Frozen Burning Mountain

In the car, the kids are rowdy, Mom and Dad let them, I sit in front where my bag spreads my feet and my knees kiss the dashboard. We’re going to Chung Ju country-side where apples, pears, and walnuts grow. The sun set an hour ago and dusk became twilight became nighttime and the kids have settled to the hum of tires over pavement and the lullaby tones of Mom and Dad talking slow and thoughtful. The car is wrapped by outside freezing temperatures across its metal frame, but inside, on cloth seats, behind the cozy glow of the digital clock, warm air blows through the cabin. In the darkness ahead, red lights peer at us and we approach their menacing stare. We find traffic. The kids still sleep. Mom and Dad have stopped talking. I’m trying to stay awake. The traffic lasts an hour, then a second hour. We enter a tunnel where the slow progress has worn one driver mad and he blares his horn, which echoes through the tunnel and sounds like a duck-and-cover drill for a N.Korean airstrike. At one point his horn blares solid for twenty seconds. The boys are still asleep. “He’s crazy,” laughs Dad. “He must be,” I respond. By the end of the tunnel, the horn has stopped and Dad tells me I can sleep. But I’ve reached my second wind. I fall asleep a while later.

I wake up and doze off again during the final hour of the drive as we go over slow roads through small towns and wind between mountains. It begins to snow and, at a stop sign, we put down the windows to feel the cold air rush through and watch the flakes flutter down. Then we turn left to keep going and arrive up the mountain. We park down the hill from the house and hesitate to get out. We put our coats on before opening the doors because it’s freezing outside. We open the doors to an alarming cold, but the darkness won’t allow us to go up, so we wait around the car under pitch dark cloudy skies and wait for Grandpa to come down with flashlights. I look up and see one star peaking through the clouds with a flare on its left side burning in an arrow downward. It seems like it’s trying to tell me something. The wind pushes against us, heavy, and burns our bare cheeks. We gather our things from the car. The youngest son pees facing down the mountain. In the dark distance, dogs bark.

An old man comes bumping down the hill over its rocky pathway and holds a large flashlight. We greet him. He asks Dad who I am. Dad says “Sansangnim.” Grandpa says with a bit of joy, “Hello.” I return his greetings bashfully, “Annyang ha se yo.” He hands off the flashlight to Dad and a second smaller one to the youngest boy, then gets at the back of the line, behind me, with a cigarette and we wobbly hike up the stoney, uneven path. Near the house, dogs bark at us, each latched to their individual shelter by 14 links of chain giving them less than one meter to roam. Their breath snarles in the cold, but they’re not ferocious, just scared. We go to the door, take off our shoes, and go inside to hide for the night from the cold. Grandma, with thinning hair and a beautiful smile, greets us.

The house is two stories. Just through the front door and across a hard, yellow floor is a narrow staircase that anyone with much added weight would struggle through. It u-turns half-way up to lead to the one bedroom upstairs. To the left of the stairs is the kitchen and a door for Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom. On the wall to the right hangs a large square clock one would only find at Grandma’s house. To the right of that, a closed door to the bathroom, another door to a coatroom, and the living room. There is no furniture except for the entertainment unit that holds a flat screen HD TV and all the components for digital cable and other systems with buttons and nobs. I notice one other small table on which sits several plants and two jars fermenting some kind of mountain root to drink later. There is a shrine to the left of the TV with the Virgin Mary and Jesus, a candle, and rosary beeds. On one wall is placed a crucifix with a pine branch nestled behind it that drapes over the top. On the wall behind the TV is a picture of Jesus, a painting of a bird, and a family photo. On the small wall opposite the TV hangs a tapestry of a black ink drawing in classic oriental style. Dad is the only person I can speak to, which is always trouble anyway, but he and Grandpa have to go out to do some sort of late chores. I stay inside, in front of the TV. Mom and Grandma prepare dinner. The boys spin tops on the hard floor. It nears midnight.

Dad and Grandpa return from the bitter cold chores around one o’clock and wash their hands. Dad pulls out the low-standing table and sets it down with a manly grunt to impress us all with his task. Grandma loads it with lettuce, sauce, rice, meat and garlic, peppers, and shrimp. Each person gets a set of chopsticks and a spoon. There are three mugs of water for us to share. We sit on the floor around the table and start eating. Break the stalk off the lettuce, place rice, meat, garlic, wipe sauce on with chopsticks, wrap, shove in my mouth. We eat and eat and wind down dinner. Grandpa goes to the side and crushes walnuts for the boys with a heavy stick. Dad asks if I want soju. “If you want some, sure.” He tells Grandma to bring the soju and glasses. She leaves and returns with an old plastic juice bottle with their own alcoholic concoction inside. Dad pours two shot glasses and we drink half. He discusses something about the drinks with Grandpa, who shows us the fermenting roots in the jars and explains them, which I can’t follow and sit there looking at the alien roots. We finish the second half of our shot. Grandpa pulls one jar over, opens it, and Dad dips his shot glass in for a sample. He doesn’t like it and pours it back in. Grandma brings over a different plastic juice bottle and we each take a shot of it. I don’t know what it is, but Dad puts his elbow to his groin, makes a fist, and grabs his wrist in a powerful way. I laugh and tell him, “Ok." His wife sits beside him, which makes me feel uncomfortable, but, this is Man's country, so such a gesture is accepted, expected almost. We finish the drinks and Grandma has retired to sleep. Grandpa tells Dad some story I can’t understand. Grandpa’s eyes drape low in the corners. His gray hair is neatly parted on one side. He's a farmer with a farmer’s hands, aged and grimy, calloused and rough with black in the crevaces of his fingernails, but his arms are youthful and strong. He sits with one foot pulled over his knee. Mom sits behind Dad and they both listen. I wonder if it is rude for me to stand up and go away, since I can’t understand, but I decide it’s better to stay and listen, because although languages are different, tones of voice seem to be rather universal, and his story is somehow fascinating. The boys break walnut shells with the big heavy stick.

Grandpa finishes his story, the boys play with tops, Dad breaks walnuts and talks with Mom, then looks at me and asks, “Tired?” I say, “Yes, pretty tired.” He takes me upstairs and Grandpa prepares my pallate on the hard floor. He lays down a white, floral comforter, then a pink comforter on top. Dad takes me outside. We’re barefoot in pants and longsleeves, but he shows me the balcony, takes me to the roof, and we sit. Shivering, our breath rolls out of our mouths and drifts away. “This use to be pears,” he tells me. “But pears are very, uhm, difficult.” His English is broken and slow. “So now, apples.” “Oh, ok.” “Do you like, uh, country-side?” “I do. I’m excited to see it tomorrow.” “Ok.” He taps my knee. “Let’s go.” We laugh at how cold it is and move fast as we can off the roof, onto the balcony, and back inside. Grandpa has finished the pallats and gone to bed. “Do you want to brush your teeth?” Dad asks. “Sure,” I reply. I get my brush and toothpaste, go down, brush my teeth and tell them goodnight.



Upstairs, I lay down on my stomach, with my head on my arms and the light on. The boys run up, loud and full of energy. The youngest boy climbs onto my back, which in fact feels remarkable, like a moderate massage. He jumps off and the two run downstairs, then back up and he gets on top of me and walks on my back. Again, it feels great, but they’re not ready to settle down and I’m exhausted. On my stomach, with my shirt off, I’ve exposed the tuft of hair on my lower back, which throws the boys into excited laughter and they fiddle with it. Korean men don’t have much body hair. After a few minutes of their final burst of energy, Dad walks upstairs. He gets ready for bed, gets the boys ready, and we all lay down to sleep on the floor. After some quiet chit chat in the dark, we fall asleep.

The house is heated by a unit that runs under the floor. The unit in this house is run by Grandma and Grandpa, who must be very cold. Not long into my sleep I wake up on a hot spot and roll around trying to find a cooler space, but the entire floor is quite warm. One of the boys starts kicking uncomfortably. Dad opens the door a crack to cool the room, then closes it again. I fall back asleep. Not much later the boys are awake again for a bathroom break. Dad takes them and gets them water downstairs. He comes back upstairs and turns on the light. “Brian. Do you want water?” I look up, wonder why I’m offered water in the middle of the night, accept out of delirious politeness, and go back to sleep. I wake up again from one of the boys moaning from the hot floor and kicking my back. He settles down. I fall asleep again.

It’s 7:30. The sun shines through the windows. The boys run around the house. Dad goes with them, takes them in and out from the balcony and on the roof. Flies come out of their corners and land on my toes. The floor is hot. The boys shout. Dad shouts. It’s apparent I ought to be awake. I look up. Dad’s cutting apples and peeling the skins. “Brian, do you want apple?” “Sure,” I groggily reply. It happens to be the most juicy sweet apple I’ve had and a delicious treat to wake up to. Dad and the boys go downstairs and I get dressed. It’s 8:30.

Downstairs, only Mom is in the house. “They are outside,” she tells me. “Oh, ok.” I get my jacket and hiking shoes and go outside to find them. The sun splashes contrast over the mountain opposite, burning with autumn leaves, Evergreens, and frozen shadows. Grandpa farms the land. Dad takes me to the apple trees. One tree has three apples near the top. Another tree has two hanging on a low branch. It’s too late in the season for apples. All but five have already fallen. We walk around in the thick cold air for about 20 minutes and are called for breakfast.



Breakfast is last night’s dinner, but without the lettuce to wrap. We pick at kimchi, pork, shrimp, and peppers, and of course rice. We have two mugs of water for everyone sitting down. Dad asks me what my religion is. I tell him my family is Christian. He says, “My mother is Catholic, so she wants me to go to Catholic,” he pauses for the word, “service. So we will go. Are you ok?” This is my invitation. “Sure,” I say, sort of unsure because I wasn’t expecting church, somewhat excited for the experience. We finish breakfast and I go up to get ready. “What do I need to wear?” I ask. “Is this ok?” Dad tells me yes and shows the clothes he’s going in, which are sweatpants and the things he wore last night and planned to wear today. I go downstairs and brush my teeth, but when I step out of the bathroom he tells me, “You will not go to Catholic. Because the car is small, so only we will go.” “Oh, okay.” “You will stay here and help Grandpa farm.” “Oh,” I said, surprised. “Alright.” I nodded in agreement. “Is that ok?” “Sure, that’s fine.” “Ok.” Soon after, they leave. I follow them out to Grandpa who fills a bucket with seeds and wraps it diagaonal over his shoulder. “You watch tel-vi-chon,” he tells me. I look at him confused, and then realize, as he says, “TV,” that he said television. “Ok. You don’t need help?” He waves me on. Dad, Mom, Grandma, and the boys leave. Grandpa spreads seeds with his hands in the brisk wind that weaves through the mountains in the cold morning. I go inside and upstairs. The distant dogs still bark. “It sounds like a kennel,” I think. “Oh God. Is that a dog ranch?” A place to breed and raise dogs for meat, like we do with cows, pigs, and chickens back home. I laugh to myself slightly, think, “Oh my God.” I lay down and fall asleep on the hard floor.



“Hey!” I’m startled awake from shouts downstairs. “Hey! Hey!” I jump up and go downstairs trying to throw the weight of sleep off me and look alert. “Kopi?” Grandpa asks. “Oh, yes, sure, please. Kamsa habnida.” I sit down and he puts a kettle on the stove, walks over, and turns on the TV. He hands me the remote and I find something to watch. I stop on something in English. He has an ear to know the different sounds of languages. He asks me, “English?” I tell him yes. He stands up, offers me an apple, then brings me a knife from the kitchen. He goes back, finishes the coffee, and brings two cups. Still steaming, fresh from the stove, I hesitate to drink. But he sips his quickly, slurping between slightly spread lips that only age can give a person. I don’t know why or how. I gingerly sip as I can so he doesn’t drink alone, but he finishes and goes back to the kitchen. My cup is still full. The English on TV has become Japanese. Now it’s a commercial. Now there’s a love song playing and a “reflection” scene because, I guess, a couple just broke it off. And for some reason, my eyes well up and I try like hell to shake it off because what have I to cry about? The people speak Korean now. Action replaces love. I’m watching IRIS, which is similar to 24 in the States. Grandpa comes back after fifteen minutes or so with a skillet full of roasted chestnuts. He lifts one off the skillet with a spoon and pries the shell off with his farm-calloused fingers, cradling with his indexes and middle fingers, pulling with his dirt-stained thumbs. I lift one for myself, but it’s burning hot and I struggle to peel it open without flinching as he starts eating, somehow slurping. IRIS plays. We brake and peel and eat. He shows me how to eat the chestnuts the right way so that nothing is left in the shell. He’s patient and non-chalant. Someone speaks on TV. “French?” he asks. “Ne,” I tell him. We watch more TV, eat chestnuts. He tells me “Yong-guk” means English person. “That makes sense,” I say. Miguk means American. Hon-guk Means Korean. Hongul is the Korean Language. Yong-o means English. He points to the family picture on the wall. “England,” he tells me. “Oh, wow.” The converstion is very broken. He tells me things I don’t understand and I respond to what I think he says with things he doesn’t understand, but we nod in appreciation of the patience and quiet company that sits across the chestnuts from us. After while, he gestures for me to eat all the chestnuts I want, but he must get back to work. He puts on his gloves and shoes at the door, shuts it behind him, and I’m left with my apple, chestnuts, and IRIS. I’ve finished my coffee.

The family returns and I’m in trouble. Grandma says I’ve peeled the apple the wrong way. I’ve cut too much meat off. There’s no tenderness when you make a mistake in Korea. Nothing to suggest, “It’s ok. You’re new.” I get flustered and butterflies move frantic in my stomach and my heart beats fast and I become a little angry because you don’t need to tell me in that tone of voice that I did it wrong. She’s finished telling me how to do it and I’m left with the apple. I cut pieces for everyone and Dad tells me to come outside with him. I go upstairs for my jacket, back down to the porch, put on my shoes, and catch up to him where he’s giving the kids a ride in a motor cart. The back of the cart is like the bed of a truck and it rolls on two belts revolving around four wheels on each side like a tank. It’s controlled by levers and handles. Dad drives. He tells me to get in. I lean on one side with my elbows. On the opposite side, my legs, mid-thigh down, hang over the edge. Dad drives us to Grandpa who sprinkles some sort of white something-or-other across his small patch of land where he just previously sprinkled seeds. Dad goes to the tiller and struggles to drive it. He makes several passes as I watch, but nothing is tilled. The blades roll over the surface of dirt. The sun is high. Our breaths go up into the clear day. I wrestle with the boys in the not-yet-turned soil. After Grandpa shows him how to work it properly, Dad calls me over and puts me in charge. I make one pass, then a second, and he tells me, “Work break.” I laugh to myself. My hands hurt from gripping the shivering metal with the vibrations caused by spinning blades, and I love it. I want to till the whole property. This is the work I enjoy. I think of my friend Keenan who grew up on a farm. He and I have spoken about a co-op farm together. I’m not made to be a teacher.

As I stand to the side and Dad goes up and down, shuttering and jerked around by the tilling machine, I notice an old woman coming up the mountain. She looks confused at Dad, as if to wonder what that man thinks he’s doing. “He’s not made to farm.” She passes with a sickle and a visor on her forehead and goes to a small plot of soy beans. She lops them at the base and stacks them to the side, then bundles them to be picked up later. Grandpa takes over the last of the tilling – it’s a small plot. I stand with Dad a moment and mention the dogs. “Dog farm,” he tells me. “Really?” I’m shocked. “I thought so, but, man…” I didn’t know what to say. We stand there a moment and I decide to wander down the mountain. The boys follow me to the bottom and Dad calls down to us. I get the boys to follow me by having a race. They trot a little, but stop, distracted by the many wonders that are found on a mountainside. We make it back to Dad. “Lunch,” he says. “Oh, great.” I run a ways down the mountain and pick up the straggling son and run with him back up to Dad. We go to the house. Dad points at a bowl of persimmons sitting on the porch. Grandpa pulls out three and we eat, spit the seeds onto the ground and toss the skins to the wire fence away from the front door. We go inside for lunch.

Lunch sits on the same table with two mugs of water to share. Everyone gets rice, chopsticks, and a spoon. In the middle of the table sits kimchi, kimchi-ji-gay, which is a kimchi soup, shrimp, peppers, and the meat left over from breakfast. After lunch, Dad says, “We will go home now.” “Oh,” I say. I gather my things upstairs, take a handful of final pictures, and go out to the car. Dad’s with Grandma gathering apples and chestnuts. I make friends with the dogs who, the whole time, have seemed afraid. Two dogs are narrow with brown fur. The third is a thin, beautiful husky. The husky keeps me alert when I’m near. Even when it seems accepting, he’s not fully comfortable and snips at me, just once. I dismiss it as uncertainty, but move to the next dog. Squatting, petting one of the thin, brown dogs, Mom comes up to me and says, “He is food.” Oh my God. I can’t believe it. I don’t know what to think. I pet him a little more and stand up to wander around as I wait. Mom, noticing I pet the dogs, goes up to the husky expecting an accepting frame, but she doesn’t realize the delicacy to give to these animals. She steps toward it too quickly and it snarls, barks, and bites at her, snipping the leg of her pants, but lets go, and she gets away, looking at me, laughing flustered and startled. The youngest boy makes noises to scare the dog and put it in its place as lesser than Man. That’s why the dogs accept me. I approach them as companions whereas others go to them as something for kicks and leave behind when “friends” arrive. What are friends anyway? People? People who speak my language? People who understand? Anything that understands loneliness, being afraid, feels the weather and wishes someone was around to comfort him? What is friendship?



Dad and Grandma return with apples and chestnuts and hand me a sack FULL. “Ah, wow. Kamsa habnida,” I tell Grandma. I tie it at the top and put it in back. The boys get in the car. Mom gets in, then I get in the front seat, Dad behind the steering wheel, and Grandma gets in behind me to take us to find something else Dad is looking for. We wave goodbye to Grandpa and pull away up the mountain to the road being constructed. We park on the side. Dad and Grandma get out, walk up the hill a bit, pick around for something and return to the car. Dad gets in, Grandma says goodbye, and we head off for Anyang.

The first twenty minutes of the drive the boys and I dose off. I wake up and we’re stuck in traffic again. It’s endless. I fall hopeless. I know what to expect. I expect hours and hours of creeping cross-country to get home. We stack behind red break lights, go for a burst that, in the four hours following the initial 20 minute run, lasts no longer than three minutes at a time before we stop again. It gets dark and we’re not home. I hate cars. We go and stop and go and stop. I hate stop lights. We creep forward and stop in a line of cars waiting at an intersection. We turn and pull onto a highway where I can watch the spokes of tires turn like a ceiling fan on low. Dad tries to talk to me but I’m irritable and become frustrated by the lack of understanding. He’s very polite and I feel bad, but last night was next to nothing in the way of sleep, the night before was the same, I’m stuck in a car that’s stuck in traffic, my knees are kissing the dashboard again, and my butt’s fallen asleep. We keep going, as much “going” as we can in that cold flow of traffic. We get closer to home and Mom passes out dried apple slices. Just what I want to hear, smacking of dried apples from parched mouths, like under-watered dogs eating their first meal of the day. I press my forehead against the cold glass window trying to escape the smacking and blast furnace inside. “Are you tired,” Dad asks me. I’m feeling overly-honest, but, I haven’t been all that honest yet, so, this is ok. He’ll know I tell the truth when I feel to. “A little tired. But I’m just ready to be home. I hate traffic and I don’t like small spaces for this long of time.” He looks at me with a confused yet understanding look. It rushes to me, a sign that hangs on the wall at school: If you can’t convince them, confuse them. I don’t know why it’s there, but, I realize that he will understand that I have no desire to be understood by words, but that my emotions are rather on my sleeve presently and all I want is to be home. He tells me “Ten minutes.” “Alright,” I respond, certain with myself it will not be ten minutes. Sure enough, another forty five minutes pass before we arrive home. I get out into the cold night, put my bag on my back, go to the trunk for my chestnuts. Dad hands me three apples. “Thank you so much for taking me,” I tell him. I know that even if I didn’t have a wonderful time, it’s something I’ve never done before. I can say Koreans will eat apples for which I tilled the land. Dad says, “Ok. Bye bye.” Mom gets in the front seat. I tell the family bye and go to my room. It isn’t until later that I realize, I didn’t NOT enjoy myself, but nine hours round-trip to spend 12 hours on the mountain wasn’t really worth it. I turn on the heater, take my clothes off, pour a glass of wine, and lay in bed. I’ll sleep sound tonight.