The story of my dear Red Dragon

About five months ago (so May?) I decided to invest in wheels, shiny red ones with three gears and a bell. I had been pondering the thought for a good month before I took the awkward- I now have to examine and pick a bike all in Korean without offending but also getting what I want and not what they want to sell me. (I've found most Korean shops push Korean goods more than those made in China. I think it's quite needed, but it also becomes a problem when you have a budget or you just want to buy the stupid, cheaply made Chinese goods and you're pressured, in another language, to not do so.) Anyways, buying this bike was a big step for me in making my nest here. It helped me explore faster and more ubiquitously than my two feet could take me- on or off buses and subways included.

Consequently, I used the bike quite a bit whenever I could. Mostly for days I was running late for work and needed the five-ten minute (depending on traffic lights) buffer my wheels could give me. Or for long rides into unknown 'dongs'(district) and 'gus'(area) I'd never dared to venture via bus. In sum, the bike was my bad-ass system of pretending to live a life of dire urgency and adventure. I wound it around the streets, flying off then poppa-wheeling back on and around sidewalk curbs and torn up brick paths. Steep hills became my roller-coaster, head rush in descension, and then my rage expelling punching bag vice versa. Meanwhile my thighs would be chugging and aching under the grueling uphill climbs, then up and over and they would morph into a relaxing, endorphin-rich high only extensive exercise can give you. By day's end I was always in an exhaustedly disheveled, but content state. The shapes of the pedals still reminiscent on my soles while my hands clenched, now imaginary, handle bars. Very, very good adventures on my red bicycle.

I think I got two grand months with it before it, or I rather, had to become a problem. I think it was more so me, as I did ride it quite roughly over terrible terrain, but then again, it was a mountain bike- is that not what they're to be made for? Anyways, one fine summer's day I was flying down a lusciously long hill, one where there was a sidewalk curb at the end rather than a normal handicap bend, and, in my excitement, I took it at a bit too much speed or harsh of angle and BONG. The front tire to my bike deflated immediately. And because it was so quick, I knew that the culprit was no rock or nail, but me, my weight and wild fervor for riding like a mad person that burst the bike's inner-tube, the life source of all bike tires.

Sadly, I walked back home, my bike looking less than impressive now, closer in relation to junk than a vehicle of madness. I brought into my elevator, up the seven floors to my stairwell and locked it up for what would be two months of exile.

You'd think that if I really loved the bike and to ride the bike at all, I would have gotten it fixed within days. But, and a tie in to the main excuse, about this time is when I met the monkey that would change my life. Thus, the bike that I meant to get fixed within the week or next was forgotten along with last winter's canned goods. *Also, it had taken me so long to buy the thing because of my aversion to dealing with Korean shops, thus it was now a tad too much for me to deal with trying to get it fixed. I'm a coward, I know.

September came sooner than I expected, and with it my land lord found their reserved impatience for my bike in the stairwell not so reserved. They asked me to move it into my one room apartment for 'safety'. *There have been a couple of thefts, probably by middle school or high school students, and thus they were 'worried for my nice bike.' My bike lock is steel, and in a stairwell on the top floor of a not so popular building. HM? Still, there's a whole extra story about this, but in sum the bike is put into further exile. It's led to the basement, locked to a water heater and left to starve for a good month. I cannot get to it as the basement is locked. I must ask for a key. This is another step too far for my laziness. I allow its starvation.

Now it's October, the weather is cooling as is my aversion to Korean bike shops I guess? Because for some reason last week I decided that it was 'about damn time I did something about it'. (Amazing how ambition sneaks up on you, isn't it?) Well, I had some and decided to use it on my dear bike that I won't be able to use much longer with the nights getting darker and cooler, and my time therefore being more sedentary.

What's most amazing about this story is the laziness I have discovered lurking within myself. I say this because not twenty yards across from my apartment is a bike fixing shop. The ONLY shop on my whole street. Why I could not bring myself to go there immediately, I don't know, especially after the red dragon was condemned to a dark crypt. I'd like to think I had the foresight, or extra-sensory input that told me what laid in store there. Like ESP for potentially awkward situations to be ignored so as to save me from wasted hours and minutes of confused contemplation. Only, it's not actually saving, just putting off until a time when I am feeling especially bold, or especially clueless, careless and ambitious. (Dangerous combination I've found.)

On with the story, last Thursday I took the ice cold plunge. I walked over to the bike repair shop, limping red 'dragon' in tow, and commenced the start of the largest uphill battle my bike has been through. It started simply enough. I said "Tie-ee-ar BAANG yogiyo". Indicating with my arms and feet and eyes and phalanges where he should expend his energy. If you've ever popped your bike's tire-tube, you know that it's quite an obvious diagnosis as the entire tire is flattened, the rim on the ground. I assumed he'd rip off my tire then tube, slap on a new tube, fit the tire over it and say 'pay me'. But this is not how things go in Korea. I know this, and yet still expect ease. Proof of bliss in ignorance I think. He tries instead to fill it with air from the compressor. Obviously, this does not work. It puffs up in hopeful health, but when the compressor ceases, the tire lets out a long sigh. The ajashi bike repair expert huffs and tries telling me (I think?) in Korean that it needs a new tube. I keep shaking all my extremities in understanding and concurrence, but over the next 5 minutes of him moving my bike inside his shop he tries explaining over and over. This is not un-normal for elder ajashis. They tend to over explain and worry over you understanding them. Sometimes its cute, and other times frustrating. This was a time for the latter as I think he was drunk, and had been for awhile.

I end up getting herded into his very small and very cluttered shop. Around me there are remnants of bikes past hung on the walls (for decor?), parts and bits strewn on the cement floor amongst the decades or maybe centuries worth of dust and dirt. In the back corner I see what could be a side business in roller-blade repair. Only there are just five sets of well-used blades layered with dust and missing certain parts that I cannot name. They remind of the derelict dolls in horror films, cracked in the forehead and cheeks, missing eyes and clumps of hair, arms are twisted and their once pretty dresses are molting. On top of the television there is a gnome next to a CB radio. Playing on the television is the intro to the first Harry Potter movie, the lettering is in Korean but the first notes so familiar to my ears I perk up as if I recognize the situation en total.

He offers me a seat. I sit down. The chair is a fold-up as is the table. It squeaks and I'm uncertain if I'm safe in that moment and the ones to come. I look up and he has brought the bike in with less inspection than I gave my chair. Why he turns his interest to me and not the bike unnerves me a bit. It is just him and I in his shop. The door wide open, but his drunken rambling (at least I assume he's drunk now, but at the time I thought maybe he was in the Vietnam War? -> He was missing his big right toe, talking in circles (from what I could understand of him), and had quite soiled pants. I couldn't not think such things and wonder.)

Next he offers me coffee. Something I should have refused. Actually, wait- I did refuse it and thrice over, but I still ended up drinking a sugared maxim stick anyways. And not only is it pure sugar and preservative crap, but its also hot as hell. Thus, I have to sit and sip it as he tries to carry on a conversation with me in Korean. I nod my head 'yes' when he points to the bike, then shake my head in ignorance when he points to me. I ask him how much it will cost. I hear no numbers. Just more rambling and in English "120". ?WTF? Okay, I assume he's confused and means 12,000 won (about 12 dollars). I say it's okay in Korean and watch as he starts to strip the bike tire. "We're getting somewhere!" I think, "Shouldn't be long now."

Of course it is long, you know its long just by reading this, I know its long just by association of Korea and ajashi and coffee offering. Another equation for you, it equals LONG. I would have sat there, too. The whole time. Sipping the hot sugar and nodding and shaking had it not been for what I think was his son-in-law who stopped by. (Probably to check on the sanity of his father/in-law for the day.) He asks what is going on, palpably curious over the young foreigner girl sharing a coffee with the old man. I'm just as curious and give him pleading eyes to save me. Their voices start to rise as the young one tries to talk sense into the old one, saying, I imagine, 'She can come back and get the bike later. She doesn't need to sit here the whole time. Why did you make her come in and have coffee? You know this will take awhile. She can come back." laugh, snicker and a wink at me messaging that the old man really is drunk or crazy, but either way is not respectable even in Korean society where you respect your elders no matter the time, place or situation.

I chug my coffee. It burns my throat. I stand up and motion that I can come back. I say 'han shigan', meaning 'one hour'. Then I say 'OK'? The old man motions for me to sit again, saying no, no, no, its okay. The young one, however, gives me a look which makes me think if I sit I'll be glued there forever in sugar coffeed and sooted chair hell. I nod my head to him and make my escape. "Han shigan!" I yell as I cross the 20 yards to my apartment entrance. I take the elevator so he can't see which floor I get off at via the glass walled stairwell.

Fruitless was my last measure. Forty-five minutes later my doorbell rings. I'm in the middle of writing my blog I wrote last week and so at first don't realize the strangeness of it. It takes me a second to think, "What the hell?". I go to the door and am really not surprised to find the crazy bike repair man. He's with my landlady, who he must have bothered to 'get my bike back to me', and then she, being quite a nice and orderly lady, wanting to help the foreigner girl at all costs, agreed to help him help me, seemingly a good thing. I nod in understanding, my bike must be ready early. I motion to put on my boots but he again tries to stop me from what I want to do. (A very stupid thing to do as most who try to stop me lose limbs.) I, however, want my bike back and stand up in curiosity. "What pre-tell do you want then?" I hear one word I recognize: "Copp-ee". Mwo? Are you serious? You want to come in and have coffee with me? I'm already disturbed from the previous cup, and doubly disturbed he now knows my apartment number. There are by no means I am allowing him in for a cup of coffee now. I'm still shaking my head, as it's not polite here to ask for coffee from a customer- let alone stalk them to their apartment, then throw a fit when they refuse both hospitalities of entrance and sustenance (if you can call Maxim that.) Thank goodness my landlady hadn't left us yet and saw what he was trying to do. She shooed him away with her ajuma reason and cackling caw. He didn't bend easily, but after I put my boots on and both my landlady and I went into the elevator, he had no choice but to concede to us. Down we went in the tin box.

The magic doors opened and we all walked out all together, my landlady now worried, as much as I, over the situation I was in. Thank goodness she was there because the bike wasn't even upright or put together yet. We all walked up to the shop and there she lay, belly up. I wanted to stroke her and tell her it was going to be okay. That she'll get fixed soon enough, if not by him then by me. I really could have done it myself had I the air tank and gadgets to strip off and then fit the tire tubes. I glared a little at him, not really understanding what we has doing to her. The procedure was simple, just stitches not a face-lift.

My ajuma savior-landlady argued for me then. She saw the bike, smelt his breath, then glared as well using all her ajuma might. "Why?! Leave her alone. She does not need to be here now. She'll come back tomorrow for it and it had better be fixed and ready to go!" Again, I imagined this conversation. But I'm fairly certain that's how it went because he gave a shamed grunt, with a few words of drunken, mad anger but a concession all the same. We turned back. I asked if it was all okay, and she just nodded with a smile, humored by what I'd gotten into. We entered the elevator, she got off on the second floor and that was that.

The next day I showed up with my co-teacher, her having heard the entire story that day and doubly confused over the coffee-stalking incident, and triply over the whole thing. We turned up and there my red dragon was, awaiting me in perfect condition. The crazed man I knew was there but not the same. Obviously sober now, he looked ashamed of the way he'd treated me the night before. He told my co-teacher that he'd checked the entire bike free of charge and that the total cost was 18,000 because of the new tire tube. I would have given him 80. I was very much done with it all by then. I nodded, he bowed to me and my co-teacher. The Korean formalities finished, I walked away with my functioning red dragon.

*To add to the tale, the ambition to fix my bike was not a combustion from nothing. I had offered to sell it to a new English teacher living near me. I figured since I don't use it much and that she was looking for one, that I might as well. I will have to sell it in March before I leave anyways. That was the initial reason, but now I feel a stronger affinity for it more than ever. I terribly want to peel up the pavement in retaliation for the fantastic situation I had to deal with, and very possibly will have to deal with in the future as the crazy, drunk man is my neighbor and now knows where I live. I'm thinking an adventure tonight might be the perfect solace and goodbye I need...