The son of Peleus was straining to win glory, his invincible hands spattered with bloody filth.

Homer, “The Iliad”

As I kick off the second trilogy of posts on this blog, I am reminded of the first, and how it began with me quoting Dickens.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” the opening line of A Tale of Two Cities read.

Korea was just starting to feel special to me, to be good to me, when things took a turn.

Updated list of the people from the hostel:

• Owner – owner of the hostel, 41yo guy. Originally from Cananda, he seemed (and acted) way younger. Fond of drinking and talking about being horny.
• C.H. – one of the staff members, 28yo guy. Bespectacled, served in the navy, intensely shy.
• Nacho – Korean-American female staff member in her early thirties, originally from L.A., in charge of the volunteers. Bespectacled, hilarious, and plump, with a BTS haircut and a crazy sleep routine.
• Chica – Spanish volunteer / actress from Madrid, 34yo girl. Short, perky, petite, with long, straight hair and freckles.
• Painter – Brazilian volunteer, guy in his late thirties. Been here for around five months. Half of the time, he painted the hostel instead of cleaning.
• Horizon – Israeli volunteer, 22yo girl. Half Turkish, half Indian, sensitive yet tough.
• Ryu – German volunteer, 22yo girl. Platinum-dyed hair, straight, black eyebrows. Fluent in Japanese, having spent senior year of high school in Osaka. Also, intermediate in Korean.
• Q – Spanish volunteer from Barcelona, 20yo girl. Thin glasses, curly hair like a poodle’s (her own description).
• Cosima – Romanian volunteer now living in the island of Sardinia, 27yo girl. With glasses, a bob cut, and a sharp nose, she possessed deep knowledge of Korea (and delicious ability of cooking Korean food). I picked Cosima, the feminine version of Cosmo, due to her cosmopolitan nature.
• Angel – 27yo French girl with long curly hair, black glasses, and an olive skin, staying at the hostel for a month, studying Korean in Busan. Her long term residency and bubbly personality made her an instant addition to the volunteer group.
• Twenty – Brazilian volunteer, girl in mid-twenties (no correlation with her alias). Round glasses, long, delicate hair, quite bookish, with a thick Portuguese accent, and good knowledge of Korean.
• Kaela – Argentinian volunteer, girl in mid-twenties. Extremely petite, extremely pleasant, with dark hair, sharp features, and thin glasses, she’d moved to Copenhagen during the pandemic.
• D’arc – French volunteer, girl in mid-twenties, Blonde, blue eyed, petite, with fair features and a fair voice, she’d been spending three months in Korea again and again for a few years now.
• Ray – French-German volunteer, 26yo girl. Yellow-black dyed BTS hair and old-school frames. An almost British accent, and insightful artistry that wasn’t apparent to me at first.

15 June 2023

• 13:20-15:00 cleaning
• 19:24-19:32 Beomnaegol station to Busan station metro
• 168 monorail (30-60m)
• 20:34-20:42 Busan Station to Bosu-dong bookstore alley stop bus number 81
• Bupyeong Kkangtong night market
• 21:55-22:05 Jungang station to Beomnaegol station metro

Shift at the Hostel

While I was in Tongyeong, Q was in Gyeongju. She’d stayed at the same hostel as me, and heard the Taiwanese girl telling someone about a “crazy Israeli guy who stayed here and went to a sex museum”. 

At least I’d left my mark.

We were becoming less and less volunteers. I tried to get the Malayasian girl from Tongyeong to volunteer in Busan (her application had been rejected). Nacho said that until September, our hostel was fully booked.

What? Where? How? Who? The volunteers and I were a bit annoyed. Today’s shift was okay. But with the current number of volunteers, the weekend would be bad.

Nacho explained to me that she’d been getting 30:1 girl-to-guy applications. I couldn’t figure out the reason behind this ratio. Did men find this sort of volunteering beneath them?

Half of the volunteers in our hostel were Hispanic. Dozens of guests from the Anglosphere had stayed here, but I hadn’t heard of a volunteer whose first language was English. These statistics made me think of race and gender politics, socioeconomic backgrounds, and equality. Why was cleaning a girly vocation, unless the guy spoke Spanish?

It wasn’t like I’d been enjoying my volunteer work. But I felt that in my early twenties, during my two degrees, I’d learned in class. Now, I’d been learning outside campus.

Cosima cooked kimchijeon and pajeon for lunch. My first taste of both. She’d been cooking Korean food at her home in Saridinia for years, going as far as pickling kimchi.

Her cooking skills did not disappoint.

In the afternoon, I cooked a second lunch for myself (tofu, mushrooms, bok choy, rice, and seaweed, my constant meal these days, being the only recipe I could afford), and ate with Ryu.

I told her about problems I’d been having with a few personal relationships: how a person I’d thought was the closest to me had disappeared from my life altogether, without giving me a reason; while another, who had similarly ghosted me in the past, re-appeared with a few mixed signals. There was someone who had been seeking my company more than I had sought his. And those who had seen me in a different light than I’d seen them.

“I keep thinking about a sentence someone told me,” I said. “’The only person who doesn’t disappoint me is me.’”

I couldn’t tell Ryu the story behind it. But she felt it as well.

“I just can’t understand people,” I said. “I’ve always thought I could get inside their head. To be a writer, and write about people, you have to understand them. So I always try to see things from their perspective. But then I find out I’m wrong.”

168 Monorail

In the evening, I went with the local guy I’d gone out with two weeks ago to the 168 monorail. It was a free, well, monorail, going up 168 stairs through a hillside neighborhood for a view of the city.

Once there, we discovered it was closed due to renovations. Never trust Google.

“Never Google, Always Naver” should be every tourist’s mantra in Korea.

We climbed the stairs instead and watched the sun set over Busan. No one apart from us was there.

Cool breeze, the famous Gwangali bridge – it was a beautiful image, marred by my constant yawning.

Chinatown and Texas street, close to Busan station and the monorail, were equally deserted.

Bupyeong Kkangtong night market

We took the bus to a night market, where I had my first bite of a Busan specialty, ssiat hotteok, AKA heaven. A honey-filled hotteok with seeds on it. So delicious, that I spilled honey all over hanbok.

I also had my first sip of sikhye, a traditional rice drink. Cold and refreshing, though slightly weird, with soggy rice at the bottom.

After parting with my date and returning to the hostel, I thought once more about my relationship with people, and how we often saw each other in a different way. It was hard to tell what someone thought of you.

Easier to gain insight from: my current volunteering position. It occurred to me that there was something very educational and valuable about cleaning in exchange for a living. On some level, I even appreciated the fact that I got to share it with other people my age. All traveling the world, all short on money, all in the same boat.

Changing sheets and cleaning vomit sucked – but doing it with friends, running jokes, playing music, gossiping, breaking into song – I was glad, on some level, that I couldn’t afford not to volunteer at this hostel. I was grateful that life and certain hardships had led me to this moment.

I realized: at uni, I learned about the world. Traveling, I learned about myself.

Because I’d never expected to do something like this, let alone to appreciate it. To mop floors at noon and go clubbing at night. To befriend multiple people in an instant, and share intimate moments with strangers. I wasn’t seeing much of Busan, but, as cheesy as that sounded, I was seeing a lot more of me.

And I shared this with people who’d already formed a habit of telling me they missed me and loved me, even after a week.

Communication really was the key to everything.

Today’s highlights: the view of Busan at sunset; ssiat hotteok.

16 June 2023

• 13:10-14:25 surface cleaning
• 16:35-17:20 Munjeon Gyocharo stop to Oryukdo Skywalk stop bus number 24
• Oryukdo Skywalk (30m)
• Sinseondae observation point (30m)
• Baegunpo Gogae stop to Seomyeon Hanjeon stop bus number 24 (forgot to write down the time)
• Bar at night

Writing in the morning. Nacho never went to bed; she’d gone out with the volunteers to karaoke until 8:00. Watching her doze off at reception was hilarious.

Grocery shopping at noon, followed by the introduction of a new French volunteer. Blonde, blue eyed, petite, she’d been spending three months in Korea several times since COVID, and returned now after two months of volunteering in Hiroshima.

For today’s shift, I asked to do surface cleaning for the first time, because I was tired and needed something easy. Today’s workload was light, so we finished super early.

Oryukdo Skywalk

In the afternoon, I took the bus to Oryukdo Skywalk with Cosima, Twenty, and Ray, a new French-German volunteer who had arrived before Tongyeong. The latter had yellow-black dyed BTS hair and old-school frames. When speaking in English, her accent sounded almost from London.

It was time to make progress with my Busan list, and my companions wanted to visit the Skywalk as well. A small, see-through platform extending into the sea, floating with no pillars, simulating walking on air; it was tiny, but famous.

We put on shoe covers and breathed in the crisp ocean air. Bit scary, to tread on that platform, but also breezy and fun.

Sinseondae

Ray had to leave soon after, so Cosima, Twenty, and me climbed up a fancy neighborhood in search of a firefly festival on my list. This was firefly period, and today was the last day.

But we couldn’t figure out where the venue was. Information online was non-existent. I’d come without proper research, and apologized to the girls for wasting their time. Never seen fireflies; wouldn’t see them today.

We decided to walk west instead to Sinseondae, to watch the sunset over the port. Half an hour of a grueling ascent, and we reached a secluded observation point where the air was still clean, despite the proximity to such a large port.

(In Israel, ports were heavily polluted.)

The sun set directly over the mountains, much to our awe and reverence. We took a bunch of silly and cool photos. The evening had turned out wacky and fun, despite my mishap.

Beomil

Back at the hostel, I took a shower, shoved some rice down my throat, and headed out to Beomil, Busan’s happy area. Very different from the touristy Seomyeon, which, even on weekdays, was full of Korean and foreign tourists alike.

The bars in Beomil were limited to one street, and were all intimate in size.

This was Friday night, and not just any Friday night – the one heralding school vacation, after exams. The hostel was teeming with boisterous, drinking guests. All the volunteers had gone out to Seomyeon, while I, despite disappointing Horizon, could not stomach yet another heteronormative establishment.

Beomil was dead quiet.

I headed to a bar whose owner had invited me to. It was just me and a few middle-aged patrons. Half of them spoke Japanese, so that was nice. I met a Sapporo native who gave me some local-only recommendations.

Why was this area so forlorn? I wondered, sipping a Kamikaze (no idea what it contained, though). Seomyeon was busy, busy, busy, every night of the week. Shinjuku ni-chome, dead on a Monday, was busy on weekends. Busan’s Beomil was crickets and grim.

One drink, a bunch of snacks, and an hour later, I was about to leave to another bar, when the average age decreased. An American expat and a German tourist each walked in. in a corner of the bar, the three of us formed what one of the older locals called the young group.

The German was a baby gay. Outgoing in general, yet shy and clueless when it came to open discussions and terminology. Shaved head and a baseball hat; rolling, embarrassed laughter; and a passion for diving (with a flight to Jeju Island tomorrow morning). He was doing a master’s in business and IT at Warwick University, which I’d almost attended myself for my MA.

The American, the most unabashedly raucous and flamboyant person I’d had the pleasure of meeting, was usually mistaken for being Lebanese. Having known more Arabs than Americans in my life, I did not make this mistake. Apparently, people had been finding his perfectly nondescript nose Arab. His short hair and beard made me understand why.

Originally from Kentucky, he was making big, engineering coins now, and traveling the world. He’d been living in Jinju for 2.5 years, despite not being too fond of Korea. He was so funny and open, that the three of us talked about everything.

At 3:00, the German guy left. The engineer and I moved with a local French and Korean guys to a karaoke bar. But I was falling asleep while walking. My right foot was beginning to hurt.

With all the guests and volunteers I’d been befriending, I’d sought a connection that went beyond that. Once again, the night ended with more friendships and disappointment. Recently, when going out, this had become the case.

I excused myself at the karaoke bar, and limped back to my hostel.

Today’s highlights: Oryukdo Skywalk; sunset in Sinseondae over Busan port; hanging out with the two guys at the bar.

17 June 2023

• 13:10-15:00 sheets
• Korean BBQ at a random buffet in Seomyeon
• Clubbing at night

My limping today was even worse. My foot hurting for an inexplicable reason wasn’t a new thing. It had happened in Tokyo as well. Perhaps I’d been pushing myself too much, and this was my body’s message to me.

A lot of mysterious messages these days. Physical, but not all stemming from myself. Good signs and bad signs, confusing signals, unrequited advances.

With my limping, the sheets shift couldn’t have been harder. Nearly everyone had checked out, and the hostel was fully booked for the weekend.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and today, they came in the form of lettuce salad and a French toast. Two dishes missing from my life in the Far East.

My First Korean Barbecue

At 17:00, no less than sixteen of the hostel gang headed to a BBQ buffet in Seomyeon. All the day volunteers (Chica and Cosima had been recruited for the nightshift), plus Nacho, C.H., Angel, and the French girl and Russian-Korean guy couple from my dorm (who had volunteered at a hostel in Seoul with Q).

The occasion: Horizon’s birthday.

It was tomorrow, on Sunday, but she wanted to celebrate today.

Already in her first day here, when us two had gone grocery shopping, she’d told me of her wish to eat Korean BBQ on her birthday. Last week, she’d cried about her unattended fifth grade birthday. Today, everyone had gathered to celebrate with her.

The buffet was so big, that even I had plenty to eat. Vegetables, tofu, rice, a cooking stand with tiny pans where I made kimchijeon and pajeon. Every table came equipped with a grill.

We gorged ourselves and threw a feast. For a Korean BBQ, it was relatively cheap.

After this fantastic meal, we stopped at a grocery store for alcohol. I bought makgeolli, a fermented rice wine I’d been wanting to try, since it reminded me of amezake.

At the hostel, I met a new British guest. Tall, blond, and athletic, he was also a diver, planning to visit Jeju and Japan after Busan.

Horizon’s Birthday Party

The hostel gang gathered at 22:30 down in the basement for pre-party drinks in celebration of Horizon’s birthday. A longtime French guest, here for a month like Angel, joined as well. Curly mane of dark hair and an aquiline nose, she’d been catching every guy’s attention. (They’d told me so.) I’d seen her around the hostel lately; she must’ve joined our group during another one of my absences.

Another addition to the group was Chica’s Korean Number 1, a shy, muscular Korean guy in his mid-twenties. In other words, the average Korean guy.

A game of “never have I ever” turned very sexual. I drank against my will three times.

Everyone around the table was laughing, drinking, having a blast. KN1 was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, emitting stiff chuckles.

“Never have I ever had same sex,” he said during his turn.

“TAKE IT DOWN!” Horizon charged at me. “TAKE IT DOWN!”

I took a finger down. KN1 seemed taken aback.

We counted down to midnight and sang Horizon happy birthday. (Me, in Hebrew as well.) Then it was time to hit the club.

“Can you watch over me tonight?” Horizon asked me in private. “I’m gonna get wasted.”

I recalled how her former best friend had ditched her a few months ago at a club in Thailand, in favor of some gay sex.

“Of course.”

She didn’t know that I never got drunk; that I liked to stay in control. I would be sober enough to not leave her at a club.

An Emotional Night of Clubbing in Seomyeon

During the ten-minute walk to Seomyeon, I talked to Chica and KN1, in an attempt to loosen him up. I knew a thing or two about feeling out of place, like the odd one out.

His English was excellent, having acquired it in high school in the Philippines. We talked about life in Korea versus Israel, the army, the hostel, and Chica.

“What is that?” he asked, pointing at my penis whistle.

“This?” I presented it to him. “Korean penis.”

The three of us laughed. Chica’s response to it was hilarious and… informative.

“Are you bi?” he asked me.

“Yeah.”

“I went to Haeundae beach one day,” he said. “A lot of gay guys hit on me.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Okay…?”

The conversation turned to other topics. Horizon stopped everyone: she’d found a photo booth.

We put on silly accessories and squeezed in. KN1 stood stiffly in a corner. I grabbed his arm and forced him to put on a stupid hat and join us. Why Chica wasn’t being more assertive with letting him feel part of the group, I couldn’t tell, but took it upon myself.

Horizon’s pick for a club was Groove. The place where everyone always went. For me, it was the first time.

We got drinks and started to dance. KN1 smiled uncomfortably on his rigid spot next to me. I encouraged him to dance.

“Can I have your Kakao?” he asked at some point, when Chica was away.

I let him scan my QR code.

“Invite me when you hang out!” he texted.

“Ne,” I texted back.

He left with Chica soon after, while I danced with the girls. (No guys left in our group.)

The Israeli foreign exchange student from two weeks ago entered the club. He’d invited me to go out with him and his friends two days ago, but it was on one of those nights when I’d collapsed on the bed. We exchanged surprised “hi”s, and made plans to talk later.

Meanwhile, a Korean guy in his mid-twenties had become glued to Horizon. Courting after her without letting go. Yet it was one of the bartenders, who, I was surprised to learn, she’d been seeing, that caught her attention. 

From here on, the night got progressively worse.

The girls were getting drunk. Whenever one of them was missing – and it happened a lot, whether for a smoke break, or the dance floor – I went to look for her. No girl could be left alone in Korea.

Whenever one of them wanted to pee, I chaperoned her through the dance floor. With girls, this also happened a lot.

I was standing guard by this point, not even dancing or enjoying my night. A part of me was happy to report for duty, because I was too tired to do what people did in nightclubs.

Horizon asked me to get rid of the clingy guy for a private moment with the bartender. It did not work.

She couldn’t make up her mind who drew her more. Both were hot and insanely into her. What a problem to have.

An hour must’ve passed of us like this – she asking me to help her choose, to get her closer to the bartender and away from the new guy, and him following us around – until I managed to arrange a moment for her.

She got cold feet.

How, HOW was this attractive, popular, badass girl suddenly a shy fifth grader? The bartender had told her he would wait for her after her shift. Why I went through all this trouble only for her to back down, I couldn’t tell, but this was her birthday. Tonight was hers.

Eventually, she picked the new guy. Then her family called her to wish her happy birthday.

This made her so emotional, that she dashed downstairs to cry. Bound by my promise to her, I followed her.

“Leave me alone,” she cried. “Leave me alone!”

She hid behind a sign on the street, weeping into her palms.

“I want to be alone,” she repeated. “Leave me alone.”

The new guy was right next to me. Neither of us complied.

She was video-calling her family now. We chased her all around the busy, smoke-filled, neon-lit streets of Seomyeon, until she found an empty alley.

We stood far enough for her to not see us, but for us to see her.

When her call was over, I approached her. She broke down into my shoulders. I told the guy to give us a minute.

“I need to return home,” she wept. “I can’t be away from them.”

It had been seven months since she’d left.

After a while, she calmed down. We reunited with the guy. Then we noticed a drunk girl sitting alone on the street.

Horizon approached her. Her friend, who was “watching” over her, had gone to the adjacent convenience store.

She broke into tears, demanded Horizon left her alone, and dashed to the same deserted alley.

Horizon chased her. In a manner of seconds, the girl broke into hysterics.

“Have you ever been so drunk that you started crying?” I asked the Korean guy.

He chuckled in confusion. He seemed genuinely nice. And thoughtful. And caring. A bit sticky, perhaps, but out of loyalty.

When the girl’s (unsurprisingly male) friend returned, the three of us went back to Groove. Danced, played darts, and partied.

I was dead tired. My foot was still hurting this entire time. But Horizon would never forgive me if I left now. The volunteers had promised her until 5:00. Moreover, I was supposed to watch over her.

The Israeli exchange student invited me to join his group at McDonald’s, which I preferred to all the chaos at the club. But I couldn’t abandon her.

Blaring music, cigarette smoke. I couldn’t decide which was worse. The group took a smoke break literally every five minutes, and I found myself following them to watch over the girls.

I decided to quit clubbing until next weekend, and never return to Seomyeon again.

The fickleness of the girls, wanting to have good, drunken fun in a country where guys groped them left and right. The ubiquitous smoking and stench of cigarettes. The pop-free music, not as dance-inducing for my taste. The male clientele, who nearly all seemed to have sprung to life from a fitness ad.

Compared to Japan, Korea was a lot more into body development. Even the tourists here. In clubs, one barely saw men without muscles and girls without tiny waists. People who did not fit those beauty standards did not fit into the scene.

All the girls in our group showed off their skinny figures, just as the Korean girls had. And guys frequently hung out in bars and clubs shirtless.

I hid it well, because during our nights out to Seomyeon, no one had asked me anything, but I knew deep down that I also did not fit in. Horizon could usually tell in the hostel when I was feeling down (always when journaling). In the club, I knew better than to betray my insecurities. I literally had to put on a straight face.

At least in Japan, people did not smoke indoors.

Then, before I knew it, it was dawn.

Half of the volunteers had long gone. At 2:00 or 3:00. Ryu, Horizon, Twenty, the new longtime French guest, the Korean guy, and I stood outside Groove.

What did Horizon want to do now? We asked. She couldn’t make up her mind.

The bartender had rejected her in an angry moment of privacy. Not that it mattered – she’d already picked the new guy.

It was 5:00. Horizon was going back and forth about this to me in Hebrew while everyone waited. What did she want to do, what did she want to do? This was her birthday – she just had to pick something, someone, and they would be hers.

Option paralysis had gotten to her, whereas I – I knew exactly what I wanted, and couldn’t enjoy the luxury that was paralyzing her.

Such was life in a heteronormative world.

Finally, I gave her the privacy she’d requested. Twenty and the French guest returned to Groove, while Ryu and I, after a quick stop at a kebab stand, per her request, walked back to the hostel.

“I like clubbing,” I said, “but I never do it when there’s light outside.”

At 5:30, I collapsed once more on my dormitory bed.

Today’s highlights: salad and French toast; Korean BBQ with the entire hostel gang; playing “never have I ever”; cramming into a photo booth; and surviving all that chaos in the club.

18 June 2023

• 13:15-15:00 sheets

More Shenanigans at the Hostel

I woke at 11:00 after five hours of sleep. No more clubbing.

Instead, a slow morning of writing.

“My Korean Number 1 told me he thinks you’re into him,” Chica said at breakfast.

That woke me up.

“What?” I asked, incredulous. What had I done to give him that impression?

“I don’t care,” Chica said. “You can have him.”

I could not believe my ears. Apparently, she had someone more special than him waiting for her.

It was us two at the table, and Angel. I told them about KN1’s text from the club. Grinning with less-than-favorable thoughts, Angel suggested he was up to something.

I knew he was as straight as a pole. And he was Chica’s guy. Why were we even discussing this?

“I was just trying to make him feel like part of the group,” I insisted.

Then, changing sheets. Today was one of the worst days, with an entire floor checking out.

In the afternoon, instead of joining everyone going to Gwangalli Beach (they’d been going there at least twice a week, whereas I hadn’t visited it yet), I decided to write and rest.

I published my first post since leaving Japan. Five weeks of no writing. I’d been enjoying my busy time in Korea, yet also missing my time off, dedicated to documenting my thoughts.

In the evening, I came up with a preliminary itinerary for my last week in Busan. To ensure I didn’t leave this city without seeing my most desired attractions, I had to plan my time in advance. Three weeks in Busan with no planning whatsoever had yielded only a day and a half of sightseeing.

Today’s highlight: writing my first post in five weeks.

19 June 2023

• 13:10-14:55 sheets
• 16:00-16:02 Beomnaegol station to Seomyeon station metro, 16:03-16:27 Seomyeon station to Centum City station metro
• Museum 1 (~2.5h)
• 18:55-19:10 Community media center KNN broadcasting station bus stop to Haeundae beach stop bus number 307
• Haeundae beach (1h)
• Metro from Haeundae to Beomnaegol

I spent this morning stirring the black sticky rice I’d been soaking for a full day now constantly on the stove. 40 minutes like this, and it did not stick. Something about the black sticky rice here was off.

It was still good. Then I helped a guest from Wales plan his upcoming last-minute Japan trip.

He was going there without knowing a single thing. Japan and him were like Korea and me.

I was very passionate during the entire conversation, and came off a bit too strongly, growing exasperated at some of his misconceptions. In the end, I drafted a 2.5-weeks itinerary for him.

He would visit a friend from Tokyo who’d been living there for 9 years, having previously worked for a British travel company who did tours in Japan. So he promised to introduce up.

Stripping beds today, everyone made mistakes. Nacho, me, most of the on-call volunteers. No one was in their forte.

Museum 1

In the afternoon, I wanted to visit Busan Museum, but it was closed on Monday. Gamcheon village – Angel asked if we could go together tomorrow. So I joined Ray, Twenty, and Cosima, who were going to a private digital art museum in Haeundae. Compensation for not doing the uber-popular TeamLAB in Tokyo.

Recalling KN1’s text and home being in Haundae, I invited him to join us.

“Wow that would be nice,” he immediately replied. “I’m at Seoul now. Call me next time when u hang out!”

Next to me, Angel was squealing with excitement.

I had to admit, there was something curious about this. Maybe even smile-raising. So I invited him to Gamcheon tomorrow, or to Haundae on my day off (I’d been planning to visit the public art museum and beach).

“Hmmm I wanna do drinking game like before,” he texted. “It was so funny.”

Oh.

“See? He just wants to hang out with everyone again,” I told Angel.

“But then why did he ask for your number?”

That, I could not answer.

I left with the girls for the museum. Conceptual, digital art was always a double-edged sword for me. Half of the time, I did not appreciate it.

Sometimes, contemporary art was just cool. Nothing beyond aestheticism. A “five year old could do this” aestheticism. Which was never wrong, but so much had been done already, that when it came to art, I’d been looking for what hadn’t.

I got into an argument about this with Ray. The artworks annoyed me. Their bombastic descriptions annoyed me. And her disagreement annoyed me.

I also annoyed her.

We couldn’t agree on anything inside the museum. Yet, at the same time, I enjoyed my first university-level argument about art in a long, long time.

We were bickering like husband and wife. I kept photobombing her videos just to spite her.

“Stop it!”

“What,” I said, “you don’t want the cute guy in your videos?”

“What cute guy?” she asked, looking around the museum. “Oh. No.”

It took her a moment to figure it out.

Overall, I disliked the museum. It didn’t contain the kind of contemporary art I appreciated. I grew bored, and waited for the girls, too fond of taking pictures, to finish looking.

To me, the museum tried to criticize the digital age and our dependence on phones – yet that was exactly what visitors did in it, and how the exhibition seemed to be designed. So it fell down the pitfall it was criticizing. Ryu obviously disagreed.

Near the end, she asked if it was okay to upload a picture of her in the museum where I was in the background.

“Oh, you want the hot guy in your photo?”

“What hot guy?” she asked, scouring the photo.

Then it dawned on her. The same reaction.

Haundae Beach

Since it was only 18:30, and I hadn’t been to Haeundae beach, we took the bus to watch the sunset there. After getting off at the bus stop, the topic of the museum came up again, and the jokes I’d made.

“But neither of us find each other attractive…” Ryu began.

“I can say you’re attractive without trying to get into your pants,” I said, meaning it.

She did not return the sentiment. I didn’t expect her to.  

Compared to Jeju’s Hyeopjae, the beach was lame. It was cloudy, and the yellow sand was nice, but that was it. A typical urban beach.

The four of us sat on the stairs and listened to local artists perform songs. At 20:00, it got too chilly.

Mentoring at the Hostel

Back in the hostel, I was about to cook dinner, when I saw a new guest struggling to cook his.

“How do you turn the induction hob on?” he asked me.

I noticed he’d been boiling water to cook rice in. As if it were pasta.

“Is this your first time cooking?”

“Sort of,” he said.

He was 18, on a gap year after high school. Blond, pink-skinned, vegan, with braces, acne, and a bone structure that hadn’t emerged yet. Mine had at 19.

This was his first solo trip.

I helped him cook, giving him instructions my sister had given me when I was his age. In many ways, he reminded me of myself. At 18, I also hadn’t known how to cook. I also wanted to see the world and travel it on my own. The difference was, he was actually doing it, while I was shut in my room, writing all day long.

As I instructed him how to chop his carrots, tofu, and courgettes – a vegan dish I’d made a thousand times – and in which order to cook them, I recognized my past and present in him. He had already achieved both.

We ate dinner together and discussed traveling. The differences between Korea and the west.

“Well, for example, do you know Nuremberg?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “The castle?”

He was taken aback.

“The only people who know where I’m from are above thirty, and you,” he said.

“I took medieval art in uni.”

My recognition of his city might have helped to loosen him up a bit. He described Nuremberg – historical and serious, compared to the party atmosphere in Busan. Eventually, I discovered we’d both stopped talking to one of our parents during high school, out of irreconcilable differences.

“I’m trying to break free of my mother’s beliefs,” he confessed. I didn’t need details to understand.

“When I stopped talking to my dad, everyone told me I’d regret it,” I said. I was 15, resolute and action-ready, past the attempting stage. “Only you know what’s good for you. And I don’t think blood relation equals love and agreement.”

We talked almost until midnight, way longer than I’d planned to. He apologized for going into all this.

By now, not only had I grown used to holding such intimate discussions with total strangers – I’d also appreciated the fact that I’d got to do it with him.

He went upstairs, and I almost as well, when I noticed Ryu and Horizon outside in the parking lot.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, hey,” Ryu said, “we’re just having a deep conversation.”

I wanted to engage in another one like the one I’d just had, because, as I explained to the girls: “I’m dead tired, but it’s one of those nights when I’m having fun, and don’t want it to end.”

I didn’t want to go to bed. Yet after a few minutes like this, I realised it was time to call it a night.

Friend-zoned in a Straight World

Thoughts about today and the past three weeks in the hostel kept me up until 2:00. The bit in the museum with Ray – it was a joke, but I felt jealous of all the female volunteers, for receiving constant attention.

I’d been giving them dating advice, been listening to their stories, and befriending dozens of guests, hunks who had approached me in the shared bathroom. None of them could understand my frustration, and my exhaustion with Seomyeon, apart from the only lesbian volunteer.

It was hard, seeing people in a certain way, while they didn’t see you at all. Especially when surrounded by attractive friends with options to choose from.

Every day in the hostel was like this. The girls had been keeping me up-to-date with their adventures, while I was watching over them in clubs, and helping guests plan their trips.

If I’d known staying long-term in this hostel would lead to this, would I really appreciate my coming here? Would I still do it? And, as I’d begun considering, would I do it again?

If I could change the way people saw me… if I could live in a world where we weren’t conditioned to be straight… maybe I wouldn’t feel so invisible.

My dislike of dating apps certainly didn’t help. Meeting queers in real life had always been a challenge. Especially in the uber-straight Seomyeon. Especially in Busan, where the gay scene was half-dead.

If people knew how the mixed signals they’d been sending me would beleaguer my head, would they still send them? Would they care?

It wasn’t like I hadn’t had stories to tell. Or that I hadn’t been receiving attention. But what difference did it make, when I didn’t want to return it?

It didn’t count, at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. I dreamed about getting the things I actually wanted. In love, in life, in friendship and vocation. I could visualize myself happy, confident, content; everything I had ever reached for was in my hand.

This wasn’t what friends and family thought or saw for me in my future. To them, it might seem like a nightmare.

I’d been finding myself, over and over again, in stories whose protagonists I hadn’t wished to portray. In the interesting stories, which I would kill to write in first-person – the sidekick was the role I was assigned to play.

Nobody from the hostel had noticed this sticky feeling. I’d been gluing it tight to my chest.

People my age I’d befriended, both guests and volunteers, were enjoying life the way twentysomethings were supposed to. And I – I’d been overlooked, and ghosted, and friend-zoned.

Today’s highlights: arguing with Ryu about art; dinner with the German guy.