Growth

Tonight, I opened my window and looked out at the city. From my apartment on the 14th floor, I have a view that beats comparison. Don’t be mistaken; I only have a glimpse of the mountains that seem to be the backdrop to everything here. They stand like sentinels around the panorama, keeping quiet when travel around the city. What I have feels better, more real, whether or not that is the case.

I only have a 3-minute walk to work. I like it because I walk out of my complex up the street I live on and onto a dirt path. The path crosses into a construction zone, which doesn’t seem to shock anyone be they construction worker or casual pedestrian. Women with loads from the grocery stores shading themselves with umbrellas drift past men working pay loaders and heavy pipes into the new building that seems to never be at rest. In the last leg up the hill to the school, I am surrounded by gardens. In the United States, there is a luxurious sense to gardening. Women and men keep them up because they can, and have spare time. Hours spent on the weekends weeding are allowed to be spent so because the individual has hours in the first place. I appreciate the give and take dichotomy that exists here as green beans can be served at the table, and the green thumb can boast of their crop. In the booming trend of organics that has arisen in the United States, the traditional vegetable garden stands back and says, “We’ve been here all along.”

I don’t get this same feeling when I see the gardens in Shinbang dong, whether it be from my window or on my walk to work. Rows and rows of peppers, beans, corn and whatever else will grow, exist in small plots. They are renegade gardens that are manned by anyone who can find open land. That last part is difficult. With Korean geography being largely mountainous, land is hard to come by. Roughly 95% of the population lives in apartments, and high rises are more common than gas stations and used car places are in my hometown. Progress is vertical here, and wherever there is a free patch of dirt, it becomes a patch of one’s own.

The people who tend to the gardens work late into the night. I get done with my last class at 8:15 and while I am leaving, I see older women and men crouching close to their growing plots squinting through the dark at what weeds may have started up since they last came. Women, wearing white gloves covered with dirt and with handkerchiefs over their hair, ride the elevator with me and my own work seems trivial. The reclamation of the balance of culture in this county takes place in 10 by 10 parcels.

It’s hard to believe that just 60 years ago, there was nothing here. In such a little time so much has occurred. Democracy (whether one perceives it as a blessing or a curse) is still growing as well. It’s not perfect, but in political terms, it’s still a spring chick. The idea that a generation of people who had nothing and ate and lived in tents for years, that are still alive today is incredible. At night, you can walk down the streets with bars and pool halls and eat at a food table set up under floodlights and tarps, where someone is selling kimchi and mandu. The blend that seems to have permeated every bit of this culture is so clear from my window, and waking up every morning to see the change and expansion is like seeing fungus grow on a decomposing log, both intriguing and hopeful.