he is clean cut and slight and i love his twinky little mannerisms, although i doubt he’s gay. the store is empty and we fill it with laughter and hums to each other. i have a theory that before humans formed language, we sang like birds. i keep pointing at frames i like and say juseyo? (can i have). after i face the mirror to check out my new look, i immediately turn back to him: ipo? (pretty?) and he responds with nods and these huge dynamic facial expressions. he brings out books filled with different lens tints and a wooden case of glasses from the back for me to try. he loves giving his opinion; he has good taste. after an hour, i end up picking these cunty tiny dark purple frames and dark blue lenses. prescription juseyo? i say prescription in a korean accent, and he understands. he takes my glasses to the machine and scans my lenses. when he’s writing something down, he keeps talking in korean and i’m surprised i understand without knowing the words. where are you from? i’m kyopo i say in broken korean. kyopo? murica korean? yes! he laughs again and gives me my recipe and tells me to come back at 7pm tomorrow. we laugh some more since we had such a good time shopping together. he teaches me a new korean phrase:  내일 봐요(see you tomorrow) and i leave empty handed. 

my eyes are still redred and i still don’t have sunglasses, so i decide if anyone asks i’ll just tell them i was crying. it’s not a lie.

i haven’t eaten dinner and i’m starving. i stop at the 24hour jajang myun place next to my hotel. there are two couples and a suited man sitting down. the suited man is on his phone and the couples are on each other. i see no one working, and sit down next to an ipad. theres one at every table to take orders. 5 minutes later a robot comes out with my dish and i dig in. a girl walks out presses a button on the robot and it follows her behind the curtain. i didn’t know i had to send it back.

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it’s 7pm the next day and i need to pick up my sunglasses. i walk to the train past the sandwich cart i get vegtable-egg-ham-cheese sandwhiches in the morning. the elderly lady who mans the cart every weekday knows me now and gives me a wave. she’s always out for the morning rush, but i’ve never seen her out so late. some other older ladies sweeping the streets in red vests walk over and they start yapping before sitting on round stone bench encircling the tree that shields her from the morning sun. she must’ve stayed for her friends. there’s another older lady who i pass often, but she never looks up at me. she squats on the concrete surrounded by plastic bins and bags of vegetables focused only on her knife and produce. she sits there all day shucking vegetables and will probably pack up within the hour, if today is anything like yesterday or the day before.

everyone on the train is still on their phones. i make eye contact with a child and we share a smile, before her mom taps her to show her some video on her phone. the other child, who looks no more than 5, scrolls through dancing videos on her mom’s phone while she sleeps. as i get closer to hongdae, more red-faced couples palms pressed together and fingers interlaced filter onto the car. they laugh with each other and whisper in each others ears. it’s screens or sex… and i can’t find anyone passing the time without either.

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i walk through hongdae again, this time with my new prescription sunglasses. when i’m met with the same scene but in blue, i decide to go straight home. once i’m on the train, i push my hair up with my sunglasses and stare at nothing. no screens no sex, just the air against my skin and everything it holds. 

i am standing with my back towards the door. to my right are the 6 seats reserved for elderly and pregnant people. to my right, a car filled with couples and phones remains still and silent. i make eye contact with this one olive-skinned foreign man sitting with his wife. he is not on his phone and we look at each other, around the train, and back at each other with a smile. it’s crazy culture shock, isn’t it? he turns back to face his wife. across from me in the only filled seat out of the six sits a very old man. he’s clutching a piece of wood with both his hands and stares down. his right hand also holds his hat and his left index and middle finger pancake his train card. my eyes wander up his left arm where i find a silver square watch on his wrist followed by a series of parallel jagged white scars. going down his right arm he has at least 8 red scarred bite marks. i know they are from the war or what came after. i don’t know how, but i do. do you trust me? on the other side of the train door is a boy, who looks no more than 17, in a military uniform complete with a matching camo backpack and two korean flags on either side of his arm. he’s slouched toward the man, leaning against the metal siding, absorbed in his airpods and landscape phone. we are triangulated. i face them, and my reflection in the door, and they lean towards each other against the metal siding. it’s the first time since getting here that i do not feel alone. i’m standing amongst people who feel it too…

i once asked my mom’s dad, who spent his childhood sweeping an american military base, what he thought about reunification over one of our weekly ihop-brunch dates. he learned english by memorizing sentences, not words, and he won an english speech contest in korea for sounding so elegant, even though he didn’t know a word of meaning behind his sentences. he is the one who brought all of us to america. he loves america and wears an american flag pin on his suit jacket wherever he goes. he brought our whole family because he fell in love with american democracy. when i was little, he taught me and all my cousins the landmark civil rights cases that gave black people rights in the 60s. he still quizzes me on this history. (what year was plessy v furgeson? who wrote the majority opinion?) i don’t question his american loyalty (he’s done too much for our family and i know his patriotism sustains him), but i see past the glossy history he spouts. i know america is not a land of freedom. and i know black people, especially black women, are not free. he looks at me surprised, since we never talk about korea’s politics. ‘i think its too late. south korea has done so much for their economy and look how successful we are now. we would have to give too much to the north and it would be a bad deal for us to save them.’ i nod because he is my grandpa and he brought us to america. 

but now, i have never been more convinced that south korea needs to give it all away. i think this will save south korea just as much as north korea. to give it all away – the phones, the technology, the wealth, the reliance on america, the rewards of bending the knee – would free us from this system, will free us from the samsara, that forces our elderly to work so hard. that forces everyone to work so hard for –what? phone time and some drinks? yeah… i think south korea needs reunification just as much as grandpa thinks north korea does. but the system rewards those who are complicit in it, and koreans love their shiny new toys that estrange them from the history in the mirror. the war continues but you could never guess it from the media flooding our heads.

i know i need to learn korean so i can find the parts of korea that aren’t so rich and white-americanized. it makes sense that my entry into korea is through this lens, though. all my internationally-korean friends know english and were able to attend a private college abroad. of course the people with the most privileged bent their knee the lowest. but this is not the only korea, and it is not the one i will find community to nurture in… i’m emboldened by this silent triangle, and i doubt the other two points realize what effect they have on me. i’m the first to leave out the sliding door leaving them to their nights.

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crying makes me hungry and i stop in the gs25 in the mapo train station. the old man works there says hello, how are you, thank you, goodbye to everyone who enters, buys something, or leaves. no one says anything to him, preferring to stay plugged in. i also think he’s too old to work, and i wonder what all these customers do for work that keeps their hands so soft. i smile and say 고맙습니다 as he checks me out. he looks up wide eyed surprised, but the wheel of one sided conversation immediately continues as i leave his busy store. 

a very fashionable women runs out the store exit in the same stride i do. she’s opening a new umbrella as she hustles up the stairs. two people stand completely soaked and many more are lining up to buy an umbrella. is it really pouring? i run up the flight to see for my own eyes. 

the rain falls in sheets. this is what i’ve been waiting for. people huddle under the slim roof as puddles pile ontop of each other filling in the crevices of asphalt and stone. i’m wearing all black and my big water proof pants. i tuck my phone, earbuds, and glasses in one pocket and my wallet and the egg i just bought in the other. i look around at people waiting and opening umbrellas and step just beyond the roof. i feel naked. i know people are staring but i just start laughing and start strutting home. even in the dark rain, i know where to go. this was the route i first walked when landing in korea 4 days ago. 

it feels so good. the rain always makes me feel less alone. sometimes, certain drops will tell me things. this one says it hasn’t been on land for a thousand years, and the asphalt cannot love it like the earth does. it does not welcome it the same so it runs down the gutter looking for dirt. i’m soaked through my skin in seconds, yet i march on unwavering letting drops fill my eyelashes and blur my vision. i pass by people waiting under restaurant awnings and a group of red-faced uncles release a deep ohhhhhhh as i walk by. they shout 동생 after me impressed by my resolve and offer me a drink. i just smile and wave and laugh with them and continue home. 

it’s the first time since coming here someone called out to me in korean, and i thank the rain for that gift.