Finally, the blaring kpop campaign remixes are no longer booming out of open-truck stages down the streets. No more campaigners bowing to passing traffic on the corners, or dancing dogs, cows, horse-headed supermen. Municipal elections definitely transformed the feeling of the cities these past few weeks. Giant billboards of candidates faces, some happy some looking downright constipated, each assigned a number to save the public the time of actually learning their names.
Calling an end to all this madness, and giving us another red-calender day off of work mid-week (seriously, when was my last 5-day week? March?) Wednesday, June 2 was the day for elections. While the good citizens of Korea were busy adding their vote to the masses, and the ones who couldn't be bothered were busy relaxing, I skipped town and spent the day basking on the beach in Pohang. To be fair, I did my duty as a native teacher, returning precious won back to the coffers of the SoKo economy.
If I catch a train from Gumi at 5:20, and transfer in Dongdaegu, I can reach Pohang before 8. After a peaceful train ride, I stop by Amy's spare apartment and am on Bukbu Beach by 8:10, in time to watch night take over the coast. My visit to Pohang before never included the beach at night; what a transformation. Standing on the boardwalk, with the city street wrapping around the bay behind me, and the dingy strip of POSCO factories all done up for a night on the town, I find myself in a sparkling neon garden. All that glitter, along with my splurge of cab-sauv, and the renewed company of my powerful pohang pals, warms and charges the soul for a night on the town better than any uppers could ever hope to achieve.
A group of waegooks by the waves is a beautiful thing. We ride on a tide of makoli and spirits, taking over Pohang, Powerful Pohang, in our storm of mid-week revelry. The night ends in a Hello Kitty bar. Pink and bubbly and full of soju and polaroids of any foreigners to grace it's tiny space. Yep, that's us there on the wall, the whole lot of us looking a bit crunchy and stale at 4am. What a lovely legacy to leave behind.
In the morning (well, morning for everyone else, almost lunch since I rise so early) we wake up to an oddly-quiet election day. I don't see any of the campaigners until later in the evening when some karaoke clowns rolled by Bukbu. But we enjoy the lazy sun of the day. Indulge again, in some fantastic coffee and sandwiches facing the beach, then make our way across the street and into the sand. We spend our afternoon being lazy, only occasionally rallying our energy for a half-assed game of frisbee or soccer, and mostly we just roll warm sand between our toes and talk.
In the afternoon, Pohang Pride delivers itself in the form of a Steelers match against Busan. After cramming a few extra into a taxi and getting my first up-close acquaintance with the factories of POSCO, we buy chicken (not me) maekju (beer) and our tickets and join the red mobs of fans, cheering on their precious Pohang. We made our way to an empty section up top, and found ourselves sandwiched by two very different groups of Koreans: an escorted, neutral-toned group of special-needs adults on the right, and a red-and-camoed firey bunch of army boys on the left. They got quite a kick out of us. We made it up on the megatron, the only waegooks in the arena. We even got our own chant started, which the military men and their drummers promptly picked up and joined us in. A wonderful day in the sun, watching a bit of soccer, with an intermission of very sexy dancers that made the military men go big-bad-wolf-wild. Too much fun.
After we left the stadium, carried along in a river of pohang sports fans, Megan and I got separated from the group. We tried to find a taxi, almost got hit by a few cars, crossed the street with my arms raised, and no luck. Then, Korean hospitality again makes my day. A black car pulled to the curb with the window down, asked if we needed a taxi, to which we kept saying yes, trying to wave them on, but instead they offered us a ride. They drove us all the way to the beach, out of their way, slipping through short-cuts to dodge the heavy evening traffic that kept our pals locked on a bus for an extra 20minutes. We enjoyed a ride, a nice conversation (with surprisingly good English) and were delivered safely beach-side.
I said my goodbyes looking out the same windows of the coffee shop from the morning (even though there are 3 more right next to it, conformity of capitalism being a hallmark of korea downtowns). Sipping on my green tea late (yummm), I said goodbye to Pohang.
Another relaxing, empty train back to Gumi, and Thursday feels like Monday all over again. But we met for cards last night on a rooftop cafe downtown. And I am about to take my leave for the real weekend down in Busan. Sandcastles and Fireworks and Soju await.
The elections are over, and now the only thing blaring in the streets comes from the propaganda fruit trucks (just farmers advertising through bullhorns, actually). I don't feel much different, and apparently neither does Gumi. My teachers all told me #1 won this district. Nothing will change, they say. I ask if they voted for #1 and they say no. I ask if they are upset and they say no. All the candidates are basically the same, they tell me. I don't know the difference, except that one was a woman, one was a cow, one had a horse's head with a cape and one was a dog. It's not that I am not trying to pay attention, I just know that I am fulfilling a different role here: economic stimulus.
