of honest toast

Every so often, I stop by a "toast" shop near work for a still-strange, yet occasionally appealing Korean version of a toasted sandwich. It's this odd mix of veggies fried into an egg square, honey-based sauce and American cheese on toast, and I can't exactly call it good, but sometimes it fits the bill.

Outside the walk-up window of the place, there's an open-top metal box with three spots for bills and two for coins. Inside, kerchiefed women flit and bustle around a couple grills and a small counter, and the system for getting something to go works like this: 1) call out your order, 2) place your money in the bins, and 3) wait for your "toast" to be handed over the grills to you.

It's a tidy system - the employees never touch filthy money. I'm not even sure they could reach from inside. Customers deposit their coins and bills - up to about 10 bucks - and collect their own change. Walnut-sized washers weigh down the stacks of paper money, and it's a happening joint - on a busy street right downtown, frequented by all ages of folks, especially teens and twentysomethings. The employees are kept hopping, and I often have to wait a couple minutes for one to turn around before I assiduously deposit my 1,400 won (about 95 cents, these days). I always make sure to have correct change; as the merely semi-literate foreigner, one learns how a little preparation can avoid all sorts of potential incomprehensible conversations. Though I think I needn't bother - I've never seen a Korean take such precautions, nor seen the toast ladies give anyone a second glance.

At any rate, every time I'm there, see that big wad of bills just hanging out in the teen-filled street with very little oversight, I get a little culture shocked all over again. "Only in Korea," invariably echoes in my head. Though I'm sure it's a naive line, the sentiment is true. Even coming from the "we don't lock our doors" Midwest, I'm shocked the system works. It's not a giant amount of cash, to be sure, but I'd be willing to bet there's a couple hundred bucks there on a good day.

I never realized crime was strange until I lived in a place without much to speak of. Sure it happens on occasion here, but petty theft is relatively rare and violent crime next to nonexistant. In fact, most police calls are to the army base vicinity, home of the proud U.S. military. The comfort and empowerment of living in such relatively a safe place makes me sad about the situation in my native country in a way I never expected.

Tonight at a busy coffeeshop downtown, a young woman left her purse, phone and MP3 player in the middle of the cafe while she went to the bathroom, then came back to collect her things and leave. The odder part was that I hardly even noticed.

But every day I see things like that money box on the street. I watch my students save study space with their laptops and nice cameras while they go out for lunch. I see shops and stands that leave a good deal of merchandise out on the street or hall when they close for the night, sometimes just draped with a sheet - occasionally not even that.

I walk by businessmen in nice suits with undoubtedly fat wallets who are out cold - sprawled out on the street, undisturbed and contentedly sleeping off the wild night before. I see young women walking solo at all dark hours through the sketchy parts of town. I shop at stores with cash registers far inside, where you have to walk past sometimes floors of merchandise to exit.

I've stared as mothers park sleeping babies in strollers outside shop doors downtown, then go about their business inside. For that matter, I've been handed strangers' children on buses while their parents fish for change.

I'm not saying these are particularly grand ideas, just that they must largely work, or the systems would change. And most of the time, still, it shocks me - the honesty of my current residence.

At least, that's the word I would have used before. But can it be defined with just that one word, "honesty"?

What about my 24-year-old Korean friend, following many of her fellow countrywomen and hiding her two-year relationship with her very nice young man because he doesn't yet have the proper job to make him marriageable? To her, it is more noble to hide the situation until the timing is right than to dishonor her parents by openly displaying the relationship. And for their part, her parents quite obviously turn a blind eye every time she goes out to meet "friends." In what apparently is somewhat of a custom, it will all be reconciled some joyous day when he lands the job, and the parents won't even question the years-long ruse. I would be skeptical except that I've seen it before.

What about the way you must respond, "Yes, thank you," to any of a dozen times daily you're asked if you've just eaten, no matter what the situation? It can roughly be equated to our "How are you?" - only say something contrary to the expected if you're prepared to go into a huge backstory and receive others' concern.

What about the hundreds of "love motels" populating this and every other city in Korea? What about the well-trafficked red light district across the way - one of a handful in town? Does it matter that most of the wives realize at least most of what's involved in executive business dealings? That society of all levels supports various forms of female "entertainment"? (It's in every country, sure, but definitely more entrenched and widespread here in Asia, home of the Japanese geisha.)

What about the unwritten edict in this Confucian society that, if it comes down to it, you should lie rather than make your seniors lose face?

These all seem to be the opposite side of the coin ... at least from a Western philosophy. And I'm still figuring out how they can be attached to the same thing.

I grew up thinking honesty was a simple concept. You either were honest, or a liar. Good, or bad. But living here, it seems that what I thought was one idea is more like a dozen. A culture code that's made up of related parts, but much more complex than just one word. I guess we all grow up thinking things are simple ... but I think had I stayed forever in the Midwest, I would still believe something close. And maybe that would have been easier. But then again, aren't we all searching for the honest truth ... ?