Pyenogtaek is the city within which Camp Humphreys is located.
I like their motto (see Title above).
Seems to me somewhat paradoxical given that I’m living on a military base.
I get to see the city bird out my window and it is still exotic to me: the White Heron.
Again paradoxical in that they are ambling and pecking around in the grass on top of the bunker into which we will flee should the peaceful part of the co-existence suddenly evaporate.
I haven’t seen the city flower, the pear blossom as of yet, except in the nice picture I'm looking at at the moment.
Wrong time of year for that.
The city tree, the pine (not sure what kind), is in evidence here and there on the base but not so much in the parts of the city that I’ve actually been in so far, which is hardly any place at all.
Respectively, the symbolism is “peaceful human dignity” within the face of a “clean and charming image” fulfilling the “potential of Pyeongtaek.”
There’s also a city mark, i.e. logo, which I don’t know how to reproduce here but is a kind of yin-yang swoop above a three pronged upside down Nike-like swoop merging into one.
Say, that sounds better than it looks!
It symbolizes the cities “Transformation into one the best (sic) cities in the world, backed by the citizens’ united power and hope.”
It’s early morning, I’ve only had a half cup of coffee, and so the immature side of me wonders who it is that writes this stuff and who in the city, e.g. exactly which citizens, even think about let alone believe that they personally or even collectively feel powerfully and hopefully responsible for making this into one of the best cities in the world.
Have you ever heard of this city?
It’s just like, say, down town any-city in the U.S., only with a few more Chinese restaurants.
But, it’s not as if people living in the “Big Apple” or “New Orleans”, etc., don’t like to crow about living in one of the “best” cities in the world. For example,I was told not long ago, that Glenview, IL, and more specifically, The Park within that city, was the most beautiful place on Earth.
That’s a quote.
It seems to be quite human this desire to feel as though where I live contributes to my sense of belonging and importance, and visa versa.
Well, that sounds nice, actually.
Being human and feeling pride and appreciation.
Okay, i'm feeling better now.
This IS one of the best cities in the world.
Everyone i've met has been friendly and helpful.
I don't know what my little problem is this morning.
Could it be...........SATAN!?!?
And I’m down with the idea, if that is still a functioning phrase, to see wherever happens to be in this moment, really present, and notice there is much beauty to be found within any three square meters.
It’s a matter of perspective.
And sometimes the right medication.
Well, I admit that I haven’t exactly seen much of the city to date but on my first two excursions out to get something to eat with the other MFLC’s, we ate at a place serving “Turkish” food and one serving “Brazilian” food.
I didn’t see any obviously advertising Korean food.
Maybe they all went home.
Apparently, the Golden Arches merged with BK and the Starbucks River Goddess to give the symbolism of the G.I. desire for the familiar “American” nutrients available in the great cities back home.
Also, the Koreans like them this stuff too.
Me too, particularly when I’m too lazy to cook and want the feel-good rush so reminiscent of my care-free teen years when the mouthwatering taste of a Hot Shoppes burger (it's an East Coast thing predating McFoodlike Substances), fries and a Coke could momentarily distract me from the pervasive angst and depression of caring freely as a teen.
Mostly it appears that S. Koreans are pretty much like the rest of us and just hope they have a job and a place to live come the start of a day.
There is also a city Mascot which is a cartoon figure of an ocean freighter with a face on it's bow, a la The little Engine Who Could, heading out of the drawing on the map towards the viewer and is “expressed in the shape of Pyeongtaek Port and Sechaedaegyo Bridge (drawn in the background, looking quite beautifully modern) utilizing the initials P and T of Pyeongtaek,” placed just below the bow like this: P.T. Quite clever.
I’ve learned all this from a handy little pocket-size folder that opens up into a tourist sized map and even has magnets which hold the cover together assuming that one can manage to fold the thing back the way it came, which never happens.
It shows a whole map-full of points of interest. Such highlights as Sosbeol Reports Town, Monument for Enforcement of Uniform Land Tax Law, Pyeongtaek Farmers' Music Training Center, The Seated Stone Vairocana Buddha of Simboksa Temple, and the Paengseong-eup Guesthouse where, presumably one might belly-eup to the bar for local drink made from distilled grape juice. There are some notable intersections also, highlighted in yellow. It's not clear if that's so you can easily find them or be sure to avoid them.
I have no idea.
Camp Humphreys is not on the map.
Maybe there's a message here.
Maybe not.
They have major four-lane roads marked like U.S. interstates.
Guess what! I’m still living just off Interstate 40.
Since Korea is pretty much the same latitude as the U.S. it may be that the road was designated the same as if I-40 were extended across the Pacific.
Anyone with a globe want to check that out and get back to me?
I started out this morning to share with you my adventures in learning how to use public transportation in Korea.
There weren’t any.
Adventures, that is.
We just did the hard and exciting work of getting on and off public transportation.
A very nice Korean woman has a job working with the Army Community Service (where the MFLC office and Point of Contact person is) taking people new to Humphreys out into the world and giving them the skills to go further than one square block from the base.
She does this over the course of several weekends, i.e., on five different little jaunts on Saturday, to various places of interest. It includes getting a credit card that allows one to get on and off public transportation without cash and costs less than paying cash, which Is Yen, and which only the Italians have bigger numbers for, e.g. 23000 yen = one 16oz. Koke.
Really, almost $23.
Not the koke.
I cleverly divide the number by ten and then freak out anyway the moment someone asks me to pay 8000Y for a happy meal.
Maybe I should divide by a higher number.
Where did those third grade math skills go?
I got a Hello Kitty card in honor of the fact that I didn’t want the card with a cartoon Hog on it (?) and the Mickey Mouse card seemed, well, kinda Mickey Mouse. Besides, Hello Kitty is has been a favorite commercialized symbol located on the clothing and other items of granddaughter Cyanne and daughter Hilary, though I suspect that she has grown tired of this (mainly because I think she told me she had).
Scan the card getting on the bus, then getting off, and it shows how much you used and how much you have left.
It also x-rays you for weapons, wishes you happy birthday, and reminds you you are riding the bus in one of the best cities in the world so smile like you mean it, ride like your butt is happy, dance like standing in the isle is your first choice, and don’t offer your seat to anyone because, apparently, it’s impolite.
Yesterday’s trip, a subway ride to Seoul.
Mostly not under ground except coming out of the station in Pyeongtaek (admission: I just tried to type that without looking. Result – neither spell-check or me got it right. But, we’re hopeful, symbolized by another cup of coffee).
Did I mention that this train station is as big as about three Grand Central Stations? Big and shiny and glass and bright aluminum with really long escalators.
There was a power outage the other day and twenty tourists were tragically trapped on the escalator for hours because they didn’t know the Korean word for “walk!”
At least 8 stories high and maybe as many below ground, with a mall, a movie theater complex, and a whole bunch of foreigners who can’t speak English.
They even have a place where you can get tickets to get on the train!
Honestly, this is an impressive, well documented place,
Where the tour lady left her folder, took us on the entire tour to Seoul and back, and where six hours later, she retrieved it from the restroom (in Korean: rest room) and the folder was still exactly where she left it!
Not one train schedule or tourist map was missing!
Thank heavens that trash isn’t handled with the same expediency, if that is the word.
It just came to mind.
Speaking of which, the Korean's keep things pretty darn tidy.
Even on the side streets we went down in Seoul, full of people buying and selling and moving and shaking, because Seoul is a modern city in a modern world. And they have recycle receptacles on the street too which I can't say I've seen on many U.S. city streets.
This IS great.
And I still haven’t heard any car honking. No poop!
Maybe it’s the Buddha factor.
When I showed up at the gate for the tour, I almost got on another tour which was going to the Korean War Memorial.
I didn’t because at the last moment, something told me that a tour to teach us how to use public transportation wasn’t probably going to be leaving on a chartered bus. I’m alert to these subtleties. Not to mention that I wasn’t apparently on the list of people that the lovely assistant-to-the-bus-driver Korean woman was checking off.
So, I had to go back through the gate onto post and who showed up was me and another man, a young soldier who had done some of the other tours but not the one to Seoul. When the tour lady showed up, they knew each other by name.
Speaking of which, I’ve managed to forget both of theirs, of course.
Maybe by the time I leave….
It turns out that she comes into the center where my office is once a week to check in with her boss and to teach a Korean language course.
I thought about signing up but thankfully it passed.
Turned out that the soldier is from the unit that had the recent death that I’ve been interacting with. He and I were at the memorial service together and I even had the sense that he looked familiar to me, though that may just be after the fact illusion.
Over the course of the next few hours, these “coincidences” led me to “do my work” of being able to ask really personal questions about their lives. Besides which, one of the men from the other tour that I had spoken with, turned out to be from PA, and we reminisced about fall. (later in the day, we met again in the Commissary and he told me his story about being a contractor deployed similarly to MFLC’s, how his spouse was back home with the last child who was going to med. School and did I think his wife could get a job like mine, etc.)
These contacts, in other words, are kind of the work I do as an MFLC and when I turn in my daily reports on contacts I’ve made, they show up as what we call, “direct, casual!” I get paid to have conversations. Pretty good, huh!?
And, I can now get to Seoul and back on the subway.
What a life!
I even figured out the time/calendar thing.
Anyway, the caffine has run out and I’m moving to another room today because the vent in this one is too noisy.
I’ll be going back to Seoul again and I will regale you with that fascinating journey the moment it turns out that way.
Or, maybe I’ll turn out to be like poor old Charlie “’neath the streets of Boston….”, the man who never returned.
Life is hopeful.
Have a nice day.
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