“The Incredible Hulk” and Korea
Man, if that headline doesn’t get your attention I don’t know what will.
So, I’ve had this…I wouldn’t call it a problem, persay. It’s more of a “Please, don’t let anything of international media attention worthiness happen in the next year” sort of thing. Here’s the deal. So I started out believing that I was going to be somewhere in the city of Pocheon, north of Seoul. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start out by explaining that I had been hoping for months before I had ever heard of a place called Pocheon that I would not be placed anywhere remotely close to the demilitarized zone. It’s not that I’m especially worried about war breaking out or that I’m even all that concerned about North Korea’s intentions or plans for the region in the foreseeable future. I’ve just been a little uneasy about being within the vicinity of the northern treaty line just as any fresh-out-of-college, card-carrying American would be. Especially knowing that I’m going in as a teacher with no combat/military experience outside of “Halo 3” and “Gears of War”.
So, needless to say, I was a little nervous upon finding out that my placement was going to Gyeonggi-do, which I had listed as my first preference on my application. After all, I want to be close to Seoul and I want to be close to the action, in general. I figured the odds were relatively remote that I could possibly be placed anywhere north of Seoul, given all the juicy locations south of the city that are just begging for a strapping, young go-getter like myself. Naturally, karma came back around to spite my ego and I landed about 25 miles south and east of the DMZ. This is where I was informed that my location would be, roughly, Pocheon, with a bunch of other meaningly words scribbled off in the margins in Hangul.
Not so fast, as it turns out.
I have recently discovered that my actual location is a township outside of Pocheon called Ildong-myeon, which looks like a very wonderful suburb complete with two or three spiffy-looking golf courses, more restaurants than I can shake a stick at, barbershops a plenty (which I’m sure are all just like that Ice Cube movie), and shopping galore. It looks like a very pleasant neighborhood and I literally cannot wait to move in and get to know my surroundings.
But there is still the nagging presence of that forbidden territory to the north. I’m not accustomed to being in a place where I know my feet are not meant to tread beyond a certain invisible line. It’s kind of intimidating and, believe me, I have no intention of treading anywhere near said line. None. At. All. I’ve estimated that the closest point of the DMZ is about 21 miles from where I will be teaching. 21 miles. That’s closer than the distance from my home in Bagdad, Kentucky to Louisville or Lexington; two cities which I have frequented as a University of Kentucky graduate and as a former club soccer player in “Loo-uh-fool”. And relations between the Koreas have not been particularly amicable of late given recent events widely-covered in mainstream news.
So how do I cope with my apprehensions about living near to a place of real historical and relevant significance of the international relations stage? How do I make sense of my proximity to such a complicated and emotional arena. It’s simple.
“Incredible Hulk jumps”.
It seems futile to try to make sense of my plight by constantly endeavoring to determine my distance from North Korea in terms of miles and cardinal directions, when I am quite buffered by a considerable number of South Koreans in neighboring towns of the Pocheon-si area who will become my friends and colleagues for the next year. They will become my lens in observing “life near the border” and I should not neglect the beauty and richness of the environment and culture that are soon to become my new home.
So, yes, I am appoximately 3 or so miles closer to the DMZ in Ildong-myeon than I might have been in Pocheon. Who cares? I’m not close enough to hit it with the proverbial “thrown rock”, and Internet estimates guess that the Incredible Hulk (with leg muscles greatly augmented by his gamma-irradiated transformation) can jump miles in a single bound. Although the exact estimate of how far the Hulk can leap eludes me, probably because the Incredible Hulk’s potential leap capacity is exceeded only by his potential capacity for strength, which some say is immeasurable by definition, estimates seem to average out at around 3-4 miles per bound. So it would take the Incredible Hulk at least 5-6 solid jumps in order to reach North Korea from the middle school where I’ll be teaching, and something about that bestowns upon me a sense of calm almost as immeasurable as said Hulk’s monstrous strength.
Suddenly, the distance between myself and the DMZ seems so much more vast, knowing that I will be and shall stay a mere Bruce Banner during my stay in Korea. If something should happen to change that…Well, you can pretty much forget about me continuing with the blog at that point.
Sean Chandler...in Korea 