In the end, things worked out very well. Some other classes were formed and my hours increased and FLS became the cornerstone of my life for the next six months. My routine didn’t change much from the Munwha days except that my commute was now on a bus, an entirely different though as absorbing an experience as riding the subway.

Rather than turning North outside the Inn Sung Do and heading to Kyongbokung I turned South and followed the alleys down to the rear side of the Sejong Cultural Centre. A cement walkway took me past a large fountain where on sunny spring days families gathered their children for family portraits. When I began work at FLS, it was still winter and pitch black in the morning. The fountain was frozen and covered in snow. Past the fountain, steps carried me on a shortcut up and through a massive cement walkway. There were often salarymen passed out here and there huddled in the corners to hide from the biting wind. Smashed soju and beer bottles lay scattered about.

On the other side, a wide expanse of cement steps led down to Sejong-no where the statue of Admiral Yi maintained his steady lookout for marauding Japanese. In the spring and summer, these steps were covered from top to bottom in an ever changing array of potted flowers and plants. The bright colors attracted many a photographer. But in winter, the bare cement steps only heightened the feeling of intense cold.

Whether by design or accident, the dozens and dozens of bus lines came together at central points across the city creating a glorious confusion of buses and panicked passengers. Directly in front of Sejong was one of those points. At any one moment, fifteen buses could suddenly arrive. Hopeful passengers had to keep a sharp eye out for their bus. Because of the number of buses, it could stop anywhere along a quarter mile stretch of the road and they’d have to sprint to reach it before it disappeared. There was no professional courtesy between drivers. They cut each other off, blocked escape routes, anything that meant they could get away a second or two earlier. A bus driver stuck behind another bus loading or unloading passengers would blast his horn and rev the engine in fury.

I didn’t understand this strange behavior at first. How can a bus driver justify getting angry at another bus driver for picking up passengers? But I learned that passengers were in fact optional for Korean bus drivers. Their job as they saw it was to race their bus around their route as many times as possible in a day. Their pay was partially dependent on fulfilling a quota of circuits. Stopping to pick up passengers interfered with that. A bus driver coming up on a required stop thought nothing of blowing right past it if the stop was too busy or if he just didn’t feel like stopping.

Buses that did stop would often wait for a very short time. People waiting knew this and would run as fast as they could but often they were too late. The bus would pull in behind five other buses, a hundred yards away. Ten people would break out of the waiting crowd and charge in its direction bursting through the lines of people getting off and on other buses. The bus driver would wait a while and then I could almost see the change in his face as he thought, “fuck it”, and before the people reached him, put the bus in gear and drive away.

The onus was in fact on the waiting passengers to let the bus driver know they wanted it to stop. You have to watch all the buses carefully, looking for the number you need. When you see it you have to run out into the road and jump up and down and wave your arms. More than once, I almost fell to my knees and pleaded with upraised clasped hands.

The more determined commuters tried to anticipate the bus driver’s movements. When they saw their bus coming, rather than wait for it to stop, they’d pick a spot where they thought it would come to rest. But often they chose wrong. They’d think the bus would stop at the end of the line and they’d run as hard as they could to that point. But just as they reached, it the driver would change his mind and go for the front of the line. The runners would spin and run with the bus trying to keep pace with it to the front. And often once the bus got to the front, he’d change his mind again and not stop at all. He’d roar off down the street and the runners, gasping and panting would stoically resume their vigil and wait for the next bus to arrive. The occasional Ajimah would take exception and think rightly that she’d paid her dues and this sort of treatment was unwarranted for a woman of her age and would run along side the bus beating on the side or the door.

The stop at Sejong was an easy one to anticipate. Buses came up Sejong-no going North and when they reached Kyonbokkung did a U-turn and came back down. I watched for Bus #53 on the way up and carefully tracked its progress so I could jump out into the road and wave it down. I had to allow for plenty of lead time since in the morning when the streets were relatively empty, they traveled at a tremendous speed.

In the short ride to Yoido, the wheels of bus #53 left the ground a hundred times. The roads were engineered for a very slow daytime pace when the 16-lane roads and intersections fully the size of baseball stadiums crawled with an endless river of cars and buses, a carnival bumper-car attraction gone mad. Lanes were mere suggestions, speed limits a fiction, driving courtesy a contradiction in terms, and every driver a virtuoso on the car horn.

Taking that same road at 70 mph meant some serious flying. Gentle little slopes in the daytime became ramps in the morning from which the driver flung his bus into joyful sixty-foot flights. Tiny bumps which during the day made the passengers heads do a slow nod in their sleep threw me around like a rag doll in the morning. I’d bounce from seat to seat watching my book bag float weightless in the air above my lap.

In the morning, the bus drivers found stopping to let passengers on or off a particular nuisance and inconvenience. Unless I ran out into the middle of the road shouting, jumping up and down and pinwheeling my arms, bus 53 would blow right past me every time. Once aboard, I’d sprint for a seat if there was one, aware of the bus driver’s love of the fast brake and acceleration. I never caught him at it, but I’m pretty sure the driver of bus 53 would watch me in the rear view mirror and just when I was off balance a little bit, floor the accelerator and send me spinning out of control.

Getting off at my stop took a great deal of concentration. At that speed, one second of daydreaming would put me miles beyond my destination. I’d hit the button when my stop was still far in the distance. It was a good idea to get to the door early but the G-forces were usually too strong for me to pull myself out of my seat. The bus driver wouldn’t stop accelerating and reduce speed at all until within ten or twenty feet from the stop. Then, just when I thought he was going to ignore the stop, he’d hit the brake hard. Everyone would be flung forward. Those waiting for a further stop held on tight to anything they could. Those unprepared landed on their backs and slid along the floor ending with a hard thunk up against the driver’s seat. Those of us planning to get off simply let go and the inertia threw us out of our seats, and we’d end up in a big jumbled pile at the door. To get off we had to move fast. The doors slid open and when what the bus driver deemed a suitable amount of time passed (usually a second or two) he’d hit a buzzer to urge us off. This buzzer sounded like the last distress call of a sinking ship and jolted everybody’s adrenaline system. Our hearts sped up, and we’d all rush the door, terrified at this horrible sound urging us on faster and faster. But we were never fast enough.

With my Canadian sensibilities, I’d hang back a little bit and allow others to get off first. I’d hope the safety system, which wouldn’t let the bus move until the door closed, hadn’t been disconnected in this particular bus, but I was always wrong. I was inevitably caught with one foot in the air and one on the last step of the bus when the driver hit the gas. Caught between bus and earth I’d be deposited outside FLS confused, disoriented and spinning as I watched the bus disappear in the distance behind a cloud of exhaust.

 

 

 

Tags: FLS, Korea - First Days Teaching English, Sejong Cultural Centre