“Baby Steps in the Land of Morning Calm – COSTCO August 2, 2009”

Our first big shopping experience in Seoul today: COSTCO. The word alone usually sends a chill up my spine and a flutter through my heart. Ventricles and passage ways of blood constrict at the mere thought of walking through the Herculean doors and into the wastelands of plastic and products and pickles that come in a jar bigger than a pony keg. But, oddly, being in Seoul and feeling like a stranger in a strange land, the thought of walking into the confines of COSTCO is eerily comfortable. Like we would walk in and suddenly I would run into someone I know from home and we would talk about the weather and sports and joke about the enormous jar of pickles in my cart (I’m having a BBQ this weekend-you should come! No, seriously, bring your new girlfriend…her friends? Sure, why not-it’s a party!). And for a few short seconds everything would feel completely normal again and I would be transported into a familiarity that has been leagues out of my existence for the last few days. Only a few days, although with the jet lag and humidity, it feels like a few weeks.

Our journey begins with the acquiring of a Costco membership. Something I swore would never happen, I’ll just buddy up or continue to mooch off a family member’s membership. But my own membership? Never! Why would I ever do that? Those ideals quickly made way for: here’s my passport, where do I sign. And after a quick photo, a signature, and 35,000 won for a lifetime of double pack cereal and 3 pound bags of potatoes chips, we are allowed entry into the holy grail of conspicuous consumption. The fact that this COSTCO has the same exact lay out as every other COSTCO I have ever visited in the US is ineffably creepy, but also downright soothing. Knowing where to turn for 96 granola bars for $12.99 is like slipping on an old pair of tennis shoes and strolling around the corner to an old friend’s house to watch movies. You know exactly what you are going to get, and when it’s over you want to do it all over again.

We did, for the record, have a list of things we were supposed to purchase. What happened to that list once we got rolling down the spacious alleyways COSTCO euphemizes as aisles is beyond me. We found only a few things on our list on the first level – the home goods section of this multitier COSTCO, but once we descend to the lower level, the food level, look out baby. We fill an entire shopping cart, and the underneath carriage – overflowing mind you, and only 3 things were actually on the list of: “Stuff to get at Costco (The Costco in Seoul).” But how can you resist? An American in Seoul who has had fire-ass for the last three days sustaining on a Korean diet that is delicious and fascinating, but also dripping oil and swimming in Chili paste every time, now cruising the aisles of taste bud nostalgia with a pocket full of won and an empty apartment to stock. Chunky’s New England Clam Chowder, Pepperidge Farm Cookies, Philadelphia Cream Cheese (the real stuff), Guinness, Absolute Vodka, string cheese, parmesan cheese, pepper jack cheese, peanut butter, Penne pasta, spaghetti sauce, granola bars, butter (REAL BUTTER!), coffee (REAL COFFEE!), jam, Bumble Bee tuna – nothing too extravagant (it is COSTCO after all), but all the comfort foods you remember from your child hood days out east at your Aunt’s house on the Long Island Sound. A cream cheese bagel in the morning, peanut butter and jelly in the afternoon, and a stiff Vodka and Clam Chowder with the family around the campfire in the evening. Or at least, that’s how memories are seeping through the heavy fog of jet lag that is still mushing my brain and making me consider buying a year supply carpet cleaner when we have hard wood floors. With the cart careening through the store, moving rather sluggish from all the extra goodies, it is time for checkout.

The bus that dropped us off with the rest of the new ex-patriot employees of Seoul International School will be picking us up promptly at 11:30, and Amber and I realize our time is short. It is time to divide and conquer. I am going to proceed through the checkout of COSTCO on my own, while Amber goes across the street to an E-Mart (very similar to a Wal-Mart or Target), and try to find us a fan, clock radio, speakers, and a few other assorted electronic home goods that have a limited selection here in COSTCO. We agree to meet at E-marts’ checkout at 11:15 if all else fails. We give each other a careful, surreptitious look that conveys one simple message with no words: good luck! And we part ways to more effectively navigate this unique shopping experience.

Checkout is surprisingly smooth, with the nice young clerk behind the counter and me communicating through a series of points, grunts, and broken syllables. The shocking total of 722,647 won is even more of a gut slug by the sheer weight of such a number popping up on the check out scanner. You know in your head that this number does not carry the same connotation as 722,647 dollars, but you are still hesitant to fork over such an outrageous quantity of money in any situation. But you do, and happily, because this wonderful young man has just scanned through a half year’s supply of all your favorite American treats, plus enough toilet paper to give every person in the greater Seoul area one good wipe, one solid front to back. This courteous scan gun jockey then politely expresses, in not too broken English, that since you have so much stuff (you typical American you!) that you cannot take the escalator-thing up stairs, no no good sir, you must take the elevator. Not a problem! I love elevators, and this will be first time on a Korean one!

There is a line for the elevator and I am at the back. Two well dressed Korean women perform the COSTCO ritual of checking our receipts as we leave, too make sure, as the sign said at checkout: “that we have not underpaid or overpaid for any of our goods.” They reach me and give my receipt a good long look over, and scan the cart several times with their eyes. The slim piece of paper nearly reaches the floor from the petite woman’s hands, and she has a serious expression as she slowly pulls it through her hands a THIRD TIME before giving it a slash with her red crayon. I have passed! I can enter the elevator! I have not over paid or under paid for any of my products!

Now, entering the elevator at Costco Korea is a fairly simple process. Depending on what floor of the parking garage located above the store you parked on determines which elevator you ride on, and with whom. It is a constant game of elevator Tetris where the two Korean receipt checkers are trying to fit as many pieces into each square elevator, all going to roughly the same place. Efficiency at its finest. Yes, a fairly simple process indeed – that is, of course, if you can speak Korean.
The ladies begin to question me about which elevator I am going to take, and I try to stammer out my response that I need only to go back to floor 1, the floor I first entered on. They appear royally confused and almost insulted by this, and further their interrogation by flashing a series of non-sequential numbers in front of me with their fingers, apparently asking me to choose one. Unfortunately, a single index finger indicating floor one was never an option, so I hold up my index finger to indicate my destination. At this time, they kind of laugh at me?
To the rescue comes the woman next to me who is been watching this parlay, and now wants to help a fellow human with her limited English skills.

“They want know which floor you come in on,” she says, smiling politely.

“I came in on the first floor,” I say.

Now she kind of giggles. “No, no – which floor you enter on? Where you first come in?”

“Really though, I walked in on the first floor.”

The women conference for a moment in Korean, and decide my fate for me since I seem to not understand what is happening. With unanimity they decide I actually need to go to floor number 2. And who am I to argue? It seems somewhat logical, if this is basement area is not called a basement and is actually considered floor number 1, then I did come in on floor number 2. I smile and thank them, “Kamsahamnida!” They repeat my thanks, and a few moments later I am directed to my elevator. One more piece of the Tetris puzzle dropped into place.

I am the first person on the elevator, and so I squeeze into the back right corner of the metal box. Four more patrons, plus their shopping carts (all substantially less full then mine) enter the elevator. I notice the elevator buttons are numbered in English, as is almost everything here. It is odd, there is some English around the city (and more in the subways and buses), but for the most part everything is written in Korean – except the numbers. Even at restaurants, prices are conveyed in won, but advertised in English. I now see the B for the floor we are on, so we are in the “basement,” and then the numbers 1-5 representing 5 floors above the basement. 5 floors? Did I miss a couple of levels in this shopping experience? I also see a red arrow indicating floor 1, the floor I entered on, as the main merchandise floor. The woman who helped translate is also on my elevator, and she gives me a confirming nod as she presses floor 2. Other patrons press floors 4 and 5 respectively. I return the nod and smile to my translator, but I am totally confused. What am I missing? I am still living through the cloudy bubble of a 13 hour plane flight and a lost day somewhere above the Pacific Ocean. We reach floor 2 and the doors open and the women gestures to me that this is my floor, I look out of the elevator and see the first level of the enormous parking garage that sits above the shopping area of COSTCO (a parking garage that encompassed floors 2-5), and suddenly it all hits me like the 80 pound bags of charcoal on aisle 8. Floors 2-5 are the parking garage, but I did not park.

“No,” I tell the women-a little flushed “this is not my floor.”

“Where did you park?”

“I didn’t park, I got dropped off.”

“Ohhhhh!!!”

We now smile mutually, realizing all the confusion and mistranslation in the basement-I really did come in on floor 1, but they were trying to ask me where I was parked. We connect with that ancient and most sacred human connection: laughter. All the layers of misunderstanding are instantly peeled away and we are not Korean or American or Man or Woman, we are two people sharing a laugh over a simple misunderstanding.

“It’s okay,” I say, “I will just ride the elevator to the top and catch floor 1 on the way back down.” Before I can even get the words out she is nodding and gesturing with her hand up to the top, and then back down to floor 1. We bow as the door is closing, and I begin to ride the elevator to the top with the rest of the shoppers who are eyeing me in a funny way after my bizarre communication with the women who departed on floor 2. As we approach the top I begin to think about the difficulties, and all the stories, I will encounter during these next two years in Korea. I crack a smile and laugh inside and the excitement of all this newness engulfs me and I realize I did not only come here to teach, I have come to be a stranger in a strange land-an outsider completely absent of my comfort zones, experiencing new things with people from all over this planet. I feel relief that when we reach floor 5 everyone will depart and I will be alone for a few brief moments while I descend to floor 1 and exit this elevator-eager to convey my first Korean language mishap to my fellow English speaking colleagues on the bus ride home. Yes, I have survived my first major Korean miscommunication-what a big step on this long journey.

But this is a parking garage, and the obvious function of this elevator does not hit me until the doors open on level 5 and the sea of patrons who have parked their cars and are awaiting COSTCO’s wholesale delights are pushing each other into the metal box. Everyone with shopping carts departs the elevator except me, new (shopping cart-less) consumers enter the box, and I have lost my translator, and now the real miscommunication begins.

The Korean patrons of COSTCO are giving me the strangest looks. Here I sit on the elevator, on the top floor of the parking garage, with a carriage overflowing with stuff, and I am heading back down. Their looks convey messages that do not need a language to be expressed. How did you get here? Why have you not gotten off? What are you doing? I am the only person with a cart, and as the elevator fills – the looks become more and more perplexed. I press the button for floor 1 – guaranteeing that I will not miss my stop a second time. The elevator squeaks and crunches, we descend, but we stop at floor 4. More people get on. Squeak, crunch, descend, and a stop at floor 3. More people get on. I realize my shopping cart is occupying a space big enough for at least 6 people, and possible as many as 15 given the squeeze factor the Koreans are using to max out this elevator. I am literally on my tip-toes, pressed against the wall, and the person in front of me is pressed up against me. Not near me, not close to me, not very close to me – pressed up against me like we are two teenagers at the High School Prom. Thankfully, we are not facing each other. Here we are, one big happy elevator family, dropping to level 2 of the parking garage.

Even the eager patrons of level 2 realize there is no more room on this boxed pony, and they give unsatisfied grunts as the doors close and we (the lucky ones pressed into this elevator) move towards the first floor of merchandise. At any other time, I feel confident I would have recognized the normalness of the situation, and would not have proceeded as I decided to on this day. The sleepless nights before our departure finishing last minute business and brimming with anticipation. The almost immediate commencement of meetings and work at Seoul International School. The waking up at 4 AM every morning since our arrival with confused minds and heavy eyes. The still thick blanket of jet lag wearing on me like a heavy sweeter in the middle of July. Everything converged and my thinking became distorted.

I start to panic. I am in the back of this elevator. Everyone in front of me will need to get off and get back on just for me to exit this box. I eye my watch. I am running short on time. I need to meet Amber at 11:15. I have all the money. I need to meet her so we can pay for stuff at E-Mart. I do not speak enough Korean to convey all of this. I decide to take pre-emptive measures. I need to start making moves. It is hot in here. It is crowded in here. It reeks like garlic in here. I eye my watch. It is hot in here. I start to panic. I must do something. We are quickly approaching the first floor. In a second the doors will open, and I need to get off this thing. If I end up back down in the basement, those receipt checkers are really going to have a good laugh, and the people waiting for the elevator will be even more confused than the people were at the top of parking garage. I am in the back of this elevator. I take action. It is crowded in here. Hot. Garlic.

“I need to get off here,” I say more loudly than I intend, gesticulating wildly with my hands. Trying to convey in some way with the movement of limbs that this is my floor. I repeat myself a few times. Heads turn, eyes light up. What is this man saying? Why is he waving his arms in the air? I continue this comical song and dance until the elevator bings and the doors glide open on floor 1. Everyone in the elevator, at this point, is looking at me, but the moment that first whiff of COSTCO air seeps through the opening doors, everyone, EVERYONE, is off to the races. The elevator empties faster than the free food samples at COSTCO disappear, and I am left completely alone on the elevator looking out at floor 1. My destination, and, obviously, the destination of everyone on the elevator because this is where the shopping begins. This is where the oversize carts live. This is where the coupon book lives that you grab on your way in for the 10% discount on those 80 pound bags of charcoal.

Before I exit the elevator I pause for a moment. This was not a big step, as I foolishly thought approaching floor 5. These are a series of baby steps. The first two happened to come in quick succession, but some will be spaced further apart. This is a two year hike through new terrain. Peaks and valleys. Ebbs and flows. Shopping at COSTCO is just barely the beginning. This move is the epitome of adventure, and before these doors close on me, I must get off this elevator and see what else is out there – find some more miscommunications in the land of morning calm.