PC Bangs

So long and thanks for all the soju ...

2005-12-29T11:14:00.000+09:00

Well, the time has come to cease talking of many things, to stop going to PC Bangs, to pack up my bags and head for different places, to leave behind many happy and strange memories of my time here. It is hard to believe that four months ago I arrived in Seoul in the middle of summer, and that now this city is goign through its coldest December in a century. How much has changed, both for me personally and in the world in general during that time. How people have grown older, or younger. People I will never see again. Parts of me I will never know again. Stop me before I get too sentimental. But let me just say, one thing I will really miss is my Korean phone with its ringtone, these lines from "The Girl From Ipanema":

Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes - ah ...

I still have some poems to finish (especially my planned epic ode to Starcraft) but I think I will post them on my home page instead. For first time visitors, this blog was written between the months of September and December 2005, while undertaking a residency at Sogang University in Seoul. This residency was made possible by the generous support of the Australia-Korea Foundation and the Australia Council for the Arts. My thanks to Nikki Anderson and the staff at the Asialink Centre at the University of Melbourne, Moon Sun Choi at the Australian Embassy in Seoul and Brother Anthony (An Sonjae) at Sogang University for their assistance, encouragement and support during this time.

My initial aim in coming to Seoul was to research PC Bang (internet gaming room) culture in Seoul from a sociological or ICT perspective. I've always been interested in public use of internet technologies, but in the past this was purely from a research perspective, as opposed to a creative perspective. So initially, before I arrived here, I was determined to document PC Bangs as a sociological phenomenon but I began to lose interest in this once I arrived here. For one, I began to feel that the issue of PC Bangs has been over-hyped or fetishised in the West, to the point where it has become a stereotype. I wanted to get beyond this stereotype and actually exist and create work in these places, rather than simply be an observer looking at the Koreans as an anthropologist might. Secondly, and this might seem contradictory, these spaces are so interesting and so varied, I began to realise that if I was really looking for a space in which the Korean "dymanism" is flourishing, I needed to go where the Korean people go, whether it be a businessman on a lunchbreak, a school student after classes or a university student late at night, or even someone who's had a big night and is using the PC bang as a place to sleep. For me, it was also important to get beyond the "Oh, PC Bangs are bad, did you know someone died in one recently?" kind of reaction, to gain a better appreciation of why people go there. I could only do this by going there myself, and trying to do what I wanted to do. In the end, I succeeded, but in an altogether unexpected way.

As documented in an article on my project in the Korea Times, in coming up with the PC bangs project, I was influenced by Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities, in which Marco Polo described a series of fictional cities (all of which were really Venice) to the Emperor Kublai Khan. For me this book, with its meeting of east and west, says a lot about the western imagination and how it projects its own view of the world upon "the other", whether this be Asia or any other alien place. So, instead of writing about invisible cities, I decided to write about imaginary cities. I drew up a list of words in English ending with "city" (for example "tenacity", "audacity", "ferocity") and removed the letters "city" from each word, thus creating new cities - hence, "tena", "auda", "fero". In this way, the idea of the city would be present but both imaginary and invisible. Over the course of two months I visited a different PC Bang in Seoul every day and wrote about an "imaginary city" in each one. Of course, like Marco Polo, each of the cities I was writing about turned out to be the same place - in my case, Seoul.

One unexpected image or theme that continually came up in the poems/ pieces was the situation of everyday Koreans affected by rapid changes in both the Korean economy and internet technologies. While I was inside the PC Bangs, ostensibly connected to the world via broadband technology, I was acutely aware that outside (for example around the Jongno area), there were people living on the streets, sleeping in ATM booths, or in the park. This stark contrast could not help but show up in the pieces, most of which are full of old men, ajummas, cooks, drunks and everyday people whom i saw on the streets, in restaurants, or stumbling home late at night. So, in a way, to compare my cities to Calvino's would be a mistake - they are all really Seoul, and they are all actually about the people living here, of course viewed by me as an outsider, but nevertheless I hope I have been sympathetic to the street culture here, and to the spirit of the Korean people in general, which is so palpable, even to an outsider like me.

There are so many people whose friendship, kindness and humour have helped me through this period away from home. Most of them are mentioned in one of my final imaginary cities, Viva. In particular, however, I would like to thank Larissa Hjorth, a fellow Asialink resident, whose friendship, drinking and debriefing abilities saved me from certain insanity. Everyone else - well, you know who you are.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this blog and its contents to the people of Seoul and of the Republic of Korea as a whole. I hope that peace will prevail on the Korean peninsula and that the fabled Korean dymanism will not be lost in the sweeping tide of change now gripping the globe. I also hope one day to return to this most beautiful, contradictory and fascinating city but for now so long and thanks for all the soju ...

For you ...

2005-12-25T11:52:00.000+09:00

PC Bang Signage (60)

2005-12-24T11:55:00.000+09:00

PC Bang Signage (59)

2005-12-24T11:48:00.000+09:00

PC Bang Signage (58)

2005-12-24T11:47:00.000+09:00

PC Bang Signage (56)

2005-12-24T11:45:00.001+09:00

PC Bang Signage (57)

2005-12-24T11:45:00.000+09:00

imaginary cities: vorti --

2005-12-23T13:46:00.000+09:00

<------ A city of terminals. << This city with no streets but networks of amputated limbs. << City of burnt grass and black limousines. << Go back to Basi. << Lost city of the broken draft, Cadu is a pile of turnips rotting in the moonlight, begging for a trundle. << Autumn in the city of snow-stolen leaves. << Downtown in the city of greige skylines: muskrats grope for cinnamon oranges in the shadows of a giant air-conditioning outlet. << City of sleepy subways and swift downstrokes. << City of miniature cities, laid out on lawns like picnic lunches, skyscrapers made from sweetstuffs, syringes for telecommunications towers, lights blinking away the loneliness of miniature people gazing up at the stars. << City of warm breaths and gentle men. << Sister city of the radiant golden hair. << City of incompatible systems, apocalyptic notations and superannuated evangelists. << City of riotous dance halls and movies that never end. << City of hunger and dirty palms. << Turning upon the incendiary maple, coming down on an avenue of triumph. << City of dictator beige and magic honey. << City of sandy streets in a lonely tear gas nation. << City of emphasis mines and gravity bombs, assassination attempts and mourning news. << City of vapour trails and suns that set like eggs in a sky of brandy. << City of radiation and pliers. << City of garrets and all-night nature rants. << A film-strength city situated, obviously, deep in the marshes. << City too big to be called a city. << City of the big one, the whopper and the raised eyebrow. << City of dread, of shanties and loam. << The city is tiny but it takes up so much space. << City that encloses many other cities, like a lunch pail filled with multiple containers, each of which holds a prescribed number of foodstuffs - nuts, sultanas, rice, meatstuffs, tapioca, croutons, larvae. << Once upon a time there was a piece of paper through which the words printed on the other side could not be seen, a piece of paper so thick it might have been made of wood. << Stripes of dry land trapped beneath a pale halogen daymurk. << It's just been built but already you can see the tyre-marks on the roundabouts, the skidding tales of midnight smashes and the crumbs of shattered glass. << Alligators crawl through the slippered streets, punctuating the monks' marches for alms. << That vision of you standing in the snow was my secret talisman, a lucky charm to ward off bad weather, frosted lips and crunch hips. << There was a trumpet somewhere but it was tarnished and could only play the theme from F-Troop. << The ajumma comes to the end of her story - the slicing of a giant onion into irregular chunks - and looks up at me as if I am about to leave. << City of sadness engines and wet kindling. << City as weary as a tree that cries leaves. << City of organisms. << The velvet night trips me, I can't see jack via fistlight. << If Velo wears a cardboard crown then surely Vera appears draped in green. << Viva! Page not found. <<------ from: imaginary cities -- vorti -- cities imaginary: from ------>> Page not found. Viva! >> Vera blissful and breathless in daylight's profusion, singing through grass streets stretching seawards to the pipelines, shoves the matter deep in her coat pocket and marches, unfollowed, along cool bitumen avenues, her feet seeking skin prints in the improbably husked net. >> Brims of water and the morning, sirens from the soft ward of someone's conscience, eradicated. >> Human city of bacterial plants, filled with ripe organisms, dead organs and the ghost of a tissue, like a frozen sheet of snow, in the smudged sky, the toxic sky, called home. >> Clothe me in the colour of my departure, then sew up my eyes with city needles, urban thread. >> Dusted with a subway smear. >> We will make stories from the pork and vinegar, roll these in the plotlines of sesame and salt, dip once into the ever-changing vinegar bowl, now greasy with pork fat, picking up where we first left off, being sure also to grab in our shining silver chopsticks without story or meaning a small sliver of white onion, and then taste the whole mysterious historical combination on the ever-unfolding storyboards of our pink wet tongues. >> But in the city of Rau all of these instruments have been silent and sad for a very long time now. >> This is your guarantee. >> Zookeepers have forgiven animals for lesser escape attempts; now comes the time for you to size up the wend of the wires. >> Alone, in the chamber reserved for you in this newest of love-hotel streets, you switch off the flourescent bulb instead, before cracking the set-list in your imaginary, trembling hand. >> Driveways old and empty, bollards wrapped in multi-coloured wire. >> Twenty eight times upon a time there was a dead city called Opa, and this is how many stories you will have to endure before anyone is willing to tell you behind which screen or on which page it even exists. >> A multicity referring and cataloguing itself again and again, until even the patterns of its forced assimilations begin to resemble constellations, beehives, shrouds, lives. >> Odes and elegies, sung in minor keys. >> For once I hear nothing. >> Typical. >> Strawberry soju forever. >> The burning resin between us, behind us, in our heads. >> Lonesome peaks, jagged. >> They can be compared with the other cities, existing (as we do) on warped and tortured scales. >> These are the times when you would like to run. >> When will you cross that line thatched with straw, mountainous with geese? >> Caught in the updrafts of belching subways, a new mythology to replace the reverse dream. >> I've turned my safety off, having no further use for disguises, stealth or radioactive hair. >> The city is full of us - fistfights galore. >> Money strafes us all. >> You. >> Something tells me no one would try to stop me. >> Splashing, exhausted, into a pool of algae and carp, because no one was there to catch me when I fell. >> A city no one living in my home town has ever heard of, nor ever will. >> Await the final outcome. >> This little piggy stays home. >> You're not the only one praying for dawn. >> Couples stroll under the avenues of greening trees, whispering lines of poetry, like thieves unhurried in the dark. >> Blast. >> But their dreams - ah! If only you could see them, feel a sleeping heart's beat! When morning comes, be sure to keep a map beside you, if only to reassure your nocturnal half that Basi is real, just like the obscure system of pressure points that is said to lead to another most ordinary city, that of the smile. >> Behind us, mountains; ahead, cartwheels of conversation, opening. >> Shoulder arms. >> Night comes, and the neon day begins. ------>

PC Bang Signage (55)

2005-12-23T12:30:00.000+09:00

imaginary cities: viva --

2005-12-23T11:45:00.000+09:00

Viva! Page not found. Viva! City of marshall arts. Viva! Grape soda. Viva! Song lyrics spread from mouth to mouth. Viva! Your mouth, my lips. Viva! Trouble girl. Viva! City of endless planes. Viva! The angel of hips. Viva! Snowy boots. Viva! Timpani. Viva! Pansori. Viva! Ko Un. Viva! Hiddink. Viva! Holland. Viva! Pa ra pa pa pum. Viva! Namsan. Viva! Bukhansan. Viva! Hongdae. Viva! Seventies record collections. Viva! The hiss and pop of vinyl. Viva! Dancing boys. Viva! Moriapo. Viva! Mokochukcha. Viva! Demilitarised bones. Viva! Hangul carved from snow on the rear window of a white car. Viva! Strangely addictive. Viva! Isaac. Viva! I love PC Bang. Viva! Squat toilet. Viva! Navy Seal. Viva! Captain of Pirates. Viva! JSA. Viva! Old Boy. Viva! Starcraft. Viva! Bulguksa. Viva! Sansachun. Viva! Comfortably nunchukka. Viva! Imaginary kitties. Viva! Quiny. Viva! Perpetual reconstruction. Viva! Visa run. Viva! Alien identification. Viva! Professors. Viva! Lost in translation. Viva! Zero transmigration. Viva! Foreign exchange. Viva! Weguk. Viva! Snowblasts. Viva! Magic won. Viva! get on up. Viva! Sex machine. Viva! Ride. Viva! Vanishing. Viva! KTX. Viva! Seoul Station. Viva! Volunteer Jehovahs. Viva! Outer Circle Line. Viva! Christmas marking. Viva! Stevie. Viva! Kevin. Viva! Young Eun. Viva! Anna. Viva! Melanie. Viva! Tan. Viva! Joseph. Viva! Sean. Viva! Anouk. Viva! Kat. Double viva! Soju Panda. Viva! Nika and Primoz. Viva! Bridget. Viva! Jooyoung. Viva! Moonsun. Viva! An Sonjae. Viva! Sogang. Viva! Space heaters. Viva! Ondol. Thank bloody viva! Hanok. Viva! River and Mountain. Viva! Folk songs. Viva! Busan. Viva! PIFF. Viva! Love hotel. Viva! Sting Hotel. Viva! Hmmm ... Viva! Soju. Viva! Baekseju. Viva! Makkolli. Viva! Viva! Viva! The moon. Viva! Dim stars. Viva! Morning calm. Viva! Dongdaemun. Viva! Namdaemun. Viva! Jongno sam-ga. Viva! Anguk. Viva! Sinchon. Viva! Hanna doh, juseyo. Viva! Gamsa hamnida. Viva! Hoju saram. Viva! Soju saram. Viva! Yi Sun Shi. Viva! Turtle boat. Viva! Han. Viva! Terminal. Viva! Page not found. Viva!

PC Bang Signage (54)

2005-12-22T16:02:00.000+09:00

imaginary cities: toxi --

2005-12-22T15:45:00.000+09:00

City of organisms. City of organs. City of tissue. Organisms that change shape depending on the flow of traffic. Organs that thump and glow, in time with the jingling of beggars in the aisles. Tissue that blows in the wind and is mistaken for snow, finally alighting upon a loudspeaker. City of poisoned organisms pelting streetwalkers with shame, bludgeoned in turn by firehoses and backdrafts. City of poisoned organs that sing songs about the girl who was supposed to be here yesterday, with just the faintest taste of Christmas carols. City of poisoned tissue, readable in the grey cheeks of strangers, interpreted by the buzz lights of the underpass, irretrievably cold. City of organic organs and hipster drills, banshee wails and coo-eyed blubber, wilting on the footpaths and draped across the bridges, inviting guests to their strange womb-like corps. City of organ tissue sandblasted and bent, rent from the chaos hole of delirium and banged up on newsprint and grape soda. City of tissue organisms eradicated by the serpent-wail of thyme, fists gnashed on the energy pill of transmigration, hollow and vile. City of humans. City of bacterium. City of plants. Humans that change shape depending upon the snow of tissue. Bacterium that thumps and glows, like miniature foot-pedal organs. Plants that blow in the wind, giving the unharnessed spinning energy of the planet a silhouette. City of poisonous humans caught up in the mash-grind of carbon disintegration, flopped on benches, tooled on shoeshine. City of poisonous bacterium visible only from the sunspots on Mars, licenced to shrill, band-aided as a precautionary pleasure. City of poisonous plants, ring-barked by scientists, drooling sap and shedding leprous leaves. City of human bacterium that croaks, splattered on the windmills of pain, ground down by the aching of boots, stapled to the gum freeze of spring. City of bacterial plants, viral and mutant as yesterday's breeze, shape-shifting the sky and catapulting through smog. City of human plants, mocked by the sapiens, indulged by the worms, pitied by everyone for their willowy wrists. Human city of bacterial plants, filled with ripe organisms, dead organs and the ghost of a tissue, like a frozen sheet of snow, in the smudged sky, the toxic sky, called home.

PC Bang Signage (53)

2005-12-22T13:47:00.000+09:00

imaginary cities: tena --

2005-12-22T13:45:00.000+09:00

City as weary as a tree that cries leaves. City on the edge of hopelessness, on the duckboard of despair. The pathos of a rushed existence, coupled with an addiction to shuffling. Manacled to the winter sun-dial, I tripped upon a field of transparent snow. Windows were curtained, dogs barked all night at the makkolli moon. Rubbish bins filled with mysteries and secrets. The scent of a cigarette smoked by the man in the dark overcoat walking ahead of you in the lane. The irresistible soundtrack of dance music bleating from the stacks parked out the front of discount stores. City of sock stalls. Orange tents that could be situated on a battlefield, soup kitchens for the passing crowds. Fatty fish spirals on skewers, paper cups filled with machine broth, its clouds like sheets of white mist that hit the face, drunk. Balloons kissing ceilings. Background noise on handphones, the tinny voices of disconnected souls. Sweet city, I will miss the memory of your hand in my pocket. I will miss your ineluctable dance moves. I will miss the temporary communities waiting at traffic lights. I will miss the community police boxes. I will not miss the pigeon catchers in the citizen's parks. I will not miss the weird glances of passers-by. I will not miss the subway queues, the partly-constructed blast-doors, the shuddering punch of wind between skyscrapers. I don't not know what else I will remember once I have left for another land on a beetle. You are Morgenland, the next chapter in my breathless correspondence with the world, hanging on to the tassels of this magic carpet, history. Dreaming at night of a new myth, featuring glad girls, hassled boys and everyone in uniform. Gazing upon the neon double of my eye, broken by the shimmer of hardware stores, singing rooms and architectural imaginations. Promised a dynamic experience, I find myself disappointed only with my own fear of failure, in another language. What else can I ask of you, city of repeating pleasures? City of dares and disbelief. City of strings, red tape and handshakes. City of wrists. Woven through with golden ribbons, city of mourning calm and sweet bread. Green tea, red buns, black night. Clothe me in the colour of my departure, then sew up my eyes with city needles, urban thread.

Check me out in the Korea Times!

2005-12-21T14:49:00.000+09:00

I'm very excited to say that there's an article in today's issue of English language newspaper The Korea Times that profiles my PC Bangs project here in Seoul. You can read the article online here.

Big thanks to journalist (and artist) Bridget O'Brien, who definitely has a love of poetry (boy, is that a nice change!) and to photographer Kim Hyun-tae who managed to make me look cool in the pic (above). So strange to be in the newspaper - it's my first feature profile ever! Zippedy doo dah!

Postscript: while this site hasn't quite been overwhelmed with hits since yesterday's article, the story has been mentioned here on the website of poet and writer Moses Iten. Yay!

Snapshots of Almost Contact

2005-12-21T11:44:00.000+09:00

Melbourne-based new media artist, lecturer and all round soju-panda Larissa Hjorth, who is also undertaking an Asialink residency in Seoul at the Sszamjie Space, held an open studio the other night, to celebrate the completion of her "Snapshots of Almost Contact" project. Please, consider ...

Soju-Panda Eyes herself: actually, this shot was taken last month at the Sugar Bar in Hongdae but seeing as we ended up in exactly the same place the other night, there really is no difference ...

An example of the kinds of works Larissa has been creating out of the distinctive Korean fabric pattern. Steve Jobs, look and learn ...

Seoul's best-kept secret, three piece band the Whilebird Chirpings, featuring Jooyoung on keyboards, Matt on lead vocals and drums, and Bridget on lead guitar. Rumours of their imminent demise should be treated with alarm.

Bridget, an artist who moonlights as a staff reporter for the Korea Times, tries to point to a picture of her phone. Unfortunately, being height-challenged, she doesn't quite achieve her objective. It's the second from the right, Bridget.

A close-up shot of some of the phones Larissa photographed, together with their owners' accessories (a must).

The money shot: ninety six phones, who knows how many text messages, conversations and self-portraits ...

A Poem by my Australian Culture Students

2005-12-21T08:21:00.000+09:00

One of the highlights of my Australian Culture classes was the series of student presentations which took place at the end of the semester. In one of the final presentations, on the topic of Australian poetry (a topic that no one was really that keen to tackle), the students (including the cute koala pictured below) broke out into song, the lyrics of which I have presented below. They also gave me a cd featuring an mp3 version of the song, which I hope to upload soon.

Aussie and we Korea

Thank you Prater for your class
Made us become Creator
oh My dear Prater.

Though I sometimes took a nap.
At least I know Phar lap.
Met I Kangaroo and oodgeroo.

No more nasty Vegemite.
I don't want another bite.
No more ABC news tonight.

Now old ANZAC wowow
Thanks for comin' at hard time.
From your land to end war crime.

As time goes by, We say good-bye.
Just one thing to remember.
We had great time from September.

Learning so far Australia
showed us who we really are.
Forever Aussie and we Korea.
Forever Aussie and we Korea.

I'm speechless.

PC Bang Signage (52)

2005-12-20T21:57:00.000+09:00

imaginary cities: scar --

2005-12-20T13:44:00.000+09:00

City of sadness engines and wet kindling. The tell-tale signs of tampered seals, broken message sticks and gravity defeated. Neon diodes for restless leaves. Coming to the end of a demolished line, and realising that you've left your instruments at the coup. Riots raining down like spent cartridges, with no way of telling who's abused, who's simply rumbling. Shadowed by a mallet, mimicking the sound of grisly gums. Lights explode, revealing the weird interstices between our sweaty hands. You're running. I'm bringing up the rear, like a goofy bear caught with his nose in honey. Sunsmiles, rapids and cantilever bridges. Did you bring the ordnance? Damn. Strapping incendiary clocks to our thighs, I wince in pain at the slightly radioactive buzz. Chills emanating from yesterday's snow piles. A dog whose fur is the colour of dirty snow disappears amongst the garbage, urinates and then jumps out at a passing electric vehicle. Misses. Smile, you're on planet Scar TV. Midnite rendezvous, a tattoo of the times on my wrist. You check for a pulse. It seems I'm still here. But are we? Eradicating plans and reassigning code wards. My good friend, whom I have never met, tells me of his mind colds. I wish his breath. I find footprints in the paint. Someone has been here before. The little girl bursts out of my chest and begins to sing. It's all too much. The doors have all been ripped off their hinges. Solitude creeps. The tags have been busted, the trees have been replanted in a different arrangement, probably symmetrical when seen fromn the air. All of their branches have been drenched in fairy lights. Walking between them brings on the dizziness again. Then I'm off to the terminal. A dog barks, or is that you coughing? Specks of blood on a yellow handkerchief. Definitely interwar. Blisters with minds, socks with ammunition compartments. Sounds impossible. Bangings from the cellar. Ripples of rumour beneath the surface of a frozen pond. Turtles in the snow. Hunchback mountains. The blur of safety. Smells like veneer. Dusted with a subway smear.

Bulguksa

2005-12-20T13:15:00.000+09:00

PC Bang Signage (51)

2005-12-20T12:46:00.000+09:00

PC Bang Signage (50)

2005-12-20T12:44:00.000+09:00

PC Bang Signage (49)

2005-12-20T12:37:00.000+09:00

Soju Glacier

2005-12-19T15:48:00.000+09:00

soul cracked on a mountain sheet
soju warms me with glacial heat

mind snared on a toothless high
soju shoots me up into the sky

body wrapped around a sharp pin
soju heals me like rain on tin

fingers burnt by a solar flare
soju sooths me like bomb scares

eyes dimmed by the wet eclipse
soju numbs my vision & my lips

heart broken by passing times
soju thrills me with its rhymes

imaginary cities: saga --

2005-12-19T12:22:00.000+09:00

The ajumma comes to the end of her story - the slicing of a giant onion into irregular chunks - and looks up at me as if I am about to leave. The truth is, I just sat down. She tosses the white stories into a pink plastic tub and picks up a second tale. I pick at my kim chi like it's an excuse someone's about to give me, and which I do not want to hear. But the truth is, I've heard it a thousand times before, and this time the kim chi tastes just as vinegary, just as spicy as the last one. I look up at the old man cooking pork on the little grill and mistake him for someone I once saw at my grandfather's funeral - leathery, small, beaten down by time. The truth is, I have seen him before. He's the guy who tried to shake my hand in the laneway and tickled his index finger against my palm, like a small worm against my skin. He recoils from me now, anticipating my inevitable reaction, and goes on turning the small slices of meat story. The old man looks up and sees a friend out in the street, goes to get up and then thinks better of it, looking sadly instead at the small glass of soju with no companion. It could be crime to eat alone here. Between the cracks of boisterous social encounters, however, the small seeds of loneliness and isolation shoot up like outcast weeds (him, me). The small glass of soju - I can see the exterior of the glass is dusted, from lack of use) twinkles in the intermittent strobing of the light behind the wall fan, wishing itself empty, knowing that in truth this is not its purpose - a soju glass should always be full. The half-empty bottle stares at the glass balefully, all the while aching for the warmth of the old man's palm, knowing also, in all truthfulness, that its fate will be to be thrown into a crate of empty brothers and sisters, then transported back to the bottling plant, either to be smashed and reformed as another green glass story, or to be simply washed clean and free of human prints and then filled, just like the last time, with the clear and glacial liquid that keeps old men warm and conversations flowing. The room looks at us all with its usual ambiguity, its hangul signage worn and crusted from corrections, cancellations and sad amendments to the list of a dish's ingredients. The hangul characters, red and orange against their teakwood skins, radiate an uber-cool aloofness, existing on a plane beyond menus and orders, beyond conversation even, though in truth the conversations themselves attempt to mimic the script's everyday practicality, its scientific charm. The air forgets us all, forgets even the scent of the onion, the pork fat frying, the cigarette smoke slithering, the dust gathering on wood and glass, the incense in its corner. The incense has no story. The plastic chairs have no story. The glass windows will have no story until evening falls, and the world turns neon, giving them something to reflect. The ajumma continues slicing her stories into small white chunks, irregular but million-fold. They will be placed into small white storyless bowls, and green shoots added to them, along with the now-familiar vinegar saga. We will make stories from the pork and vinegar, roll these in the plotlines of sesame and salt, dip once into the ever-changing vinegar bowl, now greasy with pork fat, picking up where we first left off, being sure also to grab in our shining silver chopsticks without story or meaning a small sliver of white onion, and then taste the whole mysterious historical combination on the ever-unfolding storyboards of our pink wet tongues.