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Spring 2006 SLAM! - Congrats to the winners - see you all next time! |
"Invalid Item"  A Vignette of Seoul in Darkness There’s a quiet, haunting beauty here beneath a sprawling and curiously western façade. But that’s a hidden world. This is not our story. Riding the cacophonic veneer, I assist Soo-In as she pulls down and secures the aluminum security door. The Spotted Dog’s lights are dimmed, the boisterous, beery smoke-filled interior stilled for a handful of hours at 2:00 a.m., the girls with the sloe-gin smiles are wending their way, some with drunken young men in trail, along ancient pathways. They’ll return, some chastened, some mollified, some hours hence. A whiff of stale beer and fresh vomit assaults the senses as we stroll along the crooked streets of Itaewon (so named “foreign pregnancy” in recognition of the rapes following the Japanese invasion of 1592 - 98) pausing only to acknowledge Mr. Pak, Chung Hee, busily dishing out richly aromatic pot-stickers and bulgogi to ravenous men on their way home, all bars now closed. It is said that there are no stray dogs in Itaewon. A block or so further on we mount the subway - there are signs here attempting to dissuade students and others from stepping in front of moving trains. We debark at the giant open-air market at Namdaemun. The air is heavy, we breath in chunks, a clay-like grit that glides reluctantly over the palate. Countless stalls, an effusion of colorful materials, muted at this hour. The scent of dyes, fresh and rotting vegetables, kimchi, bodies of those asleep in their booths. Above, the stars are a memory cloaked by the city’s offal. In the distance - looming titans - 25-story monolithic apartment blocks perforated by countless pinpricks of light, CSAT season, students studying round the clock. Atop each is a swimming pool and a fast way down. And beyond the blocks, the Han River, now breached by a dozen or more single and double tier concrete bridges, secure in their anonymity - there is no beauty here. Were we a bit closer we might see a police patrol roving constantly from one to another to another. It’s CSAT time and students will not, cannot, dishonor their family. And thus, some choose the subway station, the 25th floor, the Han River bridge as a launching pad to an alternate future. 40 lines - 386 words ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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