Progress Report 25.1

Anyongh hasseyo, dingbat.

How you doing?

What? Yeah, fucking AGES, mate, but you know, I've been busy. Also lazy.

Well, instead of us wasting our time discussing my indolence, why don't we get down to business? No, I don't want to talk about it. Look, let's just say I was busy and let that be it, alright? Alright?! No, it's nothing to do with you. Just... leave it. Alright?

Alright.

Right, cos it's been so long, I've kind of forgotten how we do this, but I'd like to start by saying Happy One Year Korea Anniversary to me. I'm a month and a half too late but it's the thought that counts. Yep, May 29th marked the 365th day that I'd spent in this economy-brand excuse for a nation, and the occasion was marked with appropriate pomp and circumstance. (I think I had a beer, at least). And it also marked the twelve month anniversary of this increasingly mouldering blog, which we currently find ourselves blowing the dust off of and polishing with our shirt-cuff, and wishing a 'Happy Birthday, Tentacles for Breakfast!' (I don't think I like that name anymore.)

And looking over the work as a whole, doesn't it seem a niggardly and a negative thing? All I do is fucking moan! Why won't I give it a rest?! Yes, well I quite agree, so for at least a portion of this entry, I am going to talk about a Korean institution that I actually enjoy; an institution known to the native as the jjimjilbang.

You see, whilst most interactions in Korea seem intended to agitate, bewilder or offend, the jjimjilbang actually acts as a balm against such infringement. Where the noise annoys, the jjimjilbang sooths; where the people grate, the jjimjilbang caresses; and where the lunacy tests, the jjimjilbang elastifies. Its effects are nullified when too many children are present, and you must open your mind and dispense with your pride if you wish to accept its gifts. The virgin to the jjimjilbang must first prove himself secure within his manhood, and concede to the prying surveys of those previously inducted, but the rewards are great once the test has been passed. Here, all flesh is neutral and impotent. The body is a body-without-organs.

So what the fuck is it? Well, there's no direct translation because we have no equivalent concept to attach a word to, so instead I shall just explain it to you as best as I can.

The jjimjilbang is a sauna/ bath house/ shower/ steam room/ massage parlour/ relaxation centre/ hang out/ flop house/ snack bar/ restaurant/ PC bang/ gym. It's where a Korean family can clean up, scrub up, buff up and chill out; where pensioners can enjoy a soak whilst waiting for death; where couples can court and canoodle; where gangsters can show off their tats. You can lie around and watch TV. You can take a wander around the roof-garden. You can sometimes have fish eat the dead skin off your feet. It's a centre of personal hygiene excellence and an oasis of relaxation admidst the hustle and bustle of the treacherous daily grind. Suitable for the family and ideal for the pervert both, the jjimjilbang is an unparalleled destination for a restorative detox and reinvigorating ablution. There's just one hindrance to attaining the goods: You have to be naked.

What you do in the jjimjilbang, you do without your clothes. Whilst there are shared areas of the jjimjilbang, the true heart of the operation - the baths, saunas and steam rooms - are gender-separated, and all-nude. When you enter, you're given a t-shirt and shorts to wear in communal areas (where the TVs and lying-around spaces are kept), but whilst you're in the company of your own sex, you're free and obliged to let it all hang out.

This is the concept that makes the first visit to the jjimjilbang so intimidating to the outsider. Not so long ago, that outsider was me. Let me walk you through how it went, on that feted Monday afternoon a couple of months ago...

I took some time to find the place, but eventually, up on the ninth floor of a tower block, there it was: 'Sauna Park' - an unassuming lobby with a reception and chairs and two doorways marked 'namja' and 'yoja' (but in Hangeul). I paid my money, took my ticket and went through door number one.

Here, I put my shoes in a locker and presented my ticket to a man behind a desk. He took my locker key and exchanged it for a different type of locker key, and handed me my regulation t-shirt and shorts. I thanked him like I knew what I was doing, and turned around to assess my new surroundings. I was then assailed by aged full frontal nudity.

Luxuriating upon a low bench was an ajosshi with a pert gut, his legs sprawled out wide and his shame on full display. If I gave a start, he gave no indication, and continued stare into the middle distance like a man with time to spare. Along one side of this long room were rows of lockers, and at the end, activity and more full nudity - men drying, preening and standing around.

A young guy came in behind me now so I casually adjusted a sock and waited for him to exchange his keys and then dropped in behind him so that I could follow his lead. We went to the lockers, he found his and I found mine just next door. He began to disrobe, so I did too. Off came the jeans, socks, and shirt. Eager that we stay in sync, I attended to an imaginary necessity in my bag whilst he did something with his phone. His cellphone dealt with, we were down to our undies and I was waiting for his prompt that I should go the full monty. But then he wandered off.

This left me suddenly engrossed in my own phone whilst I looked left and right for further clues for my next move. Do I get naked now? Do I wait? Do I have to put on this t-shirt and shorts? Where do I go if I DO get naked? What if I take a wrong turn? Why are all the signs in Korean, for fuck's sake?! Where has my mentor gone?! Why was he still in his pants?!

My phone wasn't providing any answers, so I crept to the end of the row of lockers and peered around the room. People were definitely naked. It was time for me to take that step too. That was definitely the correct step to take. I was sure of it. But being 99.99% certain that it's the right thing to do doesn't make public nudity any easier the first time around.

I took the plunge. Off the came the undies and into the locker they went. Then I closed and locked it, put the key around my wrist, gave it a quick jiggle to get some blood into it and strolled faux-confidently in to the main part of the room. Ah-huh. Where now?

Do you ever have those dreams where you're naked in public? Do you know that feeling of unconsolable embarassment and the overbearing sense of wrongness that they cause? Yeah? This is how I felt now. Like I was at work, naked. Or in a shop, naked. Or confronting all my social fears and insecurities, naked. That dream-feeling is exactly how it feels in real life. It's funny how your mind already knows. How does it already know?

As my barenaked cluelessness became apparent to anyone watching, the gutsy pensioner priorly mentioned rose from his reclining position upon his bench and came forth now to confront me. He began to shout in Korean, and gesture with his hands.

"Hanguk-mal motteyo", I told him, because I don't.

This seemed to frustrate him, and he gestured a little more and looked around for back-up. When none was forthcoming, he spoke in angry Korean a little more, and then I picked out the word 'shower'.

"Shower?" I asked him.

"Nae, nae!" he angrily responded, and pointed over to the other end of the room. "Cheogi! Shower!"

"Down there?"

"Nae!"

Now he went back to his bench, his exasperation seemingly having exhausted him.

"You know," I told him, "you've got a lot of attitude for someone with a two inch cock."

But his interest in me had passed and, despite his shortcomings, I was grateful for his help. I walked tentatively in the direction that he'd gestured. Once I'd passed the lockers, the room opened out left and right and here was a barber's, and basins and toiletries, and right at the end were two steamed doors, whence more naked men were to-ing and fro-ing. I followed one of them in.

I was in a large room amidst the sound of gushing water. Rows of showers were either side of me and four large baths were in the centre of the room. Two more baths were at the far end, and two saunas along the right wall. There were massage tables to my far right and lots of little taps and showers along the left side. And everywhere there were naked men, mainly old, mainly drooping, some skinny, some flabby, some soaped up, some soaking in the tubs, some sitting in contemplation, some sprawled out on loungers. As a demonstration of the dignity and majesty of the human male, it was utterly bereft.

I showered and scrubbed and kept my eyes to myself, but this was not a pleasantry that was reciprocated. I became aware that I had become an object of fascination. This wassn't because I'm ripped or buff or even especially well-endowed, but simply because I'm luminous white. I stood out amongst the Korean skin tones. I knew that they weren't looking me up and down out of rudeness or aggression but simple curiosity, but it still made me very self-conscious. As it would.

However, after showering and sauna-ing and soaking in a ginseng bath, we were starting to get a little more comfortable with each other, and I was even starting to relax. They had had certain myths about the Western male either confirmed or denied, and some new myths were maybe formed too. All of this was done without a single communicative exchange, you understand, because if there's one thing I won't do, it's talk to other men when I'm naked. It's all eyes-front and stiff-upper-lip. I just sat back and chilled to the traditional Korean sounds of revolting throat-clearings and the hacking up of lung tissue.

The facilities available at your typical jjimjilbang usually include a sauna, steam room, a very cold bath, a very hot bath, a medium-hot bath, a ginseng bath, a herb bath, and sometimes include a seawater bath, a hinoki bath (hinoki is the wood that the bath is made from), and various baths that blast jets of water at your extremities and your vitals. There's also usually a masseur (and a masseuse for the ladies), who apparently lives in the jjimjilbang and makes his living by oiliing and scrubbing loose flesh. It all adds up to a bargain session of R&R, and it's available 24/7.

The low cost and constant availability is what makes it so popular with old people who have nothing better to do than soak in brine, and with families, who can bring the kids and spend several hours here at the weekend for rock bottom prices. It also makes it popular with Korean mafiosi, whose lifestyle only requires them to work evenings and nights, leaving them free to spend their days in the niff.

You can spot the gangsters from their build, their gold and their massive great tattoos of tigers and dragons. And on this particular day, the gangster that joined me in the large, round 'very hot' bath before I had a chance to scarper could be easily distinguished by his preternaturally large member.

It's not that I was looking, but he waddled into my field of vision and climbed into the bath opposite me and I was inescapably greeted by something that looked like it had been hewn from the flank of a bullock. I have seen nothing like it. Honestly, if you bought that much meat at a butcher's, you'd be taking it home in a Transit.

It was obviously a case of artificial silicon enhancement, because I have much involuntarily-accrued empirical evidence against its natural likelihood within the Korean genepool. But as a gangster, I feel he's entitled to flaunt his wealth in such a way. You see, the lot of the Korean gangster is a mildly pathetic one, but further enquiry I shall leave to another report. For now, suffice to say that I waited the six or seven seconds that courtesy demanded I stay in the bath with him, before casually standing up, climbing out and running to hide in the steam room.

So that's the lowdown on the jjimjilbang. After that nerve-wracking first visit, it's become almost a home away from home for me. I use the gym and then I have a sauna and soak, and all for free, cos my school pays. Hooray for me! I've finally found one thing that I will miss about Korea!

I have a strong feeling that there are going to be many eyebrows raised by the content of this report, I can understand this perfectly. Let me try assuage your fears by saying that once you've tried it, it doesn't seem weird at all. If Koreans are happy to do it - and they are by far the most conservative of the south and east Asian nations - then it can hardly be unseemly, can it? If you've any further doubts in this area, then save them aside and I shall be happy to be naked with you when I eventually return.

Anyway, in time-honoured tradition, the moment has come for me to offer gratitude once again to Rob 'Straight Outta Llanelli' James, who has upped the generosity ante once again with another star parcel of literature. This time it was Viz, Hotel Honolulu by Paul Theroux, First Love Last Rites by Ian McEwan, Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen, and The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. Once again, geez: CHEERS!

Reeto, I'm sorry again it's been so long since the last report and I'll try not to leave it so long next time. This weekend, it's the Pentaport Rock Festival again. Yes, it's that time of year already! Remember it from last year? Oh, the fun we had. No Black-Eyed Peas this year, thank fuck, but what we do got isn't much better. Except for Chemical Brothers, but I'll miss them because I'm working.

Anyway, I'll let you know how it is.

Until next time,

Anyonghi kasseyo,

S