Fourth of July Fireworks

The expat life isn't all that exciting when it's July 4th and you're an American in Seoul. Korea has its own sets of holidays on which you get down and boogie (well... more realistically, you're not boogie-ing, but visiting relatives and eating a lot, then maybe attempting to boogie if your overstuffed belly allows it): Ch'usok, or "Korean Thanksgiving," as many Americans here call it, is one such time. It's a harvest festival, which confines it to the fall. Seol Nal (pronounce it "sull-lal"), or Lunar New Year, is another such time. During the summer, there are commemorative events such as "Yuk-i-o," or literally "6-2-5," when Koreans remember the beginning of the Korean War (June 25, 1950). This past Yuk-i-o, the huge intersection by City Hall had huge banners that read, "Remember June 25th! Down with Kim Jong Il!"-- in English! Koreans remember their own declaration of independence from the Japanese, a defiant move performed at T'apgol Gongwon (Pagoda Park) on March 1st, 1919, and ever since known as the March 1st Independence Movement.

But it's a very serious holiday, often involving a re-reading of the defiant tract written to spite the Japanese occupiers. No fireworks. No huge gathering on the Washington Monument grounds. Lots of Korean flags, though.

So on the 4th of July, expats like me, who don't have easy access to the Yongsan Army base, really don't have much to do on American Independence Day, except whatever activities we invent for ourselves. In my case, I had no particular plans.

Luckily, this evening, an arsonist decided to liven things up in my neighborhood.

Back story: I stayed up all damn night working on this blog, posting my insipid reflections on "Matrix" philosophy and dog-eating, and decided that, since the sun was up when I left the Net cafe, I should just remain awake. I managed to get through most of the day, including a 90-minute English lesson, and around 6:30PM, too bleary-eyed and groggy to eat dinner, I schlepped home, flopped onto my mat, and dozed off.

Fast forward to midnight. I become dimly aware of a loud series of bangs, which sound as if they're coming from right outside the gated courtyard of the place where I live. Suddenly, the lady who lives above me is at my window, screaming for me to come out. "There's a fire!" she yells. In my half-conscious state, my first thought is that she means HER place is on fire, above me. She thrusts a fire extinguisher into my hands. "A car's on fire outside!" she tells me. I look down at the extinguisher in my hand and lamely say, "I don't know how to use this," which is the God's honest truth. I cross our tiny courtyard to the gate. Little explosions are still going off. My neighbor seems hesitant to leave the confines of the courtyard. Since there are EXPLOSIONS going on outside, sounding like God's microwave popcorn, I agree with her, but I'm now The Bearer of the Extinguisher, so it's my job to go and protect the homestead. I lumber toward the front gate, and at that moment, my neighbor yells, "Oh, the fire department's here!" Red lights are flashing outside. Authoritative voices. Cool. I set down the extinguisher, thankful to be relieved of my awkward duty, and open the gate.

A minivan is on fire about twenty feet from where I'm standing, and the fire department has sent a single truck with a single wimpy hose to combat the blaze. A crowd of neighbors is already outside, many of them standing dangerously close to the burning minivan, which continues to give off ominous little pops. It becomes immediately obvious that my upstairs neighbor's wee fire extinguisher would have been about as effective as a bunch of us guys dropping our pants and trying to piss the blaze into submission.

The air on our street is filling with smoke. The smell of burned plastic is everywhere. My neighbor, if I understand her correctly, tells me that she'd heard an argument earlier, and she's pretty sure the van was set on fire. Interesting. I live in a part of town where, nightly, you can hear drunk people staggering along, singing the latest pop songs at the top of their lungs. It's not what I'd call a "nice" neighborhood. Not a rough neighborhood, either, but somehow, a burning minivan doesn't strike me as too surprising an occurrence. Since my mother and little brother Sean had come to visit me a couple weeks earlier, I'm thankful about the timing: I'd've hated for this to happen while they were here.

Eventually, the police arrive and the questions begin. My neighbor is interviewed along with a few other people. I'm now thoroughly awake, so I've trudged over to the nearest PC-bahng (Korean-style Net cafe; "bahng" means "room") to give you, Faithful Reader, the latest news.

Turns out I got fireworks after all.

Happy Fourth, America.

For interesting news and insights about Korea, visit this site, which is run by an American, Scott Fisher, who's completely fluent in Korean. Probably the most interesting thing on his site is the series of articles he wrote about his adventure in North Korea last year, when he went as part of a tour group. The fact that he can speak Korean-- something the North Korean tour guides found shocking and disturbing-- adds a lot to his account of the trip, which borders on the surreal.