by John Bocskay

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Author's disclaimer: Any resemblance between the logic in the following piece and actual sound reasoning is purely coincidental. Same goes for the characters.

  *  *  *

I've been homeless for a week, and that's the good news. The better news is that my landlord is nearly out of my life forever. The bad news, and the reason he is not out of my life forever, is that he is "temporarily" withholding my one million won deposit.

Homelessness hasn't been so bad. I'm staying with a good friend for a couple of weeks and eating all his food. My work schedule has been light, so I've been spending mornings in the bathhouse watching the World Series. 

And it's been nice not seeing my landlord. My morning sleep is unbroken and it's been more than a month since anyone has spit in my face. I no longer spend my free time ranting to myself and wondering what would be the best way to make a murder seem an accidental fall down the stairs. Moving out has done my head a lot of good. 

And I haven't had much time to worry about the unreturned deposit because last week was midterm week.

  *  *  *  *  * Midterm week is pretty easy for me; it's my turn to just sit back and let the students do all the begging and pleading. The week leading up to it is busy, making sure everyone knows what to expect. I take one class to explain the exam until everyone says they understand exactly what I want them to do. In the following class I explain it again, because I realize that they only said they understood because no one wanted to say "I don't understand." After the second day of preparation, they're ready, that is, if they actually showed up for class that week.

This semester's exams came off mostly without a hitch. I asked a lot of the classes to pair up and take turns inviting their partner to do something. It was pretty straightforward, and centered on two key expressions: "Would you like to (do whatever)?" and "Let's meet at (time) at (place)." We spent two weeks practicing, drilling, inviting each other to do all sorts of things and just about everyone who showed up for those two weeks and kept their head off their desk did very well. There were no big surprises.

Well...there were a few. There are three local cops, career guys, in one of my night classes. Their bodies have attended about half of the classes, but their minds have yet to show up. They do most of their speaking after class, when they try to explain why they've been absent for so long. It seems these guys are always training or travelling around East Asia attending seminars. One of them said he was Kim Dae-jung's escort a few weeks ago. Clearly they are the creme de la creme, and have other, more important things to do.

The week before midterms, they again approached me after class, and I prepared myself for tales of their recent exploits which always seem to be well above and entirely beyond the call of duty. Had they been tracking deep-undercover North Korean moles? Foiling assassination attempts? Infiltrating gangs and busting up Chinese smuggling rings? Or maybe they were finally cracking down on those morons who park in the middle of the street? I took out the attendance book and prepared to excuse these busy crimefighters, but they waved it away. Huh?

Ah, maybe they want to invite me to dinner again. They had asked me a few times but I had always declined or cancelled for one reason or another. During the last couple of weeks of classes, we had been doing various role play activities in which they extended and responded to various kinds of invitations. Here was a chance to put their English to use. What a lucky coincidence--we had finished the last of four lessons on invitations just minutes before.

So three of Pusan's Finest came to the front of the room, and their brave leader stood before me, his eyes searching the walls, floor, and ceiling for the words that would convey his point. I waited anxiously to see if I'd managed to reach these guys and equip them with the skills necessary for precisely this situation. He struggled for a few moments and finally got it out, "Pulgogi okay?"

I was a little disappointed, but I didn't want to show it, so I said Okay and offered him a chance to redeem himself, "When would you like to have dinner together?"

Again his eyes roamed the room, and again they failed to find the place where English was hiding. He gave up and asked, "T'oyoil?"

"Saturday?" I said, not as a confirmation but as a reminder.

"Ok," he said and began grimacing again, formulating his next sentence. It was getting harder for him and it was becoming painful to watch.

I hate watching a man suffer, especially when that man is a cop who believes the English language is the source of all his problems and sees me as its vile representative. He also sees me leave class everyday on an uninsured motorbike without a helmet. 

We quickly switched to Korean and ironed out the details. They left the room looking quite pleased to have worked it out. I was disappointed--Bulgogi okay?!?!--what kind of question is that after two weeks of practice? 

Let it go. Time to go home and relax and I'll start again tomorrow. I turned to erase the blackboard, looked up at my model sentences, and froze in disbelief. When he was looking all over the room for words, he had somehow failed to look at the blackboard directly behind and above my head. Had he done so, he would have seen, written in letters that were probably visible from outer space, "WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE DINNER TOGETHER ON SATURDAY?" 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

The experience with the cops was very instructive. It forced me to ask myself a lot of questions. Apart from the obvious "Why the hell do I even bother?", it started me thinking on the difference between a gift and a bribe. Students often buy me little cups of coffee between classes. These are clearly gifts. An envelope thick with ten-thousand won notes would quite clearly be a bribe. But how to classify a pulgogi dinner and a few bottles of Soju? It's not necessarily an expensive evening, and it's quite a common thing between university students and their teachers. My summer classes took me out often because they enjoyed my company and wanted to express their thanks in some way. But those were non-credit, non-graded classes, quite different from my fall semester classes. This invitation was clearly something else, but what was it? 

There was another case that posed a similar problem, only this one happened to a really good friend of mine, someone I know really, really well. This friend, who I will refer to as "Nick", found in his class on test day a man he had never seen before. The man was in his late thirties and dressed in a light blue business suit, carrying a "Happy Holidays" shopping bag in his right hand.

"Maybe he's just a friend of one of the other guys," Nick thought, as he began chasing the students out of the room to begin the two-on-one oral test. He started at the top of the attendance sheet and called the first pair in. After they finished, Blue Suit came barging in with his "translator", who pointed to Blue Suit and said, "Next, okay?"

"Okay," said Nick, who, as most people who know him will attest, has never been one to make waves. The two sat down and Blue Suit pulled out a script, which Nick had expressly forbidden. But sympathetic Nick permitted that too. 

Blue Suit also got a lot of help from his translator/coach, who was so talented that he seemed at times to be reading his client's very thoughts. It was a stunning display--he began, fleshed out, and finished sentences which, judging from Blue Suit's pleased expression, accurately captured exactly what the mute businessman had intended to say. Nick put down his pen and watched in amazement.

When the translator/coach/clairvoyant stopped talking, Blue Suit motioned toward the attendance book; he wanted to discuss his absence, which had been total. He pointed to the long line of slash marks reaching back into August and uttered his first words of the exam, "Business trip Espana."

"Long trip," thought Nick, still quite awed by the incredible show he had just witnessed. As Nick sat gaping, Blue Suit thrust the shopping bag into Nick's hands and exclaimed, "Espana!" Not knowing what to say, Nick merely said Thanks, and before he could utter another word, both Blue Suit and the Ubertranslator disappeared out the door. 

Nick looked at the gift wrapped box, which seemed to contain a bottle. He felt strange for having accepted it but he began secretly hoping it was a bottle of good Spanish wine. After the exam, he opened it and found a bottle of 17-year-old Ballantine's Scotch with Korean labels.

Nick knew he was being bribed, but I wondered what kind of grade he had given the guy for his performance. I asked him about it over a beer. 

"I still haven't decided," Nick said with a look that was thoughtful and slightly troubled, "it's a tough call." I didn't have any words for him, so I sat back and let him roll things over in his mind. I could see he was probably struggling with some serious issues: professional integrity, institutional corruption, self-respect. Finally he looked up at me and sighed. "Damnit," he said, "I don't even drink Scotch."

  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

In another one of Nick's exams, another globetrotting supercop, this one a sergeant, pushed a gift-wrapped box across the desk and said apologetically, "small gift." It was a small desk clock emblazoned with the words "Pusan Metropolitan Police"--exactly the kind of knick-knack the Police Department would give away by the thousands to its employees. Nick politely and awkwardly thanked the sergeant, who smiled and said, "Help me, help you."

Help me, help you. A light went on in Nick's brain. He had been struggling with questions of gifts and bribes all week, but the sergeant's simple statement suddenly cast the problem in a new light: People help each other. That's what this whole business is about. What's so terrible about people helping each other?

After the test, Nick went outside for a cigarette, where he found the sergeant doing the same. They chatted amiably for a minute or two, and Nick was visited by a powerful idea. He smiled at the sergeant and said, "I have a problem. Can you help me?"

By a really, really remarkable coincidence, Nick too had recently left his apartment because his landlord was an obnoxious cheat who often spit all over his face and was now "temporarily" withholding his one million won deposit. Nick had continually been frustrated in his efforts to resolve their differences, and he knew he needed a Korean ally with some muscle to get results. That muscle was now standing in front of him, smoking a cigarette and apologizing for the chintzy desk clock.

Nick explained the problem to Sergeant Muscle, who nodded in understanding and smiled. "I can help you," he said.

Nick smiled and thought, "And I can help you," but it wasn't necessary to tell that to the sergeant, because the sergeant knew very well that people help each other and there's nothing wrong with that.