Waiting at the bus stop I sometimes feel as if I’m Jim Carey in the Truman Show; standing there waiting, the same people pass at the same moments everyday. How would I know if they were actors or not? So far the set has remained in tact and my life as an observer in rural Korea continues.
Taking the bus to and from school has become as much a part of my life as teaching at school. My daily life resolved around bus times and bus stops. Riding the bus allows me to experience the real everyday life of rural Korea, the interconnectedness shared between the other bus riders and between the people and their land. The difference between being a driver and a bus rider is that as a bus rider you are an observer, or at least I am and when driving a car you are focused on the road and at arriving to your destination. You don’t get a chance to take in your surroundings usually missing the things around you. As a rider, I know I will at some point arrive to my destination so I have nothing to occupy me but time and thoughts. One of the things I love about taking the bus is witnessing the landscape as it passes through the seasons, the small changes in the fields and countryside; from greener than any place I’ve ever seen in the summer, to the changing of the meta sacoyas in the fall, the dreariness of winter with the surprise blankets of snow on the landscape, to the blooming of the Cherry blossoms in the spring and the return of green in the summer. Each change of season brings different lighting to the land creating different lenses in which to view it.
Riding the bus you also get to witness the small interactions that take place among the other commuters. My companions consist of ajeemas, or little old Korean ladies somehow going off to work in rice fields. Some of these ajeemas can barely walk, let alone get up the bus stairs and they always seem to be carrying stuff, yet when they sit down among their friends they are always smiling and happy. Seeing them likes this makes me happy. However, my days of being an observer are coming to an end because I will soon be buying a car. I won’t be able to detach myself from the road like I can while on the bus. A part of me will miss it, but now a whole new set of opportunities will be available to me.
