Dispatches from the Peninsula

by Chris Tharp

  In a stall to our right, chickens and ducks were crammed into cages, lorded over by stern old women and their husbands. The place was badly lit and dirty; we sensed that we were in the rougher part of town, the fringe of the city of Busan. Next to the fowl was the first dog cage. Ten or so yellow dogs were crammed in. They looked out at us with warm, dark eyes, though you could taste their sense of resignation. They knew what was up. When Koreans talk about dog meat, they usually tell us how the yellow dogs–the meat dogs–are bred for that purpose only. This is true, I’m sure, but the dogs we gazed upon looked like sweet, friendly pets. These were individuals–social, healthy-looking pups. They had no look of livestock.

  For the next two blocks we passed cage after cage of dogs–most of which contained these cute yellow guys, but with some other breeds thrown in for good measure… perhaps a canine butcher’s affirmative action program? Next to the cages were the open-air meat cases, containing the skinned carcasses. The cavities were hollowed out, with only the liver and a few other tasty bits remaining. Legs stabbed into the air like those of inverted tables, with the naked tails poking and coiling, wormlike.

  As we descended into this market, we tried to maintain our cool, our distance. We were foreigners, and while the sellers were eyeing us with obvious suspicion, no one was shooing us away. The people who worked the stalls were leather-tough in that way that only old Koreans can be–all spit and scowls–sometimes addressing each other in blunt Busan saturi, with its hisses, moans, and almost Arabic-sounding gutturals. At one point we approached a case to closely inspect a fresh-looking carcass, glistening blood-red and brown. The hard-as-rebar old woman tending the front tried to block us from taking a peek, but we ignored her, despite her lethal gaze.

  “Looks delicious,” I said to her in Korean. She turned away, unmoved.

  We made it out of the side street and paused to take a breath. I had seen countless markets in Korea–with their raw organs, pig heads, and Lovecraftian sea creatures splayed out in full glory–but what I had just taken in stabbed me in a deep place. The sour reek of dog shit also hung in the air, and this combination of sight and smell not only caused me to gag, but succeeded in erasing my ravenous appetite; lunch would be delayed indefinitely.

  After this break to gather our wits and avoid retching, we decided to take another pass down dog alley and snap some photos, which would be no easy feat, as the folks who man the stalls in dog markets are notorious in their aggressive resistance to photos being taken, especially by nosy, tsk-tsk’ing foreigners. As Sam surreptitiously attempted to click a few shots, he realized the battery on his camera had died: so much for the damning evidence, the main reason we had come to this pitiful place to begin with. The scene before us would have to be recorded by memory alone.

  Though we got no photos, we did see more sights, some unexpected, including cages containing black goats, and one stuffed full of mewing cats. This had me scratching my head. Dogs, I knew, but cats? I later learned that sometimes the elderly in Korea eat a soup made from cats in an attempt to combat rheumatism and arthritis. The belief is that a cat’s innate flexibility can be passed on to the joints through the broth. By this line of reasoning, California condor flesh should endow us with the power of flight, manatee meat should help us to become wise and gentle swimmers, and unicorn steak should give us the ability to crap rainbows.

  Sometimes we just have to surrender to the notion of cultural relativity.

  We ended up finding a new wing of the dog area. As we approached one stall, the old woman warmly greeted us and invited us to check out the wares. She held up a meaty leg cut and shook it vigorously.

  “The leg is the most delicious part,” she said, showing us her gold teeth through a grin. She gestured to the scale and nodded, ready to wrap it up for us.

  We smiled and politely declined the offer, walking away from the cages and the keepers. As we passed one, I saw a man open the top of the cage and slip a snare around one of the unfortunate occupants, who let out a high-pitched whine.

  “Life’s tough, guys.” Sam said.

  The man lifted the struggling dog out.

  As Sam and I turned down a side alley, and we heard its futile yelps and cries reverberate behind us. We kept on walking into the more welcoming section of the market, where perhaps our lunchtime appetites would return.

  Just another day’s work at Gupo.

  INTERLUDE: JULY 9TH, 2006

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  I’ve just finished watching the last game of the World Cup. Italy beat France in penalty shootouts. The French side folded after Zidane head-butted that guy and was sent off. Craziness. To think that it’s his last game, and that’s how he’ll be remembered…

  I woke up in the wrong house. Pauly stirred me and handed me the phone. Evidently Irish Ray and I got into it at his place after eight hours of straight whiskey drinking. There are flashes of clarity: slamming into the cupboards in his kitchen. Being ripped from him on his front lawn. Threats of police being called. Me screaming something about my father.

  As Pauly insisted, I call Ray, but he isn’t having my apology. He has a black eye and is threatening to break my camera, which is sitting on his couch. He’s ranting in his Galway brogue about me costing him $15,000 in a commission that he’ll never collect. He’s a stockbroker and lives on image: a black eye just won’t do. The big meeting on Monday is evidently off.

  So much for my happy trip back home.

  I leave for Arizona in two days, first to Bisbee, to see my friend Ariel and his family, and then on to Glen’s place outside of Phoenix, for a quick reunion of the Brothers Tharp. As Bruce Springsteen sings, “Nothing feels better than blood on blood.”

  My hatred for L.A. aches in my bones. I now remember why I left, and why I never want to return.

  CHAPTER 11: DON’T BITE THE HAND THAT ISSUES THE VISA

  After living in Korea for a while, it’s easy to forget the fact that you are a guest in a foreign land. It’s easy to settle into the rhythms of your life and live much the same way you did back home, oblivious to the fact that there is a whole different set of rules–both codified and cultural–by which you are required to abide. It’s tempting to lose your head and forget where you are, glowing in the false sense of freedom that can be so palpable here. After all, you can drink until seven in the morning, walk down the street with a beer, and ride your motorbike on the sidewalk; the cops pretty much leave foreigners alone.

  When I go back to the States, I am constantly looking over my shoulder, in full knowledge that the police are just looking for any excuse–a gnawing paranoia that is refreshingly absent here. It’s also easy to get sucked into the incestuous, self-feeding morass of expat life, and pass time exclusively with your Western, English-speaking comrades, carrying on as if you were in Chicago, Toronto, Christchurch, or Leeds. Any sense of cultural sensitivity is numbed with each successive night of drinking. You feel safe and ignored, counting on the language barrier as some kind of DMZ that gives you carte blanche to act as you wish. You drop your guard and loosen your tongue, and this is when things get dangerous. This is when you are most likely to step out of line; this is when you are most likely to do or say something that pisses the locals off.

  As I’ve mentioned, I used to be an actor. I did theater as a kid and all throughout high school. I trained at an actors’ conservatory during college and spent nearly ten years afterwards making plays and performing sketch comedy, improvisation, and even some standup. I lived for the thrill of getting up in front of people, especially when the goal was to make them laugh. I have been compelled to do it since childhood and, through practice and training, I have managed to get pretty good.

  This instinct to perform didn’t evaporate once I packed my bags and hit the rocky shores of Asia. My need to be the center of attention was quickly recognized, and earned me the nickname Showbiz by my drinking buddies down at the Crown, the shitty little pub where the most cantankerous of the ESL crowd would gather and hu
rl abuse at each other. The nickname was both a mild insult and a term of endearment, but it stuck hard because it was so damn true.

  During my first year, I performed with Angry Steve in Heungbu and Nolbu. This was a silly little fifteen-minute affair for our Korean class, conducted mainly by non-actors who could barely spit out the most basic greeting in the language, let alone nail a convincing theatrical line. I couldn’t even read Hangul at the time, but rather learned my lines phonetically, writing out the sounds in English. It was ridiculous and truly awful to watch, but in the end we did do a play: we memorized lines, put on traditional Korean costumes, and acted on a stage. That same year, I also participated a few times at Poetry Plus, a bi-monthly open mike of sorts, where I tested out my new Korea-centric comedy routine:

  “Korea. That’s a strange name for a country. Kind of sounds like a disease, doesn’t it? Hey doc, I think have Korea.”

  “Sounds serious. What are the symptoms?”

  “Well, I find myself spitting in elevators, shitting fire, and irrationally hating the Japanese.”

  Some of the jokes did garner decent laughs, but, needless to say, I kept my day job.

  Not only was Steve an angry poker player, but he was quite serious about producing some English-language theater in Busan. After all, we were both passionate about drama and making it would help keep us out of the bar, which can be a sort of quicksand for the hobby-less English teacher. So in the fall of 2005, Steve put on a short one-act play, Luigi Pirandello’s The Leader, in which I appeared. We staged it at Poetry Plus and people loved it. The response was massive and it became apparent to us that there was a hungry audience for this sort of thing, both among the expat community and some Koreans themselves.

  In fact, a Korean producer took note of the show and soon contacted Steve about staging a full-length play. Steve ended up choosing Dario Fo’s political farce, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, in which I played the main role of the Maniac. This was a fully-produced piece–rehearsed over several months, staged with set, costumes, lighting, and sound design, and run at an actual theater on the campus of Busan’s Kyungsung University. The turnout was good, and while it was hard work (all theater is), it was a hell of a lot of fun. Everyone involved left the production stoked and eager to bite off something new. We had a basic ensemble of competent performers. We had an audience. We had a director. So the question was: what next?

  Steve and I were chatting over cold beers at the Crown. It was a muggy night in late August and I had just returned from three-week jaunt back to the Land of the Free. I was supposed to grab some plays while I was home, so we could read them over and pick one to produce. But during my last few days home, I had a revelation.

  “Screw doing another play,” I said, gripping the glass mug of Cass lager. “Let’s write our own thing. Let’s do a sketch comedy show about living in Korea.”

  Steve’s furrowed forehead slackened. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “We’ll produce the whole thing ourselves. Do it in a small theater. We’ll sell booze right there–do it late-night style.” This is how a lot of the theater I had been involved before with was done: late at night in small venues with plenty of alcohol to lube the crowd. It was a recipe for success.

  “And the material?” Steve’s tone was serious. “We have to tread lightly here. We can’t turn this into a Korea-bashing fest.”

  “Of course not. We’ll make fun of both foreigners AND Koreans. It will be an equal opportunity affair.”

  And so Babopalooza was born.

  Babopalooza was the first English-language sketch-comedy show ever produced in Busan, and perhaps the whole of Korea. The idea was to create a silly, rowdy night of comedy–a sort of expatriate Feast of Fools–where we playfully skewered each other as well as our Korean hosts. The cast consisted of most of the people involved with Anarchist, along with a couple of new folks–nine in total–as well as Cuttlefish, a foreigner rock band we recruited to play between scenes. Four cast members also served as writers, generating an hour and twenty minutes’ worth of sketches. We took on a variety of subjects, including the prevalence of ignorant expats who do nothing but complain, things overheard from kids at the hagwon, a send-up of Green Eggs and Ham about eating dog soup, a parody of a popular character from a kids’ English book series, and a controversial sketch which skewered the Korea Immigration Service.

  After a couple of months of rehearsal, we rented a tiny theater and performed the show twice. Both nights sold out, with people literally straining to poke their heads through the door to get a glimpse. And the crowd was quite mixed: though the majority were foreign English teachers, a sizable Korean contingent was represented.

  We charged 7,000 won for tickets and sold cheap Korean beer from a cooler. All the proceeds would be used to recoup the production’s expenses. Even with full-capacity houses, we were doomed to lose money, which really didn’t faze us, since we were doing the thing for fun. Actually, profiting from the show was never an intention. In fact, we intentionally chose to keep the tickets cheap, in the tradition of late-night theater.

  The show was a small hit. The audience laughed generously at even the weaker jokes, and a couple of the sketches knocked it out of the park. Even the Korean spectators seemed to enjoy our sketches that made fun of them. Koreans are notoriously thin-skinned and, at times, can take the slightest criticism from a foreigner as a grave insult. Their own comedy also lacks a satirical element: there are several popular comedy shows on the television, but they veer toward extreme silliness and slapstick. Most of them consist of groups of men performing ridiculous challenges that involve lots of running, shouting, hitting each other in the nuts, and falling down. It can be quite funny (even to one with limited Korean skills), but I’ve yet to see one program that takes on positions of authority, which is essential for satire.

  Most of the sketches were well received by all, with the exception of the Immigration sketch. This was not surprising, since we had known all along of the potential for this one to offend. In fact, Steve was so concerned with its over-the-line content and racist style that at one point during the rehearsal process he insisted that it be cut. I initially went along with him, but when we sat down with the writer–an essential and very funny member of the cast–he vehemently defended the piece and threatened to walk if we axed it. This guy had lived in Korea for many years and spoke the language nearly fluently. His impassioned defense of his piece appealed to my “free speech at any cost” instincts, and in the end I sided with him, overruling Steve, who served as co-director on the project.

  I have always believed that the best comedy is that which isn’t afraid to offend. This has been a mantra of sorts for much of my life. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, right? Isn’t that what any artist worth a damn would say? Normally I’d say yes, but this mindset can be construed as a kind of artistic hubris. Back in America this no-holds-barred attitude may be absolutely salient, but in my blind defense of provocative comedy, I had forgotten one important fact: I wasn’t in America. I was in a country that until very recently had jailed and tortured people for free speech violations. I was in a country still repairing its national self-esteem after being stepped on and humiliated by foreign powers for a good part of its 5000-year history.

  Steve had been right: the sketch should have been cut. It did offend and did so mightily. The piece took place in an airport, where a just off-the-plane young English teacher is interrogated by a three-person panel of Korean Immigration officials. He is asked about various aspects of Korean culture. Foreign actors portrayed the officials in stilted, accented English. I wore a black wig and huge glasses–a kind of Asian blackface, really. There were jokes about dog-eating, suicide, Dokdo (the disputed islets between Korea and Japan), and the sanctity of Korean women. So yes, the sketch was totally racist, and above that, it committed a cardinal sin in this oh-so-Confucian of societies: it ridiculed people in positions of authority… over us. This is how our asses were later bitten.
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  Just over a week after the two performances of Babopalooza, two detectives showed up at the university where Steve and I both worked. They pulled us into an office and asked a few questions. Were we indeed involved with the show? Did we make fun of Korean culture? Above all, did we charge money? They also informed us that two undercover cops had come and videotaped the whole thing.

  The visas of most English teachers in Korea are quite narrow in scope: you are allowed to work only at the school or institution sponsoring the visa. Any sort of outside income is strictly prohibited. Babopalooza was entirely organized and produced by English teachers. We charged for tickets and sold some beer. This was considered an outside commercial exercise, in direct violation of our work visas. No matter what other defenses we came up with, the law on this was clear. They had us by the balls.

  The entire cast and many of the musicians were summoned to Busan’s central police headquarters and questioned about our involvement in the affair. As the obvious ringleaders, Steve and I were brought in first. We were separated and subjected to three hours of interrogation, through a hired interpreter. I insisted on ringing the US Embassy to let them know what was going on, and the woman at the other end of the line curtly informed me that they were in no power to intervene, that I was subject to Korean law, but to keep them abreast of the situation. This didn’t surprise me, but I thought I’d let them know what was up. Plus, I wanted the police to know that I was taking this seriously. The police were courteous, yet extremely thorough in their questioning. At first they wanted to know general information about the show, along with who was involved. This was an exercise in redundancy on their part, since they possessed several programs with most of the participants’ names listed clearly in black ink. There was no need for me to name names, so I just referred them to the pamphlet. Later they pressed me on the technicalities: was I aware that charging money for tickets violated my visa? How much did we pocket? The final phase of questioning was the most pointed: why did we do a sketch about boshintang (dog soup)? Did we hate Korean Immigration? Why did we ridicule Korean culture? Was I not thankful to live and work in Korea?