(This piece was written for The Nervous Breakdown)

I lean over the railing, watching shrieking seabirds swoop overhead, feeling a swift sea breeze rearrange my hair from purposefully tousled to straight up disheveled. Fishing vessels chug out into deeper waters and boats span their sails to catch a westerly. Lighthouses peak out from rocky coves. Towering homes with waterfront views stake the claim of unseen wealthy residents. Taken as a whole, the scenery panning outward from the deck of the Martha’s Vineyard Ferry is a Norman Rockwell-esque interpretation of New England summertime utopia.

After the ferry docks I stroll through the port town of Vineyard Haven. Stonewalls frame the perfectly manicured lawns of cedar-shingled homes with fresh white trim paint and Nantucket-blue doors.Restaurants proudly boast on hand-painted signs that they sell organic, island-grown food. Bikers zoom up and down the streets, navigating between shiny imports in that annoying, spandex-soldier manner of cycling enthusiasts

I proceed to the rendezvous point and await my friend’s arrival. While I’m standing there a cop approaches.

“Hi, excuse me, sir. I don’t want any trouble or anything, but would you mind not waiting here? This is the taxi pick up zone. I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s for safety reasons.”

I stare at him, perplexed. I’ve never had a cop speak to me like this. I’m used to brutes with sausage arms addressing me with the humanity of RoboCop. This guy is like a boy scout. He’s talking to me in the defensive way I normally speak to an officer.

“Hey pal, move it along,” I tell him. “Go on, beat it, get out. I don’t want to see you around here anymore, understand?”

Okay, I don’t say that. But I’m certain I could get away with it.

My friend pulls up in the taxi zone. I heave my rucksack into the bed of his truck, slide into the passenger seat, and we’re off. The cop gives a friendly wave in parting.

“So what do you think?” says my friend.

“It’s really fucking white here,” I say.

This single, offhand comment serves as the entry point for a goal I loosely set for myself over the course of the month I am to spend in Martha’s Vineyard. The mission: to discern the essence of Whiteness.

Touching down on this island, I feel the way I imagine Darwin did when he arrived on the Galapagos.Although he may not have immediately known the place would give birth to the theory of evolution, surely he must have felt a sense that the creatures there were a portal to some greater truth.

While arguably scientific, my research is nonetheless painstaking. I linger long after my meal is finished at restaurants and listen in on conversations. I lie on the beach, my eyes hidden behind dark aviators, observing the behavior of the vacationing fauna. At supermarkets I keenly observe what people are buying.While a guest in peoples’ homes I make mental inventories of their possessions. I am, in short, a total creep.

Not long into my project I identify three major varieties of American Caucasian. The first demonstrates an inclination to enjoy such things as copious amounts of horsepower, blowing the fuck out of quadrupeds, and speaking derisively of France. They tend to overestimate their physical prowess while underestimating the importance of family planning. These whites are very rare on the island.

The second major type of Caucasian is abundant during the summer months on the Vineyard, tending to winter in other parts of their eastern range, including New York, Boston, Washington, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Virginia. When not driving their high performance four wheel drive vehicles on dry, flat pavement and subtly endorsing eugenics, they generally keep busy by making sure themselves and their family are spared from inhaling the plebian stench of the first type of white person.

By far the largest gathering of Whites on the island occurs within a third group, and it is this variety of Caucasian that ultimately became the subject of my research. With each passing day the master list of ideas, pastimes and objects that define this group grew into a collective snapshot of their essence. Darwin would be proud. In fact, if he was still alive, he would probably be considered among this group.

Things were going great until somebody forwarded me a link to a website entitled Stuff White People Like, which became so popular it earned the author a book deal with Random House.

I had been foiled by my fellow white man; relegated to mere Alfred Russell Wallace status.

Despite my disappointment, there a good number of differences between our lists, enough so that I feel justified sharing a portion of mine. Besides, I’m not going to let weeks of investigation go to waste. If I’ve learned anything from my research, it’s that distinguishing yourself ever so slightly from your peers is, dare I say, the white thing to do.

Thinking they can speak Spanish

When you ask a white person if they speak Spanish, their answer is typically “a little bit” or “some” or “I know a few words.” This is a lie. It is invariably true that all white people can speak a little Spanish. But when pressed, their knowledge rarely extends beyond what one can learn from hanging out at a Taco Bell trying to get laid by the cute little Latina who works the counter. White people somehow think that America’s proximity to Mexico has resulted in lingual osmosis. As impressive as it is that they we as a nation can say tortilla, tequila, hola and adios, this nonetheless does not qualify as speaking Spanish.

Starting a blog

At some point, most white people consider starting or actually start a blog. White people deem their ideas to be highly valuable, as they spend many hours of their life reading, watching documentaries, amassing degrees, and otherwise learning things that will in no way make them more employable. But one-upping others via pseudo-intellectualism is far more valuable to white people than money. A blog offers the perfect forum for them to repackage their unoriginal thoughts and receive undying praise from a handful of family and friends.

Granite countertops

White people revere granite for its strength, durability, breadth of colors and the fact that it appears in the kitchens of other white people. Although granite is considered top of the line, quartz, marble, slate, limestone and soapstone are also acceptable. Faux granite, if it successfully passes as authentic, could earn a white person praise for their clever taste and value consciousness. If it is easily spotted as a knock-off, however, the impostor’s true hard-stone-owning peers might wonder what’s coming next. Engineered wood flooring? An above ground pool? A Daewoo?

Ideally, granite should be matched with stainless steel appliances and illuminated by recessed lighting.Extra whiteness points are awarded to those who do the work themselves, buy environmentally friendly, re-quarried granite, and extend the use of granite into the bathroom. Nothing says white like browsing The Economist on an e-reader while dropping an organically-generated deuce and appreciating the millions of years of geological activity required to form the vanity top.

Yard sales

White people are fond of shunning materialism, and often speak of “decluttering” or “simplifying” their life.Doing so serves as a material cleanse that leaves them feeling morally superior to their hoarding friends and family. Selling possessions at a yard sale, garage sale, rummage sale, flea market, or any other event geared around the purging of old possessions is a good way to achieve this. For the white buyer at a yard sale, they can feel good about not creating more waste and pollution through the manufacture of new products. It’s a whitey win-win.

Salmon clothing

From a young age we are taught that pink is a color appropriate for girls, not boys. But somewhere around high school white guys substitute the word pink for salmon and begin to occasionally wear clothing of this hue. For the white male, wearing pink is a way to demonstrate he doesn’t care what people think and is an individual who eschews established trends. Both of these qualities are extremely important to white people.Salmon haberdashery is also a hit with white people because it is considered more European, and white people generally consider anything from Europe to be more sophisticated.

Knowing the weather forecast

Due to their connection to nature and need to spend as much time as possible outdoors, it is important for white people to know the weather forecast. More advanced white people can even tell you sunrise and sunset times, when high and low tide occurs, and the current lunar phase. Some white people are so gifted that they can explain the difference between scattered and isolated showers as well as partly sunny and mostly cloudy skies.

Having a good vocabulary

Having a good vocabulary is essential for a white person. It is a way to demonstrate that they are well read and intellectual. Among mixed company, a white person may employ big words as a probe to find other white people. However, they must be careful when taking this approach, as it could be perceived as hostile by those whose vocabulary is not so expansive. When this happens, a white person needs to be able to quickly disguise their words to match the prevailing vernacular. For example, if a white guy uses a word like canard or vicissitude, and subsequently draws dirty looks and/or furrowed brows from other males, he needs to quickly be able to find common ground by talking about the local sporting team and/or degrading women.

It is important to note that one white person will never admit they don’t know the meaning of a word used by another white person. If stumped, they will smile and nod in understanding, then use their 3G equipped mobile device to perform an internet search for the word meaning.

Another interesting case occurs when one white person encounters another of equal lingual talents and a subtle vocabulary standoff ensues. When this happens, the winner can usually be decided by determining who has a greater understanding of word etymology, or who has a better vocabulary in a foreign language, as most white people speak or claim to speak at least 2 or 3.

Historical reenactments

Mock Civil War and Revolutionary War battles. The sites of historical battlefields. Living villages where workers dress in colonial garb and present themselves as blacksmiths, candle makers and grocers. Those places where you can watch knights joust while a serving wench brings you a side of beef and a giant glass of ale. If it involves history being reenacted or otherwise kept in the present, then white people are on board.When considered alongside their predisposition for antiquing, it follows logically that white people have an affinity for anything from the past (which they might refer to as rustic, classic, or traditional). Think of the hours of joy an older white man can experience watching the History Channel, or the fact that most white women would give a fallopian tube to live in a Victorian-era home. This also explains, in part, why white people love Europe. Just by going there and walking among the historic buildings, they consider themselves to be more civilized. Focusing on the past also suits white people because they like to bemoan the soullessness of modern life and offer rural, agrarian lives as a utopia.

Having a shitty job when they are young

Young white people are expected to work at least one degrading job when they are young, such as slinging burgers, working on a construction crew, or being sodomized by a priest. Although the work does not have to be physically demanding, it should be low-paying and foster a sense of hopelessness towards a capitalist economy and consumer culture, two institutions that white people will continue to speak derisively about for the rest of their lives.

Having a shitty job is the closest thing white people have to a coming-of-age ritual. Once a white person graduates from university and takes a stable, well-paying, benefited position, they have entered “the real world,” as they like to call it, and are officially an adult. As such, they gain the authority to talk to younger white people about the importance of temporarily scooping ice cream, mopping floors, stocking shelves, etc.They can explain to the youth that in order to become a know-it-all in regards to the shortcomings of Western culture, it is necessary to first gain firsthand experience in one of its more base aspects.

This period is also a vital opportunity for white people to learn tolerance, another principle that they laud.By working alongside and getting to know foreign and uneducated people, white people learn that members of these other groups, despite holding outdated views on health, politics, religion, and aesthetics, are nonetheless decent. This stance is well summarized by a favorite white expression: “They’re not bad people…they’re just ignorant.”

British Accents

If you have a British accent, white people automatically take you to be more attractive, well-spoken and charming. People from England have the purest form of this tongue, although those from other parts of the UK, as well as residents of New Zealand and South Africa, are also acceptable. Australian accents are tolerable as a last resort.

White people perceive a British accent as an oratory superpower that turns a speaker’s every word into mellifluous diction. When George W. Bush and Tony Blair presided over their respective nations, white people found Blair utterly charming, whereas Bush was seen as a pariah, despite the fact that both men lured their country into an unjustified war using bogus information. When watching Blair spew lies and propaganda, white people responded by wondering why they couldn’t have a thoughtful, intelligent, well-spoken leader. But when witnessing similar behavior from Dubya, white people tended to watch Zeitgeist, talk about how America was become Fascist, and reference Orwell’s 1984 ad nauseam.

All white people dream of dating somebody with a British accent. Being seen with even an average-looking man or woman with a British accent instantly raises the credibility of a white person. When asked to explain the appeal, however, white people generally can only offer up unconvincing comparatives such as, “it just sounds more sophisticated/classy/distinguished.” White people also come up empty when attempting to explain why a British inflection virtually disappears when words are sung.

Thinking they are part Native American

White people are, naturally, of European descent. This fact, however, does not keep a great number of them from insisting that they are part Native American. White people who claim to be of Native descent typically follow the same pattern. They begin by offering a fractional amount of their heritage, such as ¼, 1/8, 1/16, etc. and end by referencing a shadowy family legend about the Native American in question. A comment may also be made about just missing the cutoff that allows people of Native ancestry free admission to Dartmouth. They may go on to attribute their dubitable genetics to a great number of things, including athleticism, woodcraft skills, and the inability to hold their liquor.

White people consider all things Native American, like those from Europe, to be wiser and more desirable.While they have no idea how to live off the land and in harmony with nature, white people still pay lip service to the value of such a lifestyle. It is also en vogue for white people to speak out against the genocide of Native Americans and shun the barbarism of Manifest Destiny. But the fact remains that white people have a much better chance of being related to somebody who killed a Native American in the name of Caucasian dominance than actually having a Native American relative.

As the U.S. soccer team desperately played for an equalizer in the waning moments of extra time against Ghana, I thought that the outcome of the game and my reaction to it might make for an interesting essay. In fact, I was already quite certain of the general tone and themes that would be presented in a piece about either a win or a loss. They went something like this.

Scenario #1: Victory

In this version of the essay, Team U.S.A. ties the score and goes on to win in a penalty kick shootout. I describe the victory with cheesy, predictable platitudes such as: you have to keep on believing in yourself despite seemingly insurmountable odds and success ultimately trumps any hardships one must endure.

The essay then diverts into a deep, introspective tangent, in which I have the epiphany that life trudges forward with predictable monotony no matter how joyous a single accomplishment is. I go on to describe how unadorned moments comprise the essence of existence, not the occasional supernova of the ego. I end this section by stating a maxim, for example: After the flames of temporary glory have turned to ash, one must resume the search for contentedness in the small, poorly-lit corners of life.

This version of the essay concludes with me witnessing something outdoors, for instance, a bird landing on the feeder and pecking at the suet. I smile and bask in the enlightened perspective that no great achievement can replace such a moment of simple beauty and connectivity with the universe. And then winning a soccer match doesn’t seem so impressive anymore.

Scenario #2: Defeat

In this version of the essay, team U.S.A. loses. I am crestfallen, which prompts a comparison between following a sports team and being in a relationship. I talk about how, with both, there is a strong tendency to root your emotional well-being in an externality. Then, I equate winning with being in love and losing with heartbreak by writing something to the tune of: When times are good, you feast with the gods. In bad times, all the world casts long shadows. I complete the metaphor with a witty one-liner, such as: But with love and sport, even when you direct a string of obscenities at your beloved, throw the remote control at them and storm out of the room, vowing that this time you’re tuning out for good, you sheepishly return and give things another shot.

After a weak transitional paragraph, the piece assumes an angry tone and I lash out against the profit-driven, mainstream-media-controlled consumer culture. I construct a pointed argument about how the sporting industry is just bread and circuses and Team U.S.A. is a bunch of gladiators used to distract people from the issues that really matter.

I can barely contain my rage; I seethe and flecks of spittle fly from my mouth as I write about America being currently engaged in the longest war in its history, the thousands of lives that have been ruined by pedophilic priests, and the millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, among other topics.

In the following section, the tone shifts from angry to somber. I realize that, in a way, this loss is an awakening. I declare that I now understand the proper function of sport is to deflect reality and will never again buy into the corporate-hype advertising machine. The essay ends with me characterizing the masses as bovine for continuing to be duped by the sporting world’s high-production stagecraft.

Scenario #3: What actually happened

Team U.S.A. loses. My friend shuts the TV off quickly, before we are forced to see the other side’s victory celebration. We sit in tense, awkward silence for a few moments and I break it by saying, “Fuck it. Good thing I bet on Ghana.”

On the ride home I can tell I’m a little tipsy because whenever I drive drunk the car’s hood appears superimposed on the road. When I operate the vehicle in this state I’m not really driving, but rather guiding the hood in the appropriate direction.

I arrive home tired from drinking midday beers so I take a nap. When I awake the sting of defeat lingers. To deflect it, I go for a bike ride, channeling my frustration into climbing the biggest hill in the area. It is a 15 minute uphill charge of pain and sweat and grimacing.

Upon cresting the hill I turn right around and fly down at breakneck speed. I yell out, “Fuck you motherfuckers.” But I don’t really know who the motherfuckers are or why I’m mad at them.

As I’m riding I wish I had a pen and paper because I have a wonderful idea for an essay. I want to write about the absurdity of predicting how you’re going to feel about something before it happens.

I was sitting on the front steps reading, within ear but not eyeshot of the driveway, when I heard my mother talking to a woman with a slightly-crude voice. I thought it might be the woman who lives next door. I’ve never met her, but I know her husband, Al. He regularly drinks Natural Light beer with his shirt off in the middle of the day, so it’s fair to assume he’s married to a woman with a slightly-crude voice.

The woman asked if she was at 85 Joalco Road. My mother confirmed this, and then the woman explained she was here to administer an interview on behalf of the United States Public Health Service, that my brother, whom she referred to as “the 21 year old male,” had been randomly selected for the study and stood to earn $30 should he participate. She wanted to know when the 21-year old male would be home, because she had quotas to meet with regard to particular demographics.

“Too bad you couldn’t pick my other son. He’s a 28 year old male and he’s home right now” said my mother.

When she said this, I decided not to stand up and have a look at the woman with the slightly crude voice, even though I very much wanted to. It occurred to me that the interviewer and I could help each other out, seeing as she has quotas to meet and I’m broke, unemployed and living with my parents.

But being broke and unemployed at your parents’ house isn’t all that bad. You get to do things like walkaround in a bathrobe outside at 10 a.m. bird watching and drinking coffee.

That is what I’m doing when a navy blue Jeep Cherokee pulls into the driveway. A woman gets out, smiles, and says, “You must be the 21 year old male. I spoke with your mom the other day.”

She doesn’t look the way I imagined her to, which was short, older and graying. Rather, she is tallish, oldish, dyed too-auburn.

“Yeah, she told me about you. You’re in luck. You caught me on my day off.” I say, opening the gate to let her in. “What a morning.”

It’s about 70 degrees. The birds are giving their morning recital. Early daylight spills over the top of early-spring-green leaves. Bands of clouds drift lazily overhead on the slightest of breezes.

We decide to work outside at the picnic table. I quickly go inside and pour myself a fresh cup of coffee then take a seat across from the stranger.

“Where do you live?” I ask her.

“Middleton.” she answers.

“I’m not sure where that is exactly. Near Concord?”

“Not really. It’s next to Farmington.”

Farmington is a very sleazy town, so Middleton is probably at least a little bit sleazy by association. I wouldn’t say this woman is sleazy, but there is a hint of sleaze. The voice…the dye job…the pack of Virginia Slims menthol extra long 120s…

“Do you work for the census department?” I ask.

“No, I work for a company subcontracted by the government.” she says and hands me a brochure.

The cover says: National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Answering your important questions. I open it up and read the first page:

What is the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)?

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) is the Federal Government’s primary source of national data on the use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit substances. The survey also contains questions on health, illegal behaviors, and other topics associated with substance use. The study was initiated in 1971 and currently is conducted on an annual basis. This year approximately 70,000 individuals, 12 years and older, will be randomly selected and asked to voluntarily participate.

The woman finishes setting up a computer and some papers and explains that the interview will take about an hour, the bulk of which will be completed anonymously on a laptop and afterwards, she’ll ask me a few questions.

She then asks me my date of birth. I take a long sip of coffee, hurrying to calculate the year my brother was born.

“You stated your birthday as October 3, 1987, making you a 22 year old male. Is this correct?”

She has to say this according to protocol, but obviously it’s not correct because I am a 21 year old male. I fix my mistake, hastily adding the excuse that I suffer from dyslexia.

“I’m just awful with numbers.” I say.

She gives a half-laugh, half-sympathetic sigh and at this point I highly suspect she knows that I don’t have dyslexia…that I am not, in fact, a 21 year old male, but rather, the 28 year old male my mother mentioned.

“OK” she says. “Ready to begin?”

And so, on a perfect Wednesday morning, outside at the picnic table, in the presence of a complete stranger, using a slate grey laptop, I anonymously reveal my entire history of personal drug use.

I thought I’d tried most things. I was wrong. There’s a book I have to look through and answer things like list all of the drugs from Box A you have tried in:

A. the last 3 months
B. the last 6 months
C. The last year
D. At any point

The boxes are divided by drug category, such as opiates, hallucinogens, amphetamines, sedatives, etc, all with an accompanying photo and ID number. Every drug imaginable is listed. There are a lot that I’ve done.But also many I’ve not done…or even heard of.

I take mental notes of the drugs I’d like to try. It’s like the feature on iTunes when you’re searching for a band and they show you what Other Listeners Bought. Well, I love amphetamines, so I’ll probably likelisdexamfetamine as well…and all the other drugs in Box C for that matter.

It all reminds me of the D.A.R.E . (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, which most Americans over the age of 27 probably were forced to take part in. Like D.A.R.E., this survey is opening my eyes to all sorts of wonderful substances.

I recall the first day of D.A.R.E. distinctly. The entire 5th grade gathered in the library and a police officer came in with a display board containing illustrations of all these different drugs and explained how they had horrible side-effects and we should never even consider trying them. The cop told the story of a man who, in a PCP rage, took 18 rounds from police officers before going down.

As a 5th grade boy, I figured if I could get my hands on this PCP stuff…well, I could rule the neighborhood.Nobody would fuck with me.

The D.A.R.E. curriculum consisted largely of role-playing where, in a typical scenario, one student played the drug dealer and another an abstaining youth who employed the proper version of “Just Say No” to reject the dealer’s advances.

Not once in my adult life has a drug dealer materialized out of thin air and tried to push their goods on me like in D.A.R.E. There were plenty of times I wish they would have, but to no avail. The closest I’ve gotten is in tourist hot spots where drug dealers whisper, “marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy” as you pass by. As an 18 year old in London, I tried to buy weed from one of these guys and ended up with oregano. Since then, I’ve learned you don’t buy shit from drug dealers on the street in an unfamiliar area. You go to a university area and ask around at bars.

Back in the 5th grade, I even starred in the D.A.R.E. play, which was the culmination of the ten week program.I can’t recall much about the production, except that I had a lead role. The character I played, due to some unholy cocktail of substances, collapsed. My line was “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” (That’s right-Steve Urkel style.)

Between then and now I’ve done a lot of drugs and never once have I fallen and been unable to get up.

Quite the opposite: When I get up, I don’t want to fall down.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education was started by members of the Los Angeles Police in 1983. Today, 36 million children around the world and 26 million in the U.S. participate.

Over the years, a number of studies have been conducted to ascertain the efficacy of D.A.R.E. Some particularly interesting findings include a 1992 Indiana University study that found students who completed D.A.R.E. used hallucinogenic drugs at a higher rate than students who didn’t enroll in the program. In 1998, Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum reported D.A.R.E. graduates were more likely than non-graduates to use alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs. Also in 1998, Psychologist Dr. William Colson claimed that exposing young students to drugs encouraged and nurtured drug use. He wrote: “…as they get a little older, students become very curious about these drugs they’ve learned about from police officers.”

In 2001, the Surgeon General of the United States placed D.A.R.E. in the category: “Does Not Work.” The Association for Psychological Sciences (APS) put D.A.R.E. on a list of treatments that can potentially harm clients in 2007.

D.A.R.E. reflects the U.S. drug control policy of zero-tolerance. It was adopted as part of the control strategy of the U.S. government’s War on Drugs. Last year, Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, stated the Obama administration would not use the term “War on Drugs,” claiming it to be counter-productive.

After 40 years, $1 trillion dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, it seems the War on Drugs is counter-productive not only in name. Comments by Mr. Kerlikowske suggest as much.

“In the grand scheme, it has not been successful” he told the Associated Press recently.

“Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified.”

This month, President Obama made a pledge to “reduce drug use and the great damage it causes” through a revamped policy that treats drug use as a public health issue, focusing on prevention and treatment. Despite his promise, the president has increased spending on drug prohibition through law enforcement, which accounts for $10 billion of his $15.5 billion drug-control budget, a record in total dollars and as a percentage of the drug-control budget. Obama’s drug-fighting budget is 31 times what Richard Nixon’s was (including inflation adjustment) after he signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act in 1971, which effectively began the War on Drugs.

The Associated Press has tracked how taxpayer money has been spent to combat drug use over the past 40 years. Here’s what we’ve been billed for:

• $20 billion to combat drug gangs in countries like Columbia and Mexico. Annually, 330 tons of cocaine, 20 tons of heroin and 110 tons of methamphetamine are sold in the U.S. Almost all of it is imported from Mexico.
• $33 billion to promote prohibition-style “Just Say No” messages and prevention programs (like D.A.R.E.) to young Americans. Reports indicate that high school students today use drugs at the same rates they did in 1970.
• $49 billion for enforcement measures along America’s borders to halt the flow of illegal drugs. This year alone, 25 million Americans will use illicit drugs, around 10 million more than in 1970. Almost all of it comes in across the borders.
• $121 billion to arrest over 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, roughly 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies reveal being locked up has a positive correlation with drug abuse.
• $ 450 billion to lock up these nonviolent drug offenders in federal prisons alone. Half of all federal prisoners last year in the U.S. were incarcerated for drug offenses.
• $215 billion per year, estimated by the Justice Department, for “an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity and environmental destruction.”

And I thought I’d spent a lot of money on drugs and had nothing to show for it.

When I’m done with the computer the interviewer asks me a few questions about my employment, insurance, household income, etc., and then we’re done. I sign an interview payment receipt and the woman counts out 3 crisp 10s and lays them in my hand. My time as a 21 year old male is officially over.

I walk the interviewer to the gate and wish her well.

“What an interesting job you have…traveling to people’s homes, setting your own hours.” I say.

“Yes, I enjoy it.” she says. “I get to meet many interesting people. The only thing is that if I ever run into somebody in town or at the grocery store or something, I don’t know their name.”

“Well, if I ever see you, just call me 21 year old male.” I say

It’s now around 11 o’clock, giving me five hours before my mother comes home. I should probably go fill out some job applications. But it’s an awfully nice day. And I’ve got a lot on my mind.

Had I taken D.A.R.E. more seriously and never used drugs, would I be a broke, unemployed 28 year old male living at home?

If the War on Drugs has failed, then who is the victor? Drugs? Drug dealers? Drug users?

What, precisely, is implicit in the reality that America has 5% of the world’s population but uses 50% of its illegal drugs…and has 25% of its prisoners?

Is Middleton a sleazy town?

Such matters deserve a deeper consideration.

But I’m all out of weed. I have no car. And unlike in D.A.R.E., drug dealers don’t just materialize while you’re walking down the street. Especially not on Joalco Road in Strafford, New Hampshire.

Besides, while drug use rates haven’t changed much after 40 years and $1 trillion spent, the prices have. I’ll be lucky to get a few joints worth out of $30 of today’s hydroponic shit. As a generation of D.A.R.E. – mockers know: Drugs Are Really Expensive.

But there are other options.

I hear Al whistling from his porch. His shirt is off. There’s a koozy on the railing.
“Yo Al, I’m comin’ over buddy. You owe me from last time.”

I’ve been watching a lot of Sopranos lately. Every morning I tune in to the 8:00 A&E showing. I’ve not been awake ten minutes and I’m watching Paulie smash a guy in the back of the head with a shovel, Chris put five across his bitch’s eye-Tony fuck some broad in a roadside motel. Before I’ve finished a cup of coffee I’ve seen sex, violence, chauvinism, prostitution, embezzlement, collusion, theft and murder. It’s great.

Part of what makes David Chase’s show brilliant television is that the characters are dead on. There are thousands of Jersey knuckleheads out there just like the guys in The Sopranos who are willing to kill, maim and take what they want. And that’s just in Jersey. There are goons the world over willing to step on you to get what they’re after. And I’m not just talking gangsters and tough guys. Look across the George Washington Bridge, to Manhattan, to find even bigger hoodlums. No, not Johnny Sack and the New York crew- I’m talking about the financial district crew-the guys who conned the nation out of tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money. These thugs in their high rise offices at JP Morgan, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, just to name a few, are hard fucking core gangsters. These guys shit all over us and took what they wanted.

The point is, the world belongs to people with balls. Whether it’s through twisting arms or twisting laws, it doesn’t really matter. Some people have balls and take whatever they want. Then there’s the rest of us who play by the rules.

But there are rules, and then there are “rules”. Tony Soprano is at heart a pragmatist. What allows him to be one, however, is that people know he’s a big, bad motherfucker who will, in the end, take care of business by any means necessary. The unspoken threat that Tony will carve you up and dump your body in the harbor gives his negotiations that extra “oomph”.

Now, to diverge for a moment, I’d like to talk politics-specifically, the tea party movement. Guys, I like your anger. The problem is that you’re mad at the wrong people. The real enemy is not Obama, liberals or socialists- it’s not universal health care, illegal immigrants, homos or dope smokers. It’s the Wall Street plutocrats who rig the system and take all of our money-who wreck the economy and get people kicked out of their homes-who nearly plunged our entire nation-the world, possibly-into economic ruin. These rich pricks are the enemy.

The tea partiers always like to talk about what patriots they are. I’m all for being patriotic. But, I’d like to remind those historically myopic rabble-rousers of exactly what a Patriot is. The tea partiers chose to name themselves after those people who, in 1773, boarded ships docked in Boston harbor and dumped their cargo of taxed tea into the water in protest. But the Boston Tea Party was just a small part of the Patriots hard-line stance against their oppressors. They regularly tarred and feathered Loyalists. Think about that: dumping hot tar all over somebody’s body and then, to add insult to injury, a few feathers. That’s some hardcore gangster shit. Not only that, Patriots burned down Loyalist homes to get their point across. Not surprisingly, it worked. They chased those British bums out of town.

Tea partiers: if you want to talk about patriotism, at least get your terminology right. Let’s step off of this flag-waving, dumb hillbilly, Fox News, anti-intellectual, Mexican/darkie-hating, drill baby drill, get-your-hands-off-my-guns, the founding fathers were infallible man gods, bullshit. Patriotism has somehow been subverted by a political vein that clings to a nostalgic, romantic fantasy of America as a good ol’ boy club for whom Ronal Regan is the eternal hero. It’s John Wayne in a western who dispatches of the bad guys, gives a laconic, feel-good, one-liner with a tip of his cap then saunters off into the sunset. Patriotism has been turned into a myth and hijacked by the far right.

How did our nation react after the bank bailouts? Aside from some cries of protest-some professorial finger wagging from the Administration-nothing. Despite pointed work by journalists such as Matt Taibbi who laid out the entire hustle for us-who described, in detail, the horse-race financial schemes that led to this crisis, we as a nation have sat back on our heels and let it keep happening. Sure, some of the banks are beginning to pay back their debts-but no real work has been done to close the loopholes that led us into this malaise. The people who work for Goldman Sachs et. al are still getting millions of dollars in bonuses precisely for coming up with new financial schemes. This is what investment banking has become. These guys don’t fund emerging markets and industries. They create bubbles that burst in their favor, flood the system with toxic junk and then profit by betting against the fact that their own unsustainable policies are going to fail. Even if we change the laws I’m confident they will come up with new ways to hoodwink the public at large. These guys are good.

But while they may be really smart, I’m willing to bet they’re not that tough. That is, if a shovel was to connect with the back of their head, or a 9mm to somehow find its way into their mouth…

Tea partiers, if you really want to be Patriots, here’s your chance. Stop burning Obama effigies, bemoaning how we’re becoming commies and praying to God for faggots to die. Pick up your pitchforks, your torches and those guns you oft demand to keep but rarely have cause to use and go after these investment bankers. Consider this the new Glorious Cause. Push these guys around, slap them, kidnap their wives…whatever it takes. These firms like to talk about how they’re too big to fail. Well, so was Dirty Harry’s .44 magnum.

Perhaps a strong populist movement will send a message to the top. Since many are already looking ahead to the mid-term elections, even the presidential election, it’s got me thinking who I’ll be casting my ballot for. I’d vote for Tony Soprano in a heartbeat before I put another politically correct liberal or politically retarded conservative in office. Give me some good ol’ guido pragmatism. Would Tony lecture the banks about how they should be ashamed of themselves, and that maybe they shouldn’t be paying out such big bonuses? Of course not. Would he let Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao snub him at the Copenhagen Climate Conference? Fahgettaboudit. I’m not sure exactly what he’d do, but the one thing Tony Soprano does not do is not get results. He doesn’t do “shame on you.” He does “If that’s how it’s gonna be I’ll cut your balls off you fucking cockroach.”

That sounds like a real Patriot to me. The plutocrats of today are the new aristocracy. They are the same kind of people that we strong-armed back to Britain over 225 years ago and began a nation in defiance of. America, it’s time to run the bums out of town again. But to do so we need to have balls. We need to remember what the tough sons of bitches who helped win our freedom knew; what every Jersey wiseguy with a gun in his track pant’s elastic waistline and a bat in his hand knows: there are rules and then there are “rules”. Capiche?

I’m also thinking, if it can work for the good ol’ Stars & Stripes, then it’s good enough for me. Writers, after all, aren’t exactly known for being the ballsiest lot-not in real life, anyway. If pressed to a fight I’d probably run away and use the confrontation as the basis of a misanthropic vignette.

Part of the frustrating thing about being a writer is that you submit your work for review to total strangers far away. I’ve often thought, “If only I could meet these people…put a personal face to my work…not have it just be the manuscript of some abstract person…maybe it would make a difference…”

But now I’m thinking I show up at their office with a different strategy-like the hardbound edge of my rejected manuscript to the back of the head. Maybe then they’ll reconsider. If not, it will make for a really deep, dark story full of irony, pain and regret. Either way, bada bing.

(New Readers: Start at Volume I) By about 10:30 the bar begins to fill up.  As patrons file in and gather with their friends I’m reminded of how cliquey the expatriate community is in Korea.  Upon my arrival here I expected all foreigners would share instant rapport because of our common experience.  Rather, I found many of them went out of their way to avoid looking at me when we passed on the street.  Even on a Friday night with the liquor flowing freely, not many stray from their small group of friends.  There are two reasons for this.  The first is that most people who take the plunge into Korea gain a certain pride from their bold endeavor.  Their egos are further boosted by the fact that many are treated like local celebrities in their neighborhood.  Even though much of the attention from Koreans is akin to the ogling of a deformed midget at a county fair, it is abundant nonetheless.  There is a slightly uneasy truce at expat gathering places such as YES Bar because we serve as proof to each other that we’re not as unique as we’d like to think.  Here, we’re just another foreigner who ended up in Korea. The second reason for coteries is that the friendships one makes here tend to be very strong.  Korea can at times feel very unwelcoming to a foreigner.  Seoul in particular tends to feel like one sprawling, polluted megalopolis of towering concrete structures, snarled traffic and scant nature, from which the only escape is a boxy, cramped, smoky establishment filled with locals you can’t meaningfully connect with.  Fellow expats are a buttress against the loneliness Korea can inspire.  They become symbols of a more familiar and humane world.  Without them, life here would be unbearably forlorn. Your friends are also a support group.  It’s typical for one’s feelings about Korea to swing wildly up and down.  You might wake up Monday with fresh eyes and walk around with a newfound curiosity in the minutiae of this little country.  By Tuesday, nothing short of you standing atop a pile of Korean corpses, pointing an automatic weapon skyward with a barbaric scream, will bring relief.  On days like this your friends here are a lifeline.  Nobody at home knows the despair of an anti-Korea kick.  Only a fellow soldier on the battlefield can relate.  They lay next to you in the foxhole and say, “Don’t worry we’ll get out of this alive!”  When it seems there is no coming back from the dark side, they can pull you towards the light.  For this we love them profoundly and are forever grateful. Meeting up with a friend from Korea after you’ve left there is like a reunion between two war veterans.  Even if it’s been years and your lives have gone in completely different directions, you’ll always have Korea.  We talk about our time there with a verisimilitude that isn’t possible with people who never went over.  Only with each other can we authentically recall the madness.  Reunited on the other side, we know how sweet and precious freedom is. It’s now past eleven and YES is reaching capacity.  People fight for a spot at the bar and pack into the remaining booth space.  I slide in and make room for James, a Canadian with a sleazy-looking goatee and a t-shirt that’s too small for him.  I don’t particularly care for the guy. He leans in and says in a half-whisper, “I’ve got something you boys might be interested in.” He’s the closest thing there is to a pusher-man in Seoul.  He knows some Nigerians in the city who can get him weed. “I don’t want any more of your over-priced, shitty dope.” I say. “Ahh, I’ll do you one better tonight.” he says. “What’ve you got, blow?  I don’t even want to know what that costs.  I’ll just con the doctor out of adderol.” says Seth. James has a smug little grin.  “Boys, boys, boys, your lack of faith disappoints me.  Trust me when I say this is an exclusive.” “Alright alright out with it.  What’ve you got?” says Seth “What I’ve got is LSD.” He draws the three letters out dramatically. Seth and I look at each other.  James sits back, his smug grin widening. “No way you’ve got acid.” I say. “Oh, it wasn’t easy to get, but I’ve got it.” “Forget it, I don’t want any.  This country makes it feel like I’m tripping as it is.  You go out onto the streets with a head full of that stuff…you’re done for.” I say. “How much?” says Seth. “15 apiece…3 for 40. “Let’s see it.” James takes little squares of paper out of his wallet. Seth hands him 50,000 won and says, “Gimme 4.” James pretends to weigh it in his mind and then obliges.  He stands up. “You sure nothing for you?” he asks me. “I’m very sure.” I say. “Well then, boys, I’ve got business to attend to.  Cheers.” He says something to the girls at the next table then plunks down and begins his same pseudo-hustler act. “Come on man, do it with me.” says Seth. “No way.  Not a chance.” He shrugs and digs a hit out of its wrapper. “Bombs away.” he says and presses the square to his tongue. I see James hand something to the girls.  In about an hour this place is going to be a hive of twisted foreigners.  Things could get ugly. “Oh my god!  Hi!  I haven’t seen you in so long, honey!” Heather, a tall slender blonde, plops down next to Seth.  She would be sexy if not for the desperate availability she exudes.  At one point or another she’s thrown herself at pretty much every guy in the place.  It appears tonight is Seth’s turn.  I use their conversation as an excuse to get up and move around.  I walk up to the bar and order a beer.  British Dave is sitting at the far right end with his customary bottle of wine.  I squeeze in next to him.  He’s bald and very serious.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen the man smile.  He sits at this spot every Friday night with his overpriced merlot like some brooding aristocrat.  Without any salutation he launches into one of his somber observations. “Alcohol is a shit drug when you think about it.  I mean, what does it do for you, really?” “Well, for starters, it brings us all together in this fine establishment.” I say. “Precisely.” he says.  “It’s a crutch.” “Do explain.” “Why can’t people get together and enjoy each others’ company without being totally inebriated?  Most of us are anxious creatures with low self esteem.  We need alcohol to loosen up and be ourselves.” “What’s your crutch?” I say.  “Your undying faith in mankind?” “Pessimism is certainly a crutch of mine.” he says.  “Believing that nothing will turn out well releases me from the mental angst of not trying to do good.” “So you’re defining a crutch in the same way Marx described religion as an opiate.” I say. “Yes, only on a nuanced, personal level.  Religion is certainly a crutch for many, but atheism could just as well be.  Any belief or practice can become a crutch.  Us weak sentients all need something to lean on.” “It’s commentary like that that keeps me coming back.” I say.  “I’m a glutton for your stoicism.  But listen, if you want a better drug, James has some acid.” “Are you mad?  Take that stuff in this country?  I’ve got a crutch right here, thank you.” he says, patting his bottle.  “I don’t need a bloody wheelchair.” “I’m with you there.” I say.  “Listen, I have to rock a piss.  I’ll talk to you later.” As usual, the stall is filled with vomit and there’s a long line for the urinal.  I duck outside into an alley to take care of business. It’s nice to have relief from the stifling interior of YES so I decide to have a couple of beers outside of a convenience store.  I watch each person who passes and wonder what they would say their crutch is.  An hour and three empty cans later I get a text message from Seth asking where I am and I head back upstairs.  Stepping through the glass door, I walk right into the belly of the beast.    The music has been cranked to about 100 decibels and googly-eyed foreigners dance with a fluidity that is only possible on drugs.  Several of them cling to pitchers of beer that slosh and spill with the rhythm of their bodies.   Mrs. K looks on from behind the bar with concern.  Though she has witnessed many booze-soaked nights through the years, nothing could have prepared her for an LSD bash. I scan around for Seth.  I spy him at the back of the bar staring straight ahead.  I navigate through the maze of people toward him.  One girl crawls across a table cackling and knocking over empty bottles and glasses.  People huddle together in booths, their eyes shifting furtively, speaking in drug-induced vernacular.  I see James and he gives me the thumbs up, as if he’s taking all of the credit for the scene. I can tell by Seth’s face he’s in trouble.  His journal lies open in front of him with cryptic marks scrawled in it. “How are you feeling buddy?” I say. “My cricket stump…my bloody cricket stump…” he says, trailing off. Heather dances up and puts an arm around him. “Hey…you gonna come dance with me or what?  If you want to get with this, you have to dance.” she says, gyrating suggestively towards the impromptu dance floor. “The pussy…I know I need to get the pussy but…” The thought of sex while under the influence of psychedelics is horrifying.  I’ve got to get him out of here. I look over at the bar and see Dave is still sitting in his spot. “I’m not fucked up enough to appreciate this and my buddy needs to get out.  You want to come?” I say. “Yes.” he says.  “Where shall we go?” “My place is close by.  Let’s grab some drinks and head there.” We agree to meet outside of a shop near my apartment.  I go back to Seth and try to coax him into leaving.  He remains glued to his spot, his eyes darting around like a cornered animal.  I order him to listen to Johnny Cash on my iPod.  The soothing baritone calms him and he follows me out.  I drop him off at his place with an ample supply of beer and Disney films.  The booze and G-rated plot lines should safeguard him against any overwhelming terror. From there I go to meet Dave outside of Family Mart.  We stock up on beer and soju and proceed to my apartment.  Inside, I put on some tunes and begin to roll a couple of cigarettes from a pouch of Drum tobacco.  Dave mixes up some soju cocktails in the kitchen. “What a scene at the bar, huh?” I say.  “I’m really glad I decided not to go that route.  I probably would have ended up like poor Seth.”Dave offers a slow, “Mmmmm” in reply. I hear him approaching from behind and turn around, expecting my drink.  Instead, what I find is Dave’s pants around his ankles.  His partially engorged cock is mere inches from my face.  It is large.  It is uncircumcised. For a few seconds I’m too stunned to react.  After the initial shock wears off I calmly tell him to pull up his pants.  We remain where we are in awkward silence.  I break it by asking, “What the hell was that about?” “I was hoping we could…you know…well, that we were going to fuck each other tonight.” he says. “Why?” I ask.  “What possible hint of that was there?” “Just I thought…it seemed to be leading that way.” It seems that propositioning men for random gay sex is another crutch of his. Something about having a near-stranger’s penis in my face causes me to question the direction of my life.  I consider the strange existence I lead here in this ugly, barren city… surrounded by capricious foreigners…misunderstood by the natives…trying to teach my native language to people who botch it so badly I’ve come to question my own ability to tell good English from bad.  The truth is, I don’t really want to be in Korea anymore.  It is such a unique, particular niche of humanity that it’s nearly impossible for a non-native to fully assimilate.   On good days Korea is quirky, vibrant and strangely fascinating …you feel like a tenderfoot Luke Skywalker in the Mos Eisely Cantina.  But on bad days Korea is a misanthropic film noir set fifty years in the future where human drones eke out a shadow of happiness through digital entertainment and alcoholism. I came here wanting adventure; something fresh and unfamiliar.  My first six months here have certainly provided that.  It’s been like an extended viewing of Cirque du Soleil: uncommonly entertaining; hallucinogenic, even.  There have been incredibly fun, unforgettable moments.  I’ve become more tolerant and understanding of other cultures and made great friends from around the world. Despite these upsides, at this point Korea is mostly something I just tolerate.  The entire country could be razed to the ground and as long as I got my final paycheck I wouldn’t really care.  And yet, I’ve already considered extending my contract.   Many foreigners agree that living here is a bit soulless and teaching English is unfulfilling, but a good portion of them stay on for a second or third year…some beyond that.   It’s the Korea trap.  The schedule is great and the pay and benefits good enough that it makes it difficult to realistically consider teaching in a different country, or to return home and enter the rat race again. But every teacher knows that ultimately, Korea is a dead end gig.  Upward mobility in this business comes in the form of incremental pay raise and moving from field slave to house slave status.  You will always be regarded as a foreigner and therefore, a second class citizen. While some may go on to make a career out of teaching English, nobody wants to end up doing it here for the rest of their lives.  Anyone who says they do is mentally ill and should not only be disregarded, but sterilized as well.  A teacher that stays on more than a few years in Korea has the sad air of a boxer past their prime who slogs through the doldrums of an amateur circuit. Yet as certain as I am that there is no future for me here, I also know that I’m not quite ready to leave.  Korea supports me through these years of itinerant restlessness.  It props me up during this quarter-life, ruminative odyssey.  A crutch…a trap…as far as I’m concerned Korea is both of these things.  I accept it because the alternative is starting over again in another country or going home and settling into a more permanent career.  The former holds no promise of being a place I like any more than Korea, while the latter is something I’m just not ready to be ensnared by yet.  For now, I’m fine to limp along in Korea, which sucks, but at least is dispensed in 12 month intervals of suckiness that I’ll someday walk away from without an ounce of regret.  Someday, I will live in a place I’m truly connected to and make a living doing something I really care about.  Someday, I will be off the one year installment plan and locked into something serious; something real. Someday…a crutch if ever there was one.   For all I know I’ll be sitting in YES Bar ten years from now, eyeing a fresh female recruit over a mug of piss Korean beer.  I’ll make my move and she’ll sense my desperation…that I’m a creepy older guy who’s been here for too long.  On the defeated walk home I will get a text message from Jean, who is still my boss and still speaks horrendous English.  Unable to take another day of this life, I’ll throw myself off of an overpass.  The next morning thousands of Koreans will read the headline, and while they may be a bit disappointed that the foreign suicide victim isn’t black, overall they’ll feel a bit better knowing that there’s one less drug-using carrier of homosexuality in their country.

The smell on the 63-1 bus is a distinctly Korean blend of booze, garlic breath, fresh ginger and grooming products. I get a text message from Seth asking where I am. As I type my reply the old woman sitting next to me looks on out of the corner of her eye with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. To her, it must be strange enough to witness the advent of hand- held electronics. That a foreigner is using one next to her on the bus in a post Hermit Kingdom Korea must indeed hearken the dawn of a 21st century Bizarro world. Still, at least she chose to sit next to me. Many Koreans will opt to stand for the entire route rather than share a seat with a foreigner who is almost certainly an STD riddled criminal.

A bell tones and an automated woman’s voice announces my stop. I muscle my way down the packed aisle and towards the doors. As I swipe my transit card on an electronic reader the same female drone says, “Kamsahamnida,” which means “thank you” in Korean. I grip the hand rail tightly not so much to steady myself on the moving vehicle, but to hold my ground against other passengers. A man bashes into me as he reaches to scan his card. An old lady cuts in front of me, her elbow landing dangerously close to my groin. The pressing bodies leave me in a compromising position, my face mere centimeters from a fat boil on somebody’s neck and what I hope is the edge of a parcel pinned against my anus.
The doors open and the clump of bodies spills out onto the street. Again I am pushed, elbowed and generally treated like I don’t exist. I keep my head down and absorb the blows for a few blocks until I’m able to dart down a side street and escape the jostling madness of the main avenue.
When I first arrived in Korea I was astounded by the lack of courtesy I received in public places. The way people shoved and cut made even notoriously rude New Yorkers seem downright chivalrous. For a while I held to the belief that I was treated like this because I’m foreign, but after a couple of months it became obvious that Koreans treat each other in a similar manner. This led to further hypotheses such as the passionate but un-empirical “Koreans are rude savages” and the more plausible “Densely populated urban areas lead to a reduced standard of personal space.”
Nowadays I’ve given up trying to explain the phenomenon. It has, like many other things, just become part of my daily life in Korea. As I cross a pedestrian bridge and come upon a circus of neon lights that marks the bars, shops and restaurants in this part of town, I’m reminded of my arrival here, when the busy streets were incomprehensible. Now, watching drunk men hold hands on the front steps of a business is normal. Young guys with Rod Stewart-esque feathered mullets and tight fitting clothes are commonplace. Cauliflower decoratively planted in pots doesn’t earn a second look, nor do tanks outside of a restaurant full of live eels, squid and writhing fish that look like penises. The occasional whiff of raw sewage is mundane.
It no longer shocks me to walk down a street such as this one where side by side, vendors sell vegetables and bootleg DVDs, a monk asks for donations and a pushy housewife tries to convert you to Christianity, where one story homes with pagoda roofs lie in the shadow of a fifty-story glass high-rise. It’s safe to say that after living here for nearly six months, the sensory-overload bazaar of juxtapositions that is Korea fails to get my attention.
Well, almost.
An elderly woman squats on the sidewalk unpacking vegetables from boxes and laying them out for sale on a blanket. A young boy, presumably her grandson, says something to her. She points towards some low-lying bushes. He steps behind them, pulls down his pants and craps. The woman wipes him clean with a napkin and goes right back to sorting her goods.
Scenes such as this are a firm reminder that while Korea has come to feel like home, it still has the ability to leave me thinking “Where am I?”

I ignore Seth’s second and third text messages and proceed towards our meeting point. I cross a pedestrian bridge that spans a busy road and step into a public square with some benches and small trees. Seth’s unmistakably loud voice is audible even amidst the bustle of Seoul on a Friday night. I make my way towards it and see him sitting on a bench, surrounded by Korean men in suits. They cheer him on as he tips back a can of beer, chugs the contents and throws it down with a resounding belch.
“Good, good!” some of them say.
This explains his excessive texting. While Koreans err on the side of xenophobia and can be notoriously stand-offish towards foreigners, those with a few rounds in them demonstrate there is also an intense desire to get to know us, to put a human touch to the foreign language and culture that has inundated their homeland. Once you get on a Korean’s good side there is seemingly no limit to their generosity and eagerness to give you an authentic Korean experience. While this is a welcome respite from the many grouchy, mistrustful glares we foreigners receive, it can be too much at times. Seth is surrounded. For some reason, Korean men are almost unnaturally attracted to his flowing, curly mane, stubble-lined face and boisterousness. He seems to be some kind of forbidden fruit for them.
I hang back a bit, watching the scene for my own amusement. One of the Koreans offers to call a taxi and take Seth downtown. Such a proposition is always tempting although ultimately ill-fated. Everything will be paid for, right down to a late-night round at one of the claw-grab machines that dot nearly every street corner, but will hardly seem worth it when waking up deliriously hung-over on the floor of a love motel surrounded by liquor bottles and snoozing men still wearing their suits. Koreans drink with what can only be described as reckless abandon. I’ve seen grown men fall flat on their faces, vomit, and crawl across busy intersections after a night out. When they get down to business (which generally happens 3-5 times a week) it makes the excesses of a frat party look like a Boy Scout fundraiser.
A man grabs Seth by the arm and tries to pull him towards the street. At this point I step in and rescue him from his over-eager assailants. The sight of a second foreigner leaves the group momentarily speechless.
“Quickly, let’s go.” I say.
He leaps up and follows after me into the maze of buildings, saying over his shoulder, “Sorry, thank you,” to his would-be friends.
“Jesus dude, what took you so long?” he says.
“You ungrateful bastard.” I say. “You were one beer away from giving in. You’re lucky I came when I did.”
He doesn’t argue.

We walk another five minutes in silence until we’re outside of the building that houses YES Bar. It is the local foreigner hangout…an island of westernness among a sea of Korean. On a Friday or Saturday night this is where the expats gather to drink, converse, shoot pool and try their best to feel as if they are not impossibly far from home.
We climb up the stairs and out of the neon-lit bazaar. We push through the entrance side of the double glass doors into the dimly lit, smoky confines of YES. Mrs. K, the owner and bartender, gives us a broad smile. She’s a kind, decent woman and I can’t help but feel a bit bad that she’s fallen into the trap of catering to debaucherous foreigners.
“Hello, boys. What’ll you have?”
“A couple of beers, Mrs. K.” I say.
She pours out two pints and slips them to us at the corner of the bar with a wink.
Seth and I stake out a booth near a window and settle in with our beers. 9:30 is still a subdued hour at YES Bar but in a little while it will be standing room only, packed wall to wall with foreigners downing pitchers of flat, flavorless Korean beer. YES on a Friday night has the vibe of a saloon in purgatory where it’s difficult to say whether the person sitting across from you is a mad saint or a maniacal fiend. Every time I come here I end up talking to somebody who is unfit not only to teach children, but to hold a post higher than town drunk. Indeed, it seems that many who come to Korea do so because they never quite fit in at home. It takes a certain type to willingly pack up their life and ship it halfway around the world… the type that doesn’t have much to lose…and those without much to lose can be very dangerous.
Combined with Korea’s lax standards for prospective English teachers, it all adds up to an influx of shady characters. They are a dirty little secret of the English teaching business in Korea. While the government has taken preventive measures such as requiring a background check and a drug test, this does little more than deter outright criminals. There is still a significant proportion of teachers that are just cracked eggs. They may not have a rap sheet or dirty piss, they may have a university degree and be native English speakers, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t alcoholics who live with their parents or part-time chicken farm security guards who whack off to vampire porn. True, anywhere you go there are likely to be folks harboring freakish tendencies, but there’s something about the cathartic anonymity of this small Asian peninsula that attracts such people in bulk. Far from home, free from the burdens of reputation and habitualness, people can be whoever they want. For some, this means a whole new crowd to frighten. For others, it is a chance to start over.
Take Seth, for example, who got the hell out of Dodge because of heroin addiction. He thought he’d never be able to kick the habit if he remained surrounded by a network of pushers and users. Moving 6000 miles away took him out of that trap. By contrast, binge-drinking and legal stimulant abuse is living the clean life.
I look around the bar and see more of these damaged denizens. There’s my other co-worker, Joe, a black, gay man from Mississippi. It goes without saying he didn’t feel comfortable coming out in the former Confederacy. Now in Seoul, he’s not only out of the closet, but apparently on a mission to suck every cock in the city. There’s Steve, the paranoid Kiwi who once smashed a man in the face with a mug of beer and bit off a piece of his ear because he thought he was talking about him. (He wasn’t) Randy, a near-midget Carolinian of Armenian descent, regularly gets so drunk he shouts obscene comments, pisses himself and falls off the bar stool (not necessarily in that order). Laura from South Africa is a pathological liar who makes outrageous claims such as, “Nelson Mandela is a personal friend of mine.” (No he isn’t…shut the fuck up.) Then there’s Rick, a seven-foot Aussie who talks almost exclusively about how his life is in danger because of the bizarre conspiracy he’s uncovered in the Australian government involving dike cops, rigged slot machines and prostitution rings (I usually stop listening around the time he claims he’s the only man in the world to be formally accused of thoughtcrime).
Of course, it’s unfair to generalize about all of the foreigners here. I’ve met people who are quite normal and probably aren’t seeking an escape across the Pacific. For every nut job there’s somebody who came to pay back student loans or save for grad school. Others, such as myself, have ambitions of world travel and adventure. A few are devoted educators who genuinely love teaching. Many just want to try something different.
However, I’ve had enough run-ins with unstable foreigners here to make me wary of even the most unassuming person. If one isn’t vigilant they can end up in the company of some desperate freak who will drag you into their sordid personal universe. The musk of these wounded animals is thick in here. Strange vibrations abound…there is a hint of danger…yes… one must tread carefully in this place…

Read: Part IV: The End of The Beginning

Every day my first period students play a game where they hide and try to scare me when I enter the classroom. Today I figure I’ll ignore them and see if they stay hidden the entire class. Unfortunately, the attention-span of a first grader lasts scarcely more than a minute. One student sneaks up behind me and attempts to deliver a “dong-shim.” This is done by aligning the thumbs and forefingers into a gun-shape and interlocking the remaining digits. Next, the hands are thrust upwards towards an unsuspecting victims’ anus.
I receive a direct hit, which doesn’t sit well with Brian Teacher. I retaliate, forgetting to take into consideration my superior firepower. Now, little Johnny is crying on the floor, grasping his bottom.
“No, no, don’t cry, it’s OK,” I tell him
“Look, you do to Brian Teacher.”
I present my buttocks and encourage him to give me a good shot. Jean walks by and sees me offering my rectum to the fallen student. She comes in.
“Oh my god, why?”
“Just a little accident,” I say. “Everything is fine.”
After that it’s a flurry of Korean between Jean and the students, from which I can’t make out much more than “dong-shim.” Jean calls me out into the hallway.
“Brian, young students very active. Please no game and encourage to study on and on for best.”
“Yes, of course.”
Back in the classroom the tears have stopped and given way to a flurry of dong-shiming.
“OK guys, please sit down. Homework check. Books out.” I say.
The girls obediently take out their texts while the boys continue to target each others’ butt holes.
“No stickers…” I threaten them.
Dealing with a Korean child is essentially no different than managing an animal. Control depends upon a system of commands, rewards and punishments. In this case the operant conditioning revolves around a board entitled, “Best student” on which stickers are placed for good behavior, or at least for generally not acting like barbarians. The four girls have are about dead-even with 20 stickers apiece. The four boys have eight between them. Watching little boys in action leaves no doubt that men are the more beast-like of the genders. This doesn’t change over the years; males only learn to disguise their atavism better.
At last all books are out and I go down the aisles and mark who has and hasn’t done homework.
About a third of the girls in the school are named Julie, Sally, Jane, or Jenny. Among boys, Harry, John, Steve and Billy lead the pack. The majority of the rest go by a smattering of American celebrity names. Occasionally, a student has a name like Taluka or Glody that sounds like it belongs to an African distance runner. Then, there are titles such as Ninja or Butterfly. I’m never sure if these are monikers bestowed on them by previous teachers or the product of a parent with inadequate English. And, even those kids who end up with a normal name aren’t safe from the wildcard: the secretaries who can’t speak or read English but must enter the students’ information into the computer. With the flick of a finger Clara becomes Glara; Stan, Stab. The only thing more ridiculous is that the students insist on being called by their botched names.
“Wrestler. Hey Wrestler. Homework?” I say.
He stares at me blankly with a finger up his nose.
“Homework. Homework book.” I point to his classmates’.
“Ahhhhh,” he says and pulls a mangled notebook out of his bag. The other boys pet my forearms, which are still a novelty in a nation of nearly-hairless men.
Today’s class is good because homework check has taken up a third of the time.
“OK guys, books out. Reading books.” I say, holding up mine as a model. Again, the girls respond almost immediately while it takes a good five minutes for the boys to take out their books and open to the appropriate page.
“OK, first, Brian teacher say. Then, you say. A-a-apple, B-b-balloon, C-c-cake, D-d-dog, E-e-elephant…”
F-f-fuck me. There is no way to make a phonics book for 1st grade, non-native English speakers interesting. The only part worse than the content is trying to stretch it for thirty minutes, five times a week.
“Y-y-yoyo…Z-z-zebra. One more time…”
On any given day I have the girls’ attention for between five and ten minutes and the boys’ two or three before they rediscover their noses or their classmates. I’ve come to accept this. This age group isn’t expected to learn much. Rather, my role is to get them used to foreigners. I am a starter white guy. All I need to do is maintain a semblance of order. Open books give the appearance that we are studying actively on and on to make the happy learning time.

The bell sends me in retreat back to the teachers’ room. The older elementary students begin to arrive and the lobby is clogged with kids, parents, teachers and staff. Since living here I’ve adopted the Korean approach to moving through a crowd. I lower my shoulder and barrel through, knocking slighter built students to the side.
Back in the teachers’ lounge the sound of young girls’ overly-dramatic shrieks are still audible. Several students pop their heads in curiously. It seems as if they have trouble believing we foreigners exist at all outside of the classroom. They watch us like zoo animals as we shoot down small cups of coffee and cram in mouthfuls of food.
“Brian Teacher.”
I look towards the door. One of my students is gesturing for me to come over. I wave her towards me.
She holds out her hand and offers a pile of crushed, uncooked ramen noodles.
“Wow, thanks Julie. Mmmm looks good.”
She passes them to me and some stick to her sweaty palm. After that she slowly walks back out towards the door, watching to see if I eat them. I stand up and pretend to go file some papers and as I do I drop the mangled noodles into Betty Anne’s handbag. I turn back to Julie and pretend to be chewing.
“Mmmm… yummy Julie. Thank you.”
Satisfied, she rejoins her classmates in the lobby.
Jean closes the door and calls for the teachers’ attention.
“OK teachers. I have small information to tell. Please finish student evaluation on Friday. Next week I am calling parents and speak them. Please writing one good thing and one bad thing for students.”
I’ve found if that if this requirement is met, it’s possible to write anything else, as long as one disguises their English. For example, I write:
Mary, Class B4
If whingeing and smelling like fermented produce were indicators of scholarly aptitude, then Mary would be at the top of her class. As they are not, I foresee a life marked by mediocrity. A good reader. Needs to improve listening.
Most of the teachers don’t even acknowledge Jean. The only one really paying attention is Dave. Betty Anne looks around cautiously before slipping some raisins into her mouth. Joe is browsing the internet for new clothes. Seth is eating a convenience store sandwich. This is a dangerous proposition in any country, and especially one where you can’t read the ingredients. He takes it down in about 5 bites and lets loose a gurgling burp which makes the Christian shudder.
I continue writing.
Steve, Class B2
Steve’s knack for the English language is no better than that of an invertebrate. I’m forced to consider the direction of my life each time I’m in his presence. In my opinion, he will continue to be a drain on all those around him well into middle-age. He is a good writer but needs to work on his behavior.

Speech contest is almost ready to begin. The twice-yearly spectacle involves students’ recitations of a given topic in front of their peers and teachers. For the non-participants, it is pretty much a day off from classes. The same goes for teachers, only we have the burden of scoring the speeches, which generally range from shitty to god awful. The event is on par with an office workshop or training day: it’s boring, but you generally don’t have to do much and it’s slightly better than actually working.
In the lobby the secretaries try to settle down eighty rambunctious students. The contest participants nervously make final preparations in classroom one. Jean hands out a scoring sheet to the teachers and provides some last minute instructions.
“As you know, we have speech contest now. Students are very hard for speech contest so show them your eagerness. Also, as you know, some parents at speech contest so please do best to be generous and paramount for parents.”
After the briefing she moves to the lobby and begins to speak into a portable PA system. After saying a few words in Korean she announces, “OK, now, teachers will please come.”
We take our seats on a lineup of chairs against the wall, making an informal judge’s panel. Jean claps twice and the students are supposed to respond in unison to show they are paying attention. The excitement is too much for some of them and they can’t sit still.
“Everybody, please shit! Shit down! Shit! Now crap! Like this! Crap hands!” says Jean.
After a minute or so all of the students at last shit and crap and the speech contest is ready to begin.
Before it does, though, Jean addresses a group of about twenty parents at the back of the room. The truth is this performance is all for them. English in Korea is two things: a business and a status symbol. Koreans understand that the language is an integral part of globalization, and that not being able to speak it leaves them at a serious disadvantage. What’s happened, though, is that their near-obsession with learning English has turned into a massive and massively profitable industry where schools sell not so much English, but the appearance of learning English.
For the parents, the consumers, the important thing is being able to afford to send their kid to a private academy. They want to see foreign teachers and English textbooks and drop in once a semester to lean against the wall, beaming with hubris, as English words come out of their child’s mouth. The problem is that they don’t understand how horrifically bad that English actually is. This bastardization of the Anglo tongue is the result of schools trying to keep parents happy, and the parents are happy if they are told during the once a semester telephone conferences that everything is fine, their child is learning, he is brilliant and happy and yes, maybe his spelling needs improvement and his pronunciation could use some work, but overall he’s doing well. Keep paying the tuition; its money well spent. The management doesn’t care if the kids learn English as long as they can memorize the material long enough to pass an exam. They just want the textbooks finished, so a shiny new one can be sent home and shown off as the illusion of progress.
The staff and teachers win because they make a nice fat paycheck out of this farce. The parents win because they have the satisfaction of knowing their child is learning the ever-important English. The only losers are the students who are merely pawns in an industry that is epitomized by this orchestration called speech contest, where Koreans, foreigners and English intersect in a vague, fabricated idea of a better and happy forever prosperous joyful life. But make no mistake about it: never, ever, not even for a moment, is any of this about learning English.

The topic of this semester’s speech contest is “My Family”.
First up to present is Billy from class A4. Like most 12 year old Korean boys he has black hair, a bowl cut, glasses and a kimchi stain down the front of his shirt. His poster board is adorned with photos of him and his family on vacation. The ‘i’ in ‘Family’ has been awkwardly added in after the fact over the top of the m and the l. After a nervous look around he begins.
“My family. My family is me, brother, mother, father sister. Father job microprocessor and is kind. Mother…mother…
Jean tries to get some encouragement from the crowd. “Crap…come on…crap for Billy!”
“Mother….mother cook home. Sister pretty. My study math go USA. Thank you my speech.”
Hmm, Billy…not your best work…though graded on a curve this will probably be in the top 2/3. 7.5 out of 10.
“OK good job Billy. Next student is Harry 2.”
Most students named Harry are a little on the meaty side, and this one is no exception. Like his classmate he too sports a look common among his age group: gray hairs. While learning English may not be real in Korea, the pressure to learn it is. Koreans believe education is the cornerstone of success, resulting in fierce competition in both public schools and private institutions like this one. And English is only part of it. Most students attend at least one or two additional academies to perfect skills such as math, science and Korean. In an atmosphere where not being the best is often regarded as failure, it’s easy to see why students gray at the age of twelve and indeed, why South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
Harry clears his throat, works out a facial tic and begins his speech.
“My family is me, father and mother. Father has Samsung job. He is smart. Mother is clean the house. She is kind. My is student. I like chicken. Thank you for listen my speech.”
Solid delivery. This will be hard to beat. 9.5 out of 10.
I decide to take advantage of the time and grade a few journals, which are the students’ weekly writing assignments. Excerpts from this batch include:
Jenny, Class B4
“My Weekend”
This weekend I made an omelet and ate my family.
Daisy, Class C6
“Test”
In my weekend I creamed for an exam. I know creaming is not the best way to prepare for an exam.
Jessica, Class D2
“My Hero”
My hero is Oprah Winfrey because she overcame being ugly negro.
Stan, Class C6
“Math”
I like math because I use math to find the rectum.
“Very good,” says Jean. “Thank you. Next student Sally.”
As I pick up a new stack of diaries Seth grabs my arm.
“Dude.”
“What?”
“Dude…look.”
He points to Sally. I see nothing out of the ordinary. Straight black hair. Glasses. Pink outfit…and there it is. In silver lettering on Sally’s shirt are the words, “I Fuck on the First Date.”
The teachers look at each other. It is a silent meeting to decide whether to do something or not. Nobody makes a move.
I measure the parents’ reactions. There is no sign of recognition that the girl at the front of the room is endorsing promiscuity. None of the students appear to notice either. Jean doesn’t have a clue. She pats the girl on the shoulder and tells her to begin. Sally delivers her monologue and at the end everybody craps and the next speaker is brought on.
It is a speech contest day miracle. Sally’s pretty pink shirt is an indictment of the entire English-language business in Korea. Wearing those six embossed words, she lays bare the entire sham.
Seth pulls me close to him and says,
“Dude, this is the greatest day of our teaching careers.”

Click here to read Part III: Happy Hour in Hades

I’ve been told that ‘somebody’ will meet me at the airport. After being herded through immigration, baggage collection and customs I emerge in a lobby where scores of people are waiting to meet passengers. I’ve never seen this many Asians in one place, except maybe when free furniture was left on the curb near my apartment in Boston.

I hope that whoever is waiting at least has a picture or some other way of identifying me. Several people hold up signs with passengers’ names on them. My entire life I’ve wanted to have a chauffeur awaiting my arrival with a sign that reads: “Brian Eckert.” I always imagined it to denote some level of importance.

I’m not sure what a sign reading ‘Briv Ecklbert” denotes. The flight number matches mine, while the name is less certain. I approach the man with the sign and nod. Without any confirmation that I am in fact Mr. Ecklbert he snatches my suitcase and grunts for me to follow him. He leads me outside and across a parking lot to a van. Once we’re settled inside I ask him how far it is to our destination. He doesn’t answer, as he’s busy entering coordinates onto a GPS mounted on the van’s dash. The machine robotically speaks a language I can make no sense of. As we start moving I again ask about where we’re going.

“No Englishey,” he says brusquely and turns on the radio.

The English teaching business is unique not least of all because one of its core requirements, being a native English-speaker, has nothing to do with individual merit. Being born in America and inheriting her mother tongue can no more be credited to me than my eye color or height. When first considering a job teaching English I found it hard to believe I could work in hundreds of countries by virtue of a natal fluke.

However, it was refreshing to discover that being American made me automatically qualified to do something overseas besides don a uniform and join the ranks of an occupying force. And although teaching English is itself a relic of colonialism, it can also be quite lucrative.

I came to South Korea in 2006 after returning home dead broke from a backpacking trip in South America. I needed a job but I also wanted to continue traveling. Teaching English overseas seemed to be the perfect gig. My first choice was Japan, I country I’d always longed to see. I applied to a bunch of schools there but was rejected by some and told by others that placement could take up to six months. Needing more immediate means to earn money and continue my peripatetic ways, I decided to look elsewhere.

Korea was a place I knew almost nothing about, but also one where I could make thirty five grand a year for a 30 hour work week, not to mention free airfare, accommodation and health insurance. It had the added benefit of requiring very little from prospective employees except for the aforementioned nationality, a college degree and the nerve to fly 13,000 miles and plunge headlong into a career that your studies didn’t even remotely prepare you for. (I would find out later that being fat, misshapen/deformed, disabled, ugly, black(or even quite brown) or bearded are generally grounds for rejection.)

Within a few days of sending out emails to a recruiter I had a telephone interview with a Korean woman named Jean. After explaining to me that her school was not only “convenient” but also “funny and joyful,” she asked how soon I could start. While I’d done my best to prepare for the interview, I hadn’t once imagined a job offer in the first thirty seconds. I asked for a day to think about it and then sat down to make my decision. I was unsettled by the sheer vagueness of the move to Korea and Jean’s inability to speak coherent English, but in the end I was moved most by the potential for adventure. A week later, I was on a flight.

The van makes its way through Seoul rush hour traffic. Even as I gaze out the window at the Hyundais, Kias and Daewoos driven by people with Asian faces, it hasn’t quite hit me that I’m in Korea.

We must be getting close because the driver is on the phone trying to get directions; at least I think that’s what’s happening. At home I never appreciated the simple luxury of understanding what the people around me are saying. For all I know I’ve been kidnapped and am en route to North Korean officials who will hold me as a bargaining chip in their international nuclear talks. In case that’s true I try to get my bearings but everywhere we’ve been looks exactly the same: a collection of high rises and shops that are stacked on top of each other in a way that’s at the same time orderly and chaotic. Outside of Vegas I’ve never seen so many neon lights. I feel I might have a seizure from all the flashing colors.

The van stops on a street corner and the driver gets out. I stay put, waiting to see what happens next. He opens the door and grunts. I get out and survey the scene as my bags are piled at my feet. A man on a motor scooter barrels down the sidewalk inches from me without batting an eye. There are students in navy and black school uniforms walking in troops everywhere. Men wearing shiny metallic suits strut down the street together with the look of those emboldened by alcohol. Young women in obscenely short skirts giggle and walk arm in arm. Elderly people line the sidewalks selling produce, fish and street food.

“I’m in Korea,” I keep thinking, but the idea still doesn’t ring true. The scene is utterly surreal.

“Ahhh, you Brian. Welcome Korea,” says a voice in a protracted, nasally whine that sounds vaguely familiar. I turn to see a short Korean woman in glasses.

“You more handsome than photo. I can see you best teacher.” she says.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” I ask.

“I am school manager Jean. We phone speaking.”

The twenty five hour journey from Boston provided more than enough time for me to doubt my choice to come to Korea, and the closer I got the more dubious it seemed. Now, standing on a frenetic street corner in Seoul, struggling to get my bearings among the onslaught of foreign sights, sounds and smells, I must concede I have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into.

“Please, your come inside me.” says Jean.

No idea at all.

I collect my bags and follow the diminutive stranger into the building. During the elevator ride she locks a toothy, awkward grin on me. I don’t know if I should respond in some way, but I at least can be sure I’m not in the hands of the enemy. She doesn’t seem to have the brain power required for international conspiracy.

We stop at the third floor and I step into the lobby. Two Korean women wave at me from behind a desk.

“We here,” says Jean.

I put my bags down and wander through the halls, peeping into the classrooms. I’ve nearly forgotten that teaching is the reason I’m here.

I ask Jean how many days I’ll train before taking over a classroom of my own.

“Actually, your begin tomorrow,” she says.

“Really? But I have no experience. I’ve been on a plane for almost a day. I’m not at all ready to start.”

“But is OK because you very handsome. You can do good job.”

I look at her, flabbergasted, until circus-like music sounds from unseen speakers. The classrooms empty and the lobby is suddenly filled with Korean children. They whisper to each other and point at me. Jean brings a pair of girls over and tells them,

“Here new teacher Brian.”

They stare at me, clearly uncomfortable.

“Hi,” I say. “How are you?”

Blank stares.

“What are your names?”

Jean says something to them in Korean.

“Sally,” says the student on the left.

“Sally,” says the student on the right.

“You’re both named Sally?”

More staring.

The other foreigners eye me on their way back from class.

“Come on,” says Jean. “Let’s meet teachers.”

The teachers’ room is long and narrow with desks arranged on each side facing the wall. Jean’s desk is at the back of the room looking out toward the door.

“Everybody please listen to me.”

Only one teacher looks up; the others vaguely glance our way.

“OK so this new teacher Brian of USA. Please help make the welcome feeling.”

I nod and introduce myself to the guy nearest me. His name is Dave, from Indiana. He’s clean cut, excruciatingly polite and there’s a bible lying on his desk with highlighted passages. Jesus freak…we’ll likely maintain a professional but distant relationship.

Next to him is Joe, from Mississippi. He is impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit with a shiny pink tie and is checking out a webpage entitled, “Ten Surefire Ways to a Sleek, Sexy Midsection.” Fag…which means he probably at least likes to party.

To my left is Betty Anne from Florida. She has greasy, mousy-blonde hair, a bad complexion, a nervous demeanor and too-huge boobs. Just plain frightening…I will go out of my way to avoid interacting with her.

To her right is Seth from Orange County. He wears a gaudy gold watch, a baggy polo shirt and has a mop of curly hair spilling from his chest and head. Ex-wigger Italian or Jew…from the outset the pick of the litter.

After the brief introductions the teachers make a b-line for the elevator and I’m left alone with Jean.

“So, you pleased at conditions?” she says.

“Ah, sure,” I say. “So, I’m really starting tomorrow?”

“Yes. Don’t worry. Students are beautiful and joyful.”

“Well, I’m sure they are but…um, where am I sleeping tonight?”

We park in front of a tall building downtown and take the elevator up to the fourth floor. Jean speaks to the woman at the desk and gets a room key. When I open the door I’m greeted by a square, windowless space. It’s as charming as a bank lobby. I set my bags down and walk in.

“Your is fine?” asks Jean.

“Yeah, no problem.” I say

“Please your ready tomorrow by 10 a.m. I take you school.” she says, then leaves.

Alone in this box there are no signs of the alien world outside. If I squint I can still convince myself I’m at home.

I change my shirt and decide to have a look around. As I step out into the hallway I notice a commotion a few doors down. Several men in suits are gathered around something on the floor. I pretend to be going that way to get a closer look.

From ten paces away I can smell the booze on them. When I get closer I see one man on the floor, too drunk to stand. A few steps beyond him two men in formalwear are squatting against the wall, holding hands and talking about something very seriously.

“Hey, hey, you you!” one of them says to me. “Where’s your from?”

“USA.”

“Ahhhh, America good. I like you. You handsome boy.”

He takes me by the hand.

The man on the floor is swaying and burping stuff up.

“Thanks. Your friend…he’s OK?”

“Yes, he drunken many. Now sleeping time. Hey, you drinking? You come me?”

He begins petting my head tenderly.

“No, thank you. I’m very tired.”

“Please, you are coming me. Is Korea do. You know Korea soju?”

“No, I’ve never tried it. OK, OK, one drink.”

At 3:30 a.m. I stumble out of the room and almost trip over the passed out Korean man. In the past several hours he’s managed to strip down to his underwear and vomit up something extremely orange.

On the way back to my room I notice a half-open door. I step through it and onto a balcony. There is a makeshift clothesline strung across it with towels and other linens hanging. The mid-November air is chilly, but still somewhat pleasant. I look out over Seoul. It reminds me of a pinball machine with its flashing lights and strange music. 3:30 a.m. is officially the hour when nothing happens, but here, the nocturnal procession carries on. The streets are filled with people.

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. The rice liquor has left me feeling warm and content.

“I’m in Korea,” I say aloud. “I live in Seoul. I live in Asia.”

An abstract notion of world travel has finally fused with reality. I’ve made it.

There’s a noise behind me. I turn around and see the Korean man in his underwear stumbling out onto the balcony. He slumps down to his knees and expels more orange liquid. It clings to the slotted metal for a moment before dribbling onto the street below. Some of it lands on the female half of a smartly-dressed couple walking hand in hand. Her boyfriend looks up and sees me, then shouts in perfect English,

“You! Hey! I’m gonna kill you motherfucker!”

Click here to read Volume II: A Speech Contest Day Miracle

The roar of the V-8 under my feet feels very American as we climb through the foothills of the Northern Rockies, yellow/green grass, red/pink rock plateaus like specialty cakes crafted by time and erosion, off to the left deeper foothills, browner, dotted with conifers, the path we drive through treeless, only scrubby brush and hearty grasses, a perfect cross between prairie and western plateaus. The road is flat and mostly straight, speed limit 75, black cows munching on grass-content to chew and flap their tails- rarely will you see a lone cow stray from the group-sad in a way that I can see them now as something natural and beautiful, soon to be only cling wrapped, sliced pieces of flesh, dredged through terrible cutting machines, consumed by somebody with an appetite for meat but never able to appreciate the beauty of a lone cow chewing on the pale grasses of the plains.

Entering Wyoming, moving Northwest, tree cover here is thicker-low, dense conifers-stout and hearty. Trees say a lot about a place-tropical trees sway with long, loose branches and naked trunks, like a scantily clad, dreadlocked island native. The trees here are short and tacit- little mountain men. We have sliced through the initial barrier of the foothills and are nestled in a flat line between them and bigger hills to the left. Passing large ranches, ‘real’ ranches-hundreds of acres in size. I imagine working the land here, waking up to bacon and coffee and pancakes and working all day, stopping only for lunch. Train tracks dip in and out of the landscape, sinking off into the distance. Something about trains is fascinating-long, ugly steel beasts, and yet beautiful, mythic, invoking a sense of timelessness-sameness in a changing world-romantic-reminiscent of the great American work ethic-so large and yet stealthy-creeping through the land with a steady chugga chugga and at times a lonesome whistle that at night pierces, shrill, into your room, into your head like a Blues chord, as if to say, “Don’t be lonely, everything is OK, the train is still going-everything is still relevant.” While other machines are left discarded by the side of the tracks the train keeps on-same old cars and smoky engines-unflappable, as though my grandkids will some day see the same ones-they have an air of immortality, like the mountains forever a part of the landscape-but I know this to be untrue, they will someday crumble, mere wreckage, and then dust.
We crossed the continental divide some time ago and now too are flowing downhill towards the Pacific. But we won’t make it that far. I have trouble believing the Rockies resume close by as I stare out across the prairie but I know they remain hidden behind the clouds to the West, rise up like a fortress-beautiful but also sinister. A mountain ages like a man-slowly creasing and sagging and breaking down-worn away by time until finally gone-dust.

The snow and slope of the land gradually are getting steeper until the mountains that a while ago appeared painted on the horizon are all around. The rancher’s fence that lined the farmland is here, except now rolling up and down with the rise and fall of the land and almost buried in snow. The familiar pointy, tall, skinny conifers and thin, wispy Aspen of the Rockies have returned. We have entered the Teton National Forest, and two mighty moose trudge through deep snow, diplomats to this pristine land. Driving provides a lesson: keep moving and things will change-no matter how far off what you’re going for appears-stay on the path and it will happen-all of a sudden you’re there and it’s surreal because for so long the road was somewhere else-passing through countless points until at last it’s the one you want.

2/3 Reflections on Jackson Hole

One of those times you see somebody else that looks like you-and momentarily they are you-and I see upon their face my own expression- eyes ablaze with joy looking up on steep slopes surrounded by rocky cliffs and trees and the outline of skiers and boarders descending dark against the white background. It snowed all morning but later the sun burst free and as it did felt like a privilege- which is what I see in the eyes of the stranger that is me -humbleness, wonder, thanks for the deep snow and vertical drop and sun- a religious experience, deeply spiritual- but somebody in line jokingly moos and I see the other side -we are cattle, each of us no more important than the other- perhaps some better stock but all doing the same thing -standing in line, gear in hand, telling stories that are just an attempt to stay relevant. It’s why I write this story, to tell that I was there, I skied Jackson Hole, I descended its steep rocky slopes, the sun was out the snow was deep and I’ll never forget it or the looks on my friends’ faces as they laid and rested in the snow, only their grins discernable behind thick clothing and bug eyed goggles- looking like spacemen on the moon, adventurers on their own strange, alien planet and as I remember their faces I also remember mine –my face on another-the face of joy we all wore but was no more important to the mountains than cows being herded through machines and packaged and sold. A mountain is indifferent to all.

2/4 The Return Voyage

Each portion of mountains has a distinct look even among a large chain-the the Rockies of Wyoming have a different look than those of Colorado-but they do look similar, as though cousins. The fairly blunt tops indicate the toil of millions of years of erosion-these are old mountains, some of the oldest in the world-but once they were never here at all-and so it will be in the future-mountains to dust-dust back into mountains-some day a great sea may cover this land, with the top of Jackson Hole an island jutting up through the blue depths-the descendants of cowboys and ski bums making a living, diving to explore the decaying remains of a chairlift. But for now we are above sea level and it is a glorious sight-rolling along through a valley, the sun breaking over a peak and flooding the land with a blast of light- everything covered with a film of frost- and when the sun hits the land it sparkles and the branches of trees stretch outward like hands straining for the warmth of the sun. All living things reach for the sun, the only certain God. A fog rolls over the valley, clinging to a river that winds through the trees like a serpent of mist. I imagine myself as a great adventurer starting a day of travel on foot-seeing this same view-taking a moment from his quest to enjoy the vista-I am alive-this is real-no mission is so great as not to take time to enjoy the moments of beauty, such as the epic landscape laid out before me-this is the adventure-everything in between. Towns proudly display population signs of one and two hundred-horses outside in stables-steam coming from their nostrils, matching the smoke rising from the chimneys of houses that are all warm and snug inside. Few things are more satisfying than a roaring fire on a cold day, the feeling of triumphing over the elements. Men here have beards and cowboy hats and denim and drive trucks-tough and silent and grizzled and yet possessing a simple kindness-a traditional way that keeps them human. Here they are sheltered from the terrible world not too far away-this is a sanctuary- wildlife and mountains and rivers and pure white snow-hidden from the world of man-cold, dirty, greedy, loud, crowded. Living here is a firm stand against the society that cheapens it-fouls it-destroys it. Staying here is a decision to stay human and as I drive through Wyoming I briefly regain the innocence the world has taken away.

I stashed my valuables in a coin-locker then took a couple of laps through to scout out the remaining spots. There was one under an AC duct. I wasn’t sure if I should make such a bold move. I was too weary for a potential battle with a dominant male. Besides, it was right out in the open where people walked past, which wasn’t so much dangerous as embarrassing. I wondered if bums even thought about such things. Did these men cling to any standard of decency after begging and scrounging for discarded food all day? Does survival totally eclipse dignity?
First I wanted to feel the vibe and decide if it was safe. I chose a spot and sat down to write in my journal. For the most part I received nothing more than a few interested looks. After about ten minutes a middle-aged hobo approached and offered me a soda. He rambled on in Japanese, occasionally throwing in a random English word for what seemed like good measure. I opened my guidebook to a map of Japan and tried to reconstruct my journey for him. At the mention of the name Okinawa he got very excited. He kept saying the name over and over again, nearly frantic. I thought maybe his grandfather had been killed there during the War. In a moment he’d spread the word that an American swine was in their midst. They’d tear me to pieces.

As an American traveling abroad I’m often confronted with the effects of my country’s empirical aspirations. Nowhere was this truer than in Japan. Earlier in the week I’d visited Nagasaki and concluded that no tactical explanation could justify the horrors of nuclear warfare. Reading the testimonials of people whose friends and families had been vaporized, seeing the photos of peoples’ skin melting off, I glimpsed the possibilities of a world gone completely mad. Even though I’d personally done nothing to harm the Japanese I couldn’t help but feel there was blood on my hands, or at least on my conscience. I hoped my presence didn’t remind them of one of humanity’s darkest hours. Unfortunately, it was hard to be sure. The language barrier had often proven to be impenetrable. As I sat on the floor with the hobo I could only nod, smile politely, and acknowledge that this was at least a small step towards compassion.
As we were sitting there a group of drunk guys came storming through the station screaming, “Wake up!” at snoozing hobos. Their accents and demeanor revealed them as my fellow countrymen. They laughed and cheered each other on but as they saw me a look of confusion registered on their faces. For a moment I thought of asking if they had a place on the floor where I could crash for the night. However, at that moment, being able to speak the same language seemed inconsequential in regards to being a person worth talking with. People like this are the reason Americans are still widely considered condescending, buffoonish thugs. I suddenly felt quite fortunate to be on the floor with someone who could do no more to communicate with me than chant, “Okinawa good.”

After my visitor departed it was past 1:00 and most of the activity inside the station had come to an end. Police officers made rounds, their shoes clacking distinctly on the tile floor. Occasionally a person or two passed through, their pace quickened by the sight of so many misfortunate men. I unrolled my bag, got inside, stripped down to my underwear and made a pillow out of clothing. Sleep didn’t come quickly or easily. The ground was hard and I felt hot and slimy inside the bag. Restless, I sat up and looked around. Watching the hobos doze peacefully, I wondered if it wasn’t in fact my conscience causing my somnambulism. Despite paying lip service to altruism, my real motivation for being there was much less noble. I thought myself quite brash for spending the night alongside a bunch of homeless people. In reality I was just pursuing another conquest that I could regale friends with back at home. When morning came I’d roll up my designer bag, unlock my belongings and carry on thinking how down to earth I was. It didn’t occur to me until then that these men were sleeping here not because it was edgy but because they didn’t have a choice. Though more subtle than my drunken compatriots, I too had acted as if I were better than the hobos. Elitism takes many forms.

At around 5:30 the police started waking people up and telling them to leave the station. The hobos passively obliged except for one man who screamed and began throwing trash around. The cops showed no special treatment as they shook me and pointed towards the exit. At least in their eyes we were all equal.
The temporary shantytown was broken down and its inhabitants dispersed onto the streets of Fukuoka. I collected my belongings from the locker and went to the bathroom to freshen up. I was surprised to find it very busy. Many of those I’d slept alongside were getting ready to face the day as well. That they needed to shave, brush their teeth and wash their faces had never occurred to me. It felt like a youth hostel bathroom. Some of the men gave a friendly nod or smile as if we were acquaintances. They even cleared a spot for me at the basin. I was unable to imagine what they had to get ready for. They were bums, after all, a title which belies loafing around in dingy alleys, eating discarded food and being generally uncivilized. But there they were, preparing to put a fresh face forward into the world just like me. One man emerged from a stall with a satisfied look. Apparently the glory of the morning shit is transcendental as well.

When I finished it was just past six. I had nowhere to go for the three hours until my ferry left. A group of hobos had gathered in the central square outside the station to reconstruct their cardboard settlement. I considered sitting with them but didn’t want to push my luck. I decided instead to go to the Starbucks across the street, where people like me belonged. As the sun’s rays stretched out over the city they illuminated an established order that was too complex to undo. The morning light confirmed my suspicion that the differences between American and Japanese, employed and homeless, were too great to overcome. I might as well stop pretending that my exploits were anything other than something that made me feel good about myself.

I was walking towards the street when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to see a man whose face I vaguely recalled from the lobby last night. He gestured for me to join them and I accepted. As we approached he said something in Japanese. Immediately a piece of cardboard was laid down for me. This man was clearly the Alpha bum. He strode around almost cockily, his large gut destroying the myth of bums as starving wretches. He said something else and a man came over with a bag full of bread. Just imagine how I felt, having homeless people offer me food! The boss sat beside me smiling. He gave instructions to the others like an Asian Tony Soprano. It soon became clear that these men did not just loaf around all day leering and talking to themselves. They had a highly organized can and bottle collection operation as well as a cleaning crew. I felt like the bum as I loafed around and ate their bread. After the area was cleaned the bottles and cans were carried away in bags. A few minutes later my pot-bellied friend returned with money and handed it out to the others. Soon they all had beer and snacks. One of them placed a can of cold draft in my hand. Beer… at 7:30 a.m….why not? Technically I was still on vacation. I admired the efficiency of their market socialism. The streets were packed with people rushing off to start work while these guys were already sipping brews and relaxing. I was trying to figure out how their system had come into being when I recalled reading about Japan’s sizable homeless population. It’s made up largely of men who lost their jobs during the Asian financial crisis of the 80’s. Many had worked at one company their entire lives and when it went down they were unable to find work again. Viewing them in this light I realized they were not so different than me or the swarms of people heading to the office. The reason people pack themselves into crowded trains and sterile offices is the same one that obliges hobos to freshen up and collect recyclables or a man to seek adventure in a foreign country. It is pride that compels people to face each day with purpose. The city coming to life around me could be explained by the simple fact that people want to prove they are good for something. Thus, I sat with my new friends not as an American or a white guy or a tourist, but as a human being united in the search for dignity.

There were only about forty-five minutes until my boat left. I ran to the shop and bought a round of beers. I raised mine in toast, proclaiming: “Arigato hazai mas”. Thank you very much. I longed to say more. As a substitute I bowed deeply in parting. “Goodbye,” some of them managed to say. When I was nearly to the road I turned back for one last look at the Hakata bums then walked out of their lives forever.