Viet Ham

There are many stories that could be told about my recent trip to South Korea, but there is one that should be told amidst the steel and flesh of a bustling nation.

I got off the last KTX train coming from Gumi, an inland industrial city roughly 3 hours south of Seoul. It was close to mignight. Most of the luxury name shops had long shuttered their windows and lights, yet the train station in Cheonan was just starting its night shift as a shelter for the entrepreneurial homeless. These folks jockeyed for position, some for room to sleep, others to promote their personal brand of misery and helplessness.

Still an hour from my hotel room in Seoul, I quickly navigated through and over people in the station. I had not waited more than a minute outside when a black taxi pulled up to the curb. A Korean man in his mid forties leaned across his passenger seat and unleashed a torrent of his native tongue. The absence of my immediate response didn’t confuse him, but rather effected a transition in his manner and face, like gearshifter sliding into a familiar gear.

“Where?” he asked me.

“Seoul…..Grand. Inter. Con. Tinental Hotel,” I responded in a slow, deliberate manner.

We seemed to reach an agreement. He motioned me in, and I gratefully got into the rearseat. I looked around the cabin and dashboard and found comfort in all the familiar knobs and dials. Below the taxi meter, there was a framed ID photo of the driver and his license details. The pale young man in the photo held a stern look that seemed intended to mask his youth. I snuck a look the driver and found that same stern look now congealed in dark, leathery skin. I spent the rest of the taxi ride contemplating how his life must have been for the past twenty years. This bothered me a great deal that a person had spent the last two decades of his life picking up people, dropping them off, and waiting in traffic.

That night, I reassured myself that my taxi driver must have passed up chances in his life, missed certain turns that could have significantly changed things for him. It turned out to be solace for one night. By the end of my trip, every taxi driver and photo ID I noticed told the same story.