I'm off the Larium (whee! no more psychosis!) for now, and on watch for any continued symptoms of ... whatever it was.

This morning, went to the international clinic of Asan Hospital, after which reluctantly returned home. Reluctantly because despite my sentiments of Monday or Tuesday, in which I waxed poetic about living with my grandmother and great-aunt, by yesterday afternoon, having spent two full consecutive days with them, I was going stark raving mad.

And I'm going stark raving mad now, because this computer is going nuts. Argh! Will write again when computer isn't putting 5 bazillion Norton Antivirus messages on the screen.

Please hold

The spaghetti carbonara on Tuesday? Recent stress? Malaria? Malaria prevention pills? Stomach flu? Food poisoning? SARS? Avian flu? Regular ole flu?

Who knows? Take your pick!

When I was a teenager, my mother took me to a Chinese herbal doctor in L.A., who took my pulse for a minute and then calmly and accurately diagnosed me with a weak stomach. How do they know such things?

Have taken the past two days off from school (and life) to recover from one or possibly several of the above... your patience is appreciated. Mine (with rice gruel) is wearing thin...

KA, all right

During my Korean writing class, in which we continued to learn about similes and metaphors, we were all trying to come up with a metaphor for learning Korean (most people agreed it was like hiking a mountain with no end) when the teacher turned to me and asked what metaphor I'd use.

Still half asleep, I was stumped.

"It's easy for you, isn't it?" she asked, hoping to prompt me.

Astonished, I shook my head. "No, it's hard."

"But didn't you grow up with Korean in the house?"

"When I was young, yes, but after that I didn't use Korean at all, and when you don't use it, you forget it all," I answered.

"Ah," she nodded, "so it is hard for you too," and passed on to another student.

For whatever reason -- perhaps the mounting frustration of feeling behind the other students -- I felt more irritated by this than I normally would be. Yes, I did have an easier time of it at the lower levels, but for the past six months or so we've been learning vocabulary and grammar and phrases that you just don't use in daily household life. I know that many Korean Americans and other overseas Koreans have a good grasp of Korean, but many also know very little Korean, and I really wish that the teachers at our school would understand that. There's no telling who knows how much; I left Korea when I was 8 months old and barely spoke Korean growing up, while another overseas Korean girl in my class left Korea when she was 5 months old and is fairly fluent. It all depends on how much your parents emphasized it at home.

To be fair, my teacher last term didn't assume that I knew more than the average westerner, which I was grateful for. For a westerner, I'm good at Korean, I know that. For a Korean American, well, I probably fall somewhere in the middle now -- not fluent, not unable to communicate at all. I don't want to be rated on the scale with average westerners, because I know I've got an advantage, but I don't want to be compared to other KAs either, because the range of abilities is so wide. Really, I'd like it if everyone would just judge me with only my past experience as the background. But isn't that always the case?

I worked pretty hard at my Korean last term, but I still don't have the amount of ease in it that, say, the Japanese students in my class have. Admittedly, most of them probably spent vacations in Korea and may use it more in daily life, having no family here with which to speak another language, but I think that growing up with a language that is similar in grammar and vocabulary to Korean goes a long, long way. Korean is to Japanese speakers what Spanish is to English speakers.

I guess what really miffed me was the implication that I don't have to work hard at learning Korean, and therefore that my level of proficiency isn't as hard-earned as, say, the white guy next to me. There's some truth to that, definitely, and I'd be fool not to acknowledge it. But it doesn't mean that learning Korean has been easy.

Most annoying. But about to get even more so.

During the break during classes, a Taiwanese classmate asked me if I happened to know any Americans who taught English, because her friend was interested in taking English conversation classes. I was just about to say, "Hey! I can do that, and I also happen to be looking for easy money!" when she hastily added, "But no overseas Koreans. Her mother was very firm about that."

Prejudice against hiring overseas Koreans to teach English is not uncommon here (as well as prejudice against hiring blacks, Indians, and other non-white races). I'm afraid that an indignant tone may have colored my reply: "Actually, Korean Americans are Americans too. But I guess your friend's mother wants a white person."

She nodded, and I mentally ran over my list of acquaintances in Korea. I know a couple white people, but they're not in the teaching business. "I'm sorry," I said, "I don't know anyone who could do it." Mentally I added, "If your friend's mother weren't brainwashed into thinking that all 'real' Americans are blond and blue-eyed, I'd offer myself, but forget it."


My classmate looked at me questioningly. "No one?" she asked.

"No one," I said firmly, thinking, just because I'm American doesn't mean that I automatically know tons of other Americans -- excuse me, white Americans. My closest friends here are Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese, and I don't think I have any close American friends here, white or otherwise. "But," I added, rather wickedly, "there are a number of white students here at the school -- you could just go ask one of them."

While I was in Southeast Asia, I was constantly being asked where I was from. Once I answered, "America," and the questioner laughed and said, "No!" Right. It's not a pleasant feeling to be told, in so many words and actions, that you're not really American. I get enough of that in America, thanks.

Grandmothers and boiled eggs

My grandmother came up to me as I was sitting on the floor, wrapping some stuff to mail tomorrow. "Your dad said that you decided to go back to America," she said.

"Mm hm," I replied, preoccupied with trying to tape a too-small piece of wrapping paper around the package going to my aunt and uncle.

"But if you go back to America, I'll be sad."

I stopped struggling with the uncooperative paper and looked up at her. She got a haircut today, after going to the bathhouse, and she looked younger than her 80 years. Much younger. But her customary good-natured grin was missing, and I felt all of a sudden how hard it will be to leave.

"Don't worry," I said cheerfully. "I'll visit."

"Well, if you could that would be good, but in America you'll get caught up with work and school," she said.

I couldn't challenge the truth of that. Summers working at a law firm or a government office or a nonprofit. Other vacations taken up with friends and immediate family. Living as a student again, with no money to travel as far as Korea.

"Don't worry," I said again. "I have to come back to eat your cooking. This isn't the last time I'll visit."

She smiled and said good night.

I haven't mentioned, except in passing, how strangely nice it is to live with my grandmother and great-aunt. The perks are obvious -- hot meals three times a day, laundry service, ready advice about how to get anywhere in Seoul. Once in a while I get annoyed about being asked if I've eaten, why I'm not eating whatever is currently being offered, what I had for lunch and where, and if I'm going to be back early that day, but to my utter surprise, I like living with two old relatives.

Of course, it's no small help that they are both healthy, amazingly good natured, keep themselves busy, and don't care if I stay up all night. And stupendous cooks. But all this was true of my grandmother when I came to Korea 16 months ago, when I used to get tremendously annoyed by her, even when she visited the apartment. Somewhere along the line, I stopped being annoyed and actually started liking her and her sister.

I know I'm a bit more patient than I used to be. Is that it? And of course I can actually communicate with them fairly well about quotidien details; that makes a world of difference. And I understand and accept Korean culture a lot more.

Whatever it is, I'm so glad to be living with them and my dad. My grandmother at times feels her age, I know, and her recent back surgery has slowed her down even more. But despite this, she's never in a bitter or resentful mood. She can be bossy and intrusive, but nowadays I can usually see that for what it is: concern and interest. And love.

Many months ago, when I still got irritated a lot by her, my grandmother asked me how long I thought I'd stay in Korea. I said I didn't know. She paused before continuing: "Well, if you were to find a nice husband here and work and live in Korea, that would make me happy." At the time, I internally scoffed, "That'll be the day! Dream on, sister!" Today, I still think I wouldn't live in Korea, but I definitely wouldn't be such a little prat in my internal reply. It makes me sad too, to think about not living here with them.
------------------
In writing class today we learned about simile and metaphor construction in Korean and learned some common ones. Some are the same in the west: eyes like stars, lips like cherries, hair like silk, wet as a (drowned) rat. Some are different: skin like white jade instead of porcelain, legs as thick as a radish (Korean radishes are very big and round), waist as thin as an ant's instead of a wasp.

One of the old traditional sayings goes like this: her voice is like jade marbles rolling on a silver tray. (Translation: very smooth, pretty voice.)

It's always delightful to hear the different sayings from various countries. In China, if you get drenched, you'll be compared to a wet chicken (a rather pitiful image, we all agreed), and if you have perfect skin, you'll likely hear that it's like tofu. (Nearly as strange as saying it's like butter. Or rather, buttah.) But the best simile we heard during class came from Japan, where a woman with a beautiful complexion may hear that she's got skin like a boiled egg.
-------------------
Omidog.

This was totally not planned, but look at the entry from Monday, January 27, 2003. I swear, I did not plan this -- I just remembered that I had complained about my grandmother being annoying somewhere on this blog and went looking for it.

Coincidence? Yeah, of the spooky Rod Serling-narrated variety.

Wild!

The Decision

The letter is in the envelope, and it says yes.

The yes is not as wholehearted as I would have liked, but it's the answer I'm giving. A couple of days ago, my dad suggested that I just go to law school for a year and see what I thought of it and decide then whether to pursue it. If I really didn't like it, then I could just leave.

"If I went for a year, I probably wouldn't stop there," I replied. "It's such a waste of money to go for one year."

"Then maybe that's your path," he said. "If it's not bad enough for you to leave, then that's a kind of answer too."

I thought about this and a great deal of other things, and last night I even prayed (to whom? I don't know), along the lines of: "I think you're out there, and I surrender to your will!" Then I stopped. And started again: "Oh, I can't do this. I can't say something like that, because I believe that if there is a God out there, God's given us what we need to get along in this world. I believe that! I believe the answers are in me! Just like Mr. Lincoln said!

"But that's just the problem -- there's one answer too many, and I can't tell which is right. So you know, I really do believe the whole Watchmaker thing, and I don't believe you're stepping in and answering prayers left and right, but if you could make an exception in this case, boy, I'd really appreciate it, 'cause I looked inward, and I just can't figure it out on my own. Thank you. Amen."

This morning I woke up and lay in bed for a while before taking out my "Whaddamigonnadowidmyliiiiife" notebook and scribbling into it that history grad school would fulfill a lot of the things that I like to do -- learn, write, research, become very knowledgeable about something, teach/advise -- and might let me do a lot of things that I'd like to do -- write historical fiction, be a consultant about my field, maybe go into the foreign service.

So this morning I thought, you know, I think the thing I'd really like to do is go to graduate school.

But the thing is, I couldn't answer the question: am I going to regret it if I don't go to law school now? I took a short walk and argued with myself, with the same old tired standpoints. So I decided sometime during the walk that okay, I'll go, but I'll go to grad school afterwards. Yeah, it's a total of 9 years we're talking about, but I like learning, remember? I like school. And if I get tired of it, I can go be a lawyer for a while.

This is what was on the back on my mind when I tried the last-ditch approach that my dad suggested over dinner. He first approached the issue with: "So. This is T minus which day now?"

"This is it! This is the last day," I said. "But I still don't know."

"Okay," he said. "Then for one hour -- or just half an hour -- why don't you try meditating? Thinking of nothing, and maybe you will see your future. They say that if your mind is full of thoughts, it's like water that's clouded by particles. So if you get rid of all the thoughts, you'll be able to see clearly, like through water."

So I tried it. Sat in my room with the lights off and a candle lit and my glasses off and tried to think of nothing. I failed, of course. I thought of scenes from movies I watched recently, what I was going to wear tomorrow to school, how I was getting cold, and so on. I tried thinking of a white room with nothing in it, but the scene from The Matrix when Neo says "We need guns. Lots of guns," and mile-long shelves of firearms comes rushing out of nowhere popped up. I tried concentrating on my breathing, and was distracted by my stomach gurgling. I tried staring at the flame of the candle, but starting thinking about how drafty the damn room must be if the flame is dancing around that much. I tried chanting, "Be nothing. Think nothing," but began visualizing the word "nothing" in various sans serif fonts.

Sometime during 35 minutes of vainly attempting to suppress thought, the image of me at school tomorrow, dashing off to the post office to mail the letter, scrolled through my head. But wait, I thought, I don't have to run to the post office during the break time, because I don't have to rush off to work right after class anymore. I can go after lunch. Or maybe I should just go during break, because it'll be such a relief to get the letter off my hands. To be done. Hm. Wonder how my family will react when I email them that I'm going? God, I don't want to read their emails. Or the emails of my friends, all of which will be unfailing supportive and cheerful, but from which I will feel a faint sense of disappointment that I know I'm actually projecting.

A few minutes later, I got up, turned on the light, and blew out the candle. I stepped over to my dad's door, and said, "Well, I think I got it." He opened the door and said, "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," I said. "I saw myself at school tomorrow mailing a letter, and the letter says yes. So that's a good as picture of my future as any. I didn't see if I'm going to regret it, or how I'm going to feel later, but I saw that."

Worry about that when the time comes, he advised.

The letter is short, just one line: "I am writing to confirm that I will be enrolling at law school this September. Thank you."

And thank you, all who have followed this, and made suggestions, and advised, and encouraged, and supported. Believe me, I listened and I read and I thought about what each of you said. I so appreciate it, and you.

Special mention must be made of my guru BC, for her amazing patience on the subject, and of Wendy, who tried so hard during those three weeks.

See ya in Cambridge.

Decisions Part 5: Penultimate

And still no decisions.

There are still moments when I think I have it. That I want to do what I want to do, and that is to learn, and so I should stop dicking around and send the letter I've printed out and see about getting into a decent history graduate program.

These moments are followed by the other kind of moment. When I mentally shake myself and come back to the simple truth that while I may want, deep in my heart, to do something else, if I don't go to law school -- this law school, now -- I will always harbor a regret about it.

This is usually followed by a short, calm interval, in which I say to myself, with no small amount of relief, that I've faced up to the facts about me, and that is that. Going.

Nipping on the heels of that blessed lucidity is the thought that I know it's not the thing I'd most want to do in the world, but it's only three years, and after that, I can do what I really want to do. Wait. What I really want to do? For fuck's sake, why can't I just do that now? Life is short. I could die of a brain aneurysm my first year of law school. Or get hit by a bus the day before graduating.

What was it I want to do again?

And then the final movement swells up from the orchestra pit, and I just want to decide, fer cryin' out loud, just decide. Decide and stop feeling nauseated because I'm strrrreeeesssed about the Biiiiig Deciiiiiision.

Then I start digging around for a coin.

Huh.

Best two out of three.

Really?

Five out of five tosses say that I'm not going.

Is the coin weighted on one side?

Right. Write you tomorrow.

Decisions Part 4: Back to Wishwash

Perhaps "wishwash" isn't the right term. Or rather, "back" is probably incorrect; I haven't exactly stepped back in the process, just haven't advanced either. Yesterday I felt unusually clear-headed about the whole thing, but today I watched two Harrison Ford movies on the TV, read a Dorothy Sayers book that was far too erudite and literary for me, and worried about the decision in a vague and unhelpful way.

Bother bother bother. I wish I could just decide and have done with it. I felt singularly unambitious and lazy today, and the thought of jetting around to foreign countries or doing research for news articles made me think, "Oooohh. Do I really want to do that? And have to actually be responsible for things of any consequence? And have to be 'on' at work?" In my finer moments, I am energetic and confident; more ordinarily, I think, "Oh, what a bother. It's much more comfortable to sit here and read a mystery novel for five hours straight and not even catch up on Korean homework than to ... well, do anything else, really."

The active professions I was thinking about yesterday -- foreign service and journalism -- are only appealing in my finer moments, and otherwise are or involve activities and effort that I think I should do, because they're good for me, much in the way that working on my high school paper was good for me, because it challenged me and made me work hard and was never, never stagnant. I don't remember ever being comfortable at any stage of writing an article -- even writing the actual text, which I liked the best, was always stressful because it was always subject to review and change and possible commands to go out and do more reporting -- but damn if it wasn't the most rewarding extracurricular activity I've ever done.

There's value to challenge.

A lot of value.

On the other hand, going back into academia fills me with no particular dread. Whether it be history or psychology or law, the classroom is not a place I fear. Insecurity about my intellectual capability, yes. But dread, no. Doing research, writing papers, thinking about stuff sounds like fun to me, although doubtless I have blocked out some of the travails of being a student.

So what is it now? A choice between uncomfortable-but-rewarding, and difficult-but-nonscary? Give a mouse a cookie and he'll ask for milk; give me time and I'll come up with more issues to debate. Is it a battle of value systems? A matter of deciding which is worse: regretting not going, or regretting going? An inability to commit? Who knows?!?

The funny thing is, I actually want to do ALL these things. I want to write interesting and illuminating stories, and I want to be a therapist, and I want to study history, and I want to travel to many countries and help people understand each other, and yeah, I even want to go to law school. And you know, I've thought about each one of those things and come up with reasons not to do each one: not cut out temperamentally to be a reporter; don't have enough background in psychology to get into psych grad school; won't have a job after history grad school and anyway, not smart enough to be a superstar; not good at the schmoozing you have to do in diplomatic positions and not smart enough to deal with situations requiring political know-how and tact and not self-sufficient enough to take the loneliness of being in the foreign service; suspect I don't have a mind or temperament suitable for law but would have to be a lawyer for years to pay off the loans, thereby missing out on the chance to do all that other stuff.

Although now I'm thinking is that if I did go to law school, I'd try going into the foreign service or some sort of nonprofit, international work (hi, UN!).

My, isn't it busy in here?

If I don't like being a lawyer, I'll still have to be one to pay off the loans. That's the big issue. So, do I think I'm not going to like being a lawyer? I don't know. Then put it another way: do I think I would like being a therapist? Yeah, I think I might. Do I think I would like being a reporter, or a foreign service officer? Sometimes I would and sometimes I wouldn't. Do I think I would like being in history grad school? Yeah, I probably would.

So maybe I should do what I think I would like, and would also not close the other doors, and would also fulfill the security/prestige requirements. Well, I'd like being a history student, and from there, I could try going into the foreign service, but I don't think that satisfies the security requirement. Being a therapist would fulfill the security/prestige and I'd like it, but it's not an easy transition to any of the other things.

God. I'm thinking three careers ahead. Get a hold of yourself, Helen!

I'm running around in circles again, so I'm quitting for tonight. If it seems that I've accomplished nothing at all in the past several entries (the Decision Series), it seems that way to me sometimes too. At least, though, I'm looking at some concrete options that seem as real and as doable as law school. I was lacking that before.

If you've come this far, I give you my thanks... and my pity!

[Short break]

Thought of another tack. What about my life now do I like? Learning a language, lack of responsibility, living close to family, having plenty of money, becoming well-versed in something (Korean society), freedom to travel, having the time to write these absurd blog entries. I don't need a big fancy house or anything like that. Hm. Self-initiative seems to be lacking in me, except for writing these -- again -- absurd blog entries.

Oh lord. I really can't think any longer. 'Pears that the heading for this entry was prescient.

Going now. For real.

Family Day

The Year of the Monkey began today, and with it came loads of relatives to pay respects to my grandmother (three of her grown children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren) and to my great-aunt (her daughter, plus husband and three sons). In addition, two friends of my father's came over to drink a couple bottles of soju and talk about politics for a couple hours. After they discussed my career options for about 30 minutes.

I must be in a mood, because I decided today that I definitely will not be having children. At least, not dirty, gross, spoiled, rude children. If I have any, they'll be self-cleaning, obey all orders, and feed themselves. Come to think of it, they'll make their own damn food.

Maybe it's because I woke up early to go to temple and do the ritual bows of respect for my grandfather. I liked doing this last year, and I liked it this morning as well, but I woke up at 6 am and well, that's just never a precursor to a good mood.

Okay, back to the regularly scheduled program.

Decisions Part 3: A Little More Concrete. Maybe.

It was very cold in Beijing earlier this week, and I was all set to first complain about Chinese winters and then bask in the relative warmth of Seoul, but I arrived yesterday to -14 degree Celcius weather, 6 degrees colder than Beijing. D'oh!

Because it was so cold in Beijing, I thought about buying a duck or goose down jacket there (for a very low price, naturally), but I decided that in this age of Gore-tex and other manmade goodies, the duck or goose probably needed the down more than I did. I announced this to Gyung-li just after we finished eating Peking duck, and our eyes automatically were drawn to the front of the room, where four naked birds strung up by their necks were hanging on four black double-sided hooks. We both started to say, "Except for those birds," and burst out laughing.

But where was I? Oh yes. So cold that I couldn't feel my feet and my fingers wavered between numb and tingly. While we were shopping (which was every day), I noticed something. Whenever I saw a down jacket or a fleece sweater or a pair of fur-lined boots, which are all not really necessary for Seoul winters, I automatically thought, "Well, I may not use it this winter very much, but it'll be useful in Boston, and I'll regret it next year if I don't buy this on the cheap now." That's what I meant when I wrote yesterday that my actions indicate a yes decision.

But my mind -- which may or may not be behind my subconscious-directed actions (see how nefarious my gray matter is?) -- or at least my conscious mind, is very much undecided still. Tonight, struck by a strangely decisive mood, I jotted down a list of possible careers options (the heading: "POSSIBLE CAREERS FOR HELEN (AT AGE 28)") which goes as follows:
- journalism
- therapist
- lawyer/law school
- history grad school/student
- East Asian Studies grad student
- foreign service
- vetinarian
- pet therapy
- travel writer
- actor
- movie critic

I then started writing down "WHAT SKILLS I LIKE USING" and came up with "writing, learning, helping people understand themselves and others, understanding and accepting cultural differences" before my incisive mood petered out.

Given that the above list is fairly representative of the "next step" options I'm serious about (and let's just say that it is, because it's just way too hard not to), I'd cross out actor (a secret longing, but never really serious about, except for that brief period when I wanted to be the next supa-stahhhh) and journalism (because I hated chasing after people for interviews and the like when I was a reporter in high school). (Although it was really rewarding. Probably the most rewarding activity I ever did. Okay, it's back in. Shit.) (Where was I? Oh yes.)

I'd also cross out vet, because I can't picture myself going through med school, and movie critic, because honestly, after seeing American Psycho last week on TV and being unable to get the image of Christian Bale gleefully dangling a chainsaw over a prostitute fleeing downstairs out of my head, I don't want to be in a position where I have to watch all movies.

Travel writer would be nice, but that falls in the category of journalism, and -- oh, shoot, journalism's back in, isn't it? But here's the thing -- I don't want to be a journalist. I just think that, if I only had a fearless personality, it would be the perfect job for me: constantly learning something new, writing descriptively, helping people understand each other, maybe causing change for the good. Fuck all, maybe I should be a journalist, despite my horror of cold calling people and naturally timid personality. Well, let's leave that alone for now.

As for the rest -- well, let me explain pet therapy for a second, just so's you don't think I'm a weirdo. I don't mean a Prozac-for-puppies type of pet therapist, I mean the type of therapy that uses animals (usually dogs or cats) to help alleviate depression, assist in physical rehabilitation, etc.

So, yes, as for the rest, I think each of the others actually sounds really cool. No objections to becoming a therapist (except maybe having to deal with truly scary psychotic killers and stuff, but that seems optional), which my former shrink opines is the most perfect job in the world: you set your own hours, you help people, it's intellectual, and it's lucrative. None to being a grad student of some kind -- I would love to take classes and do research in history or area studies or what have you. (I'd just worry about getting a job afterwards, but we're just dealing with the next 5 years or so here for now.) The foreign service seems pretty cool -- travel, learn about different cultures, help people understand each other, etc. (Worried about actually getting in -- very difficult -- but again, just dealing with what I want, and only for the next 5 years or so.) And heck, going to law school and becoming a lawyer for a few years doesn't seem all that bad either. I wouldn't want to do it forever, but paying off loans doesn't take forever.

So of the above options that I've siphoned into the "Actually Worth Considering" pile, the only thing that is time-limited is the foreign service (I don't think they take people older than 35). Everything else seems to be as doable in 5 years as it is now.

I'll look into it.

[Station break]

Actually, they take people up to age 60. In any case, I registered for the written exam, which will be in April (hopefully I get my requested test center: Seoul). The description of the public diplomacy track sounds interesting and possibly appropriate for me. The oral exam sounds daunting. But we'll see if I pass the written first.

In the meanwhile, I may go ahead and say yes to law school (going won't hurt my chances of getting into the foreign service). I'll think about it; I also want to reconsider journalism, because it does seem so hauntingly right for me, if it weren't for the personality issue (mine not matching to the fearless reporter image I have on the brain) and if I weren't so damn lazy/insecure about writing things and sending them out to publications. Grad school (for history, area studies or psychology) also is pretty appealing.

Other things on the mind: begging for freebie education, applying for a Fulbright, thanking Wendy for suggesting the foreign service during our trip, writing a book, going to China. Will organize thoughts more tomorrow. For now, I feel like I've made a little progress. It may all disappear tomorrow, but I feel calm. Optimistic. I think.

Nin hao! Xie Xie! (Hello! Thank you!)

At the Beijing airport immigration station, on the way to my plane back to Seoul, the immigration officer didn't hand me my passport. Instead, he gestured for me to go back to a desk of other officers.

"What about my passport?" I asked, a little nervous. I'd been with my friend Gyung-li almost the entire time I'd been in Beijing, and so had experienced none of the difficulties of being a foreigner in China. It would be just the thing if I ran into some trouble on my way out.

He called another officer over, who took my passport and then gave it to yet another immigration officer. Who then proceeded to walk toward one end of the room, talking on his walkie-talkie. I followed. He turned after about three meters and walked the other way, still talking on his walkie-talkie. I followed. He turned again and walked again in the original direction. I followed. He turned again and walked back. I followed. He turned again. Finally, I got tired of playing, and just watched him. He walked only a few steps away, and came back to me.

"Can you tell me what the deal is?" I asked, both annoyed and anxious.

"What is your name?" he asked, while looking at my passport.

"Helen Kim."

"Where were you born?"

"Seoul, Korea."

I watched him as he looked at my passport, looked up at me, looked at my passport, looked up at me, and looked at my passport again. Finally, I said, "That's really me, you know. It's just from a long time ago."

He peered at my passport one last time before looking up and, with a sudden grin, said, "Okay." And he handed me my passport.

I can't decide which of the possible scenarios was actually going on:

1. It was "Give Americans A Hard Time" Day at immigration, as retaliation for the fingerprinting process at U.S. airports, or for any number of other reasons.
2. It was "Give Citizens of Countries We Find Annoying A Hard Time" Day (a Japanese man and a Mongolian woman were also being hassled at the same time).
2. They hadn't seen an Asian American before, and didn't believe I was actually American.
3. As my dad suggested, perhaps they thought I was Chinese and trying to get out of the country by passing myself off as American, with a false American passport.
4. There was actually something fishy about my passport.

No, you go on and pick one. Or make up one of your own!

Other than that brief little blip, which was more funny than anything, I had a great time in Beijing. Since it was bitterly, punishingly cold, I didn't do as much sightseeing as I might have normally done, but I did get to see the Temple of Heaven, Tianenmien Square, and the Forbidden City. Plus, what the Lonely Planet calls "charming" hutong, the old neighborhood-y houses of the city, but what I would honestly call closer to slums.

I was a bit under the weather and fighting off a possibly Larium-induced nausea the first day and and half, but when I saw Tianenmien Square on the day after I arrived, the nausea vanished. It, like the other cultural treasures I saw, completely lived up to all expectations. You know how sometimes you go visit something that you've read or heard about, and you think, "Oh. Well, that's cool," and walk away just satisfied to check something off the list but not blown away? That's not the case with China. Or at least, with the stuff in Beijing. Tianenmien Square is really that big. The Temple of Heaven is really that graceful and beautiful. The Forbidden City is really that majestic.

Quick notes about each:
- Seeing Tianenmien Square reminded me of the 1989 crackdown, with the famous moment of one lone protester standing before a line of tanks. Gyung-li has never seen a photo or depiction of that moment -- par for the course in China.
- We got to the gates to the Temple of Heaven just before closing time and tried to muscle our way in without a ticket, since it was 15 minutes to closing, but the guards would have none of that, so we had to buy a ticket after all. Which was worth it, because as aforementioned, the Ming era temple is just stunning. I'm not an architecture buff, but something about the temple made me go, "Wow. Wow."
- As we walked out of the huge park that houses the Temple of Heaven, we stopped and listened to four people, one playing a one-stringed violin-type instrument and the others singing, as they practiced Chinese opera, probably for fun. Screechy, but very cool.
- Yesterday, because Gyung-li had a toothache and was tired, I managed to persuade her and her parents to let me go out by myself to see the Forbidden City. (Not an easy task! Chinese hospitality decrees otherwise, for one, plus her parents were obviously projecting their concerns about their daughter on me, and wound up writing two identical notes --one for my bag and one for me to carry in case I got separated from my bag! -- that said something like, "Please help this person call me at my office and I will come and get her.") The constant wind (without wind chill it was 10 degrees F) made visiting the wide open courtyards of the Forbidden City something of a chore, despite the elegant tones of Roger Moore's voice on the audiotape. Nevertheless, I pushed through, admiring some of the 11,000 dragon head drainspouts, and the 200-ton marble sculpture of dragons playing in the clouds, which was brought to the Forbidden City from a distant suburb by 20,000 people over 28 days (they dug wells every 3 miles and used the water to create ice slicks on which they pushed the massive stone).

So if I didn't see that many sights (the Great Wall, for one), then what did I do for four days and three nights? Well, for one, I got to live with Gyung-li's parents for a few days. They obviously adore and dote on their only daughter. Her father, an electrical engineer, has a long, pale, gentle face that broke out in a smile whenever he saw her. Even when watching her watch television, he wore a pleased look, and would often reach out and give her head a quick stroke, as if to reassure himself that she was there. Gyung-li's mother, a very youthful-looking 50-year-old, was less outwardly doting, but took care of everything for her as if she were a baby.

They live on the outskirts of Beijing, in a first floor apartment with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, living room, and a spare room. When I first saw their apartment, I thought, "Dear lord, they're much poorer than I thought! How are they affording to sent Gyung-li to Korea for school? And how much am I imposing on them by being here?" (Bare bulbs. Spare rooms. They had to send out for extra gas for hot showers.) But after the second day or so, I changed my mind. Not having anything to compare with, I can't say for sure, but I think they're probably solidly middle class, perhaps even upper middle class. (Large TV. Steam heat in every room. Indoor plumbing.)

The reason why I mention all this is not to show how much of a first-worlder I am, but -- well, maybe just a little. When we got there, Gyung-li asked me rhetorically, "Our house is nice, isn't it?" and I made some sort of agreeable noise, but I couldn't help comparing her house to the last house I lived in with my parents, in Van Nuys, California, with its wall-to-wall carpeting, white leather couches, sleek dining table, two and a half baths, and swimming pool in the back. All that stuff is gone now, but growing up, it seemed so normal to me. When I first came to Korea, I went through a similar kind of shock -- everything is, inevitably, compared to what you grow up with, so the comparatively small, bare rooms of my grandmother's apartment in Songnae seemed a step down.

I think I had a point, but I lost it. Bedtime's approaching. Speaking of which, that's another thing I did a lot of in Beijing -- sleep. Gyung-li's parents set up a nice little cot for me in her room every night, and every morning cleared it away, after I'd been in it for a good 10 to 12 hours. Sleeping and eating -- two of the most pleasant activities in life. Gyung-li's mom is a great cook, and there was like, a feast, every night. Shrimp in sweet sauce, bok choy-type cabbage with mushrooms, stewed fish, celery with beef, rice cake soup -- mmm. The only thing I didn't like was zhou, a kind of rice gruel. In addition to being bland, it was -- well, to a palate used to Korean food, that's enough of a crime. There's rice gruel in Korea too (and rice gruel saved me in Cambodia), but zhou was disappointing.

Sleeping, eating -- what could complete the package? What else but shopping? The price of goods is so low in Beijing compared to even Korea (as Gyung-li reminded me, everything these days is made in China), even a tight-fisted money-grubber like me couldn't help but buy, buy, buy. From now on, I'm getting all my clothes made in Vietnam or buying them in Beijing. Since it's the lunar new year tomorrow, massive sales cut the already ridiculously low prices in half. A pea coat-style tailored jacket that would easily go for $250 in the U.S. was already selling for one fifth of that -- before the fifty percent discount. So I bought it. As well as three new pairs of shoes, including the perfect black summer sandals I've been looking for for years ($20), the knee-high leather boots I've been looking for for the past decade ($60), and the latest Pair of Black Shoes That Don't Quite Fit But Are So Cheap I Must Buy Them. This pair actually fits, though, which made the $8 price tag very, extremely and absoliciously palatable.

Look at me, the avowed non-materialist, gushing over consumer goods! And in China! Weirdness. The gleaming shopping malls and stores of Wangfujing, the shopping district, feel like they belong in the States, or in Japan, or Korea. Gyung-li's parents' bathroom shelf contains Pantene and Herbal Essence products. The snack on my Air China flight was a packet of Kit Kats. The supermarket I went into had more foreign products than Chinese -- Nestle water, Oil of Olay night cream, Danish butter cookies, Japanese jellies, Chilean wines.

Beijing: another big city, in another developed country. That's what it felt like, anyway. I know it's not a representative sample of life in China. Next time I'd like to see something a little less like home. But next time won't be for a while. For the next couple months, anyway, I'm sticking close to home. Tonight, shortly after I got home, my great-aunt opened up the pot of stew on the stove for dinner, and I thought, "Oh, it's so good to be back."

Tomorrow: back to the dilemma. Interestingly, my actions seem to indicate that I've decided to go, but my thoughts indicate that I haven't decided at all. I'll explain tomorrow.

By the way: happy lunar new year! I hope the Year of the Monkey is a good one for you.

And now it's time for a break

Going to Beijing in 3 hours. Whee!

Have pushed date of Final Decision til Jan. 25, since post office here is closed for lunar new year's on Jan. 23.

More when I return on Jan. 21.

Again -- whee!

Decisions Part 2: Yes

Yes. Yes to writing a summary of the lecture on Korean religion I heard last year. Yes to going to Beijing the day after tomorrow. Yes to law school.

Yes to an uncomplicated life. Yes to not thinking too much. Yes to being in step with my peers. Yes to spending.

Yes, goddammit! Y-E-S. Yesyesyesyesyes. I'm going. Yes I'm a lawyer. Yes I went to Harvard Law School. Yes.
-------------------------------
This afternoon, I was studying in an empty classroom with my schoolmates Gyung-li and Maiko, when Gyung-li mentioned that she had yet to buy her ticket to Beijing, her hometown, for this weekend. After a bit of back and forth about that, I mentioned, a little wistfully and a little jokingly, that I'd like to go too. She promptly said I should, and we ended up going down to the travel agency on the first floor of our classroom building to find out ticket prices (with the price of getting a visa in one day, $408 USD). We went back up to the classroom, where I laughed at myself.

"I'm nuts. That's it. I'm freakin' crazy," I announced. "I've been back here for less than a week. And I have to make this decision about law school. If I go traveling again, I'm not gonna have time to think about it."

Gyung-li agreed, "That's true. We'll be too busy seeing stuff. And eating." Her eyes got dreamy. "Chinese food. Yum."

Maiko piped up, "Then you should make your decision about it tonight!"

For the second time, I laughed. "Got a coin?" I deadpanned.

She broke into giggles. "Well," she said, "I think you should -- no, never mind."

"No, go ahead," I said, slightly resigned. "Tell me what you think."

"Well," she hesitatingly continued. "If you don't go, it's kind of a ... waste. Isn't it?"

I sighed. "Yeah," I said, "it kind of is." I looked out the window into the dark Shinchon streets. "Okay!" I exhaled. "I'll go and I'll go! I'll go to law school and I'll go to Beijing, and I'll stop thinking so damn much and life will be a lot simpler and I will be a lot happier. I'll go!"

They both laughed at me. "Good!" Gyung-li said. And in the same breath: "Or you know, you could go study Chinese history in China."

"Whaaaat?" I said. "That does NOT help. Oh, whatever. I'll think about it and call you tonight."

As I was packing up my bookbag to go back home, Maiko looked at me with sad eyes. "I'm sorry that I couldn't help you decide, Helen," she said.

"What kind of talk is that? You don't have any reason to be sorry," I assured her. I was touched. I wanted to add that many, many people have been unable to decide for me, but that that wasn't their responsibility, it was mine, and I was grateful for every one of their contributions to the giant Parliament debate in my head. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to say that in Korean, so I just smiled at her again, thanked her, and left.

As I left, I thought about what I'd just said, in jest, about going. Just saying yes. I halfway believed that I'd just made a final decision about it. Because why should this be such a freakin' hard decision? Why do I turn everything into monumental battles between value systems, ideology and other completely non-reality-based issues? It's not that I want to be the type of person who gets into HLS and hoots, "Score, baby!" before going out to party all night long. That would be nice, yes, but I'd settle for being someone who didn't agonize over every decision and didn't feel compelled to chase out every single permutation and outcome of any given choice.

I just want to live simply. I want to think less. Not live unthinkingly. Just avoid being the person to whom a Cambodian hotel desk clerk says -- smilingly! -- "You think too much. Just go to the restaurant we recommended. It's good." (True story, by the way.)

But. But but but. I am that person. I do pore over all the permutations and possibilities and the whys and wherefores, and I don't make snap decisions, even about what I'm going to eat for dinner. Yes, there's limit to the constant swirl of questions leading to more questions that double over and bend in on themselves and become gateways to questions about other things entirely -- a point at which it becomes repetitive and nauseating. My effort to reach a decision by next week is my attempt to put a limit on this second-guessing.

But there's also a point at which you have to accept the swirl as part of yourself. Myself. I think about stuff too much, but that's part of who I am. A friend said to me recently that she didn't understand why I made it so hard for myself. Why not do something I love? Why do something if I'm not compelled to do it? What's funny is that the easy thing is GOING to law school. Not because everyone else is doing it and it's a safe path. Because there's a part of me that WANTS to do what everyone else is doing.

A fine distinction, you might say, and not worth the inevitable argument over semantics. But it touches on something that's deeper -- more insidious, you might say -- and well worth a good look, because this rambling, streaming mess of an entry is finally (I think. I hope.) heading into the real reasons why I say yes to law school.

I've never wanted to be a lawyer. But I -- on some level -- want to go to law school. Not any law school. Harvard Law School. For a long time, I excused my dithering about going on the pressures of family, especially my mother, who has wanted me to go for a long time. It's true that most of my family members are in favor of me going, though they all, to a man, also want me to do what makes me happy. (As if that's so simple! But it is, if you'd just -- okay, stop, right now. But you don't have to -- stop it. But -- NO.) (You see what I have to put up with?)

Asian parents are famous for pressuring their kids to go into law and medicine (and sometimes architecture -- hey, it works for some). Blame it on the Confucian hierarchy that features scholars and anyone with higher degrees at the top, doing the Bump with their caps askew. Harvard Law School has got more cache than a Queer Eye makeover, and it will ALWAYS have it. Less well known are that Asian mothers are completely and utterly devoted to their kids, with the expectation that their kids damn well know it and are wracked with guilt any time they think about even breathing the wrong way.

Neither of these factors has much bearing on my decision. Not to say that they don't have any impact, just that they're not the most important factors. It's not my family. It's me. I don't know where, or how, but somewhere along the line, I absorbed the values that make up the "Security" side of the argument, and those values are powerful in a way I can't describe. BC, my personal sage, opined that my "Security" arguments were weaker than my "Idealism" in the last entry, and that's partly because that entry was the "No" entry, but it's also partly because in the rationalistic western humanist tradition, I can't adequately express what a hold the "Security" values have on me. Or, in turn, how much I embrace them. I can't defend them except in terms that can be defeated -- even by me! -- by the logic of Idealism.

Yes, if I didn't have in my possession an HLS seal-embossed piece of paper that started out with the word "Congratulations!" I would not be inclined to take the LSAT and apply for law schools now. Yes, I might, if I didn't have that letter, apply for the foreign service, or go learn Chinese in China, or move to New York, or explore the idea of graduate school.

But yes, I do have that piece of paper. And yes, I am deathly afraid that if I don't send a yes letter to HLS next week, I will feel an intense surge of panic and regret and spend the next 50 years flagellating myself over not going when I had the chance. Yes, I want the cache.

Def (of Def and Stave) sent me an article a couple years back about a fellow who'd avoided the law school route, choosing instead to go to graduate school (or maybe be a writer, or one of those commie professions). It was a really astonishingly honest and moving piece. The author freely admitted that he felt virtuous and holier-than-thou when he opted to go the poor, starving student route instead of "selling out" like his lawyer friends. But he also wrote openly about later deeply envying his sell-out friends, despite their long hours and crappy quality of life, for their ability to live where they wanted, drop $100 on dinner without blinking, take exotic vacations, buy $2,000 living room chairs, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And he wondered if he shouldn't have gone that route, because it's lonely being the odd one out, even if you like what you do, even if you don't have to work 80 hours a week, even if you're sure you did the right thing for you.

I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to regret not going (and according to the dad of Tomato Nation's Sarah Bunting, most of the time you regret not doing something, not doing something). So I say yes. Because there's no guarantee of happiness or satisfaction in Idealism, but there is a guarantee of a kind of happiness in an HLS-embossed Security.

[Heartfelt thanks to those who wrote in.]

[Comments welcome.]

[Tomorrow: Part 3]

Decisions Part 1: I'm Not Going

At 11:55 pm on New Year's eve, in a ratty pho restaurant in Hanoi, Wendy looked at me. "Okay, you have five minutes to make a decision about law school," she said.

I eyed her over my steaming bowl of noodles. "Even if I do decide something now, it's not going to be real. This isn't the real deadline," I said.

"It might as well be," she volleyed back. "Two more weeks aren't going to make any difference. Just decide."

"Okay," I sighed. Humoring one's companions is a crucial part of traveling. "Give me a coin."

"I don't have any. This country doesn't use coins."

"Shit. Okay, well, I'll use an imaginary coin, then." I made a fist with my right hand, tucked the tip of my thumb under my curled forefinger, and imagined a quarter lying on it. "Okay, I'm looking at a quarter, at George. He's lying on my --- wait. Lemme use Abe instead."

"Because he's in charge of the mother ship?" Wendy probed.

"Maybe he is and maybe he isn't," I smirked, concentrating on the imaginary penny balancing on my thumb. "No, because the last time I talked with Mr. Lincoln, he told me that I had the answers in me, and that I just needed to look for them. So here he is. I'm looking at him." I flicked my thumb up. "Okay, the penny's in the air... it's flipping over, slo-mo... it's coming down... okay, I've caught it."

I held out my open hand, palm up, and peered at the imaginary penny. "It's tails. Okay. It's decided."

"So what does that mean?"

"Oh wait." I realized something. "I didn't call the choices before I flipped. I don't know what tails means."

Wendy sighed.

"No, no," I said, "I'll decide. I'm gonna decide right now." I stared at the tiny Lincoln Memorial engraved on the imaginary round copper disk in my hand. "Tails. Tails means ... it means no. I'm not going to law school."

Wendy stared at me. "Really?"

"Yup," I said. "There it is. I'm not going."
------------------
That decision lasted for a few days. (It actually did happen that way, by the way. More or less.) I flipped a coin on new year's eve, and it decided my fate.

Except it didn't. Because it was an imaginary coin, and because I didn't call it before I flipped, and because ultimately, I decided what the outcome meant. Heads, go. Tails, don't.

Why did I do that? For the past three years, I've been stalling, unable to decide whether to go or not, but unable to let go of the chance to go. Why did I decide that night that I wouldn't go? This is a chance available to a few thousand people in the world each year. It would assure me financial security. It would get my mother off my back. It would guarantee prestige. I might even like it.

I decided that tails means no because I finally chose a value system that I pay lip service to, but would have totally violated if I had chosen to go to law school. Among the many variables in this decision, a battle of values was being played out in my head. On one side, there is the safe, well-trodden path, the path clearly defined and well-rewarded by society, friends, family, and oneself. This is the path of college, a couple years of work, a graduate or professional degree, a high-paying and prestigious job, and above all else, security. A graduate of Harvard Law School is always going to have a job -- a well-paying job at that -- no matter how much the economy tanks. A graduate of Harvard Law School is always going to command a certain amount of respect. These are important things to me.

On the other side, though, there is the incontrovertible fact that I don't want to be a lawyer. I've never looked at a lawyer and thought, "I want to do what that person does." Outside of the usual thrills you get from watching a good courtroom drama, I've never felt drawn to law. It's not my calling. Period.

The first side, Security, speaks to that: "So what? Most people don't love their jobs. More importantly, you don't HAVE a calling -- or least, you haven't found one in the past six years. If you had a passion, by all means, I'd be for pursuing it! But if you don't, you may as well have job security and respect. That's probably a lot more than what other people who don't like their jobs have."

The second side, Idealism, replies: "Be honest. You haven't been seriously looking or thinking about what you want to do except for the last few months. It's too early to give up -- you haven't even finished your Parachute exercises! Remember what Carla said in DC two years ago? She said, 'The fact that you've struggled with this decision for as long as you have tells me that you should struggle with it longer.' In other words, if you wanted to go, you would have gone."

"Right," Security says. "But if you knew what you wanted to do, you would have done it by now. And since you don't, why don't you just go?"

"Because," Idealism answers, "there's a part of you that still believes that people should do what they love. That you're within the 1 percent of the 1 percent of the world population that is truly free to do whatever they want. Whatever you want!!! And you're going to default to going to law school because you don't have the guts, the confidence to keep searching?

"Ultimately, you're just afraid that you'll fall behind your peers who have gone to law school or med school or grad school, that you'll be seen as the weird Yale grad who never amounted to much, despite having this sterling education. Well you know what? If you go to HLS, you're going to end up like everyone else who defaulted into law school -- at the exact same point you're at now, searching for your bliss. Except saddled with an enormous debt, which is gonna stop you from taking jobs or other options that don't come with a pornographically big salary. Isn't it worth it to take the time NOW to figure out what you really want to do? If it's law, then law school will be there in a year, two years, five years. If you really don't have a passion you want to pursue, then -- again -- law school will be there in a year, two years, five years. Don't let fear be your chauffeur. You owe it to the millions of people out there who don't have the choices and opportunities that you do to take advantage of those choices and opportunities.

"Going to law school isn't going to make you into anything but a lawyer. And if you don't want to be a lawyer, it's a pretty stupid decision to spend $100,000 that you don't have to become one. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. Anything you do, you will do well -- you're just built that way. You won't choose to do something you CAN'T do well. And so you should have confidence that you'll have that respect you want, that you won't fall behind your peers, and that you'll be fine.

"Now. What are you going to do instead of go to law school? As BC pointed out two years ago and Wendy two weeks ago, you've set up a not-very-useful binary of law school vs. not law school. Without a solid alternative, you're comparing a ghost ship to a 365-horsepower speedboat -- who chooses ambiguity over a sure thing? Think about what you actually might want to do -- period. You're in an enviable debt-free, well-educated position. If you had all the money in the world, what would you do?

"You haven't finished those annoying Parachute exercises, but you know that certain interest areas keep coming up when you think about the future and what you want to do. These include: dogs, movies, history, women's rights, religion, human rights, psychology, race, understanding and bridging differences between people or cultures, infectious diseases and health. Stop thinking so much. You know you like reading and thinking about these things. It's not an exhaustive list. It just includes things that keep coming up and don't go away.

"As for skills, you know absolutely, positively, indubitably that you love to write, you feel compelled to write, and you're good at writing. (I'm not saying you're a great writer. That's different. I'm saying that you're a writer, for better or worse, and you'd do well to face up to it and accept it.) That's not the only skill that you have and enjoy, though. You like researching, you like observing and learning from people -- you love learning, period. You also like advising and counseling people, even though it takes a lot out of you at times. In one of the cheesy Parachute exercises, you wrote that one of your goals in life was to 'bring peace to people's minds and hearts, and help them make good decisions for themselves and become happier and healthier members of society.' Another one of your goals was to 'help bring more compassion to earth and help others understand each other and have compassion for each other, especially in the area of bridging cultural gaps.'

"Now THINK. Think about the careers you've considered and discarded and considered and discarded 45 times in the past three years. You've considered being a teacher. Going to grad school in any one of the areas you're interested in. As a professor, you'd research, you'd advise, you'd learn. You've considered being a therapist or a counselor. As one, you'd help people, you'd advise people, maybe bring more peace to them. You've considered being a journalist. As one, you'd write, you'd observe and learn, you'd learn about a wide variety of things, you'd help bring things to light. You've considered going into the foreign service. As an officer or part of the corps, you'd help bridge cultural differences, you'd learn about different people and lands, you'd travel. You've thought about being a movie critic. You'd watch a lot of movies, you'd learn things, you'd write. You've thought about serving as a consultant for movies, in whatever area you chose to study, like history.

"Any one of the above careers sounds like it would be interesting and something that you LIKE. Take a look at them. Think about which one you'd like to do most for the next couple years. It's not forever. Like the South African woman you met in Halong Bay said, 'Pick something that you like and do it. And if you don't like it, do something else.' She also pointed out that most of the people who were sitting at that table on that beach were not doing what they had studied to do.

"One of the best pieces of advice you've ever heard was from a lawyer, Maggie's mom. She said that she used to think that being free meant keeping all your options open. But she realized that being frozen in front of a dozen open doors isn't being free. There's freedom in commitment. Taking one path closes some doors. It opens at least as many different ones.

"Stop thinking so much. Pick something you like and do it."

[Tomorrow: Part 2]

[PS. Comments welcome.]

Back

Hong Kong, the freest economy in the world. Sparkling lights on buildings, garish neon on restaurant signs, throngs of well-dressed people, and -- AND... more cars than scooters! We could brush our teeth with the tap water! We could eat without fear! The huge, pristine stall in the women's bathroom in the airport nearly brought tears to my eyes. The fat roll of cushy toilet paper elicited a sob from my throat.

Wendy and I stayed one night in Hong Kong, and wallowed in our return to the first world. Wendy had managed to snag a night in a five-star hotel (we love you, Priceline!) with a view of the harbor, and we seriously considered staying in, ordering Tomb Raider on Pay-Per-View, and getting room service. I still think it would have been a fine use of time.

We ended up, however, going out to Ladies Market and trolling for last-minute gifts. Haggling, the lost art in most western countries. From my little experience with it during this trip, good riddance. We did manage to acquire a couple things that night, and then went to Victoria Peak, where the fine skyline was unfortunately obscured by fog. Durr!

In the morning, after The Hairdryer Incident (heh hah!), we wolfed down some excellent dim sum, including a $2 bowl of peanuts, peas, and raisins. Well, the peanuts were pretty tasty, I guess.

After dim sum, we got on the plane back to Seoul, arriving late Sunday evening. I was most happy to see my dad at the bus station waiting for us. We went home, ate what my grandmother and great-aunt prepared, went to sleep, and got up early to go see the DMZ on Monday with Maiko.

Whew. DMZ. The scariest place on earth, according to ex-prez Clinton. He has a point.

We first went to Odusan Unification Observatory, where we could see the joining of the Imjin and Han rivers, across which North Korea was barely visible in the fog. We then got briefed by an exceptionally tall and good-looking young American soldier at Camp Bonifas, named after a U.S. soldier killed brutally in 1976 by North Korean soldiers while trying to cut down a tree that was obstructing the view from a guardpoint in the DMZ. (The Axe Murder Incident was followed by Operation Paul Bunyan, easily the most heavily armed tree-cutting operation in history.)

We then got our passports checked by a Korean soldier, and then were driven into the DMZ by a U.S. soldier. We saw the famous buildings that lie half in South Korea and half in North Korea -- conference rooms guarded by Korean soldiers who wore sunglasses and modified taekwondo stances to appear more menacing. We heard about the world's largest flag -- the 30-meter North Korean flag flying in Propaganda Village, which is completely unoccupied except for a massive broadcast system -- and the 160-meter flagpole that was constructed after the North saw that the South Koreans had acquired a 100-meter flagpole. We climbed a pagoda and looked at the third story of a building on the North Korean side -- the third story was built as an addition so that it would be slightly taller than the complementary building on the South Korean side.

While we were on the pagoda, looking at the buildings divided in half by the Military Demarcation Line, I suddenly thought of how easy it would be for a North Korean sniper to put a bullet through me. The snow that had started falling while we were in the Odusan Observatory made the ground slick and the air chill. The part of me that viewed this trip as a tour of an interesting and historical location thought, "The snow is so appropriate -- how nicely it creates a menacing atmosphere!" The part of me recalling the unprovoked and bloody attack of 1976 thought, "This is fucking scary."

When we were filing back into the main building after seeing the conference room (and stepping into the North Korean side, of course), a North Korean soldier appeared on the steps of the matching building on the northern side. People took pictures. Our American soldier guide ushered us back in firmly.

There are actually people who live in the DMZ -- non-military people. The farmers of Freedom Village have to be from families that were in the area from years back. They are given large houses, are exempt from taxes, and have to be back in their houses by 11 pm every night. According to our American soldier guide, they make a good bit of money from the rice and ginseng that they grow. When Wendy asked why people would pay more for rice from Freedom Village, he said with a laugh: "Because it's DMZ rice!" He followed up by explaining, "Actually, they say that the rice grown here is supposedly more nutritious, because the soil here is free from chemicals and stuff. That's what they tell me, anyway."

Apparently, the North Koreans conduct tours of the DMZ as well, though not as often as the South. It's so, so odd to have this sightseeing mentality about the most heavily mined four-kilometer stretch of land in the world. Maiko was the only one of us three who brought a camera, and she felt a bit odd about taking pictures of the soldiers. In the end, though, we all three bought DMZ mugs and North Korean liquor (how that's available for sale in the South, I don't know). Hey, we're no commies. We support capitalism.
---------------------------
Reflections

Wendy's flight back to DC was at 3 pm today, and we sat in Incheon International airport for an hour, talking about the trip. I'll leave her to share her impressions of the trip and what she learned, when she guest-writes an entry here (at some point). As for me, well, I didn't come to any revelations about what I should do about law school, which I'd sort of hoped for. Perhaps, as I told Wendy, the revelations come after you return to the familiar, and see how you've changed.

I did realize, with a bit of a start, that I am a Nature Girl. The best part of this trip was the two days in Halong Bay, Vietnam, where we kayaked between the limestone karsts, walked on struts between the nets of a floating fish farm, and were far, far away from scooter-clogged streets, merchants and hotel owners who price rooms and merchandise according to how rich you look, haggling, and well, the dirty unwashed masses, I suppose. Might there be a bit of first world snobbery about my preference for cool, peaceful bays? It's possible. But I know that I really do feel most relaxed and happy when doing something sort of active in nature --whether it's paddling a kayak in the clear, still waters of Halong Bay or clambering over centuries-old ruins at Beng Melea in Cambodia or flying through rice paddies on a scooter in Hoi An. Considering that I've always lived in cities, that's a bit strange.

I also realized that financial security is very important to me. Throughout the trip, we often got caught up in the dilemma of haggling over a fair price (relatively, as an "fair price" for a westerner is going to be at least twice the price for a local) versus remembering that it was a dollar or two, an amount we'd think nothing of spending in our home countries. I enjoyed bargaining once or twice, most memorably with a young girl selling hats in Hanoi who started out quoting me a price of 45,000 dong (about $3 USD) for a sunhat -- I got her down to 25,000 after 10 minutes of "C'mon, 20 is a good price for me and you make good money" and "No! 30 is good price! Very cheap! 20 too low!" (Stay with me, I do have a point here.) Most of the time, though, I hated it: the sizing up, the research into the proper price, the hammy exclamations of astonishment that we'd offer a price that low, the tugging on the elbow and repeated "How much you pay? I give you good price", the fake-out walk-away -- all to end up, more times than not, in a smile from both sides, each having gotten what they wanted. I'd rather get the price down a dollar and be overcharged, because I usually get so stressed out about the bargaining. (And the point...) So the point is, I want to be in a position where I'm not worried about paying full price if I have to. Of course, I hardly ever do (sale racks are my friend), even at home, but I don't want to worry about having enough.

Hm. That last paragraph is a little... yeah. Logic not holding together for me either. Forget you read that. But that point about financial security may come up again in the next few days. In fact, count on it. Because for the next week, my friends, this blog is going to be about Deciding Something. The impetus, just as it was last year at this time, is the deadline for letting Harvard know whether I'm going to be attending law school this coming fall. After three years of deferring, I don't think they'll let me go another year. More importantly, I'm sick of waffling, and I'm ready to put this era of indecision behind me.

So prepare yourself, 'cause I'm going to be putting everything that's in my head on the computer screen -- the reasons to go, the reasons not to go, the options I'm considering, the value systems I'm choosing between, the obligations and expectations that come from growing up Asian American, the positions of my friends and family members and random strangers I met in the past three weeks, the person I wish I could be, the person I actually am. By putting this all up here, I hope to make clearer to myself what I'm actually struggling with. And I hope that by putting it all up here, I can see the truths that have eluded my sometimes feeble search for the past three years.

My letter to Harvard must reach them by Feb. 2. My deadline for myself is Jan. 22.

You are welcome to skip the entries for this next week.
--------------------
Acknowledgements

This blog previously stated that the author bought seven pairs of pants and a pantsuit for $122 from a tailor in Hoi An. This unprecedented act of consumerism should have been attributed to the encouragement and persuasion of Wendy S., who by dint of repeating, "You can't buy one suit for this price in the States," hypno-toaded the author into buying aforementioned articles of clothing. Author would like to acknowledge and thank Wendy S. for making her buy said clothes, all of which author adores. Author would also like to apologize for the many Nelson laughs over the course of the past three weeks, and freely admits in this public forum that she (author) is evil. (No one will believe it, of course. Heh hah!)

Bloody #$%*!!!

We got up at 5:30 am this morning and bid farewell to Hoi An. Nauseated from lack of sleep, the way-too-early hour, malaria medication, hunger (oh, take your pick), I took a Dramamine pill and passed out on the plane to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon is officially one area of Ho Chi Minh City, though many people still call the whole city Saigon). Wendy tells me that the plane ride was adventuresome -- wheels seemed unable to engage for a while, bumpy, that kind of thing -- but it was like I wasn't there.

Woke up from a sound sleep to spend a few hours in the city. We went to Ben Thanh Market, and there it happened. My camera, with all the pictures from the markets in Phnom Penh, the mass graves at the Killing Fields, the chilling interior of Tuol Sleng, the grin of our guesthouse manager in Siem Reap, the mysterious stone faces of Kuan Seum Bosal at the Bayon (part of Angkor Wat), the jungle-entwined pillars of Beng Melea, the traffic of Hanoi, the unearthly karsts of Halong Bay, the smiles of the people we kayaked with, the solemn crumbling stones of My Son, the rice paddy workers and water buffaloes in Hoi An, the beam of our industrious tailor -- 715 unedited pictures of the past three weeks are gone.

Someone lifted my digital camera in the market. Spaced out from the Dramamine and lulled into complacency by the past three weeks, I didn't notice when someone unzipped my backpack a few inches, slid a stealthy hand in, and swiped the Sony digital camera that my dad bought in Japan last year. I noticed that my backpack zipper was open a few inches at one point, and thought it strange, but didn't realize what had happened until I went outside and saw a scene I wanted to shoot.

Crouched over my backpack, realization dawning, I felt that flush of adrenaline, tingling in my face and neck. But it passed in a moment, and then I just felt resigned. Depressed. Betrayed.

But hey. I survived three weeks of traveling in a third world region with nothing more than a flu-like blip. I kayaked, climbed ruins, and rode a scooter without incident. In the end, it's enough that I got to see it all.

Additionally, I don't have to sort through and edit and post 715 photos on the web. And you don't have to look through them. Score!

Looking forward to my massage in Bangkok -- cheers til then.

Final stretch

Yikes, how many days has it been since I've blogged? And how can I possibly describe everything during that time? Especially in the 15 minutes I have until we go pick up our purchases at the tailor?

Well, I can't, silly, so here's the greatest hits version of the past few days.

We spent two and a half days in Hanoi, arranging the next few stages of our journey. Handspan Adventure Travel is a bit of a misnomer, since there wasn't much adventurous about our three-day trip to Halong Bay. Stunning, yes. Sublime, right-o. Beautiful, peaceful, luxurious, don't-want-to-leave-don't-make-me! -- yes indeedy. One night we slept on a reproduction of a Chinese junk called "Dragon's Pearl" on crisp white sheets; the next night, we took a couple boats to our own private beach on one of the limestone karsts (like islands, but rockier and smaller) that litter Halong Bay and slept in bamboo huts with thatched roofs. There was even hot water for showers.

We kayaked for a few hours on the second day and I just can't tell you how it was, because all the words fall short. We paddled once under a wall of rock into a protected cove within a karst, and the only sounds were us breathing and the croaking of an irascible crow annoyed at our intrusion. We had lunch on a deserted little beach where one of our fellow travelers placed a starfish on my hand, and I could see the little translucent tentacles poking out, exploring the environs -- my hand. We dropped the starfish back into the water, and two of them landed upside down. You could practically see them thinking, "Oh god, I hate it when that happens," before slowly and acrobatically flipping themselves over.

And I hate it when time runs away and I haven't even begun to write anything that we saw or did. Okay, in the next 5 minutes, the 5-Minute Greatest Hits Version -- the Eliptical Album.

1. Halong Bay -- Wendy came up to the beach, commenting to me and Heather, a South African woman: "I think those sea cucumbers might have something in their skin that's a natural protectant. The skin on my hands feels a little funny." Heather replies: "Well, that's what happens when you fondle sea cucumbers!" (Sea cucumbers are soft and slug-like until you touch them, when they stiffen up and shoot a protective juice out one end. Yeah, I know.)

2. Overnight train -- Rocked to sleep by the movement of the car, I slept for, like, 15 hours. Wait, maybe that was the Dramamine I took because it was so bumpy. Huh.

3. Hoi An -- lovely, charming town named a UNESCO World Heritage Site a few years back, ensuring that the French colonial buildings, the Japanese covered bridge, the Chinese assembly halls, and the languid pace of the place will stick around for a while. Also home to over 200 tailors who will whip up suits, jeans, duvet covers, dogbeds and pretty much anything else you desire for a couple dollars over the cost of the material. I thought I'd get maybe three pairs of pants. In a few minutes I'm going to pick up the fourth, fifth, and sixth pairs, plus a suit, from the hardworking seamstress at Linh Huy. Who also made Wendy a fabulous duvet cover. And pillows. And a dog bed.

4. Today -- Wow, can it get any better? We got up early to see My Son, the Vietnamese version of Ankor Wat (built by the Champa civilization, which existed from about the 4th to the 13 century). We managed to get there before the tour groups, and the early morning mist in the mountains gave the ruins, rising out of the jungle, an eerie feel. (While there, we bumped into a German man and Austrian woman who'd been on our boat in Halong Bay, and recommended our seamstress -- there's a definite route everyone follows here.) Back in town, we rented scooters and, after an initial hesitancy on my part, scooted around town in the rain and had a fanTAStic time. We were trying to find a beach, but ended up riding through lush rice paddies, taking pictures of naughty water buffalo, and being stared and laughed at by passersby.

Ack. Time to go. Tomorrow we leave for Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, where we'll wander around for a couple hours before catching our plane back to Bangkok, where it all began three weeks ago. As Wendy put it, we have only a few hours in Bangkok -- just enough time for a massage. Then, the day after tomorrow, we fly to Hong Kong, where we also spend one night, before heading back to Seoul. Til then, amigos.

Jan. 1 in Hanoi

Wendy and I ushered in the new year in a small, grungy pho place in the 24-hour restaurant alley in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. We toasted with Cokes, which the guy at the table next to us ordered for us, since we couldn't communicate this to our waitress.

Pho in Vietnam is, as you might suspect, a wonderful thing.

Which is a great, great relief to us, after the disappointing blandness of Cambodian food. Except for amok, which is a lemongrass-y soup concoction, we did not come away with a high opinion of Khmer food. Khmer cheese was especially horrendous -- described as "mined pork cheese" on the menu, we brought it upon ourselves when we gave into curiosity and ordered this dish, which was some unholy combination of meat, fat, and ... ewww.

Cambodia was difficult. For more reasons than bland food. The atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge are so recent, they show up everywhere -- in the way you cannot go off marked paths, for fear of mines; in the missing limbs of the beggars in the streets; in the lack of an educated population. There was a feeling in the air, a heavy, troublesome kind of weight that bowed our shoulders and made us eager to leave.

We couldn't leave, though, for several days, because first Wendy and then I got sick there. Wendy got over her illness in 12 hours; I'm still feeling the effects of mine in periodic bouts of extreme fatigue, when even breathing feels like an effort. Because of being sick, we were in Siem Reap for six days, and felt every one of them because, I think, the weight of the past was pressing down on us more and more each day.

Leaving was a comedy of errors. First, our bestest friend and guesthouse manager, Chhay, uncharacteristically made a mistake when ordering our plane tickets to Luang Prabang, Laos -- he wrote down Jan. 7 as the leave date instead of Dec. 31. We jiggered flights around and figured out a way to get into Laos through another city, but a full connecting flight meant that we would have had to wait a day in Pakse before heading into the city we really wanted to see. So at the airport, we abruptly decided to go to Hanoi instead. I felt rather badly, negating the frantic work of Chhay and his uncle, who works at the airline company, but in the end, it's probably best we came here; with me still feeling the effects of being sick, Hanoi is a safer bet than Laos.

Getting the ticket to Hanoi, we went through some more shenanigans: the ticket agent first mistakenly put Ho Chi Minh as our destination on our ticket, which had to be taken back to the airport and changed. Then, our second, correct ticket was somehow mistakenly sent to Phnom Penh. So we got a receipt from the agent and joked the rest of the day about how we might be going to Hanoi, but who knew? We might be going to Bangkok! Or Vientiane! Ha ha! Ahahahaha!

On top of it all, after getting our receipt for the plane tickets, we went to the Angkoriana Hotel to sit by the resort-like pool again, where we ordered two dishes: spring rolls and salade nicoise. The spring rolls came. And then the waiter brought out a wicker container and opened the lid, announcing, "Fish amok." (Fish amok is a curry-like soup that is the best Cambodian dish I tried.)
Um, fish amok... salade nicoise... yeah, that's ... no. Fish amok wasn't even on the same menu page as the salade nicoise! This wouldn't have been half as funny as it was had it not been for the fact that when we were previously at the Angkoriana, we'd ordered two dishes, one of which the staff got wrong also. We sent it back, but the dish we ordered never came to us. However, it was charged to us on the bill.

All this made us rather punchy by the time we left. And very glad to finally make it to Hanoi, which is dirty, smelly, polluted, traffic accident-y, and wonderful. Every time we cross the street, we feel like we've achieved a great thing, and for good reason -- there are very few signal lights, and so you wait for a break in the stream of scooters, bikes, cars and buses to slowly -- slowly! -- and steadily make your way across. The slowness is key -- Lonely Planet says it's the best way to let the oncoming motorcyclists gauge how to get around you, and I think they're right.

We took today and yesterday very easy, sleeping in late and wandering slowly around rather than rush from sight to sight. We do regret missing seeing Uncle Ho's embalmed body, though.

Tomorrow morning, we're off on a three day tour of Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We'll spend one night sleeping on a reproduction of a Chinese junk, and one night sleeping on an island, plus spend one day kayaking around the magnificent stone karsts (rocky island-y thingees). Can't wait. The pictures look stunning.

After that, we're on an overnight train to Hoi An, where I hope to be able to log in again. Til then, amigos.

Wendy is strong

In Siem Reap, we were both sick. Body ache, nausea, general malaise. The difference being that Wendy got over her traveler's sickness in 12 hours whereas I took three full days off from any sightseeing.

Wendy got sick the first day we were to see the temples, so I went around by myself for the day. By sundown, she felt well enough to go for a massage (by blind Cambodian masseurs -- interesting experience). The day after, we got up at 4:45 am to see the sun rise at Angkor Wat. I felt a little strange, though, and since I had seen the sun set at Preah Bakheng the day before, I decided to skip the sunrise. (The sunset was beautiful, by the way -- classic fireball sinking into the horizon, illuminating jungle for miles.) By the time Wendy came back to check on me, I was starting to feel achey, and thereafter sank rapidly into the kind of whole-body aching you get with the flu.

So the first day, Dec. 27, I was achey.

The second day, I was sick to my stomach and headachey. But I can't blame the headache on adjusting to the region's bacteria and such, because I probably got it from reading too much (borrowed the copy of Middlesex that Wendy brought -- fantastic read, by the way).

And the third day, I was well enough to venture out to Angkoriana Hotel, where we sat by the hotel pool for several hours.

The fourth day, Dec. 30, I finally went to see some temples. I'd only gotten to use the first day of my three-day pass to Angkor Wat -- the other two days, I'd been sick. I made up for it on Dec. 30, when I packed in 4 temples in the same day. The first, Beng Melea, was about 60 kilometers from Siem Reap, where our guesthouse was, so we hired our guesthouse manager and his four wheel drive jeep for the day.

Beng Melea was de-mined and opened to the public two years ago. It's... well, let's just say that Wendy and I kept saying to each other: "They made this yesterday. Total tourist hoax. This is a movie set." Overrun with trees and vegetation, the structure's fallen rubble made it necessary for us to climb over the fallen building stones, like adventurers of old. We felt like explorers who had just happened upon this magnificent and eery ruin in the jungle.

Funny story: There is no entrance fee to Beng Melea; it's not included in the dozens of temples you need a pass to see. But at the start of the 300-meter road to the structure, there were several men, two dressed in police uniforms, who motioned for us to stop. They said we needed to pay.

Wendy called out to them, "No, he said we didn't have to pay. It's free," and kept on walking.

The men walked in front of us, forming a haphazard line, and motioned for us to stop again. Wendy walked past them, and I, following her lead, slipped past two of them also.

They kept following us for a hundred meters or so, and I asked Wendy quietly, "Are you worried at all about the fact that these men are following us?"

She shook her head, "Not at all. They're like the beggar children, they just want money. Just ignore them."

"Oh," I said, unconvinced and nervous.

"Don't you remember what Chhay [our guesthouse manager and bestest friend in Cambodia] said?" she asked me. "He said that if we're strong, we don't have to pay." And then I did remember. Chhay had warned us that there might be some people at Beng Melea who would try to exhort a fee from us to see the building, even though it was free. "But if you're strong," he continued, with his usual 1,000-watt smile, "you don't have to pay."

On the way out, another two women tourists had been stopped by the same men and we about to pay, when we passed them. "I kind of feel like telling them that they don't have to pay," I said. "Yeah, I had the same thought. I think I'm going to tell them," Wendy said. "You don't have to pay," she called out. "It's free," I added. And two more tourists passed by the extortionists without incident.