Festive and not-so-festive lights in downtown Seoul, printed in The Korea Occasions Dec. 23, 1984. Korea Occasions Archive
I arrived in Korea in 1990, simply two weeks shy of Christmas. When my recruiter referred to as in early October to supply me a educating place at ELS (YBM Sisa) beginning in December, she framed the supply as if she have been handing me a present with a tiny catch: Sure, you’ll be removed from residence for the vacations … however you in all probability received’t really feel homesick.
Having spent a number of Christmases away throughout my navy days, I wasn’t fearful. I figured homesickness was just like the flu — inevitable at times, however survivable.
What I didn’t anticipate was that my first Christmas in Korea would change into probably the greatest Christmases of my life.
Again in 1990, celebrating Christmas in Seoul was a completely completely different expertise from the Seoul of December right now. There have been no Daiso shops displaying cabinets of ornaments, no Costco warehouses promoting Christmas bushes the dimensions of small redwoods, no Starbucks cafes piping out carols as early as November and definitely no vacation plazas, winter festivals or synchronized mild reveals blanketing town the way in which they do now. Lodges didn’t promote Christmas buffets the dimensions of Olympic coaching spreads.
Christmas in Hongdae, printed in The Korea Occasions Dec. 27, 2006. Korea Occasions Archive
However we did have Christmas playing cards. And loads of them.
Stationery shops displayed revolving racks of playing cards that you may spin like roulette wheels. These weren’t fairly the Currier and Ives Hallmark scenes I remembered: no frozen ponds with bonnet-wearing girls, no pink barns dusted with nostalgia. As an alternative, Korea gave Christmas its personal twist. Some playing cards featured Santa and his reindeer trying cheerfully misplaced. Others confirmed youngsters enjoying conventional Korean video games. Many weren’t even Christmas playing cards in any respect, however normal season’s greetings or New Yr’s playing cards, adorned with cranes, mountains, pine bushes and stylized calligraphy. The snowy palace scenes — some in gentle shade, others stark black and white — grew to become my favorites, winter postcards from a Seoul I used to be nonetheless discovering.
Christmas playing cards, printed in The Korea Occasions Dec. 10, 1972. Korea Occasions Archive
One afternoon simply earlier than Christmas, I purchased a stack of playing cards and settled right into a quiet coffeehouse close to work. I spent the afternoon writing messages to household and pals as Bing Crosby crooned “White Christmas” over the sound system. Outdoors, automobiles slithered by way of the chilly, and inside I felt wrapped in a wierd, pretty mixture of solitude and belonging.
Christmas Eve that yr fell on a Monday. One in all our lecturers — an Military veteran with connections to one of many U.S. Military bases in Seoul — by some means organized for a full Christmas dinner with all of the trimmings, paid for by the varsity. The break room remodeled into a vacation banquet: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, pie. It wasn’t fairly the identical as residence, but it surely was shut sufficient to soften no matter nostalgia remained. For the remainder of the afternoon, we grazed on leftovers, drifting out and in of the room, plates in hand, spirits lifted.
That night, a number of lessons mixed for a Christmas carol session. Somebody photocopied lyrics. Another person introduced a guitar. And for one candy, unpolished hour, our language institute stuffed with the voices of scholars and lecturers singing “Santa Claus is Coming to City,” “Deck the Halls” and that perennial vacation and noraebang favourite, “Rudolph the Purple-Nosed Reindeer.”
My recruiter had been proper: I used to be too caught up within the pleasure of all of it to really feel even a touch of homesickness.
That quiet little Christmas of 1990 turned out to be a snapshot in time, as a result of Korea was already on the point of reinventing the vacation.
We nonetheless had our Christmas playing cards. Kyobo’s aisles have been stuffed with buyers flipping by way of racks of playing cards — UNICEF playing cards by youngsters all over the world, elegant lacquer-style playing cards and the normal Korean ones I had fallen in love with my first winter right here. Then electronic mail and e-cards arrived, and the racks started to skinny. At present, you need to actually search to discover a good card in any respect.
However Seoul itself had remodeled. Myeong-dong retailers, together with Lotte and Shinsegae Division Shops, started embracing Christmas with lights, decorations, bushes and elaborate shows. What had as soon as been a quiet nod to a Western vacation steadily grew right into a full-fledged competition. At present, Seoul Plaza hosts a towering Christmas tree every December, glowing above the ice rink and crowds. Town sparkles for weeks.
Shinsegae Division Retailer adorned for Christmas, printed in The Korea Occasions Dec. 18, 1988. Korea Occasions Archive
Even Cheonggye Stream — as soon as coated by concrete and site visitors — now turns into a miles-long river of lights, drawing households, {couples} and vacationers who wander beneath glowing arches and illuminated sculptures. It’s arduous to think about that this bustling winter walkway was an elevated roadway once I arrived in 1990.
I received’t deny the fantastic thing about it, however I confess I miss the quiet simplicity of 1990, when Christmas felt like one thing found relatively than delivered, like stumbling upon a small flame in a overseas land and realizing unexpectedly that it warms you.
I keep in mind one night time in 1995, using residence to my Yeonhui-dong house from the Apgujeong space. Because the taxi headed towards Olympic Expressway, I regarded up on the house towers — darkish monoliths in opposition to the winter sky — and seen a number of home windows lit with tiny, twinkling Christmas bushes in a reminder that the vacation was quietly, steadily rising roots right here.
I’ve lived in Korea lengthy sufficient now to look at Christmas evolve the way in which every thing on this nation evolves — shortly, confidently and with a aptitude for spectacle. The vacation of bustling markets, synchronized mild shows and towering bushes is a far cry from the quieter, humbler Christmas of 1990, when a number of racks of playing cards, a single afternoon in a espresso store and a vacation dinner in our lecturers’ break room have been sufficient to make the season really feel full.
However to me, each variations maintain one thing treasured.
The outdated one jogs my memory of who I used to be. The brand new one jogs my memory of who I’ve change into.
And yearly, when December arrives, I really feel each tales pulling me in — one from the previous, one from the current — every providing its personal type of consolation within the Land of Morning Calm.
What I didn’t notice in 1990 was that I wasn’t simply celebrating a vacation out of the country — I used to be planting the primary roots of a life. Again then, Christmas was a bridge connecting the place I had come from to the place I used to be studying to name residence. At present, it’s a reminder of the journey itself: the early days of discovery, the individuals who welcomed me, the lecture rooms stuffed with keen faces, the small kindnesses that stitched my life collectively right here.
Korea taught me that Christmas doesn’t want acquainted decorations or the rituals I grew up with to really feel significant. Generally all it takes is a heat cup of espresso on a chilly afternoon, a stack of playing cards ready to be written or the sound of voices — any voices — singing carols in imperfect concord.
Seoul YWCA choir, printed in The Korea Occasions, Dec. 25, 1968. This was the primary shade photograph ever printed by the paper. Korea Occasions Archive
These are the issues I carry with me now: not the lights, not the spectacle, however the moments of quiet pleasure that discovered me once I least anticipated them.
Ultimately, Christmas hasn’t modified practically as a lot as I’ve. And possibly that’s the true reward — the one I by no means noticed coming once I arrived right here all these years in the past, stepping right into a Korean winter that will, in time, change into the backdrop of my life.
Jeffrey Miller is the creator of a number of novels, together with “Conflict Stays,” a narrative in regards to the early days of the Korean Conflict, and “No Approach Out,” a thriller set in Seoul in 1990.
