Lost in Seoul

As the Pandemic receded, I felt a need for an adventure. I wanted to travel abroad, see a part of the world I had never visited, and meet nice people. Last spring my former roommates, Andrey and Jiyeon, sent me an invitation to their October 2023 wedding in Seoul, South Korea. Perfect!

Before I even boarded the plane, a man with a thick African accent wouldn’t let me though security. He objected to something about my boarding pass, and I couldn’t figure out what his problem was. Maybe he wanted to see my passport, too? I dug though my paperwork and found a boarding pass for the flight to Taipei, which I showed him, and he finally let me through. He was rude, lacked patience, and due to my deafness, discarded me aside like rubbish. Fortunately for me, he was the last rude person I’d meet on my trip. 

The stewardesses on EVA Air (Evergreen Airways), a Taiwan based airlines, are amazing. When I boarded the plane I told a stewardess, “I’m deaf. If something happens, you’ll need to know.” She smiled and showed me my seat. When the plane arrived in Taipei, I had to change planes but had no idea where to go. My stewardess asked me to wait for everyone to deboard and then escorted me to my next gate. In Seoul it got better. A different stewardess took me through customs, waited for me to retrieve my luggage, and escorted me to the airport exit. Huan didn’t understand English, just the bare basics, so I communicated with her in mime. I met Andrey and Jiyeon outside the airport door. They were amazed to see me so quickly. Andrey’s sister took close to two hours to get through customs. I was finished in twenty minutes. Deafness has its plusses. 

It didn’t all go well in Seoul. The morning of the wedding I texted Andrey, “Do you have a friend I can walk with to the subway station. I’m afraid I’ll get lost.”

He responded, “My friend Felix is on your floor. You can go with him.” 

My first mistake was not getting Felix’s room number. I didn’t want to bother Andrey on his wedding day, so I waited in my room until noon. We had to meet a shuttle at Seoul Station, a subway and train station in the heart of the city. Ten minutes after 12:00 pm I got nervous and went to the front desk to ask for directions. If I didn’t arrive for the shuttle at 1:00 it would leave without me. The clerk gave me a map whose print was so small I couldn’t read it. (I’m pushing 75 years of age.) The clerk’s mouth was masked and even with my hearing aids on, I couldn’t understand a word. What I thought I understood, I mimed three times and each time he nodded vigorously. Probably trying to get rid of me. I headed in the direction the young man instructed and got lost. 

I stopped a woman from Hong Kong who gave me directions to the station, as I happily marched with renewed vigor. I had thirty minutes left. But again, I got lost, even with the help of Google Maps. Most of the writing was in Korean, and the pathway was difficult to follow due to the many allies and dead-end streets. I was amazed how the streets and sidewalks were immaculate as well as the darkest alley. I finally arrived at Seoul Station but was thirty minutes late. 

Andrey texted me, “Take the subway.” This is a wonderful example of the blind leading the deaf-blind. Andrey has a superficial understanding of Seoul. He told me to get to Woodchuck. I asked three people, and all three stopped to help me. They were very kind, some of whom didn’t know, and the ones who did had trouble communicating their knowledge to me. Finally, I’m proud to say I found the right subway, I think. 

I had to count 17 stops before I would get off the train. The first thing that popped up at me was the cleanliness of the subway car and the lack of graffiti on its walls with no scratched signatures or gang logo on the chairs. Then I noticed that at each stop, English would appear giving the name of the town. Woodchuck never showed up on the display and before I knew it, I was back in Seoul Station. It was now 5:00 pm, I missed the wedding, and was totally exhausted. I wanted to return to my hotel before sunset because I have a lot of trouble with dizziness when walking in the dark. I looked for a cab, but the line was endless. So, I walked with the plan of hailing a cab. But Seoul is not New York City, where I grew up. Cabs don’t stop for pedestrians waving at them. 

I walked for a mile and found a parking area in front of restaurants filled with cabs. Hungry and needing a restroom I entered a Korean BBQ and ordered beef ribs—the only item on the menu that wasn’t pork. After dinner I found a cab who drove me to a mall area. He gestured that the hotel was at the end of the mall. I thanked him and gave him his fare plus a generous tip. 

I was looking for The Nine Tree Hotel, which I learned has many branches, even in the Myeongdong district where I walked. By the life of me, I couldn’t find even one of them. I tried to use Google Maps, but my phone was dead. I walked and asked people for help. Everyone I stopped, tried to help me. One sent me north and when I walked and couldn’t find the place, I asked someone else, who pointed East. Finally, when I was about to collapse, a hand was placed on my shoulder, like my deceased wife’s comforting touch. I turned, but no one was there. I stopped, leaned against an office building and whimpered. This entire day had become too much to bear. I pulled myself together and went in the direction the hand had pushed me. Two minutes later I walked into Pi Hotel. I asked the clerk at the desk to charge my phone and I ran to the restroom. I waited a half hour for the phone to charge and then looked on Google Maps for the Nine Tree Hotel. To my amazement, it was two blocks away. 

That night, as I tossed in my hotel bed, I thought about the “What ifs.” What if I asked Andrey for Felix’s room number? What if I ordered a cab from the hotel instead of walking?  Life doesn’t give us opportunities for a do-over. The best we can do is to keep up a smile, try our best, and where the dice fall, try to be accepting. 

Day three of my stay in Korea I rested. My phone indicated I walked more than ten miles trying to get to my friends’ wedding and my efforts to get back to Nine Tree, so I was pretty bushed. However, early evening I decided to find another Korean BBQ, which my iPhone showed to be less than a mile away. After watching the phone reroute several times, I gave up on the restaurant when I spotted a Shake Shack. After I ate my burger and fries, I followed directions back to my hotel. I ran into problems reading the small print and when the sun set, I was literally and figuratively in the dark. I was close to two miles away from my hotel without a clue how to get back. I sat on a bench and moped. Then two young men in their late 20s walked by and I asked them for help. 

They too had trouble figuring out how to find my hotel, which made me feel not so stupid. The stocky one departed leaving me with JD, who spoke English fluently and graduated from University of California, Irvine. He was a reporter for the Korean Times and wrote all his stories in English. JD called me a cab, but for some reason I couldn’t understand, they wouldn’t come. Then he typed into his phone, I’ll walk you there. And he did. 

Once we reached Nine Tree Hotel, I invited him up to my room, bought him coffee, and gave him an autographed copy of my newest novel, The Lip Reader. He placed the book in his backpack, gave me a hug, and headed out the door. I stopped him and said, “I know what you’re hiding under that backpack.”

He furrowed his brow. 

“You’re hiding your angel wings.”

Amazingly, on day four and five of my Korean visit I didn’t get lost. One day I visited the National Museum of Korea, the flagship museum of Korean history and art in South Korea. On day five I tried to find a shopping area to buy my daughters and grandkids gifts, but a clerk in a hotel gave me convoluted directions, so I wisely returned to the hotel. 

I checked out of the hotel on Thursday at noon giving myself seven hours to get to the airport. You never know. I followed the phone directions carefully but got lost, again. After walking for two hours and getting directions that led me further from my destination, I stood in front of Hwagyesa Temple, a Zen Buddhist building built in 1522. A woman walked by, and I stopped her. “How do I get to the airport from here?” She smiled and walked me to the corner where there was an airport shuttle stop. She called the company and was told they would accept American money. The fare: $55.00. I’d pay $155 to get off the streets and go home. But it wasn’t $55, for when I handed the bus driver my money, he plucked out three $5.00 bills. 

The trip home was uneventful. On the plane I thought about the clean city streets, the subways with no graffiti and the restrooms you could eat off its floors. I mostly thought about the kindnesses shown a deaf man and especially the generosity of JD. As a child who grew up near New York City, I was used to people ignoring those who asked for help. I didn’t see that at all when I was lost in Seoul. I will always remember their kindnesses and of course, pay it forward. 

I hope everyone of my readers does the same. 

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt from my memoir with the working title of: Hardly Hearing: A Journey Into Deafness. Michael Thal is also the author of The Lip Reader and Goodbye Tchaikovsky, two novels about deafness.