South Korea (May 1996)
My host for the weekend was a friend from elementary school, John. John is just finishing an advanced degree in mechanical engineering, and will soon be starting work at Hyundai motors designing cars with more efficient emissions systems. After spending a few days in Seoul, I have come to the conclusion that John's job is perhaps the most necessary job in South Korea. There is approximately one car for every man, woman, child, and insect in Seoul, and the city is surrounded by mountains, which creates a great big cloud of smog that perpetually hangs over the city. Apparently, there were few cars before the 1988 Olympics hosted by Seoul, but shortly afterwards, there was an explosion of cars (sometimes quite literally -- design had a long way to go). Now, by some estimates, if you lined up all the cars end to end, there is more car than length of road in Seoul, which explains the constant traffic jam/parking lot that is downtown Seoul.
[Note: this paragraph contains no politics.] On Friday, John and I escaped from Seoul, and visited a folk village in the country, sort of like Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. Since it was quite a bit outside Seoul, we encountered many people from rural areas of Korea, who had apparently never seen a foreigner before, especially the children. One group of children ran up to me with pens and paper and asked for my autograph. Another group of junior high school girls was timidly following John and me. I asked John what they wanted, and he said they were just curious. He then said he would take care of it, and he then turned to them and announced in Korean, "Hey everyone, do you know who this is? It's Brad Pitt!" Now, I look about as much like Brad Pitt as Pee-Wee Herman does, but to these girls who had never personally seen a Western face, combined with John's authoritative tone, they bought it, and immediately starting asking for autographs and if they could take their pictures with me. I tried to explain that I wasn't really Brad Pitt, just some minor heartthrob, but their English was limited to shouting "OK! Hello!" repeatedly. I felt like a rock star. Or maybe just like Mr. Pitt.
