Me (background) with an acquaintance back int my crazy days in Seoul.
At some point in late 2006, everything changed in my life. I met the now late Annie Shapiro and she changed my life. A whole lot of crazy things happened that culminated in A VERY CRAZY THIING happening around my 35 birthday.
But I try not to think about that now, many moons later.
I’m a far more sedate, introspective person now. It’s like I’ve had a brain transplant. And, really, all I want now is the opportunity to finish and query my first novel with hopes of it being a break out hit success.
To this day, I think someone could write a screenplay based on what happend between Annie Shapiro and me back in the day. That was all very, very crazy.
Many moons ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was a lowly hawgan teacher in Incheon. It was my first year in South Korea, so it had to be at some point between late 2004 and late 2005. Anyway, I learned that the World Association of Newspapers was having a conference in Seoul.
Arthur Sulzberger Jr
So, I did what every failed journalists who doesn’t realize his career is over does — I engaged in a bit of light fraud and, using some credentials faked via my membership in the Society of Professional Journalists, got myself into the event.
This is where I mention that, in general, I’ve had fairly good interactions with New York Times people to date, those few times I’ve actually interacted with them. But I don’t know how much of that graciousness was simply humoring a drunk loser and how much of it was genuine.
I will note that Jennifer 8. Lee was superficially gracious to me when I met her in Seoul, but I fear that to this day she may mention what a freaky loser I was to her high end cocktail party friends — to this day, occasionally someone will show up in my Webstats wanting to read my account of meeting Lee and her friend Tomoko in Seoul. (I presume to gawk at what a fucking loser I am.)
So the day of the event, I traveled all the way from Incheon to the center of Seoul and went to the WAN event. It was all a bit overwhelming. I think it was at this point that I saw the President of Korea. I would be a lot more calm and collected now if I went to such an event, but then, about 20 years ago, I was a ball of nervous energy.
Anyway, I went to one event and kept staring straight at Arthur Sulzberger Jr and, to his credit, rather than having the guards escort me out for being weird, after the event was over he made a beeline to me. That was a very memorable event for me.
I was supposed to spend, like, an hour with him and a small group of people talking about Very Important Things, but I had to go back to work in Incheon. I think that was probably for the best. I kind of dodged a bullet on that one, I think. That could have been very, very ackward.
Anyway, no harm no foul. It was a one of the more surreal experiences of my time in South Korea.
The key thing is — as of right now, there is zero chance of me ever returning to South Korea. I just have the idea of one day returning on the brain at the moment since I’m not getting any younger. And, really, the world is so big that who knows, maybe I might have the means to return to South Korea, only to get distracted and go to Europe instead.
Back when I was a DJ at Nori bar.
At the moment, I just don’t know.
I only bring all of this up because something mysterious happened in my Webstats — someone went specifically to the post I did of me dwelling on what I would do if I went back to South Korea for a little trip. I have no idea what that means. They were in Canada, so it could very well be someone who knows me and is interested in any plans I might have to return to the Land of the Morning Calm.
The thing about me ever returning to South Korea is I would go back without knowing the context of my return.
It could be that it will be a nostalgic, uneventful little journey and I will return home to go on my next adventure somewhere else. OR, it could be a massive clusterfuck with all these people who remember the Bad Old Me giving me jump scares as they “accidently” run into me and confront me for all the crazy shit I did between late 2006 to early 2008.
The late Annie Shapiro and me, back when I was cute.
But I haven’t been in South Korea for a very long time. While I know I was really fucking weird at times while I was in South Korea the first few times….I’ve changed. I really have. All I’ve done the last decade or so is dwell on what went wrong with ROKon Magazine and how I could have done things differently.
And, what’s more, the person at the center of most of my fucked up behavior — Annie Shapiro — has shuffled off this mortal coil. So, really, everyone should just move on and let me visit my old stomping grounds in South Korea without giving me any grief.
I am very curious if Nori Bar is still open. I’m sure everything has changed if it is. It’s not like I could DJ there again for a night like I used to. I’m sure they just use something like Spotify to pick music, no need for a DJ. I had a lot of good times at that bar, I have to say.
I first went to South Korea just under a generation ago, in the summer of 2004. As such, I find myself yet again brooding over where I might go to should I find myself in a position to return to ROK before I croak.
I think the moment I got off the plane, I would make a bee-line to HBC, what was once the expat ghetto. Things have totally changed since the last time in was in Seoul, so I think, lulz, so what. I would just like to see how things have changed since the last time I was in Seoul.
I think I would then head to the Sincheon / Hongdae part of Seoul to see if Nori Bar is still there. Of course, by doing this, I would be putting myself in a position to meet some in-laws and out-laws that maybe I should try to avid. But, lulz, so what. It’s what I want to do.
Then, I think, I might take the KTX to Busan to spend a few days down there. Then, I would return to Seoul and make my way to Southeast Asia to kind of chill out there. I never got to Cambodia or Vietnam the last time I was in SEA, so that’s probably where I would want to hang out for a few days.
The whole thing would take about two weeks, I think.
The thing is, of course, that I’m so….colorful…that there is a chance that someone during the course of my return to Asia would all but demand I linger in Asia because they have a job they absolutely want me to do.
But…I dunno. At the moment, there’s no assurance that I will return to Asia anytime soon — if ever.
The thing they don’t tell you about living in South Korea is there is something of a time limit. But the time limit is different for everyone and you can reach it without any notice. This is definitely what happened to me.
But as 2024 rolls around, I find myself thinking of my first journey to South Korea in the summer of 2004. Living in Asia totally, totally changed my life and world view. There is a before and after, especially once the whole ROKon Magazine catastrophe took place.
The issue is that ROKon Magazine kind of kneecapped me on an emotional basis because once I got home, a combination of grief and not knowing what I wanted to do with my life put me in neutral for about a decade. I had ambition but no motivation.
I wanted to either go back to Asia or move to somewhere like New York City, but I just did not have the emotional strength to pull it off. So, I did nothing. Now, of course, I have both ambition and motivation when it comes to the novel I’m working on.
The problem is, of course, that if I should blow up with my DJ (novel money) and suddenly have the resources to get married and have kids…I will be about 20 years late relative to my peers. And all my female peers would be in their 50s and, as such, unable to have kids.
Everything would be far more complicated than I thought, even if I finally achieved the success by living up to the “potential” that the late Annie Shapiro told me I had all those years ago.
I still want to return to Asia, though. And, yet, if I did sell my first novel and had the means to return to Asia in some capacity, even that context would be different. My time in South Korea was sooooo long ago that only a few Koreans might remember who I am. (Which, given how crazy I was in South Korea, is probably a good thing.)
It’s all very muddled because in my mind, I’m 20 years younger but I’m now reminded on a daily basis that I definitely am NOT that young anymore. At least I’m alive and (reasonably) healthy.
I’m just being silly, but I find it interesting how people are spooging their pants over Emerald Fennell’s “transgressive” movie Saltburn when I lived a real life story that is just as fucked up (in its own way.)
Emerald Fennell I have not seen Saltburn, but from what I’ve read of its plot — oh boy. But it *does* remind me of how totally fucked up the story of ROKon Magazine is. There are so many twists and turns — and it’s all so character driven — that there are only two people I can think of who could write and produce a movie that properly conveyed what a fucked up situation all that was: Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Emerald Fennell.
Even though I hate to admit it, the only way to tell the story of ROKon Magazine is to use a framing device like that found in Daisy Jones & The Six. And, really, *I* should be the one to tell the ROKon Magazine story, given how important it is to me and my very specific vision.
The closest I’m coming to doing that at the moment is writing six novels that draw heavily upon my experiences in Seoul, what I know to be true from first hand experience at that point in my life.
The last few days I’ve really had South Korea on the brain and so imagine my surprise when lo and behold, I saw today that — you guessed it — someone from South Korea checked out this blog.
Whenever this happens, I’m at a loss. I have no idea why the person looked at my blog and all it does is stir up memories of my wasted youth. I could have been the most famous expat in South Korea if only little Korean kids didn’t hate my guts.
And, yet, here I am — nearly 20 years since I first went to South Korea, still nursing my wounds from stupid shit that happened a long time ago. I am well aware that if I ever went back to Asia, it wouldn’t be anything like what I remember it being.
Things move fast in Asia — and especially South Korea — and the whole vibe would be different. It was different the last time I was in South Korea. It was, in short, boring. I just happened to be in South Korea at a very specific moment in time when things were really, really bonkers and interesting in the expat community there.
I think if I wanted any similar experience, I would have to go to Cambodia. But, even then, I think that’s probably overrated. The Internet has ruined everything and people just swoop in and get all the cool stuff of living in Asia without having to go through the hard part of learning the culture and networking with fellow expats.
So, it was a long time ago and nobody cares anymore.
The older I get, the more I reflect on my time in South Korea as an English teacher. The whole hagwan system in South Korea is so fucked up that I worry that some of my former students who are now adults might have some very vivid memories of how weird a teacher I was.
Just the fact that a number of my students from that period in my life would be old enough to be curious about what I’m up to now is enough to rattle my cage. I say this in the context of continuing to see pings to this Website from people in South Korea.
Now, to be clear, I was so totally over the top and whacked out at times during my time in South Korea that there are many, many different types of people who might be interested enough in me to look me up.
It could be some old, long-term expat interested me just as much as it might be a former student. In fact, that was something that used to bother me with a lot of my fellow expats when I was in South Korea — they acted like the Koreans they interacted were, like robots, like they weren’t, like real.
I was always very aware that the Koreans were just a human as the expats and, as such, there was a very logical explanation for why they acted the way they did. That knowledge now leads me to be weary of why I keep getting pings from South Korea in my Webstats.
The good olde days with the late Annie Shapiro.
It is difficult to articulate how…unique…I was during my time in South Korea. I was so fucked up that I ended up in a self-published book about crazy expats. That was tough, let me tell you.
Anyway, I do find myself contemplating at least one last return to Asia before I drop dead. The problem is of course, that it’s been so long since I was in South Korea that things will be dramatically different to the point that it will be very jarring relative to my extremely romanized memory of that period in my life.
It’s over. Despite my best hopes and dreams, I’m just too old to ever return to Seoul and fix all the things I did wrong when I was there as a far younger man. Everyone has moved on.
I find myself wanting to visit Asia. Because of my life situation at the moment, Something Big could happen at any moment that would dramatically change the context of my life to the point that I might actually be in a position to go back to Asia sooner rather than later. I don’t want this Something Big event to happen, but it’s definitely out there, lurking in the aether.
I wonder what might greet me if I did return to Asia sooner rather than later. The key thing is that I’m a lot older than I was the last time I was in Asia. And I would be just visiting — probably a week in Japan – South Korea, then a week in Southeast Asia — so I would only be able to able to do so much.
And, in all honesty, the world is so big and wonderful, I probably would be better off going to Europe instead. And, yet, I like Asia because I know it and it would be really easy to slip back into my expat mentality within moments I reaching it.
I don’t even know why I’ve suddenly found myself thinking about such things. I’m so very, very, very poor at the moment that there are only two ways I would be able to visit Asia again — the Something Big event or selling my first novel and it being a real success.
I guess what’s really going on is I’m having a minor midlife crisis, I guess. My life is in permanent limbo these days, so I find myself wondering how this particular situation is going to end. For the moment, I’m trying to keep my eyes on the prize — querying my novel in about a year.
Living in Seoul as an expat changed my life in a fundimental, existential manner. There was the me Before Seoul and the me After Seoul. And the person who enabled this change, for better or for worse, was the late Annie Shapiro. That hippie weirdo gave me experiences that I could have never otherwise had because she believed in me and believed in our shared dream of ROKon Magazine.
The late Annie Shapiro and me, back in the good olde days when I was young and cute.
I only bring this up because for some weird reason, I continue to get pings on this Website from Seoul. I have no idea why anyone from Seoul would care what I have to say. And, in all honesty, I don’t know if the people who occasionally look at this blog from Seoul even know me, if it they’re some third party who has heard a stray comment about me at a bar.
Who knows.
But the issue is, at the moment, I just want to be forgotten in Seoul. I was going through a really, really rough moment in my life for much of my time in Seoul and I did and said things that I regret. I was “pickled” in the sense that I was drinking way, way, way, too much soju. I was manic and I was self-medicating, never a great combination.
I’m 50 now and very definitely want to look towards the future of potentially being a traditionally published author at some point in the near future. I will admit, of course, that the process by which I’m writing my first novel requires a great deal of wallowing in nostalgia for the Good Old Days of Seoul, even though they sucked a lot of the time.
Anyway, the fact that anyone in Seoul cares enough about me to look at this Website is unnerving. It’s almost 20 years since I first arrived at Incheon Airport for my first tour in the country. The idea that someone in South Korea not only remembers me, but cares enough to see what I’m writing about….is kind of startling.
I was definitely a larger-than-life character at moments during my time in South Korea. I was so nuts at one point, in fact, that someone did a write up of me that ended up in a self-published book devoted to crazy expats. That was kind of tough, I have to say.
I suppose there is a greater-than-zero chance that I will return to Seoul at some point before I drop dead. But if it happens, it will because I sold my novel and it was a big enough success that I will have the funds to return.
At the moment, barring the DPRK collapsing and there being a bubble for ESL teachers there so intense that even a deadbeat like me can get a ticket to teach…it’s just not going to happen.
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