I went to Korea in search of the perfect corndog. I realized the search wouldn’t be an easy one from the moment I landed; the Korea of my memories wasn’t the Korea that existed outside of the walls of the plane. The little corndog stand in my grandmother’s neighborhood was long gone since my last visit ten years ago—replaced instead by larger restaurants boasting neon signs and five story malls filled with people whose pant sizes halved mine (obviously, they were not the type that regularly consumed corndogs).
The days passed and I soon adjusted to small apartments the size of my basement, awkward reunions with family members who seemed like strangers, and demon mosquitoes that made my skin swell into new fingers, toes, and boobs. But it was hard to forget that 50 cent corndog of my childhood because I remembered it as the best thing I had ever tasted—and it came on a stick like a food popsicle.
It was on a rainy day that I saw that orange tent pitched outside a huge mall. The 50 cent corndog now sold for around a dollar more, but the price increase didn’t deter me from fishing out a bill and a few coins from my wallet. I bought a corndog and swallowed eagerly, ignoring the grease covered exterior that was sure to give me heartburn for days afterwards. I couldn’t even eat half of it. The outside batter was dry and stale; the hotdog inside was cold and unseasoned. When memory collided with reality, the outcome was devastating. The corndog was disgusting.
I went to Seoraksan Mountains a couple of days ago with my family in Korea. Before leaving home, I looked online at the pictures of the resort—the place looked like paradise. I went to the resort with high hopes for the vacation that would last three days. I should have never looked at those pictures. We opened the door to what must have been the crappiest hotel room ever. It was at times like these that I would close my eyes, rub my flip flops together, and mentally scream “I want to go home.” There was eight people sleeping in a room with an air conditioner that decided to turn off at weird intervals, more demon mosquitoes swarming in through a crack in the sliding glass doors, a bathroom with no soap and a single roll of toilet paper, and musty blankets provided so that all of us could sleep on the floor like dogs. To top it all off, the room smelled like dirty underwear. What do you expect when there’s only one roll of toilet paper, no soap to wipe dirty behinds, and bad digestion from consuming pounds of seafood?
On the second day, we all scrambled out of the room and headed for the mountains. When I initially began climbing, I saw strange people going around hugging trees. I wasn’t really sure why (as I had never actually thought tree huggers existed and I myself tend to ignore trees because of ants and ticks), but these trees seemed to be blessed by Buddha or something. After climbing for an hour and forty minutes (at this point, we had bypassed the religious people who were doing more important things like moving on to hugging the rocks and rolling around in the blessed dirt), we reached our first destination (the landmark was a boulder that would budge a bit when people shoved it; interestingly, even unreligious people were amazed by it). At this point, people usually headed down the mountain. A few brave souls decided to make the hour and forty minute trip further up to the peak of the mountain. An old man heading down smiled and told me that the trip there and back would take forty minutes. I trust people too easily. I headed up the 900 or so extra steps and rocks that headed up towards the sky at 80 degree angles. When I looked down, my head spun and my legs shook and wobbled from both exhaustion and fear. By the end, all the climbers were crawling. My body was covered in a sheen of sweat after lugging my hefty body up approximately 900 steps; it was too late to turn back, but I felt too tired to keep going. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that I would reach the top and look down the mountain and laugh at the little people who were climbing up or too lazy to make the trek up. When I finally reached the top an hour later, I crawled towards the edge and looked down. All I saw was fog.
On the four-hour drive back to my grandmother’s apartment, my uncle got the grand idea to visit his dead grandfather’s grave. I’m all for respecting the dead, but unfortunately, I had to pee really badly. There were bugs and I got bitten by a demon mosquito in five places the moment my foot went out of the car. My mom told me to pee on the graves of her ancestors. I declined and held it in for 15 minutes, clenching my buttocks in desperation when my uncle forced me to bow before his grandfather’s grave. I was supposed to be thinking pure thoughts, but the whole time I was thinking of my bladder exploding into a million pieces. When we finally headed down back towards the village and away from the creepy graves, I asked a woman standing outside her house if I could use the bathroom. My need to pee must have showed because she let me use her outhouse. I had to pee in a hole. It stunk and little bugs were flying all over the place, and I was scared one of them would end up somewhere where a bug should never be. I should have peed on the graves.
Visiting the grave of a relative I had never before met made me realize that it was about time I should visit my own dad’s grave. While my corndog of this summer was disgusting, and most likely, had always been, that corndog was delicious to the me of ten years ago. I carried my 50 cents in my sticky little palms, raced out into the sunshine, and enjoyed that corndog while sitting, eating, and laughing with my little sister. As I slept in that hotel room with unfamiliar relatives, our heartbeats starting to pulse at a similar melody, we unintentionally became closer in the morning. When I went up that mountain, the people who sat around me on the peak that day were the only people who existed for a moment. For a moment, we were a people united by sweat and determination. For a moment, we were a people who lived among clouds.
