by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
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.
